Chapter One 

The rhythmic sound of the bike chain grew louder as Whitney Turner neared the Old Witch’s Cottage, her pulse quickening with each passing moment. Frigid air whipped at her face as she pedaled through the deserted streets, her breath a misty cloud in the darkness.

In the distance, the ocean’s roar rose and fell in accompaniment to the hum of her tires on the cracked pavement.

Navigating the dark streets, Whitney mentally replayed the day. It had started horribly when she’d overslept. Later, when she’d nominated herself to be the leader of the coven, she’d angered some of the members.

If they’re willing to meet now, then all must be forgiven, right?

Negative thoughts broke through her hopefulness. As soon as her mom had come home from work, she’d lit into Whitney about her grades. It wasn’t fair, really, that her mom could let everything fall through the cracks, but if Whitney’s grades dipped even a smidge, there was hell to pay.

Releasing a huge sigh into the frosty air, she feverishly pedaled toward her clandestine meeting, not wanting to be late. She imagined her friends huddled together, sharing confidences under the cover of darkness as they waited for her arrival. A thrill ignited within her chest, warming her from the inside out.

But it was an awfully cold night for a secret meeting. Whitney’s fingers grew numb around her handlebars. “Just my luck.” The last week of November was usually pretty chilly, but this was ridiculous.

No. Stay positive. Manifest the life you want.

The small-town island landscape stretched before her, its secrets lying hidden beneath the shadowy veil of night. This town held so many buried truths, some of which had only recently come to light. And the secrets of the old witch, the island’s original inhabitant, remained shrouded in mystery.

As Whitney’s thoughts returned to the fight earlier that day, she wondered if this secret gathering had anything to do with it.

This would be the perfect chance for everyone involved in the coven to come together and talk things out rationally. She recalled other late-night rendezvous where they’d done the same thing.

I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

As the Old Witch’s Cottage came into view, moonlight draped its weathered exterior in an ethereal glow. Whitney’s heart raced with excitement, and something else. She couldn’t shake her uneasy feeling, like a whispered warning from the wind itself.

The rustic cottage was familiar, since she and her friends had started meeting there to practice their witchy hobby. Of course, most of the kids on the island knew the place. It was a rite of passage to hang out there or take some lame dare inside.

The hard-packed dirt floor was cool year-round, and a breeze blew through the doorless entry. In the summer, it was a comfortable place to beat the heat. Whitney loved the fireplace, though the mantel was long gone. The cops had taken that after two people literally lost their heads in there.

Whitney dismounted her bike and scanned the area for any sign of her friends. There were no cars or bikes in sight, which wasn’t surprising. She and the other local kids knew to hide their rides to avoid getting caught when they hung out at the old structure at night.

After all, the cottage was off-limits, no matter the time of day.

As usual, Whitney laid her bike against one of the nearby trees, hiding it in the wet, thick piles of fallen leaves. But despite her attempts to reassure herself, the place was unnervingly empty.

She checked her phone, the screen reflecting her worried eyes. It was 10:35 p.m. The meeting should’ve started five minutes ago, yet there was no one in sight. If she’d been able to drive, she might’ve arrived on time, but her parents wouldn’t let her get a car until she went to college.

Guess I’m not the only one running late. Or maybe they’re all inside already.

She glanced around once more before approaching the cottage, her footsteps hushed from the damp ground as the wind continued its mournful serenade.

The only barrier keeping her or anyone out was a simple chain stretched tight between two posts in front of the empty doorway. It was the laughingstock of the island.

Like a chain will ever stop anyone.

As she stepped over it, the metal links caught against the rubber sole of her shoe. She stumbled forward into the cottage before catching her balance.

Whitney was very short for her age. The growth spurt her mom promised would come with puberty was still a distant dream. Everything about her figure was childlike, and she hated it. She could deal with being shorter than everyone, but her flat chest and baby face were too much. While all the other girls were turning the boys’ heads, Whitney wasn’t even on their radar.

Despite the building consisting only of one simple, single room, Whitney couldn’t see to the back of the cottage. Though she knew every inch of the cottage very well, the darkness still played tricks on her. Shadows danced across the walls as night clouds raced through the sky overhead.

The men who’d run the town back when the cottage was inhabited had deliberately built the lighthouse to cast a shadow on the witch’s cottage after she’d refused to sell her home to them. Natural light rarely made it inside the Old Witch’s Cottage after that. As payback, she cursed the island and all those who lived there before she died.

“Anyone who steps foot in the shadow cast on her house will be cursed.”

