LITMIR.BIZ

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      This book is dedicated to Intrigue editors

       Allison Lyons and Sean Mackiewicz, whose

       vivid imaginations created the idea of

       Raven’s Cliff, the curse and the intrigue.

       And thanks to the wonderful authors who

       worked together to make this continuity

       come to life.

      Chapter One

      The cool ocean breeze of summer feathered through the loose tendrils of Jocelyne Baker’s hair, caressing her skin and body, soothing the tension away. Sitting with her legs crossed on the mat, her hands flat on the ground beside her, eyes closed, she inhaled, and let it out slowly.

      All the tension of being cooped up for the past two rainy days in the inn with her mother melted away.

      Maybe coming home hadn’t been such a good idea. She could have made it work had she stayed in New Jersey. Somehow.

      The flutter of tiny feet in her belly reminded her why she’d returned. Pregnant and alone, she’d needed a better place than the city to raise her child, even if it meant going home.

      Breathe in, breathe out.

      Nothing had changed. The town was as it had been when she’d left. Her mother was still considered the town kook and everyone stared at her, waiting for her to be just as flaky. Like mother, like daughter.

      The only difference was that this time she was more mature, more confident in her own place in life. She refused to let whispering gossips hurt her or her child. Her muscles clenched in her neck and shoulders.

      Breathe in, breathe out.

      Moving back to Raven’s Cliff wasn’t a mistake. She repeated this mantra with each breath in and each one out.

      Despite the cleansing breeze, other thoughts edged into her meditation. What of the Seaside Strangler? The man hadn’t been caught. Would they catch him before Jocelyne brought her child into this world?

      Unable to establish the inner peace she so intensely needed, Jocelyne pushed to her feet and stood straight, staring over the edge of the cliff out to the churning sea. Then she squatted, lowering her buttocks while her hands reached toward the sky, and closed together as if in prayer. Her hamstrings and the muscles in her back stretched, the tops of her thighs tingling with the effort to maintain the pose and tap in on the elusive inner peace she desperately sought.

      HIS FEET POUNDING AGAINST the gravel, Andrei Lagios shut out everything but his breathing and the burning sensation in his muscles as he pushed himself harder and faster. He wanted the pain, even welcomed it. Pain reminded him he was alive. Unfortunately, so was the fiend who’d killed his beautiful little sister.

      Despite the cool temperatures and the bite of the wind off the ocean, sweat leaked from every pore. Still he ran on, his lungs near bursting, but his attempts to turn off his memories failed. His thoughts mirrored the frothy, wind-tossed seas and the skies laden with heavy storm clouds.

      He’d chosen the path along the cliff because no one would bother him here, and he felt closer to Sofia, who’d washed ashore near here two months ago. Her pale, bloated face and the seashell necklace around her throat still churned in Andrei’s mind. He’d been the one on duty when the report came across the radio that the two girls who’d been missing since the night of their high-school prom had been found, washed against the rocky shoreline.

      He’d been the one to break it to his parents that their only little girl, his younger sister, had died at the hands of the Seaside Strangler. The bitter truth burned in his chest that he had done nothing to stop the killer or keep him from doing it again.

      Andrei couldn’t run hard or fast enough to escape his failure. Someone in this small community had committed the crime and he hadn’t found him yet.

      In the distance, he spotted movement near the edge of the cliff overlooking the area where a tourist had discovered the girls’ bodies.

      Squinting against the wind, he tried to make out what it was. Then it moved again, rising from the ground, straightening. A woman wearing a white flowing skirt sat cross-legged, lifting her face to the sky. The wind whipped bright red strands of hair in Medusa-like fashion around her head.

      His heart skipped several beats before shooting the blood through his body too

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