Into the Night
Marin Montgomery
Contents
Description
Prologue
1. Blair
2. Blair
3. Blair
4. Blair
5. Blair
6. Blair
7. Blair
8. Blair
9. Bristol
10. Blair
11. Blair
12. Bristol
13. Blair
14. Bristol
15. Blair
16. Blair
17. Blair
18. Bristol
19. Blair
20. Bristol
21. Blair
22. Bristol
23. Bristol
24. Bristol
The Aftermath
25. Bristol
26. Bristol
27. Blair
28. Bristol
29. Bristol
30. Bristol
31. Bristol
32. Bristol
33. Bristol
34. Bristol
35. Bristol
36. Blair
37. Bristol
38. Blair
39. Bristol
40. Bristol
41. Blair
42. Bristol
43. Bristol
44. Bristol
45. Bristol
46. Blair
47. Bristol
48. Bristol
49. Bristol
Epilogue - Bristol
Post Epilogue - Blair
About the Author
Sample - All the Pretty Lies
Also by Marin Montgomery
Marin Montgomery
© 2018
Wilted Lilly L.L.C.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
COVER DESIGN: LOUISA MAGGIO
EDITING: The Passionate Proofreader
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permission Coordinator” at the address below. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or if an actual place, are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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Description
When Blair and Bristol Bellamy’s overprotective parents agreed to let their daughters spend spring break in Oahu, they never anticipated that only one of them would return. What should have been a week of soaking up the Hawaiian sun next to pristine blue waters takes an unexpected turn when Blair wakes up on the beach one morning with no purse, no shoes, and no memory of what happened the night before.
And worse?
No sister. Bristol had vanished into the night. Gone without a trace.
After months of tireless investigations and dead-end searches, Blair was forced to return home to the Midwest without her younger sister, and her life was never the same—until ten years later when a package arrives, the last of its kind.
For the first time since Bristol disappeared, Blair has a reason to believe her sister is still out there. But if she wants to find her, she’ll need to return to the place where it all happened, she’ll need to launch a dangerous investigation of her own, and if she’s lucky, she might come out of it alive …
For Bernie,
Friends are the most important commodity. Thank you for supporting me on my writing endeavors and encouraging me with kind words, not so-kind words that I sometimes need to hear, and a quiet place to write.
For all the late nights, doggy play dates and dog-sitting, take-out, and ‘adulting’ you’ve helped with, I appreciate having you in my life.
Dashiell and I are two lucky blondes.
Thank you.
Prologue
Ten years prior, March 1998
Blair
Something wet touches my cheek, gentle at first, the way our dog laps my shoulder with his slimy tongue.
I turn my head, signaling it to stop, desperately trying to brush it off.
What starts as a trickle increases, absorbing my body in a rush of cold that pulls me towards it, drenching my skin. Imagining myself floating on water, sinking down, the way I do in my bathtub at home, I let the feeling act as a guide. A surge of liquid washes over every square inch of me, enough to snap my eyes open. Color envelopes my line of vision, blue and white, but the brightness – it’s blinding.
Closing my lids against the violent light, a sound like splashing and rolling waves hits my eardrums. There’s a warm touch against my clammy skin, forcing them to flicker open. They feel gritty, like rough sandpaper’s been dragged across my eyeballs.
A deep voice above me scares the shit out of me.
It’s a man, speaking directly above my body. I assume he must be an intruder, breaking into our hotel room. Clenching my fists, he’s prepared to drag me from bed and kidnap me, except as I shift my weight, there’s not a firm mattress that moves beneath me, but something damp and sticky.
Heaviness weights my body down, yet I feel a pull.
A waterbed – that’s it.
That’s what I feel like I’m lying on.
I remember the one my parents had when I was a young child. It shook underneath my small frame, the moving water mimicking an ocean, ebbing and flowing beneath me, the lull putting me to sleep.
Until one day it popped and flooded the whole bedroom.
Water washes over me again, this time hitting me directly in the face. Turning my head in agitation, I gasp.
Stop splashing water on me, asshole, I think but don’t say.
I need to open my eyes, but I can’t.
A firm grip tugs on my left arm.
Laying there, barely conscious, drifting off…
“You need to get up.” It’s the unknown male again.
“Get out of here, get out of my room,” I murmur sleepily.
It’s still not the sound I’m used to hearing in the morning. The voice of the brat.