That was how the old legend went, at least.

Whitney shivered.

But it was the legend of the curse that had led to her making new friends and finding a spiritual practice she loved so much. Studying witchcraft on her own had been hard, and now she’d found other girls with similar interests. Even if it required her to sneak out of the house at night to meet up with them.

A breeze gusted through the open doorway at her back, sending her chin-length black hair swirling around her face. Unsettled by the scent of seawater and burned wood carried by the wind, Whitney realized she wanted to go home.

For the first time in this hallowed place, she felt…unwelcome. But her friends had said they would meet her here.

“Hello?” Whitney’s voice barely overcame the radio of the wind. Her breathing was shallow, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

No response.

“Anyone here?” She took a tentative step forward, her sneaker scuffing the hard-packed earthen floor. There were no floorboards to creak or trip on. Only the silent ground beneath her feet. A flash of anger made her toes tingle, and she kicked the dirt in frustration.

Where the heck is everyone?

Heart pounding in her chest, she ventured farther into the small cottage, the dirt floor deadening each footfall and squelching her hope. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, drowning out all other sounds.

Had her friends come and then left for some reason? Maybe the cops had caught them and sent them on their way.

Whitney ignored the darker thoughts and fears. According to the rumors, there were a lot of reasons to be afraid of the dark on Shadow Island.

The clouds blocking the moonlight cast even more shadows than usual. It played tricks on her eyes, making her see shapes that weren’t there.

Or were they?

Maybe they’re just pulling a prank. Trying to scare me after the fight earlier. Or maybe they’re testing me to see if I have the guts to be the leader. Yeah, I bet that’s it.

A leader should be fearless and not just the person who decided to form the group. Blair shouldn’t get to boss everyone around. That wasn’t what a good leader did anyway.

Whitney walked blindly forward with both hands out in front of her and didn’t stop ’til she touched the back wall of the room. Using her hands to guide her, she followed the wall to each corner. No one was there hiding in the dark to watch her or gauge her bravery.

An uneasy feeling settled in her stomach like a stone, growing heavier with each passing second. She checked her phone once again. Five minutes had passed. Maybe one of them was having to drive around to pick up the others? That made the most sense.

“Fine. I’ll just wait for them out front.” She spoke out loud in an effort to chase away the unnerving silence. “They’ll show up eventually.”

As she retraced her steps, a sudden movement caught her eye. A figure had stepped out from the shadows of the yard and filled the open doorway. Whitney’s heart leaped into her throat until the figure leaned forward and a fleeting bit of moonlight illuminated them.

“Finally!” Whitney laughed, relief washing over her as she recognized the familiar face of her friend. “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting here for ages.”

“Sorry, I got held up.”

“Is everyone else already here?” Whitney looked around for any sign of the others.

“Actually, it’s just us.”

“Us? Nobody rode with you? I didn’t hear a car.” Whitney bent over and grabbed the chain that spanned the doorway to the cottage, using it for balance. She stepped over, hoping this maneuver would prevent her from falling on her face. She had to twist her body, turning to face the cottage again, as she raised her trailing leg over the nuisance chain.

Before she could set her foot down, pain like a shock of electricity pierced Whitney’s back, knocking the breath out of her.

For a tiny moment, Whitney felt embarrassed that she’d somehow managed to hurt herself doing such a simple thing, but then the pain struck again and again, this time lower on her back.

Whitney turned her head, her gaze stopping on a bloody knife in her friend’s hand. “Wh-why?” She could barely speak. It felt like there was no air in her lungs, yet her breathing was rapid. Her vision blurred as she grew dizzy and lightheaded. She was suffocating.

As she collapsed, she bounced off the taut chain, landing face down on the dirt floor back inside the cottage after all.

“You were warned. Anyone who crosses the coven must face the witch’s wrath.”

Darkness closed in around Whitney. The howling wind mocked her as she gasped for air, and the cold, jeering chill of the cottage bore witness to her final moments.

Chapter Two

Things are looking up on Shadow Island.

Navigating through the familiar streets of Shadow Island, Sheriff Rebecca West could have punched herself in the face. Not ten minutes earlier, she’d been watching the sheriff’s station being rebuilt after some assholes had nearly blown it apart. She’d been thrilled that Meg Darby had woken from her coma. Yeah…things had been looking up.

That sense of hope hadn’t lasted long.

Feeling as if she’d jinxed her small island with her hopeful thoughts, Rebecca tightened her hands on the steering wheel as she drove toward Oceanview Cemetery, where the body of a teenager had been found only minutes earlier.

