Page 65 of Riptide
He made a deal with himself. The same kind of deal he'd made as a kid when he couldn't sleep—if I count to a hundred and I'm still awake, I'll get up and get water.
I'll drive past the bakery. Just once. If her lights are off, she's fine, she's sleeping, and I'll go home.
If her lights are on...
He didn't finish the thought. Just grabbed his jacket and headed for his plain wrap SUV.
The drive took three minutes. Haven Cove was small enough that everything was close, which was both its charm and its curse. No anonymity here. No disappearing into crowds.
He turned onto Main Street, slowing as he approached Sugar & Salt.
The bakery was dark. Closed for the night, display cases empty, chairs stacked on tables.
But the apartment above?—
Cara's light was on.
Gabe pulled to the curb and killed his headlights. He was being ridiculous. Stalker-level ridiculous. She was home. She was safe. Her light being on meant nothing except that she wasn't asleep yet.
He should leave.
His hand was reaching for the ignition when movement caught his eye.
The side door of the bakery opened. Cara emerged, wrapped in a jacket, moving fast. Not the casual pace of someone taking out trash or checking the lock. This was purpose. Urgency.
Fear.
She hurried to her car, parked in the small lot behind the building. Got in. Started the engine.
Gabe's instincts screamed.
Cara's headlights came on. Her car pulled out of the lot, turned north on the coastal road.
North. Away from town. Away from anything except the old lighthouse and the rocky cliffs beyond.
Gabe sat frozen for half a second.
Then he started his truck and followed.
20
The old lighthousekeeper's cottage sat on a rocky outcropping a mile north of Haven Cove, accessible only by a winding dirt road that turned treacherous in the rain.
Tonight, the fog had rolled in thick, turning the landscape into something from a gothic novel. The lighthouse itself had been decommissioned decades ago, but the keeper's cottage remained standing, a weathered gray structure that tourists occasionally photographed and locals mostly ignored.
Cara pulled her car onto the gravel shoulder fifty yards from the cottage, killed the engine, and sat in the darkness.
Wade was already in position somewhere out there, though she couldn't see him.
Tom was monitoring from the bakery basement, tracking Blaire's phone and any digital activity. Piper sat beside him. Reagan waited in her car a quarter mile down the road, close enough to respond if things went sideways.
No wire. Tom had suggested it, but Cara had shut that down immediately. Anything Blaire said while being secretly recorded would be useless in court and could actually hurt them if it came out later. More importantly, if Blaire somehow discovered it, the fragile con they were running would shatter completely.
This meeting was about one thing: convincing Blaire that Cara hadn't gone to the FBI. Keeping herself in Blaire's good graces—or at least, keeping Blaire from escalating—while the team worked on taking her down.
Cara checked the time again. Seven fifty-four.
She thought about what she knew and what she couldn't let Blaire know she knew.
