Prologue PROLOGUE
Opening a paperback does nothing to settle Barbara Tiller’s nerves. A beach read: that was the bright idea. Take Sarah out on Friday afternoon, watch her build a sandcastle, maybe get some sun and a solid two chapters in before bringing Sarah to her father’s place by evening. But when had the weather ever cooperated with Barbara’s plans? It’s a gray, brumous, unseasonably cool day by Florida standards. If not for the two of them, the beach would be empty.

“Mom.” Holding up her trowel, Sarah makes her voice a warning siren: “Ma-ohhhhhhh-om.”

Barbara gives her daughter a little wave. Very good, honey.

“You barely looked.” Dig, dig.

The paperback is a romance. Barbara checks the flowy illustration on the cover: a man in a nineteenth-century justaucorps is dipping a bare-shouldered woman in what looks to be either a dance or a burgeoning make-out session. Usually that’s the sort of thing she’d enjoy, but she can’t get past the first page without reading evil intentions into each character. Everyone who isn’t the hero is a threat.

Barbara snaps the book shut and looks over the empty beach. Is there some hurricane warning she missed? She’s tempted to go check the radio in her car. Her phone battery is dead and the clouds have gone sour.

“Castle or sea turtle?” Sarah asks, a bucket in each hand.

“Sea turtle for sure.”

Sarah snicks her tongue. “Sea turtles are hard.”

In truth, the reason Barbara hauled Sarah to a beach on a wet day is that her custody ends at 6:00 p.m. Then it’s her ex-husband’s turn—Friday, just in time for the weekend—and of course he’d take Sarah deep-sea fishing, or driving go-karts, or jet-skiing in the channels. His new girlfriend would be with him. Barbara is sure the two of them would keep Sarah giggling for three days straight. Sarah’s eight now, and Barbara doesn’t want her childhood memories of the Gulf Coast to be miserable school days with Mom in between kick-ass Saturdays with Dad and his endless parade of hip, twentysomething girlfriends. Kids don’t remember routines, the countless PB&Js you carved them, the thousand books you read them to sleep. Childhood memories are always the outliers, the wild detours that stick pleasantly in the craw. Sometimes—usually Mondays, when Sarah comes home shouting about what an awesome time she had that weekend—Barbara wonders whether Sarah will remember her at all.

Hence this rainy beach, Barbara thinks. She can’t conjure fun and magic the way her ex-husband does. The sun’s probably waiting for him to show up.

“Maybe we should think about packing up soon,” Barbara calls.

“Awwww.”

“It’s gonna rain, honeybee.”

“I’d say we have about seventeen minutes,” Sarah says, squinting at the horizon. Ever the little meteorologist.

“Seventeen, huh?”

“Sixteen.” Sarah taps an imaginary watch on her wrist. “And fifty-five seconds.”

Barbara stands and gathers their things. Then the answer comes to her. North Naples, not the threat of rain, would explain why no one’s here. North Naples, scene of the most recent of the Gulf Coast Killer’s murders as he stabbed his way up Florida, was less than a half hour down I-41. Barbara had spent a few late nights watching self-defense videos. She learned morbid things about the world. One doctor on YouTube quoted the depressing kidnapping statistics, saying that if anyone threatens you at gunpoint and tells you to get in the car, you should tell them to go ahead and shoot you. Otherwise, you might regret missing your chance at a quick death.

“Pack up,” Barbara says. “Time to go.”

Another grumble from the ocean, the sound of water collapsing on water. Or was it thunder this time? Barbara has her beach bag packed and is about to start on Sarah’s when she spots a black SUV pulling up near the dunes. A man eases out and waves at her. Barbara waves back, almost smiles. Having the company is oddly reassuring.

“Ma’am,” he calls between cupped hands, his voice soft and fluty. “Band of rain coming. Just thought you should know.”

“Thanks. We’re headed home now.”

The man flashes some sort of sign, maybe okay, maybe a goodbye wave. He’s wearing a black button-up that’s a size or two too large; the breeze plumps it up like a sail. His hair is soft and bleach white. As he gets back into the SUV and pulls away, Barbara rolls her eyes. As if she didn’t see the rain coming herself, as if he couldn’t see her packing up already. Another Good Samaritan of Madre: the island is full of widowers who use kind gestures as excuses to chat women up. Most of them mean well.

