Authors: Margaret Carroll

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BOOK: Riptide

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CHAPTER 25

W
e turn in at the gate.

Jason’s car is there.

He was supposed to be in the city, but if his plans had changed, I wouldn’t have known about it. We stopped keeping track of each other’s comings and goings early that summer long before now.

“Shit.” Danny cuts the engine and the headlights.

Jason is most likely asleep in his room on the ocean side of the house. I suspect my husband wouldn’t care even if he did see us.

Danny turns to me in the predawn darkness. “You okay to walk inside by yourself?”

“Yeah,” I lie. It is not a terribly long distance, but every inch of my lower body burns like it’s on fire. Something hot and painful is leaking inside my panties.

The Ecstasy wore off back at Danny’s place. My hangover is beginning to settle in, claiming the territory inside my skull. I can’t recall much of the last few hours, and that is a good thing. I know that I don’t want to.

All I want right now is to get inside and up to the guest room without running into my husband, so I can be sick in private.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Danny bangs his hand softly on the steering wheel.

I could point out that Jason lives here, but I am too weary for that. I shrug.

“You know”—Danny leans back against his neck rest—“it would be better without him.”

It would. I nod. I have had this idea many times.

Danny reaches over to smooth a lock of hair on my forehead, and I am tired, so tired. “It’d be good if it was just us.”

I lean back against my neck rest and close my eyes. “Yeah.”

The car is silent.

And then Danny whispers, “It’d be good if he was gone, you know, just gone.”

I nod wearily.

Danny makes a cutting motion with one hand. “I mean really gone.” He keeps rubbing my head, the way my Nana used to do when I was little and afraid to fall asleep. Before life got so complicated.

“Yeah,” I say, practically nodding off right then and there. “Then I could do whatever I want.” I smile with my eyes closed.

“It could happen,” Danny whispers.

And there we sit, on the edge of a vast watery dark wilderness that I can’t see for the green glow of the dashboard light.

But I know it’s out there.

“Bad things happens all the time,” Danny whispers after a while. “You know what I’m saying?”

I nod in the darkness on the edge of the abyss, not sure whether he sees me or even what we’re talking about.

Because yes, they do.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Carrie Feron at HarperCollins, who I’m privileged to work with; her assistant, Tessa Woodward (ditto!); Sara Schwager, who has an awesome eye for detail; Christine Maddalena, for her natural enthusiasm, and the entire team. My agent, the fearless and wonderful Stephanie Cabot, who made it look easy to land me the opportunity of a lifetime. Kerri Carroll, who puts bad people in Suffolk County, New York, where they belong and takes time from her busy schedule to share her expertise with me. Chip Berschback, who does the same in Wayne County, Michigan, and Bob Stevens, who works homicide in Detroit. You all fight the good fight every day, and I hope my made-up detectives are guys you wouldn’t mind working with if they were real. My sister Kate and brother-in-law Denis, for bringing back menus and wine lists (tough job, but somebody had to do it) and all my family and friends (yeah, Emmetts, I mean you), who drop everything every year no matter what and join us as far out on Montauk Highway as you can go, all the way to The End. Rock on. And finally, Buddy, who inspired the role of Shep and is really much nicer than Shep. Really. And finally, this book is dedicated to Gossman’s Dock in Montauk, a special place of happy memories for many people, including me.

About the Author

MARGARET VODOPIA CARROLL
is a New York City native. The author of
A Dark Love,
she earned a BA from The George Washington University, and has lived in London; New York; Washington, D.C.; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She enjoyed a high-flying career in publishing and public relations, specializing in international luxury travel. Her job took her all over the globe until she got married and became a mother, thereby embarking on the most exciting adventure of her life. The Carrolls live in Michigan with a Scottish terrier named Buddy.

www.margaretcarroll.com

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By Margaret Carroll

R
IPTIDE

A D
ARK
L
OVE

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

RIPTIDE
. Copyright © 2009 by Margaret Carroll. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition August 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-193877-1

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