Prologue
I felt an overwhelming wave of panic. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. Tears would only make it more difficult to escape.
I ran through the tall trees, my heart pounding against my chest. I didn't know where I was going, and the thick foliage and dark skies confused me. If I'd been in this area before, I couldn't remember it. I hoped I'd run into someone who could help me, but there wasn't a soul around, except for the person who was after me.
The wind gusted as the rain pelted my head. My clothes were quickly drenched, the water on my face freezing with the cold wind. My foot slipped as I hit a rock. I stumbled, hitting my hand against a tree to steady myself. The wood left a deep scratch, and blood dripped down my fingers, but I couldn't stop.
My breath came hard and fast.
A crack of thunder was so loud it almost knocked me off my feet. Seconds later, there was a flash of lightning. Maybe I could use the storm to my advantage. Perhaps the rain would make it more difficult to find me.
Then I heard someone crashing through the brush.
I sped up.
Crashing through the trees, I came to a terrifying, dizzying stop as I realized I was at the edge of a bluff. I looked down at the whitecaps below, the dark, churning water ready to suck me under. I couldn't let the sea take me. I looked to the left, then to the right.
One impossible choice.
Would it be the right one?
I turned to the left and sprinted toward another thick grove of trees. I needed cover. My lungs strained from the pressure I was putting on them.
Within minutes, I was running out of gas. Exhausted and disoriented, I didn't know which path to take, which trees to cut through. Every turn led into a deeper, thicker forest, paths that seemed untraveled by anyone.
Tears pricked my eyelids. The worst thought I'd ever imagined raged around in my head. Would I die tonight? Was this it?
A voice rang through the trees. "There's nowhere to go. Give up."
"Never," I muttered, not daring to scream the words, because that would be stupid, and I'd done enough stupid things already. I broke through another thick patch of trees and found myself back out in the open, with only a few feet between me and the edge of a cliff. I'd run out of room.
I'd made the wrong choice.
Chapter One
The ocean was rougher than I'd imagined. I knew going back to the island would be difficult, but I hadn't thought it would start with the worst ferry ride of all time.
"Willow? Are you coming downstairs? We want to toast the bride," Rachel said impatiently.
"Later," I bit out, as I gripped the rail and tried to ward off another wave of nausea. "I'm a little seasick. I need air." I couldn't tear my eyes away from the horizon, needing something solid to focus on.
"Brooklyn really wants you downstairs."
"Just go ahead without me." I drew in another breath of salty air as Rachel left, hoping to quell the queasy feeling in my stomach.
I was torn between wanting to get to dry land and wanting to stay far away from Hawk Island. I hadn't been to the island in ten years, and I would have preferred to never return. But some things are more important than bad memories, and my younger sister's wedding was one of those things.
Ever since Kelsey changed her venue from Seattle to Hawk Island, one of the smaller islands in the San Juan chain off the coast of Washington State, I had felt anxious and unsettled. Now that the island was only minutes away, my stomach was churning, and it wasn't just because the ocean waves were tossing the ferry like it was a toy boat in a bathtub, it was because everything about this trip was wrong.
I wasn't just going back to the place I had summered every year of my life since I was twelve years old, I was going back to that last summer, when I'd been seventeen and filled with optimistic dreams about my future. Many of those dreams had been fueled by my best friend on the island, a local girl named Melanie Maddox. We'd been innocent, idealistic, believing in a world and a future that had ceased to exist after August nineteenth—the last day I'd seen Melanie. The last day anyone had seen Melanie.
In the days that followed that night, the search for sixteen-year-old Melanie Maddox had taken over the island. Endless questions from law enforcement had hammered home the terrifying reality that my best friend was gone, and I didn't know how or why or whether I could have prevented the worst from happening if only I'd made other choices that night.
My breath came faster as the guilt ate me up. I'd thought I'd made peace with the tragedy, but that had just been a lie I told myself. My stomach heaved, and I had to swallow back the nausea.
The thickly forested hills of the island loomed larger in front of me. I could see the waterfalls near the south bluff, the beach at Pirate's Bay, the caves along the western edge of the island that could only be accessed at low tide.
My hands suddenly itched to take a photo. It was a strange feeling, one that felt both foreign and familiar.
Summers on the island had been spent with a camera in my hand. Melanie and I had searched endlessly for the perfect shot. I'd taken photos everywhere, hoping to enter them into photography contests, maybe even get one published in a travel magazine. I had been so full of hopes and dreams back then. The future ahead of me—of us—had been infinite. So many possibilities.
I'd never imagined that future would be cut short for Melanie, or that I would come to hate the camera I had once loved. It was probably still on the island, still in my room where I'd left it.
I'd left my dreams of being a professional photographer behind, too. After that summer, I'd gone to college in San Francisco and majored in business. Then I'd moved from one boring job to another, finally ending up last year in a real-estate office where I turned out to be the worst salesperson they'd ever had.
It turned out that it wasn't just my dreams I'd given up on, it was everyone else's. I couldn't sell people their dream houses. I couldn't make them see their futures in overpriced old homes. When I'd asked my boss for time off for the wedding, she'd suggested I take all the time I needed to find another job, something I might actually enjoy.
I couldn't imagine what that would be. But it wasn't my future I had to worry about now; it was my past. The wind picked up, and enormous waves splashed over the rail. I forced myself to let go and move under the overhang. I didn't want to arrive on the island soaked and shivering.
As the ferry rolled with another wave, I grabbed hold of a pole to steady myself. I was surprised to see the bride, my younger sister, Kelsey, and Carter Chadwick, Kelsey's soon-to-be brother-in-law, having an intense conversation on the other side of the boat. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but Kelsey waved her hands in frustration. Then Carter grabbed her by the shoulders. He leaned in and said something to quiet her.
It was an odd moment, one that made my stomach twist for an entirely different reason. It felt like there was too much intimacy between them. I had to be imagining that. Kelsey was in love with Carter's brother, Gage. Kelsey had been crushing on Gage since she was fourteen, but it had taken eleven years for them to go on an official date and another year for them to get engaged.
Like his brother, Gage, Carter was tall, blond, and good-looking. Kelsey matched his looks and then some. At five-foot ten, with silky, straight blonde hair that drifted past her shoulders and striking blue eyes, she was stunningly pretty. She was also bone thin in a pair of white jeans and a clingy tank top under a white leather jacket. Kelsey had always been slender, but during the last few years, she'd become almost gaunt. It was a look that kept her in high demand in the modeling world.