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Charlotte?”
    “Maddie, you didn’t tell him? Oh my God, Alex, I can’t believe no one told you. Charlotte was in a terrible wreck after we went shopping about two weeks ago. She’s okay, but she lost her baby, and she’s taking it really hard,” Amanda said.
    Bly was pacing the deck and Maddie was fuming mad.
    “Is she in the hospital, why the fuck didn’t you mention this, Maddie? Fuck, you are so wrapped up in yourself!” Bly’s voice was so cold and hard it caused Maddie to jump.
    “She’s gone off on her own for a while,” JP said, “Finn brought Atticus to work with him today and he’s pretty messed up over the whole thing.”
    “Oh, I should go by and offer to keep Atti for him,” Amanda said. “I had no idea Charlotte was gone. Where did she go, JP, to a spa?”
    “Take Maddie home,” Bly said, dismissing them all, and he went into the main salon to talk to Billy Kipling.
    “Billy, you’ve been acquainted with Finn and JP for a long time, I need to know if your loyalty is to me or to them,” Bly said.
    “I worked with the two of them from time to time, that’s about it. What do you need, Alex?” Billy asked.
    “Charlotte left town today, I want you to find out where she is as soon as possible,” he said.

    Chapter Four
     
    Charlotte cried most of the way to Big Sur, and the seven hour drive left her drained and on edge. When she opened the door to Jack Sheppard’s cabin, she walked straight through to the back deck. Fog rolled in off the Pacific and waves crashed against the craggy shoreline below. The sun was falling from the sky and being swallowed by the ocean. Soon it was all just a swirling gray haze, fog rose around the deck and Charlotte went back inside, afraid she might truly be lost in the mist.
    It was a contemporary cabin, sheathed in redwood, and it wasn’t large, but it was dramatic. It hung off the edge of a cliff and had ocean views to the west and mountains to the east. The pounding surf was like a powerful living thing. The waves were pulled and pushed by the power of the moon, and they created an organic rhythm. She flipped a few switches on a wall and lamps glowed and gas logs in the fireplace sprang to life. She hauled her luggage out of the car and shivered as the fog caressed her skin. She locked the door after she hurried back inside, and as the fog engulfed the house it dulled the constant roar of the waves.
    Charlotte checked her cell phone and none of the missed calls were from Finn, he said he would give her a week and she knew he meant it. Still, it left an empty place inside her to think he hadn’t tried to call. What if he never called again, what if she never found her way back home? She went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of vodka from the freezer, then she leaned against the counter and took a long swallow. It burned going down and reminded her of the night she left Bly to be with Finn. It made her cry to think of that night, to remember Finn’s body under her hands, hot and hard and finally hers. She tilted the bottle back quickly, and coughed and gulped air as she tried to swallow, but began to cry again. The clock on the wall said it was only seven o’clock, but she was lonely and feeling a tiny buzz from the vodka. She wiped her nose and took another drink, then she dropped her clothes as she walked through the house and crawled into bed.
    Dreams surrounded and chased her and she couldn’t get free of the fog. She heard Atticus crying and Finn calling to her, but she was lost, and although she searched for them they were always farther away in the mist. She woke up in the big bed alone, her face wet with tears, and she heard an insistent pounding on the door.
    “Go away please, I have a gun!” she shouted through the door and the knocking stopped.
    “Charlotte open the door, it’s me.”
    “Bly?” she said opening the door just a crack, and he pushed it open and crushed her body to his.
    “Charlotte, fuck, I was worried sick about