The footsteps were coming closer now. And she was humming. What was it? “They just wanna,” she crooned, “they just wanna-uh-uh.” Cyndi Lauper? Maryn? He’d never known her to hum, let alone sing. Was she drunk or high? The footsteps paused in front of the door, and he held his breath as she fumbled to fit the key into the lock.

The door opened slowly. “They just wanna, they just wanna-uh-uh.” She stepped inside, her hand searching for the light switch.

He waited until the light was on, then he stepped forward, throwing his forearm across her throat, dragging her into the room, closing the door quietly behind them.

Her eyes widened in terror, and before she could scream he clamped his hand over her mouth. “Welcome home,” he whispered in her ear.

*   *   *

Ellis grabbed a flashlight from beneath the kitchen sink and hurried out the door towards the walkway over the dunes. How on earth, she wondered, had she managed to leave her phone and keys at the beach? She could have sworn she’d seen them in her beach bag once she’d gotten back to the house, but the day had been so busy, maybe she’d just imagined it.

She kicked her sandals off at the landing on top of the dunes, and pointing the flashlight at the steps, gingerly climbed down, holding tight to the railing. It seemed especially dark tonight, she thought. Glancing up, she saw that dense banks of purple-edged clouds obscured the moon. The temperature had dropped, and the wind had picked up. Heat lightning crackled over the water, and she heard the low rumble of thunder. She prayed it wouldn’t start raining until after she’d found her phone.

When she reached the beach, she played the flashlight back and forth until she spotted the forgotten beach chair, with her towel still draped over it. And Ty Bazemore seated in it. She inhaled sharply and grabbed the stair rail, her instincts telling her to turn and run back towards the house.

But before she could move, Ty was standing up, and he was looking at her, and, wait … Was he smiling? At her? Anyway, it was too late to run now.

She made herself walk towards him, like it was the most natural thing in the world. But her mind could not form a sentence that wouldn’t sound idiotic. In the end she settled for, “I think I left my phone and keys down here today.”

Ty held up the phone. “You did,” he said. “They were right here on the chair.” But he made no move to give them to her.

“I wasn’t sure you’d really come tonight,” he said. “Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d come. But I’m glad you asked me to. I don’t want things to end like this, Ellis.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, coming to a dead stop inches from the chair. “Asked you to do what?”

“Come on, Ellis,” Ty said, feeling his face grow hot. “This was your idea, not mine. Don’t do this.”

“Ty,” Ellis said. “I really have no idea what you are talking about. What are you doing here? Why did you come out here tonight?”

He reached out and brushed a strand of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “I came because you texted me and asked me to. I came because you said if I loved you, I would come. I do love you. I’m here. I’ll meet you more than halfway, if you’ll just give me a chance.”

“I texted you?”

He frowned. “What is this? Some kind of sick joke?”

She took her phone from him, checked the log of text messages. It was empty. She held it up for him to see. “I did not text you today. I swear.”

“You did, by God,” Ty said. He pulled his own phone from the pocket of his cargo shorts, pulled up the screen, and showed her. “See! Why would I make up something like that?”

Ellis read the messages, glancing up at Ty, whose face had gone stony. Her own face was beet red.

Suddenly, she knew. “Julia!” she cried. “And Dorie! They did this. They stole my phone while I was asleep on the beach this afternoon, and they sent these texts to you. I woke up, and Julia was fiddling with my beach bag. I thought she was getting my sunblock out, but she must have just been putting the phone back. And then sometime later, she must have stolen it again, and planted it out here.”

“And why would they pull a juvenile stunt like that?” Ty demanded. “They’re your friends. Why would they punk you like that? Or me?”

Ellis wanted to die. She wanted to sink into the sand and disappear from the humiliation.

“Because,” she said, biting back tears, “my idiot, deranged, meddling friends have this stupid idea that we belong together. They feel sorry for me, because they know I’m a loser, that I have no life outside my job. They know you’re the first man I’ve been with in eleven years, and they probably have this stupid idea that we’re in love.…”

“Hey,” Ty said softly, catching her hand in his. “That’s not so stupid.”

She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. “It’s not stupid for them to send you fake texts from my phone to lure you down here?”

He chuckled. “That part was totally stupid. But it worked, didn’t it? Here I am. And here you are.”

She sniffed loudly. “Because they stole my phone and my car keys. I thought I’d left them back at Caddie’s, but Julia forbid Dorie to drive back there so I could look. Dorie had this lame-ass story about how she’d seen them down here when she was leaving the beach this afternoon. I should have known. She’s the world’s worst liar.”

“They wanted you here at midnight,” Ty pointed out. “Because they knew that I’d damn sure be here, especially after that last text of yours.”

Ellis blinked back a fresh set of tears. “Which one was that?”

He put his arms around her waist and pulled her close. “The one that said ‘If you love me, you’ll come.’ I do. I did. So what should we do now?”

It started to rain. Fat, seemingly random drops full of August heat. Ellis rested her cheek against Ty’s chest. Right here, in this moment, safe in the arms of a man who would do anything to make her happy. She had the answer. And all she had to do, she realized, was let him love her. Let go and let love happen. She felt the sand swirling around their ankles, the wind tearing at their clothes, the rain, coming down harder now, and above it all, she heard the crash of the surf.

She leaned her head back to look up at him, and his hair was already plastered to his head. “I think we better run for it,” she said.

Ty grabbed her hand, and the two of them raced up the steps over the dunes. Ellis stopped at the top of the stairs to catch her breath, and her eyes drifted past the boardwalk, to Ebbtide, a shadowy gray hulk. The lights were on in the top-floor bedroom, Madison’s room, and silhouetted there, she realized, were two figures. And one was a man.

“Ty,” she said, pointing. “Up at the house. That’s Madison’s room. There’s a man in there with her.”

“Good for her,” Ty said, tugging at her hand, pulling her towards the house.

“No,” she said, stopping dead in her tracks. “It’s got to be Adam. The man she worked with in New Jersey. She was expecting him a couple of days ago, but he never showed. We all thought there was something fishy about him, but Madison insisted he’s harmless.”

“I still don’t see a problem,” Ty said. “Look, can we have this discussion inside?”

“How did he get in the house? We lock the place up tight every time we leave. Madison locks her bedroom door, even if she’s just going to the bathroom. Ty, he knows she has all that money. A hundred thousand dollars. She told him. He must have broken in while we were gone tonight.”

51

“You still haven’t asked me why I came down here,” Don said, leaning back in the chair to enjoy the sight of the usually cool and composed Maryn fighting the panic he knew she must be feeling. Her face was pale and beaded with sweat.

“I know why you’re here,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the briefcase. “You came to get your money back. It’s all there. So take it and get out, why don’t you?”