Season Of Strangers. Kat Martin

      To my friends on Rock Creek. What a great group

       you are! Thanks for all the good times. It’s been fun just getting to know you.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      One

      It was an odd sound, like the wind whipping a heavy wire stretched too tight. She heard it and a tense shiver crawled up her spine. The sun scorched down, hotter than she’d expected. The sky, a washed-out white instead of its usual blue seemed to trap in the heat. There wasn’t the hint of a cloud to offer relief.

      It was Wednesday, the middle of the week. No one swam in the ocean. No one looked down from the private, guarded cliffs rising up from this deserted stretch of beach. Only a stray black dog, little more than a pin-dot in the distance, wandered aimlessly in her direction, veering occasionally into the surf to cool its burning feet.

      Ignoring the dog and the heat soaking through her red bikini, Julie Ferris turned to her sister, propped up on the sand just a few feet away. “Listen, Laura—do you hear that sound?”

      The tall, sleek young woman beside her sat up on her faded yellow beach towel. A sticky breeze coming in off the ocean lifted strands of her pale blond hair. “What sound? I don’t hear anything.” She reached over and lowered the volume on the radio, extinguishing the low beat of rock music that filtered out toward the sea.

      “It’s sort of a thick funny buzzing. I think it’s coming from someplace over there.” Julie pointed toward the west, out toward the breakers crashing in with the rising tide. They were lying in a private cove on Malibu Beach, part of a huge estate owned by Julie’s neighbor, Owen Mallory, a friend and her most important real estate client.

      Cocking her head toward the odd hum that had begun to resonate along her spine, Julie rubbed her arms, trying to rid herself of the goose bumps prickling her skin. “Now it sounds like it’s coming from the east. I can’t exactly tell.”

      Laura shifted in that direction, angling her slender frame and tilting her head. “Kind of weird, isn’t it? I can hear it and at the same time, I can’t. It seems to be sort of all around us.”

      Julie dusted clumps of gritty sand from her hands, which were smaller, more petite than the long-boned supple fingers of her younger sister. At twenty-four, Laura Ferris had taken after their handsome fair-haired father, while Julie’s dark-red hair, lightly freckled nose, and small pointed chin came from her mother’s side of the family. She looked more pixieish than beautiful, though she was attractive. She was proud of her figure and shapely legs, and she thought she had a very nice behind.

      “Whatever it is,” Julie said, “it’s irritating to say the least.” For a moment, the sound seemed to heighten and a sharp stab of pain shot into her head. “It’s getting on my nerves and giving me a headache.” She craned her neck, scanning the empty stretch of beach, careful to keep her eyes shaded beneath the brim of her big straw hat.

      Glancing up at the washed-out blue sky, she tried not to stare into the harsh ball of early June sun. “Maybe it’s coming from above us…some kind of microwave something-or-other, or a military jet that’s flying really high.”

      At twenty-eight, Julie was more outgoing than Laura, more vivacious, more driven to make the most of her life. Their father had left when they were just kids and the years of bare subsistence gave Julie her relentless drive. Laura had reacted in an opposite way, growing up shy and withdrawn, dependent on Julie to take the place of a mother who was rarely there. As a child, Laura was sickly much of the time—or at least believed she was.

      “I don’t see anything,” Laura said.

      Julie scanned the sky. “Neither do I, but that noise is giving me the shivers. Maybe we ought to go in.”

      “I’m not ready to go in yet,” Laura said, sliding down onto her backrest. “Besides, it doesn’t seem quite so loud anymore. I think it’s starting to fade.” She yawned hugely. “It’s bound to stop in a minute or two.”

      Julie rubbed at the irritating goose bumps, trying to ignore the piercing hum that didn’t seem to bother her sister. She lay back on the red-and-orange beach towel that read Watch Out For Sharks, which she had gotten at a real estate conference in Las Vegas.

      “Turn the radio back up.” Julie clenched her jaw, wishing the grating noise would end. “Maybe that rock station you were listening to will drown out the sound.” Shoving her sunglasses up on her nose, she settled her straw hat over her face to shade her eyes. Beside her, Laura reached for the volume knob on the radio, but it was no longer working.

      “Damned thing.”

      “Probably the battery,” Julie mumbled from beneath her hat.

      “Can’t be. I just replaced it.” Laura gave the radio a whack, but it didn’t go on. “They always crap out when you need them.” Grumbling, she picked up the book she’d been reading,