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There were a few seconds of silence. I thought the message was over. Then, the caller spoke again in a raspy whisper.

“Atrō te benedicto. Atrō te benedicto. We’re not finished.”

Geneva’s hands shook as she placed the phone on the table between us.

“I need you to help me find out who sent that,” she said. “I know what it means. I’m going to die.”

Chapter

Three

“It looks a little choppy,” I said. We stood at the pier while Kobe pulled the ropes of Dad’s 1957 Chris-Craft Runabout.

“A storm’s coming in,” Kobe said. He caught my eye behind Dad’s back. News traveled fast in Helene. No doubt everyone in town knew about Dad’s banged-up Five Hundred.

“We’ve got time,” Dad said. “That system is maybe a half hour from hitting us. It takes fifteen minutes to get home. Mercy, get in. Unless you want to get wet.”

“I wouldn’t mind driving,” I said, trying to keep my voice upbeat.

Dad scowled at me. He was about to play his Navy card.

“You’ll be fine,” Kobe said. I narrowed my eyes at him. So much for my ally.

Today, I’d pick my battles with Dad. He climbed into the captain’s chair and started the engine. He revved it, making it roar. The boat was another of his pet projects. He’d owned it for forty years and kept the hull gleaming, the engine pristine. It was a miracle he let me drive it at all. I knew what an honor that was. When I was younger, he would have never dreamed of it.

Kobe offered me a hand as I stepped onto the boat. He cast off the last rope and gave us a push to clear the bumper at the end of the dock.

The sky looked angry. I trusted Dad’s calculations, but there was a doozy headed our way. I could smell the ozone in the air.

Dad cast off, racing over the waves. Spray hit me smack in the face. A hazard of island life. We went over water in the summer, ice in the winter.

Dad’s private island and the house itself had been a bone of contention between my parents before they divorced. My mom was a city girl born and bred. In her view, Dad had made plans for how he’d spend his retirement without consulting her. Though I knew she’d earned her anger at the proposition, I also understood why this place meant so much to him.

I’d traveled all over the world with both my parents. Little Traverse Bay, with the vastness of Lake Michigan beyond it and the lush green, untouched woods that took up one side of Dad’s island, seemed like the most beautiful place on earth.

Fifteen minutes later, we docked. I helped Dad tie off. For nearing eighty years old, the man was still shockingly nimble in a physical sense. He hopped out of the boat and finished securing it. He kept a golf cart under a custom carport at the end of the dock. From there we drove into the side of the hill where he’d constructed a ramp that led up to the house.

He was quiet for the most part as we went inside. I put chicken in a crockpot this morning. The scent of rosemary and garlic made my stomach rumble.

Twenty minutes later, we sat across from each other at Dad’s kitchen island. The first floor was one big open space with a two-story fieldstone fireplace at the center. Dad’s suite of rooms, including his study, bedroom, and en suite bathroom, was down the hallway. I occupied the entire upper floor now.

“So,” he said, through a mouthful of red-skinned potatoes. “Tell me about Geneva Bell.”

“I was actually going to ask you to do the same thing,” I said. I briefly filled him in on what she’d told me about the night of the Deadwater Lake killings. He sat in quiet contemplation until I got to the part about Derrek Sidney’s cryptic phrase and the voicemail she’d played for me.

“What does she think we can do for her?” he asked.

“She wants us to find out who’s sending those messages and why. She thinks her life might be in danger again.”

“Is it? What’s your read?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll admit, I don’t know much about those murders. What do you remember?”

He set his fork down. “What was it, ten years ago? Fifteen?”

“Twelve,” I answered.

He scratched his chin. “I was out of town the weekend that all went down. But I can tell you when I got back, this town was basically blown apart. Everyone knew one of those girls. Or all of them. They all came from good families. All of them had big futures ahead. One of the girls’ dads was a client of mine. Ed Reynolds. He wrote some bad checks. Gambling trouble if I recall. And I know Lloyd handled a divorce for one of the other parents.”