I picked at the label on my bottle of soda as the sea air swirled around our picnic table outside The General Store. “Why did you want to leave New York?” The question had been on the tip of my tongue ever since Brody moved in, and especially after I’d learned that he was an artist. It didn’t make sense. It sounded like he had a good community back there and liked where he lived. People didn’t just pick up and move across the country for no reason.

Brody froze with his sandwich halfway to his mouth, and I wanted to curse. I hated when people nosed around in my life. Asked questions that I didn’t want to answer when they had no right to the information. And here I was, doing the exact same thing to Brody. “Sorry. That’s none of my business.”

“No. It’s not that. I just… I haven’t really had to explain it to anyone before. Well, no one who didn’t already know what was going on.”

I met Brody’s gaze. There were shadows there. The same ones I saw flitting across his eyes every now and again, making them even darker than usual. Shadows that I often saw in mine. “You really don’t have to talk about it.”

“Shay. I’d like us to be friends. We’re going to be sharing the same thirty acres for the foreseeable future. I’d rather do that with a friend than a stranger. What about you?”

Brody was so damn earnest in that moment. Hopeful. Like a puppy at an animal shelter just begging for you to take him home. And, God, I wanted that. Someone who knew me. Maybe not the trauma of my past but who I was today. Someone to play cards with on the nights when it got dark at four-thirty. To go kayaking with when the weather turned warm. Someone who might help me not feel so alone.

“I’d like that.” My voice sounded rusty, a door that needed a little WD-40.

Brody smiled. And that action was a solid sucker punch to the gut. Friends, I reminded myself. But the butterflies that had taken flight in my stomach at the sight of that grin weren’t the friendly kind.

“Good,” he said. “Then you’re allowed to ask me why I moved to what feels like another world.” His gaze broke away from me and traveled around the south end of town. The store, our local bar and grill, a handful of other shops and buildings. Then it drifted out to the docks and the sea beyond. “I needed an escape. Somewhere people didn’t know me.”

My heart hammered a little faster. “Why?”

He looked back at me. “Did you hear about the serial killer who was active in the tri-state area?”