“Don’t moi me. Ever since you got back from Paris, you look more like a fashion model than a high school math teacher.”
Michelle dabbed her lips, hiding the lower half of her face behind her napkin. After Dad died a few years ago and Michelle fled Coral Cove for a summer in Paris, she had stepped up her game a little. She’d even gone out on a few dates, but she’d hardly describe herself as a femme fatale. She’d always shied away from that image because of Mom.
As they ate dinner and chatted around mouthfuls of food, Amanda sent fewer and fewer flirty glances toward the lively group in the corner. She pushed the last bits of lettuce around her plate and dropped her lashes. “So you think I should give Ryan another chance?”
“What’s wrong? Being on the prowl isn’t as exciting as you imagined? You’ve given up on the hometown hero already?” Michelle shoved her plate forward and planted her elbows on the table.
Amanda shook her head. “Colin’s hot, but he’s not my type. He’s not the life of the party like I expected.”
“Like Ryan.”
“Yeah.” Amanda managed a tremulous smile.
“Then get home and call him.” Michelle waved to the waitress. As she fumbled in her wallet for money, Michelle slid a glance toward the reunion crowd, but Colin had disappeared. He must’ve slipped out the back, escaping from his own party.
They stepped onto the sidewalk and Michelle blinked. The fog had rolled in from the ocean, blanketing Coral Cove’s main street in thick cotton. It would be even denser at her house.
“You okay to drive in this pea soup? It might be safer to walk.”
“Yeah, but you live in one direction and I live in the other, so we’d have to part company here.” Amanda dug her keys out of her purse. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to walk by myself in this wet blanket. Gives me the creeps.”
“Just drive safely.” Michelle took Amanda’s arm and they stepped into the street, peering both ways.
As Michelle grabbed the car door handle, two dark figures emerged from the fog, appearing almost next to her. She gasped, pressing her body against the car.
The two teenaged boys laughed and pushed each other. “I bet the girls are hiding in the parking lot.”
Michelle yanked open the door and dropped onto the seat. “Those kids scared the spit out of me.”
“The girls could be hiding right in front of them, and they’d have a hard time seeing them.” Amanda cranked on the engine. “Can’t wait until June is over and we get some summer sunshine.”
Amanda’s car crawled down the street and she edged around the next turn, hunching forward in her seat. “I hope you know where your house is because I can’t see a thing.”
“The Vincents’ house is on the right, the one with the big spotlight on their driveway. They left for a few weeks in Europe this morning.” Michelle pointed to a glow, diffused by the fog. “Then there should be two streetlights on the left, and my house is at the second streetlight. Across from the streetlights, there’s a long stretch of darkness where Columbella House is.”
“I see the first light.” Amanda eased off the accelerator. “And there’s the second one.”
Amanda made an abrupt illegal U-turn in the middle of the street. “Sorry to give you whiplash, but I don’t want to go anywhere near Columbella House. Now that place gives me the creeps.”
“Thanks for the ride, Amanda.” Michelle grabbed the door handle and glanced back at her friend. “You left your sweater at my house. I can bring it to you later.”
Amanda cut the engine. “I’d better get it now…just in case I don’t go straight home tonight.”
They both slid from the car, Amanda leaving her headlights on and the driver’s-side door open to the street.
The headlights created a glow, spilling light on the beginning of Michelle’s walkway beyond her little fence. She unlatched the gate and Amanda trailed after her.
“You really think I should call Ryan tonight?”
“Absolutely. Give him a chance to do the mea culpa. A few emails do not constitute a full-blown affair.”
“I’m surprised you’re so…forgiving, Michelle.”
Michelle shrugged. “It’s the opposite. You should be surprised if I weren’t.”
Amanda walked with Michelle to the front door and out of reach of the headlights. Luckily Michelle had turned on her porch light before she’d left, so she could actually put her key in the lock.
Thrusting open the door, she ducked inside and snagged Amanda’s sweater from the chair. She handed it to her friend and gave her a hug. “Call him.”
She watched as Amanda floated down the walkway, the fog sucking her into its embrace. Michelle waited, listening for the slam of the car door and the growl of the engine. Instead she heard…a soft thud. Fog this thick muted noise, but that didn’t sound like a car door.
“Amanda?” Michelle squinted into the white wisps swirling around her. The lights from Amanda’s car created a dull illumination on the sidewalk, but Michelle couldn’t focus on anything beyond that. Maybe Amanda couldn’t wait to get home and decided to call Ryan on her cell phone.
Michelle descended one step, her hand clutching the banister beside her. “Amanda?”
Scuffling sounds broke the eerie silence, causing the hair on the back of Michelle’s neck to quiver. Her clammy hand slipped from the banister. Had Amanda tripped and fallen on the ground?
Clasping her sweater to her chest, Michelle inched down the walkway to the gate Amanda had latched behind her. Across the sidewalk, still parked in the street, Amanda’s Mercedes loomed in the fog.
“Amanda, where are you?” Michelle pushed open the gate and stumbled onto the sidewalk. She walked in front of the car toward the driver’s side, the door still open to the street. As she scuffed her feet along the asphalt, hands held in front of her like a blind person, her toe plowed into something soft and giving on the ground.
Michelle’s heart skittered in her chest as she crouched down next to the inert form. Amanda must’ve fallen and injured herself. The lights from the car’s interior cast a waxy glow on Amanda’s pale cheek. Michelle wedged a hand beneath her friend’s head and turned it toward her.
Amanda’s wide, staring eyes sent a river of chills down Michelle’s spine. Then she became aware of the sticky wetness oozing through her fingers.
As Michelle drew away her hand, Amanda’s head lolled back revealing a dark slash across her neck.
Michelle fell backward, as a high, keening wail pierced the blanket of fog. It wasn’t until she stopped to breathe that she realized the sound was coming from her own mouth.
CHAPTER TWO
THE CRY, LIKE an animal in extreme pain, shot through the fog and pierced his gut. But Colin knew human suffering when he heard it. He was intimately familiar with human suffering.
He dropped the rocks he’d been chucking into the water and lurched toward the sound. After a few seconds’ break, the wail began again and he glommed onto the sound of misery like a homing device. He stumbled from the sand onto the dirt path leading to the road.
Through the veil of white mist, he discerned a car parked on the street, its headlights on and the driver’s-side door open. As he jogged closer, the fog parted to reveal two figures, both on the ground next to the open door. Had there been an accident?
He heaved to a