Velocity of a Secret by Violet Marsh

Author:Violet Marsh [Marsh, Violet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Montlake
Published: 2022-02-07T16:00:00+00:00

“You shouldn’t be out here alone!” Myrtle scolded as she flew from the Flett cottage and stomped her way over the sandy beach.

Rose jumped at her friend’s cry. Turning away from where she’d been watching two otters frolic along the shoreline, Rose greeted Myrtle with a scowl. “Heavens to Betsy, I don’t need to be watched like a baby. I’m perfectly fine now.”

Myrtle stopped, her wide blue eyes looking almost purple in the pink dawn light. “You don’t know. Do you?”

“Know what?” Rose asked, reaching for her reticule before remembering that she’d left it and her hat at Fornhowe. Without a cigarette to play with, she bent down and plucked a cockle from the sand.

Myrtle thoroughly scanned the empty beach and moved closer to Rose. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “The cave-in wasn’t accidental.”

Rose, who was in the process of walking the shell between her fingers, bobbled it as a spike of fear stabbed her. “What do you mean?”

“I saw two figures running from Fornhowe last night,” Myrtle hissed.

The horror that Rose had managed to push away reared back into her soul. “Spies?”

“I believe so,” Myrtle said. “When I was crossing the strand, the sound seemed more like an explosion than a simple collapse of the entrance. Didn’t you think so? You were inside the chambered tomb. I thought you realized. No wonder you were so unconcerned about being alone on the beach. I thought it was just your habitual bravado.”

Rose rubbed the cockle between both her hands. Its ridges scraped against her palms, helping ground her in the present even as the darkness seemed to cluster around her and her limbs grew shaky. “I heard something detonate, but I dismissed it as part of my hallucinations. I should have considered that it was real, given what happened in Daytona. But it’s been so long. Nothing happened when I was in London.”

“Somehow the spy ring must have learned you were here, and it spooked them,” Myrtle said.

Rose’s stomach flopped over, and she dropped one hand to rub it. But it didn’t help the queasiness or the pain. “I hoped I could be done with suspecting the islanders when I found the still, but I can’t, can I?”

Myrtle slowly shook her head as she wrapped her arm around Rose’s shoulder. “No, you can’t. I’m sorry, Rose. I know you like all of them.”

“Would you be able to identify the people who you saw running? Was one of them a particularly massive man?” Rose asked.

“I can’t say.” Myrtle shook her head. “They were just shadows moving through the dark. If I hadn’t heard their footsteps, I would have thought it my imagination. I do not even know if they were short or tall, male or female.”

“So it could be anyone,” Rose said glumly as she hurled the shell into the ocean just as she had done on that faraway November night in Florida. This time she reached for a piece of green sea glass.

“I do not believe it was your Viking.

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