Alyssa Wells slowed and glanced across the road at waves angrily pounding the deserted Oregon beach. A sudden movement on the jogging path below caught her attention. Nearly finished with her run, she looked down at a clearing where hikers often stopped to gaze over the ocean. But not at this time of night. Not with ominous clouds building over the horizon. Angry voices swirled out of the soupy fog that had rolled in with the setting sun. The harsh words cut through the night and wound their way up the hill. She stopped in surprise when she recognized one of the voices as that of Nolan Saunders, her neighbor and her deceased husband’s partner on the Pacific Bay police force. What was Nolan doing out here with a storm on its way? She recalled that he was on duty tonight—he must have responded to a call here. No matter—she needed to get home to her twins before the clouds burst. She continued ahead on the trail, grateful for tiny solar lights mounted on wooden landscape beams that cast a dull light over her feet and kept her path unobscured.
