Page 97 of Part of Me (The Seaside Chronicles 2)

I hung up, then walked over to where Addie and her mother were looking at her phone.

The door to the restaurant opened and Harlee walked in. She smiled when she spotted everyone—then frowned when she saw the way we were all looking at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you heard from Sutton?” Addie quickly asked.

Harlee’s eyes darted around to everyone before landing on me. “No. Like I told you on the phone, not since she and Palmer left the store earlier this afternoon. What’s going on?”

Braxton walked in with two cops, and for the next few minutes, I felt like I was inside a cramped box looking out as they asked everyone the same questions.

As an officer interviewed Palmer—who had gotten there right after they did—I got up and started for the door.

“Brody, where do you think you’re going?” my brother asked.

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”

Addie walked up and shook her head. “I can’t figure out why this location thing isn’t working. It says her location hasn’t been updated in an hour.”

“Then either her phone is off or she doesn’t have a signal,” Gannon said somberly.

“But her last location doesn’t make sense. Why would she be down at your beach house, Brody? It’s not even there anymore.”

I snapped my head to look at Addie. “What?”

She turned her phone and showed me. “That’s the last location it gives for her, but why would she be down there?”

As if Braxton read my mind, our eyes met and we both said, “The fishing hut.”

“I think I know where she is!” I shouted to one of the police officers. “Addie, tell him where it’s located!” Running out of the restaurant, I heard Gannon and Braxton behind me.

“Shouldn’t we let the police handle this, Brody?” Braxton shouted as we all piled into my truck.

“If that’s where she is, I’m not waiting. They can follow us there.” I pulled out onto Main Street and floored it. If a cop tried to pull me over right now, there was no way I was stopping.

“What makes you think she’s at the fishing hut?” Gannon asked, hanging on as I squealed around a corner.

“It’s where we were first together.”

“Okay, but again, why would she go there and not tell anyone?”

It was Braxton who answered. “Jack must have her. He probably brought her there because he somehow found out that’s where Brody and Sutton went all those years ago, the night of the bonfire. He’s sick enough to do something like—”

Gannon threw up his hands to make him stop talking. “Wait, wait, hold on a second! Jack isn’t even in town anymore.”

“I think he is,” I said. “I think he’s been here the whole time, waiting. I also think he started the fire at the beach house.”

“Holy fuck,” Gannon said softly. “What makes you think that?”

I looked at my brother, then back onto the road. “You forget what I did in the Navy, Gannon. My job was intelligence. A week after the fire, I got tired of waiting for the police to figure it out, so I took matters into my own hands and had someone hack into the camera footage on the pier the morning of the fire. There was a man walking on the beach who looked a hell of a lot like Jack, but I couldn’t be sure. Then I remembered that one of the houses farther down the beach also has security cameras. They finally got back to me yesterday—and their footage showed the same man walking away from my beach house the morning of the fire. At first I thought I was just letting my emotions get in the way, but I was going to talk to Sutton about it after dinner tonight anyway. After this? I’m positive it was Jack. He’s been here in Seaside the whole time, just waiting to make his move.”

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Braxton snarled.

A similar growl sounded from the back of my throat. “Not if I get to him first.”

We pulled up to the ruins of the beach house, and I’d barely put the truck in park before we all piled out. Braxton had never been in the military, but he copied Gannon and me as we got down low and made our way toward the fishing hut. I could see a light shining from under the door. The windows all faced out toward the water, so even if the curtains were drawn back, no one would see us coming.

In the distance, I heard police sirens.

“Fuck. They’re going to alert him,” I whispered.

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