Never Doubt Me: Judge Me Not #2(80)

All of this occurred during the spring and summer before my final year at Yale. At the time I was interning at a publishing house in New York, so I didn’t pay too much attention to the updates from home. When I returned to college that fall, I met Julian. And once we were together, I hardly kept up with the Harbour Falls gossip. Following a quick visit back for Ami and Sean’s wedding the following summer, Julian and I moved to Los Angeles. I embarked on my writing career, and soon my life was too busy to worry about people from my past. Except for the occasional, short holiday visit home, this whole area had fallen off my radar completely.

Well, maybe not completely.

There was one huge Harbour Falls Mystery—as the press had dubbed it—I could not avoid hearing about. The story even dominated the national news for a time. And inevitably, mostly on book tours and during interviews, I was asked for my thoughts regarding the case. I imagined people were curious for two reasons. One, I was from Harbour Falls, a primary location involved in the mystery. And two, I was a crime and mystery novelist, and the facts of the case mirrored the kinds of things I wrote about.

Only my cases were purely fictional, so my standard response had always been the same: I have no interest in real-life cases. And that had been true. But it no longer was; things were about to change.

The Harbour Falls Mystery was the real reason I was here. I had every intention of basing my next novel on the facts of the case. I was tired of fiction; I wanted to write a true crime novel. Plus there was a little part of me—the detective that lurks in all of us—that dreamed of solving this case.

But nobody knew that this case held more than a professional interest for me. Not because the main locale was Harbour Falls, and not because the mystery involved the disappearance of a local I’d once known. And, truth be told, had once envied. Nor was it the fact that this local, Chelsea Hannigan, had gone missing the night before her wedding. Scandalous, though it was.

What piqued my curiosity was the man Chelsea had been on the verge of marrying—Adam Ward. He was the man at the center of the mystery. He was the man whose life had been altered when Chelsea disappeared, after he was named as the number one suspect.

What role, if any, had he played in her disappearance? Though never formally charged, many believed he was far from innocent.

Well I was here to uncover the truth. There was just one small problem.

Contrary to what I’d told Ami, I was interested in Adam Ward. Still. Despite how ridiculous I knew it was, I couldn’t wait to run into Adam. Would he even remember me? Maybe not. But I wasn’t the shy girl I’d been back then.

Of course I was playing with fire. If he ever suspected I was investigating him in order to research my new novel, he’d hardly be pleased. I might even see firsthand just how supposedly dangerous he could be.

At the thought, a little shudder ran through me. Whether it was due to fear, excitement, or both, I wasn’t sure. I knew I should analyze it and get my head straight before I ended up in trouble.

But I’d run out of time. Because the fog began to lift, and in the distance, Fade Island came into view.