The Siren by KATHERINE JOHN (general ebook reader .txt) 📕

If I were going to contact him, it needed to be as myself—under an email he couldn’t track and without a picture that would immediately lead him back to the girl who’d just run from him like Cinderella at midnight. Poor guy. I was sure his friends were still teasing him.

As I thought about him, my fingers began striking the keys on my computer to open a new email account. I should let it go, but I suddenly found I couldn’t. I needed to know, and I needed to know now.

Hi Jackson,

I met you in Miami thirteen years ago behind your dad’s house while my mother was inside. Her name was Iris and she was everything to me, the only person I’ve ever loved. Did you know she died that night? They said she’d been driving high and wrecked her car into a tree, but that’s not true. Your father was driving the car, and she was already dead when he and Stella loaded her into it. I know you weren’t responsible—you were a kid like I was. Did Cole force you to lie to the police? What did you really see that night? I know this will seem out of the blue to you, but I have thought about it every hour of every day since, and I have to know what really happened to her.

Please.

Phoenix

I attached a picture of my mother smiling on the beach a few weeks before her death with her arm around a chubby little blond me, keyed in the email address I found on his website, and hit send before I could second-guess myself.

But second-guess myself I have, a million times in the six weeks since I sent the email. He never responded. I considered sending a follow-up, but I never quite worked out what to say.

Stella came back, and I resumed my plan to ingratiate myself to her, though I’ve yet to succeed.

And now, like a lightning bolt from a blue sky, Cole’s hired Stella and Jackson to shoot a movie—the three of them together, for the first time in thirteen years.

I finish my tea and set my mug on the windowsill, staring out at the wind whipping the pepper trees. Why now? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I will be on that movie set, and I will find out once and for all what happened to my mother.

Friday, June 28

Taylor

I was on the treadmill when the first wave of nausea hit. I slowed the belt and gulped down half the water in my thermos, figuring it was my body’s payback for not having run in over a week. But the water only made it worse. Out the fogged window, the electric-blue horizon seemed warped, the phosphorescent green of the golf course too bright.

Thankful that I was alone in the ice-cold gym, I grabbed a eucalyptus-scented wet towel from the refrigerator and rubbed it over my face. My mouth watered; my peripheral vision darkened. I sat heavily into the chair next to the water dispenser and rested my head in my hands. What the hell? I’d been fine this morning. Well, fine-ish. But hangovers didn’t usually make me nauseous.

I immediately thought of Cole and what he might have done to me while I was passed out—what that might mean in the context of my sudden nausea. Though surely I was being alarmist. Please, God. I was probably just hungry. It was early afternoon, and I’d had nothing in the way of sustenance today, other than the coffee I’d drunk this morning during my meeting with Jackson, Stella, and Felicity.

After a few minutes, the wave passed, but I was left feeling too weak to finish my workout. I grabbed another refrigerated towel and headed slowly back through the steamy day to my bungalow. I ate a nutrition bar and downed acetaminophen, which seemed to help some, then took a lukewarm shower.

Afterward, I wrapped myself in my bathrobe and lay down on the soft white bed, staring up at the steeply pitched thatched roof, light-headed. The light from the water bouncing off the walls was too much; I fumbled on the dresser for the remote control and lowered the blackout shades. The relative darkness provided some relief, but the water still reflected through the window in the floor. I forced myself off the bed and threw a blanket over the glass.

To make matters worse, I’d agreed to dinner with Rick after Jackson called off tonight’s shoot and was very much looking forward to it, but I would obviously have to cancel if I continued feeling like this. Surely I’d be fine by then. I stumbled into the closet and yanked out the first clothes I saw. My favorite bra felt like it was strangling my tits, so I clasped it on the widest hook; still I had double boob. And they were sore too. Not a good sign. Please let it be a bad case of PMS. I hadn’t gotten my period when I was supposed to last week, but that often happened when I was working crazy hours and stressing like a madwoman. It must be coming now, right?

My mouth watered in the bad way. I braced myself against the dresser.

I circled back to the obvious answer. If this had happened yesterday, I would have disregarded the idea: I couldn’t be pregnant; I hadn’t had sex. Cole told me point-blank we didn’t sleep together.

But Cole had lied. Of course the asshole had lied. All evidence pointed to the fact that he’d drugged me, assaulted me, and then made out like I’d gotten too drunk and thrown myself at him. Acrid rage burned the back of my throat.

I ran to the shockingly sunlit bathroom and hurled into the toilet.

When there was nothing left in me to upchuck, I pulled on a baseball cap and dark glasses and grudgingly slogged down the pier, across the sand, through the