The beach called her. The soundtrack of her childhood was the roll and thump of the waves—sometimes as loud and vicious as thunder, sometimes as soft and gentle as a caress, but always there like her family. But as she crested the dunes, the salt-laden wind whipped and buffeted her—the physical manifestation of not being who she thought she was. For thirty-four years, she’d been anchored by her place in the family and now she was adrift, blown in every direction.

She wasn’t a Hunter. How was that even possible?

Alice had no idea how long she walked along the cold, wet sand. Nothing existed outside of her disjointed thoughts and half-formed questions that squawked as loud and unceasing as the raucous cry of the silver gulls. It was the airborne sand, blasting her skin and stinging her eyes, that eventually drove her to take the next set of steps off the beach and back over the dunes, seeking the protective break of the tea tree and paperbarks.

The vegetation sheltered her from the wind but not from her thoughts. She wanted Libby. God help her, she wanted Karen and yet she didn’t want either of them. She needed explanations, but she wasn’t ready for them. Amid the war zone in her head—the shrieking thoughts that exploded when they hit—some sort of survival instinct told her that talking to Karen tonight would be dangerous. She kept walking along the track, her hands pressed to her ears as if that would be enough to silence the noise in her mind.

“Bit nippy to be out without a jacket, love.”

Startled, she glanced up at the voice. At some point the track must have finished, because she was standing on a wide expanse of grass in a street and a man was putting out his trash. She didn’t know him but she recognized the old-fashioned tea tree fence behind him. She’d parked outside it often enough. Somehow, she was standing on Seaspray Avenue, three miles from Pelican House.

The man was already walking back through his gate when she heard her name being called. She turned and saw Harry. He had one hand on his trash can and the other raised in a wave.

“Nice night for a walk.”

Was it? She hadn’t been aware of the light fading or the appearance of myriad silver pin pricks that darned the black sky. She hadn’t noticed anything about her surroundings until now, but Harry’s welcoming smile beckoned her like the spill of a porch light. Shaking, she walked straight to him and lost her battle not to cry.

“Crikey.” Harry’s arms wrapped around her. “You’re freezing. Let’s get you inside.”