Page 107 of Riptide
Gabe gripped the steering wheel, fighting the urge to go in there and—what? Hold her? Promise everything would be okay? He couldn't promise that. Didn't even know if it was true.
God, she's carrying so much. Whatever she's hiding, whatever she's done—she's not a bad person. I know that. You know that. Please... don't let this destroy her.
He reached for the door handle.
His radio crackled.
"All units, we have a report of a body found at Haven Cove cliffs. Requesting immediate response."
Gabe's hand froze.
"Dispatch, this is Chief Sawyer. I'm en route. What do we have?"
"Female victim, appears to have fallen from the overlook. Blonde. Unconscious, or worse. Hiker didn't approach—spotted her from the trail. Paramedics and sheriff’s deputies already dispatched."
The world tilted slightly.
"Copy that. ETA ten minutes." He was already pulling out of the parking spot, tires squealing against the pavement. He typeda quick text to Ellie with one hand:Body at the cliffs. Meet me there.
Her response came seconds later:On my way.
He glanced in the rearview mirror as he drove. The bakery's warm lights grew smaller, then disappeared around a corner. Cara would be inside, exhausted and afraid, waiting for a blow that might have already fallen.
The coastal road wound through fog so thick his headlights barely cut through it. Gabe pushed the speed limit anyway.
He crested the hill and saw the emergency lights.
Two county sheriff's cruisers were parked at the overlook, wedged in on either side of an ambulance, their red and blue strobes painting the fog in alternating colors. A pair of deputies stood near the guardrail. One was young—couldn't be more than twenty-five. The other was older, weathered. Both of them watched in silence as the paramedics worked the rocks a hundred feet below.
One of the paramedics looked up.
Shook his head.
The older deputy—Martinez, according to his nameplate—turned at the sound of Gabe's approach and held out a pair of binoculars without a word.
Gabe took them. Raised them to the cliff edge.
The fog was thinner down there, pushed back by the morning breeze coming off the water. The rocks were dark and jagged, waves foaming white around them. And there, crumpled among the stones?—
He adjusted the focus.
Blonde hair, matted and dark. A designer jacket he recognized from a hotel doorway, from a conversation about leverage and consequences and fifty thousand dollars.
"You know her?" Martinez asked, watching his face.
"Yeah." Gabe's voice came out rough. "Her name's Blaire Mitchell. I spoke with her yesterday evening."
Martinez pulled out a notebook. "She a local?"
"No. Visitor. From Portland." Gabe couldn't look away from the body. "She was... a person of interest in an ongoing investigation."
"What kind of investigation?"
Gabe finally turned away from the cliff. "The complicated kind."
Ellie's cruiser pulled up, and she emerged looking like she'd dressed in thirty seconds—which she probably had. Her eyes found Gabe's, asking the question.
He nodded once.