The destruction left in the wake of recent events still marred the landscape. A couple of buildings awaited repairs, while others were in various stages of reconstruction.

The Yacht Club leaders, knowing their time was up, had one of their assassins plant random pipe bombs around town to cause a distraction. The chaos of the explosions was an attempt to get a shot at their true target, the last survivor of the Yacht Club.

Rebecca had seen through the ruse and managed to rescue one person from what the media had dubbed the Yacht Club Massacre. They’d only had one survivor…but they only needed one to provide testimony on years of misdeeds by the Aqua Mafia.

The Yacht Club was eliminated, but the town was a mess. Construction crews swarmed the area like bees around a hive. At least they weren’t reporters. Those vultures had harassed Rebecca and her deputies relentlessly but had finally moved on to fresher stories. Only one straggler had remained, still pestering her only moments before she took the call about the body. She hoped he wouldn’t have a reason to stick around.

She couldn’t wait for the station to be rebuilt so she could go back to lying low in her office instead of using her cruiser as her place of solitude during business hours.

Since the first explosion—which had taken out one of the walls at the station in a jailbreak that had freed her ex-boyfriend and killed a prisoner on his cot—she and all the deputies under her command had been unofficially using Deputy Trent Locke’s house as their makeshift home base. It wasn’t ideal, but it served its purpose.

Rebecca parked the cruiser at the entrance to Oceanview Cemetery and surveyed the area. In the distance, her deputy, Jake Coffey, was almost done sectioning off a large area with bright-yellow crime scene tape.

The wind picked up, rattling the leafless twigs on the trees and sending a chill down her spine. Things were about to get complicated. She just knew it.

Grabbing the camera from the glove box, Rebecca climbed out of her cruiser. She stepped through the cemetery gates, gravel crunching beneath her boots as she approached Jake. By the time she caught up with him, he’d completed cordoning off the area and stood solemnly next to a fairly new headstone.

The body of a teenage girl lay face down in front of him, her forearms and hands a bluish gray, which contrasted sharply with the blood on the back of her pink hoodie and the trails down her sides. She wore faded jeans also streaked and smeared with maroon. From the pattern of the dried blood, the girl had been wrapped in something after she’d been killed and then brought here.

The myriad stab wounds covering the girl’s back indicated a brutal, merciless attack. And a cowardly one. Stabbing someone in the back was a metaphor for betrayal.

Adding to the horror, the killer had mutilated her body with symbols crudely cut into her arms.

One good thing was that she was fully and correctly clothed. While it wasn’t proof the girl hadn’t been sexually assaulted, she’d been killed while dressed, at least. Sometimes, the silver linings were microscopic, but that never stopped Rebecca from looking for them.

Reluctant to disturb the hushed silence that hung over the scene, Rebecca spoke quietly. “What have you got so far, Coffey?”

“I don’t have a lot to report, honestly. I got here just moments before you. All I’ve done is call the medical examiner and put up the tape.” Jake’s pale-blue eyes, which always reminded her of a husky, flicked up before darting down to the disturbed dirt he was standing beside. He looked tired, which made sense.

The beginning of the month had been brutal for everyone. The Yacht Club’s reign was finally over, but that triumph did little to alleviate the pain. All of them were still reeling from the death of Deputy Greg Abner, though Hoyt and Trent had taken it hardest.

The loss of another deputy under her supervision layered more weight on Rebecca’s burdened shoulders. She was still trying to come to grips with the fact that her ex-boyfriend had been using their relationship to conspire against her. It would take countless therapy sessions to parse through those complex emotions.

Rebecca shook her head to clear her mind. The last thing she needed was to be distracted when there was another murder case, especially one involving a teenage girl, since they had for so long been targeted by the now-vanquished Yacht Club. Beyond finding justice for the victim, she needed to uncover any lingering connections to the defeated group.

Overcoming Ryker’s betrayal couldn’t be for nothing.

She ran her gaze up and down the body. “My initial thoughts are that someone who felt compelled to stab another person from behind could be smaller and need the element of surprise to succeed, though the victim herself is small. Or the killer could know the person and was unable to face her while taking her life.”

“Or,” Jake joined in, “it could be the act of someone who wasn’t in their right mind, and they put no thought into the attack at all.”

Rebecca couldn’t argue with that. Speculation was all they had at this early stage. “In any case, a monster inflicted violence on a young woman.”

