Cross Council Page 30

Serena Murphy squinted into the wind, searching cliffs lashed by angry surf. Maine’s autumn freeze wrapped her in its clutch and whipped her hair over her face.

  Serena was looking for a body.

  The maelstrom assaulting the deck of O’Flanagans Tavern did not deter her. She leaned forward and gripped the rail.

  A month had passed already, and each day before the dinnertime rush, Serena came out to search the cliffs for any trace of her husband, Alan, who’d been pronounced lost at sea.

  Alan was dead. She was sure of that. Even the sea spoke to her, weaving a tale of his demise in the fishing boat she had urged him to repair. She was certain he was dead because he haunted her. Not as a physical ghost, but there were signs—small, intimate signals that could only be executed by Alan’s malevolent spirit.

  "Serena! Get in here before you catch your death of cold!"

  Tempted to ignore the intrusion, Serena caught a glimpse of her part-time waitress, Rebecca, with her head stuck out the back door.

  What an image she must portray to the young woman. Every night Serena stood out here, perched atop these cliffs, searching for a body. Searching for ghosts.

  But that’s not what her waitress saw. She saw a distraught widow anguished over the loss of her husband. She did not see her. She did not see the woman who feared Alan even after death.

  It took effort, but Serena called across the wind, "I’ll be right there."

  Alone with the waves that crashed against the rocks below, Serena waited for pain to envelop her. She waited for heart-wrenching sobs or any raw emotion that might signal despair over the loss of her husband.

  Only the bleak whistle of the wind and the somber ring of a buoy answered.