My brain suddenly comes to life, the wheels spinning, processing what’s happening.
Oh shit, a man’s in the room – don’t just lie there, fight!
Yell!
Hit back.
Flailing my arms, I hear a thud, then a moan.
When I open my mouth to scream, sand and bile choke me as I struggle to communicate my emotions.
My lids flash open, the shimmering light glaring in my eyes.
He’s standing above me but has moved back a few feet, holding his elbow in protest.
“What the hell are you doing in our room?” I hiss.
“Room?” He shifts from foot to foot. “Honey, you’re on the beach.”
I shield my eyes from the glow as he comes into my peripheral. “You need to get up, you’re about to get dragged out in the ocean.”
I stammer, waving my arms wildly around me, like children do in the winter when they’re making a snow angel, moving their limbs back and forth as the white powder creases into their shape below them. Instead, I bury myself in wet sand and thrash like a half-dead fish.
“Can you sit up?” He tries again to rouse me.
The feat of pulling myself up is a challenge. His warm palm takes pity, reaching out to grab my hand, slowly moving me forward into a sitting position. It feels too fast but really is gradual, the blood rushing to my head.
I rub my temples, disoriented, with no idea where I am.
Rapidly, I blink my eyes, my contact lenses scratchy and dry.
“Are you still drunk?” He squats down beside me, staring like I’m a new species of aquatic sea life.
I groan, twisting away from him, spitting out copious amounts of blue liquid. My esophagus burns as my body shakes violently, the nasty combination of salt and blue froth foreign to me.
“Where am I?” I hesitantly touch my face.
“The beach.”
I look to the left, then the right. His sneakers are blinding, neon yellow, the Nike swoosh bright orange. “What beach?” I manage to whisper.
He looks surprised. “Waikiki.”
“But where am I?”
“You’re about fifty feet from The Waterfront, Waikiki Beach.” The name of the hotel rings a bell, it’s where we’re staying, the brat and I.
A sigh of relief escapes my chapped lips. “Oh, okay.” The gargantuan splitting headache takes the place of any cognizant thoughts I have.
“You need water.” He’s firm. “Let me go get you some.”
I shake my head, noncommittal.
“Are you okay?” he asks, standing and taking a giant step back, giving me much-needed space. “Are you homeless?” I’m confused by his question until I notice tattered newspaper stuck to my bare foot, the aqua toenail polish adhered to a page on home sales in February.
“Do you need to go to a shelter?”
I pat the sand beside me. “I don’t need a shelter.” A tear tries to form but can’t, my eyelids sucked into a vacuum. The man’s salt-and-pepper hair and bare chest are above me, and his hands rest on his hips. Between his running shoes and his fire engine red shorts, there’s no missing him on the beach.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Bristol.”
“Who?” He’s perplexed.
“My sister.” My sister a.k.a. the brat.
I focus on the jagged cut that hits right below my left knee, contemplating the reason I’m here in the first place. The man pulls me out of my thoughts when he says, “I haven’t seen hardly anyone out this morning. I don’t know about your sister.”
“What about Nicholas?”
“No idea who that is.”
For a moment, we don’t speak.
“I’m going to go get some water,” he repeats again.
“I have a purse.”
He looks around. “Where?”
Panic sets in. “It has my room key in it. Cash. My daddy’s credit card. He’s going to kill me.” I’m frantic, dragging my hands through the sand, unsettling and moving the black and tan flecks around. It’s a small clutch, zig-zagged with patterns in rainbow colors.
“I’ll help you look. Um…” He motions downward, his eyes locked on mine. “You need to adjust your top.”
Glancing down, my halter top is no longer tied around my neck but hanging around my waist, both my breasts exposed. Quickly, I yank it up, my fingers fumbling to get it tied. I give up after ripping strands of hair out when it gets caught in the straps.
“Do you need help?” His voice is soft and low, a look of concern growing on his face.
I nod in response, keeping my eyes trained on my bare legs and cuts that I didn’t notice yesterday.
Yesterday… yesterday was…
My mind drifts as he ties the cotton into a bow and then knots it. I go back to yesterday but there’s a black hole, like an axe came down and cut a chunk out of the night, a piece of time.
Yesterday was Monday.
My sister and I took a surf lesson.
We met some boys, they had seemed nice.
And fun.
And older.
Had pizza, Margherita for him and I. Sausage for her and him.