The rampant violence against teenage girls in the region was supposed to stop after Rebecca and her team dismantled the Yacht Club. At least, that had been her hope.

The girl’s body rested next to a partially excavated grave, like someone was planning to dump the teenager into the hole, bury her, and traipse away with no one the wiser. “Looks like they were digging,” Rebecca looked at the headstone, “into the grave of…Betsy Taylor?”

“Yeah, I think this is probably a secondary crime scene. There’re no blood pools around her body. To me, it looks like a body dump, but,” he gestured to the fence within throwing distance, “they either weren’t sure what to do, got scared by something, or just gave up and left. Digging graves is hard work.”

“But why did they stop?” Rebecca murmured the question more to herself than to Coffey. Crouching, she found no shovels in sight, though there was a mass of churned dirt where the dug-up soil had been deposited next to the girl’s corpse. Grave dirt spilled over onto her ankles.

The teen’s short black hair was blowing away from her pale profile. Her features were so soft, so young, and her petite frame seemed even more fragile in death. A pang of sadness for the life brutally cut short shot through Rebecca, and she wondered how old the girl was. “Work on sketching the area. I’ll take the photos.”

“Got it.” Jake nodded, turning back to his task. “Dispatch said the M.E. is finishing up another scene, so we have some time before she arrives.”

Rebecca retrieved her camera from her belt and began shooting pictures of the body, focusing on close shots of the girl’s arms, which stuck forward straight over her head.

The victim looked like she’d been wrapped in something, dragged to this area, unrolled, and dumped here. Though her clothes were twisted on her frame, they were mostly devoid of mud and leaves and other debris, their relative cleanness indicating a somewhat pristine journey to her final resting spot.

Nor did her body get sullied at the grave site. She still must have been wrapped in a blanket when the perpetrator started digging. Otherwise, her body would have picked up some of the dirt that went flying.

The perplexing issue of why the perpetrator had stopped mid-burial made Rebecca’s brain itch.

When Rebecca examined the occult-looking symbols carved into the girl’s arms, her stomach churned. Among the symbols, she recognized a pentagram, a five-pointed star often associated with dark rituals and black magic.

“God, I hope we’re not dealing with some sick, twisted cult.” She tried to suppress the shiver that ran down her spine. “Again.” The last cult member she’d hunted down liked to paint messages in blood and feces and flay his victims, and he’d decorated himself with leeches like some kind of living beard. Rebecca still remembered the feel of the leech exploding against her knuckles when she’d fought the guy.

“Me too.” Jake had been with the state police for that case and had been the one to record her after-action report, such as it was. He knew firsthand how that case had ended, including that she’d managed to brain herself during the fight, leaving her too concussed to give her statement. “This island has seen enough horror.”

Rebecca studied the girl’s profile as best she could. It was a small town, and she had sadly spent a lot of work hours looking into the lives of the local teens, but she couldn’t decide if she’d seen this one before. “Does she look familiar to you?”

Jake shook his head. “Well, it’s harder to tell with her lying face down. But I can’t say she does. Then again, I haven’t been here as long as you. I still don’t know most of the locals.”

“Neither do I.” Rebecca sighed, frustrated.

With everything that had happened recently, it was hard to focus on socializing. But she needed to remain sharp to bring justice to this young victim and restore peace to their community.

“Strange, isn’t it?” She nodded toward the corpse. “No one’s reported a missing teen. It’s already past noon. Maybe she went missing this morning?”

“It’s been at least a few hours. But sometimes it takes a while to realize someone’s missing. Her parents could think she’s out with friends or something.”

“That tracks. Body’s already cold and gray, and her limbs are fairly rigid.” Rebecca gingerly tried to lift the girl’s arm with gloved hands.

“If she went missing this morning, then it was real early.” Jake cast his eyes over the scene. “And I don’t see a phone or wallet anywhere. Or a backpack or purse. It was either left wherever she was killed, or the killer took it.”

“Could be.”

As Rebecca glanced around the cemetery, the cold November wind whipped her hair across the side of her face despite its being pulled back into a ponytail. The desolate landscape seemed to mirror the darkness that had settled over Shadow Island in recent weeks.

She studied the semi-opened grave beside the dead girl. “I wonder why they picked this grave. It’s close to the edge but not the closest.”

“You think Betsy Taylor might be significant?” Jake gestured to the headstone.

“We can’t overlook any detail. Even though a possible connection isn’t obvious to us, it’s worth exploring.”

“Also, did you notice the drag mark?” Jake pointed to the trail on the ground where the grass had been scraped flat. It led from the parking lot to the victim.

