CHAPTER ONE
LAINIE
“Oh, no, no, no.” Lainie groaned as the car engine whined to a halt. “Please don’t die, car. I seriously don’t need this today. Not on top of everything else.”
The car’s engine, deaf to her pleas, gave one final croak and fell silent.
“Shit.”
Lainie coasted to the side of the road, coming to a stop under a worn wooden sign. In faded red script, the sign read: Hideaway Cove: Population---
The sign was so old that the number was completely worn away. Lainie sighed.
Population, one less family than there should be, she thought. Her grandparents had been the last Eaves to live in Hideaway Cove, and after her grandmother’s death one month before, that wasn’t likely to change.
Lainie tried to feel angry about it, but what was the point? She’d resigned herself to her situation years ago. Her problems weren’t going to change just because circumstances were finally forcing her to face them head-on.
Just one night, she told herself. One afternoon, one night, one morning. And then I can leave again.
She shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun and looked down the hill toward the cluster of buildings that made up Hideaway Cove.
The small coastal town in the bay below her was almost cartoonishly cute. Old Victorian-era buildings lined the wide main street, and a shallow sandy beach swept down into the sheltered cove. A small marina at the end of town nearest the highway held a handful of small fishing and leisure boats, and at the other end of the crescent-shaped bay, a hill jutted up from the waves, protecting the town from the northerly winds.
And from the top of the hill, a house built at the base of an old lighthouse stared back down at the town.
Lainie looked straight across at it. Her grandparents’ house.
Her stomach twisted.
It had been fifteen years since Lainie last stepped foot in Hideaway Cove. Fifteen years since the last long, dream-like summer holiday she’d spent at her paternal grandparents’ rambling old house on the hill. A month of fishing, and swimming, and gorging herself on ice cream.
Fifteen years since the late-night fights she’d had to pretend she couldn’t hear. Since her grandparents started to sigh and purse their lips when they looked at her. Since the vacation that had ended with her grandparents telling Lainie and her mom and dad never to come back. That they were no longer welcome in Hideaway, and never would be.
Fourteen-and-a-half years since her father walked out on Lainie and her mother forever. Anywhere between fourteen and nine years ago that Lainie’s granddad had died. She didn’t know exactly, because no one had bothered to notify her or her mother, who were by then living in a small apartment in the city.
Eight years since Lainie’s grandmother had gone into a care home. And four weeks since she’d died.
Lainie groaned. Counting down like this usually helped. Separating a problem into little squares, and looking them one at a time made her feel more in control. But breaking up her life like this just left Lainie with more questions.
The biggest question of all was the one she’d never dared speak. Not to her Mom, not to her Dad before he left, not even in her own diary.
What did I do wrong?
She gripped the steering wheel. It’s too late to worry about that now, she told herself sternly. Granddad’s dead. Grandma’s dead. Dad’s gone—who knows whether he’s alive or not, but he disappeared so completely he’s been declared legally dead. Whatever reasons they had for what they did have gone with them.
Her grandmother’s will had come as a shock. The news had been delivered by a neat little lawyer in a fussy suit and shiny shoes, who’d clearly spent some time preparing his explanation of the situation.
Mrs. Iris Eaves had left her entire estate to her only son, Mr. Anton Eaves. As Mr. Anton Eaves had been declared dead in absentia, the inheritance fell to his only child, Ms. Lainie Eaves.
After fifteen years of being completely stonewalled by her father’s side of the family, suddenly, Lainie had inherited everything they had owned.