Drinks. Lots of alcohol.
And then…
There’s nothing.
It’s like it never happened.
“Let’s get you up to dry land.” He extends his hand, waiting for me to make a move to take it. A neon orange wrist band is wrapped around my left wrist, the words The Ocean Club tattooed across it.
What was I doing in a bar?
After I stand, he slowly guides me, like you would an elderly person, a reassuring hand on the back but not too much pressure. He’s gentle, never gripping my shoulders, just there in case I stumble.
Which I do.
His hand comes down to grasp my elbow as I wallow through the sand.
I think it's called ‘sea legs’, the struggle to keep your balance on land after you’ve been on moving water.
“Where are your shoes?” He realizes this is an illogical question based on the circumstances and bites his lip.
I shake the ripped paper off my foot, noticing a blister.
“I’m going to get you a drink.” He’s unyielding. “Let me help you to a chair on the beach.” My white shorts are now dingy, covered in salt water and sand, see-through and wet now that they’re drenched.
The lethargy is nothing compared to how every step feels in the embankment. Even without shoes, it’s like each leg is a ten-ton bulldozer that I’m dragging through mud. Or in this case, a bottomless pit of sand.
We head the fifty feet to The Waterfront Hotel, which is a short distance but in my current state, it might as well be fifty miles.
Beads of sweat break out on my forehead as I painfully take one step at a time. His tennis shoes squish as he walks, his tanned skin glistening in the sun.
He points to a white and navy striped lounge chair by the pool, sheltered by a matching umbrella stand. “Let’s head there,” he says softly, directing me towards my final resting place.
I sink back into the cool plastic. The shade blocks me from the sun, yet my skin is covered in goosebumps.
“Do you have a phone?” I ask.
“I do. Do you need to call someone?”
Nodding my head as much as I can without aggravating the headache, I sigh. “My daddy.”
“Here.” He reaches into a fanny pack around his waist, handing me his cell. His face is etched with lines that seem to grow more pronounced with worry.
Dialing my parents’ house, the phone rings, the voicemail eventually picking up after three obnoxious beeps.
My father’s voice speaks to me across the thousand-plus miles, soft and controlled.
“Hi, you’ve reached Pastor Bellamy. We are on vacation until March twenty-sixth. Please leave your name and number and we will return your call when we’re back home. If this is about a prayer session or meeting group, please call Marcia, the church secretary at 402-717-8380.
Another beep.
I stutter, clicking the ‘end’ button, not bothering to leave a message for my absent parents.
That’s right, they’re gone as well.
They took a trip to Florida, their last hurrah before the adoption is finalized.
The man notices the look of disdain on my face, my mouth twisting in a grimace. Their cell phone number is not coming to mind – I didn’t bother to memorize it since it’s programmed in my own phone.
Shit.
As I mentally beat myself up, I realize it’s not productive to speak to them at this moment in time. I’m her chaperone, entrusted with the brat’s care.
First, I need to go to the hotel room, grab my sister, and we need to hunt for my purse and our daddy’s missing credit card. My mother will ask to talk to Bristol and if she’s not here, I’ll be sent on a plane to a dungeon in the Himalayans or whatever they do with derelict girls instead of the private university I attend.
I can’t very well explain to my parents that we got trashed and are both paying for last night’s mistakes. Hopefully she’s not...
“Do you need me to call someone for you?
” he asks. “Another family member or friends?
“No.” I shrug, pressing the phone back into his hands. Settling back in the seat, my wet clothes cling to me. I shiver as water droplets trickle down my stomach.
The man clears his throat, searching my face. “I’m Peter, by the way. Peter Riggs.”
My name.
At least I remember who I am. “Blair.” I don’t give him my last name.
His back turns and he heads up towards the hotel, pausing to glance over his shoulder to make sure I haven’t vanished into thin air.
I stay seated in the same position, my limbs catatonic.
Peter looks down. I notice when he raises his head, his phone’s lifted to his ear.
What if he’s calling the cops?
I stink of liquor and bad decisions. Could I
be arrested for underage drinking?
My mind wanders.
Would I go to jail?
And what about Bristol?
Would I be charged with providing alcohol to a minor? There’s airplane bottles and empty vodka containers in our hotel room.
Things just went from bad to worse, and the gap in my memory annoys me.
I shut my eyes, trying to recollect my nighttime activities.
Into the Night Page 1
