Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe (love story books to read txt) 📕

In a few minutes, they cleared the forest and stopped, hand in hand, to admire the tall, narrow falls against the blue sky, flanked by rocks tinged rusty red. Still panting, Toby gave her a long, loving look, as if trying to figure out what to do next, and then crouched to undo his laces and remove his shoes.

“What are you doing?” Malia asked, her voice filled with disappointment, after her heart had promptly stopped thinking he was going to take a knee and propose in front of the majestic falls, only to see him preoccupied with the entangled shoelaces on his left sneaker.

He kicked off both his shoes, then invited her to do the same. “Let’s go in there,” he pointed at the waterfall, “behind that water curtain. I read there’s a cave, not too big, and the water’s only a few inches deep.”

She hesitated as she imagined dipping her bare feet into the freezing water. She forced a smile and took off her shoes and socks, then tiptoed, faltering on the sharp-edged gravel that littered the path to the fall’s basin.

He jumped in first, without hesitation. “Yup, it’s freezing, but you won’t feel it,” he reassured her, once he had caught his breath. “Come on.” He tugged gently at her hand. “Take the leap with me.”

Her face lit up in a beaming smile. She was ready to take a leap with him, the biggest leap of all, for the rest of her life. She put one hesitant foot into the icy water, then the next. He was right. After a few moments, she stopped feeling the cold as badly.

They splashed toward the water curtain, and she winced at the thought of wading through a shower of freezing water to get to the cave, but that wasn’t the case. There was a narrow opening to the side, enough to allow them to sneak in. Inside the almost dark space, the loud sound of the waterfall was dimmed and seemed distant, as if the silence of the cave absorbed the screams of the crashing cascade. Filtered and powerless, the light that came through the torrent barely touched the glistening walls.

She studied her surroundings for a quick moment. The walls were stained in hues of green and rusty red, with off-white blotches here and there, where calcareous stone interlaced with the granite. She dipped her hand in the freezing water, and cupped her palm to collect some. She wanted to taste it, but Toby stopped her hand before it reached her lips.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “You never know what’s in it.”

She looked at the water still pooled in the cup of her hand. “It looks like it has a pink hue, or is that just the light?”

“Could be what stained these walls.” He looked around briefly, then smiled widely, visibly nervous. “But I’m not here for spelunking.” He lowered himself on a bent knee, dipping it in the freezing water, while his hand revealed the ring nestled in its black velvet box. “I wanted it to be just you and me, my lovely Malia, when I ask you, will you marry me?”

Her eyes widened in feigned surprise and sincere delight, while her smile broadened. She clasped her hands together in excitement, then extended her left hand toward Toby. He took out the ring from its box and slid it onto her finger. She looked at him grinning, sealing every detail of the image in her memory, to always remember, till death did them part.

Then she screamed, a long, searing shriek of pure terror.

A pale hand with long, narrow fingers grazed Toby’s calf, shifting slowly into the rippling water.

Toby jumped to his feet and rushed to her, grabbing her shoulders. “What? What is it?”

Speechless, she pointed at the body moving slowly back and forth under the water surface, barely visible in the dim light.

In the flashlight coming from Toby’s phone, she saw a large boulder held the girl’s body in place, pinning it to the bottom of the cave. Her long black hair and her right arm had surfaced, the water only a foot deep, brought forward by the constant pounding of the cascade.

She looked alive, her hair drifting freely in the water as if flowing in the wind, her beautiful face pristine, her red lips gently parted, as if to let her final breath escape. Her eyes seemed to stare at them, surprised, aghast, the terror of her last moments still alive in her irises. A small red locket floated right by her face, still attached to her neck with a silver chain.

She couldn’t’ve been more than seventeen years old.

2Home

Detective Kay Sharp was still getting used to living with her brother again, in the childhood home she’d left in her rearview mirror eight years ago. It was a broad and sometimes unsettling mix of emotions. She loved Jacob and had missed him over the years. On the flip side, after having lived by herself for all that time, she’d developed a low tolerance for clutter, mess, dirty dishes in the sink, and any other form of disorganized living, especially when her baby brother had also grown used to being the typical slovenly bachelor. The house itself held memories, some sweet, of her mother baking cookies or birthday cakes or singing to them. Others were bitter and angering, of her father’s alcohol-fueled rages and their painful consequences.

After having returned to Mount Chester for less than a month, she was getting antsy about moving out of her family home. But the last time a house had been listed for sale in Mount Chester had been over a year ago; it was a posh ski lodge up the mountain, and some Silicon Valley stockholder had rushed to put a truckload of money on it. Nothing else had hit the market since. Even their local Realtor held a day job.

Mount Chester was a small place, ski resort included. Most of the town’s dwellers worked seasonal