Amy took a deep breath, a gulp of air that seemed to fly through her chest and land heavy in her stomach. “You’re scaring me, Mom. Please tell me what’s going on.”

“Last night, shortly after you arrived in Seabrook, you crossed paths with a young man.”

“Why are you asking—”

“Isn’t that right?” her mother asserted. “When you were at the hotel, someone came into your room?”

“Yes, that’s right. That was Ryan. But I don’t understand—how do you know about Ryan? And what’s he got to do with this?”

Her mother drew a breath through pursed lips, trepidation brewing in her eyes. “There’s no other way for me to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it.”

“Say what? . . . Mom?”

“That young man, Ryan . . . he’s hiding a secret.”

“I know all about his secret. He told me about the ranch, and his father. He told me everything.”

“I’m not talking about that secret.”

There was a crash of thunder; it rumbled across the sky, reverberating violently inside the glass-walled room. The hairs on Amy’s neck stood up.

“Mom, I don’t understand what you mean. I don’t get what Ryan has to do with any of this. What’s he got to do with you being here?”

Her mother hesitated again, her gaze drifting toward town before returning to Amy. “Two months ago, while Ryan was out riding his horse, he suffered a terrible accident.”

“Okay . . .”

“It happened late at night, during a big storm, just like this one. He was out riding by the cliffs, trying to find a horse that had escaped from his ranch.”

“Are you talking about when he rescued Little Dipper?”

“Yes.”

“But that wasn’t two months ago—that was just the other night.”

“Let me finish. When he found his spooked horse, Ryan tried to get a rope on her so that he could pull her in, but in the process he was pulled off his own horse and dragged over the edge of the cliff. He fell into the ocean . . . and he drowned.”

“He . . . what?”

“He drowned.”

Amy’s head jerked back. She had to let the nonsense of that statement settle for a moment before she could respond. “No, that’s not right. Ryan told me all about that night. He even took me to those same cliffs. He said he found the horse; he saved her and brought her home. They both made it home. That’s what he told me.”

“And when he told you that, he would have believed what he was saying was true because that’s how he remembers it, but that’s not what actually happened.”