Storm Surge by Celia Ashley Read Free Book Online Page B

away, Paige. Now.
    —andthen nothing.
    What lay on the beach before her was no more than rock and seaweed. The man with the lantern was nowhere, and her mind was trying to make mincemeat of her resolve. She backed away in haste and fell over a piece of driftwood. The flashlight flew from her grasp. With a strangled cry, she crab-walked in search of it and located the instrument by the beam half-buried in the sand. Snatching it out, she jumped to her feet. Something huge and dark and solid blocked her way. With a scream, she launched the light at it, which hit with a noise like rock on stone.
    “Shit, Paige, what the hell are you doing?”
    Paige reeled in shock relief. “Who is that?”
    “Dan. It’s Dan Stauffer.”
    Paige brushed sand from her pants and arms, retrieving her flashlight once more from the ground. “Sorry,” she said. “I hope that didn’t hurt too much.”
    “I’d be charging you with assault if it wasn’t so damned funny.”
    Mouth twisting, she shone the light on his face, checking for bleeding. “Could be a bruise cropping up. What are you doing here?”
    “I saw a light and came to investigate.”
    “So you saw him, too? Good. I need to—”
    “Him? I saw you. Was there somebody else here?”
    His gaze darted back to her from the direction of the jetty as he held up a hand to block the light.
    “Yeah,” Paige said. “There was a guy with a lantern. You didn’t see him?”
    Dan’s hand dropped. A fleeting confusion passed across his features. “I didn’t see anyone but you, staggering like a drunk. Have you been drinking?”
    Lowering the flashlight to her side, Paige raised her other hand to her hip. “I had half a beer. Not even. I lost my balance for a second, but I’m fine. Just where were you that you ‘saw’ me?”
    He jerked his thumb toward the ridge. “Up there by the cottage. I came to talk to you—”
    “I didn’t give you the address.”
    “I’m a cop, remember?”
    For the first time she noticed he wore street clothes, his size diminished by the missing bulletproof vest beneath his dark T-shirt. She needed no reminder of his occupation, but she found the fact that he’d been able to locate her unsettling. “How’d you do it? Find me, I mean?”
    “I’ll be honest. It wasn’t such a feat. The woman who rented you the place happened to mention it to me in passing about a half an hour ago. And I figured I’d stop by for a chat.”
    Paige shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “It’s after nine o’clock at night, Dan. Bit late for a chat.”
    “Your lights were on, so—”
    “No, they weren’t.”
    He stepped aside, affording her a full view of the rental cottage. Sure enough, every window in the bungalow glowed with the distinct cast of incandescent lighting. The door stood wide, illumination seeping into the night like yellow dye.
    “Did you go in?” Paige asked.
    “I did not .”
    Paige lurched into a run up the hill.
     
     

Chapter 6
     
    “Stay where you are. I’ll check it out,” Stauffer ordered as he passed her, keys on a ring jangling from his belt loop. Paige ignored him. She’d never been one for listening. That behavioral trait had earned her a reputation as an intractable student in school despite her straight-A status. She pursued Dan doggedly up to the cottage and arrived on the walkway only a few seconds behind him.
    An elongated shadow undulated across the lit squares of stone. “Wait here,” Dan commanded again, and vanished over the threshold.
    Paige followed.
    “Paige?”
    She skidded to a halt. Liam stood in the room’s center. Beside her, Dan, who had been extending an arm to stop her, dropped his open palm to his denim-covered thigh with a slap.
    “Do you know this man?”
    Paige circled around Dan. “Liam, what are you doing here?”
    Liam moved to the left, as if trying to keep both of them in his line of sight. His gaze kept straying to Stauffer. Dan glanced frequently at him, too. Something odd