By the time Barbara and Sarah get up to their Subaru in the parking lot, the first few needles of rain start to sting. Barbara spreads a beach towel across the back seat for the sand Sarah is about to track in. Barbara will be vacuuming all weekend, sighing to the steady seethe of suction like it’s such a pain, all the while counting the minutes until Sarah returns and she can fret about sand again.

Sarah calls out to her. She’s pointing down to where the parking lot meets the road.

Barbara pulls out her head and looks. The same black SUV is idling near the sign announcing PRESIDIO HEIGHTS (PRIVATE BEACH). The driver’s-side door has flipped open.

Underneath it, the white-haired man has collapsed on the concrete.

“Is he okay, Mom?”

“Stay here. Take the keys. Turn on the AC and lock the doors.”

“I wanna hel—”

“Sarah! Just do it.”

Thunder rolls like a passing train as Barbara jogs across the parking lot. She kneels beside the man. She can’t tell if he’s breathing. The SUV’s radio is on (come on down to Madre Island BMW if you want to give your lap a little luxury!) and the engine is still idling in park. Whatever it was, it happened suddenly.

Barbara presses two fingers to his neck. Tha-dump. Tha-dump. That catches her off guard: the steady, soft kiss of his pulse. She’s no doctor, but wouldn’t that rule out a heart attack? Then something else put him down. A stroke? Far away, she would have guessed he was old. But up close, the white hair doesn’t quite match his age. She half expected to find a knife in his back and a trail of blood.

She’s been spending too many late nights on YouTube.

Her phone is still dead. She’ll have to plug it into her car charger to dial 911. She takes stock for a moment. The SUV is a Lincoln… Aviator, she notes. Someone might ask about that. Aviator, Aviator, Aviator. A Lincoln Aviator, she thinks, picturing Honest Abe flying a biplane, a ridiculous image—Lincoln aviating, donning aviator glasses, hot aviation wind blowing in his gunny Lincoln hair—to preserve the memory. The ambulance will need an address, and the vague answer of Presidio Heights will have to suffice. That could work. Wouldn’t it? She turns to run back to her car.

But one leg doesn’t turn with her. Her ankle is in his hand.

And as the realization darkens inside her, he stands, half a head taller, sinewy, lanky, healthy. He scratches his wrist through his long sleeves. Then he clutches her by the forearm and doesn’t let go. He leans in as if he means to bite her, close enough for her to taste the piney burn in his breath. The obsessive way he works his wrists suggests a sudden, violent rash.

“Call your daughter over here,” he says. “Then get in.”

Barbara stares. Mouth open. Lips flexing. If anyone tells you to get in the car, the best response is to say, “Go ahead and shoot me.” Does this man have a gun? What is she supposed to say? Nothing comes out of her but a hot trickle running down her leg.

“Mom!”

Sarah’s voice is a shot of mom adrenaline. Barbara slips her wrist from his grip and runs to her idling Subaru. And, running up to the windshield, she catches her reflection as a figure explodes onto her from behind, his long arms cupping hers, his body weight crumpling them both to the concrete. Her veins go syrupy inside his reach.

Sarah screams.

Underneath the passenger’s-side door, Barbara rolls over, freeing a leg she can drive into his groin. It’s clumsy, but his groan tells her it landed. Barbara slides loose from underneath him and stumbles to her feet. She runs around the hood, over to the driver’s side. “Sarah! Hit the emergency assist!”

Crying, shaking, Sarah’s eyes dart around like every button is written in French. Barbara climbs in the driver’s side, shouting. “Seat belt, seat belt!”—but Sarah’s gone panic blind, feeling around for the button she can’t find.

The man is on his feet again, dragging one leg as he circles around the front. Then he smiles and stops in front of the hood. Daring her.

Barbara fumbles with the stick. Park. Over to Drive. She’s done it a million times. But her fingers are gummy.

“He’s coming, Mom!” Sarah screams. Just a glance and Barbara sees him—walking to her side, now.

The stick thunks into place. Barbara kicks the gas. The engine roars. The RPM needle spikes—

—and they go nowhere.

Barbara looks down.

Neutral.

Then her door flies open.

“Run,” Barbara screams to Sarah. “Run, baby!”

Sarah hesitates, then does what she’s told, opening the door and running off into the rain.

It only takes him one arm to drag Barbara out and send her spilling to the ground. She tightens her fists, ready to kick his ribs, his pelvis, his legs, his groin, whatever soft spot he gives her, but when he stands over her, the blade in his hand catches a glint of the Subaru’s headlight, and the fight goes out of her.