“Her positioning suggests she was dragged, maybe in a tarp or blanket.” Rebecca gazed down the length of flattened grass. “We should follow the trail and look for fibers.”

“That’ll be tough in this wind.”

Rebecca shrugged. “We’ll give it a shot.” She turned back toward their victim. “My guess is they unrolled her, and she landed here. But I keep pondering why they stopped digging. Why drag her all the way over here and then just quit?” Stretching, Rebecca stood, pointing toward the fence.

“I suppose they could have been tired. One hundred pounds of dead weight is still a lot.”

“True…” When she looked back down at the body, something else captured her attention. She froze, narrowing her eyes.

The digging had stopped only a few feet down. In a cemetery, the only thing that should’ve been in the soil would be worms, maybe some pebbles. Perhaps a few twigs.

That’s not a rock.

Rebecca squatted. Just below the churned-up dirt was the eye socket of a human skull, staring up from its grave, a witness to an unknown horror.

Another dead body.

And one that should not have been there. Bodies were legally required to be buried in a suitable casket. Plus, they were ensconced deep below the earth’s surface, not just a few feet down. At least at this cemetery. And yet, she wasn’t completely surprised.

This once-hallowed ground held so many secrets. Secrets she’d suspected would get exhumed one day, thanks to the Dwight Stokely case. Stokely had been an assassin who paid off the last caretaker to dispose his victims here.

It looked like this young woman’s killer had found one of Stokely’s victims. That probably explained why their perpetrator stopped digging. Rebecca would bet money their killer was inexperienced. They took one look at this skull in the middle of the night, its empty sockets staring up at them, and booked it.

Hell, if she hadn’t seen so much death, she’d probably run away too.

“Coffey?”

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Did you notice this second body?”

Jake jolted and spun around. “What?”

“There’s another resident in this grave. Betsy Taylor has company.” Rebecca lifted the camera and started taking pictures of the three-by-three-foot hole, focusing on the little bit of skull she could see. “Because of course nothing is ever simple here.”

“Son of a…” Jake dragged a hand down his face.

Rebecca rubbed her temples as she tried to push away the headache that threatened to bloom. This scene was beyond complicated. She had two secondary crimes scenes in the same six-foot area. “We’ll have to wait for the M.E. and her team. Could you call Bailey and update her on this new discovery?”

“Will do, Boss. I’m sorry I didn’t see that before.”

“You got here two whole seconds before me.” Rebecca waved him off as she resumed taking pictures of the twice-defiled grave. “I looked at this at least twice before I figured out what I was seeing. Besides, you were securing the crime scene around the grave in a public space.”

“I haven’t had a chance to check our victim’s pockets for any identification. Should we wait for the medical examiner?”

“No, let’s see if she has anything on her. I’ve photographed every inch of her from this angle, so we should be okay.” Rebecca carefully reached into the back pockets of the girl’s jeans. One was empty, but the other held a crumpled receipt.

“Any luck?”

She smoothed out the paper. “It’s from I Scream You Scream. It’s dated yesterday.”

“Want me to follow up on the I Scream lead?” Jake held out an evidence bag, and Rebecca dropped the paper inside.

“Let me check her other pockets first.” Rebecca snaked her hand under the victim and reached into both front pockets. Nothing. “Coffey, does it strike you as odd that a teenage girl would go anywhere without her phone?”

“I’m not well-versed on what teenage girls are up to.” He held his hands up. “If I’m honest, I didn’t understand them all that well when I was a teenager myself. But if the killer knows her, that’d be a good reason to keep her phone.”

“Right. Incriminating text messages and photos. Or it got lost somewhere between wherever she was killed and here.” Rebecca surveyed the cemetery as if the answers would present themselves. But she knew it wouldn’t be that simple. “Let’s find the groundskeeper. We need to know more about this grave.”

“We’ll follow the drag trail and see if we spot any fibers. However unlikely.”

Jake and Rebecca set off on a circuitous route toward the cemetery office. As they walked, Rebecca’s thoughts turned inward, her mind a whirlwind of questions and worries. What kind of person would commit such a heinous act, carving up a young woman’s lifeless body and leaving it to be discovered in a place meant for quiet reflection and mourning?

“Are you okay, Boss?” The concern was evident in Jake’s voice.

“Is anyone these days?” Rebecca gave a wry chuckle, trying to inject some humor into the situation. “But, yes, I’m fine. Just…angry, and tired of seeing things like this.”