Just as Sarah had started to accept the fact that she might never see Finch Jameson again, a text message flashed across her phone. He’d invited her out to Cliff Walk, one of the most romantic destinations in all of Redwood Cove—and he’d also said something about needing a new perspective.

Could it be…? Had he decided to put Eleanor’s mystery aside in favor of getting to know Sarah in a different way? Or was she reading too much into the situation?

Probably that. Because no matter how much Sarah swooned for Finch, he was still way out of her league—and any romantic entanglement was out of the question as far as her life plan was concerned.

But then why did her heart leap at the very sight of him? And why had she rushed to join him the moment he called for her?

Finch stood waiting at the trailhead with a pair of bottled waters and a placid expression. Lucky pranced merrily ahead, letting out a puppy whine before slathering Finch in kisses. His tail wagged so hard, it shook his entire body like a crazy balloon man flapping in the breeze outside a car dealership. Normally, he only greeted Sarah with such enthusiasm—and only when they’d actually been apart first.

“I missed you too, buddy.” Finch laughed as he and Lucky continued to greet each other with such familiarity that it gave Sarah the spooks.

“Hi, Finch,” she said shyly, hoping to high heavens that her cheeks weren’t glowing red with embarrassment… or something worse.

He gave Lucky one last pat, then straightened to his full height, a good half foot taller than Sarah. “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah.” If she wasn’t blushing before, then she definitely was now that he’d turned the full wattage of his smile on her. “Umm, you mentioned a new perspective?”

“Yeah, sometimes I come up here to think, and since two heads are better than one…” He handed her a bottle of water as a pair of joggers breezed past—a man and a woman, a couple from the looks of it. Would she and Finch be like them one day? Meeting after work for a quick burst of exercise, then heading home to tuck in together for the night? The idea excited her more than she cared to admit.

“Sounds like a plan.” She snapped Lucky’s leash to his collar. Although he was normally perfect off leash, the Cliff Walk sometimes attracted bikers and Lucky just couldn’t resist giving chase to the zippy two-wheel vehicles.

They walked side by side down the path which started out wide, but Sarah knew it would soon narrow, pushing them closer together. They’d only been apart for a matter of days, but already all the confidence she had built up while in his presence had been totally depleted. It was almost like meeting him again for the first time.

“I’ll never get sick of the ocean,” Sarah murmured as they broke through the brush to a clear view of the open water gleaming far below. Her tongue felt like a dry sponge, making it difficult to push the words out.

“Aren’t you from close by?” he asked as his hand accidentally brushed against hers.

Sarah gently moved her hand away. As much as she loved the feeling of his skin on hers, it turned her brain to mush. And whether they were here to talk about the mystery or to talk about themselves, she needed all her wits about her tonight.

“I grew up in Ohio,” she explained once she could function again. “No ocean there.”

“What brought you here?” Another brush of skin. This time it didn’t feel like an accident.

“Just… life.” She didn’t talk about her grandmother with anyone. Even though her parents never blamed her for what had happened on her watch, she felt their judgment, their sadness, with each visit—which is why they’d grown increasingly rare over the years.

“Fair enough. Well, as you probably already know, my family has been in California for generations, and I guess it never occurred to me to leave even when I had no family left to stay for.”

Lucky stopped walking and grew very still. His ears perks up and he started to shake and whine softly. A moment later, he let out a loud bark and began to pull and strain against his leash.

Sarah followed the direction of her dog’s gaze, and sure enough… “Whales,” she told Finch, pointing out to sea.

Finch took a step forward, so close she could feel the energy pulsing from his skin. For a moment, she was tempted to reach out and touch him. She rarely made physical contact with people who weren’t her patients, weren’t dying.

“Where?” he asked, squinting into the sun.

“Just wait. They’ll breech again.” She smiled, feeling in control again. The whales were a sign. They just had to be.

With another burst of water, a sleek pod of black and white bodies broke the surface.

“See?” Sarah said reverently. “Orcas. They’re pretty much here year-round, you know.”

Finch bumped his shoulder into hers playfully. “I thought I was supposed to be the local expert.”

She shrugged and giggled despite herself. “Apparently not.”

They stood side by side and watched the orcas until they had swum out of sight. Finch even snapped a few pictures, both of the whales and of Lucky’s response to them.

“That was…” he said, turning to her.

“Magical,” someone said from behind them both. Apparently a group of other hikers had gathered around to watch, even though Sarah had felt as if she and Finch were the only two people in the entire world.

“I thought I recognized one of my pups,” Lucky’s breeder, Carol Graves, said, marching up to them and extending her hand toward Finch. Lucky’s parents, Rita and Sunny, walked obediently at her side despite the fact that she only held the leash joining them by her pinky finger.

“I’m Finch,” Sarah’s companion offered with a smile.

“Hi, Finch. I’m Carol. And who might this stranger be?” She turned toward Sarah with an exaggerated pout.

Oh, right. She’d deleted her Reel Life account. It had only been four or five days, but of course Carol had noticed.

She felt her cheeks grow hot, the majesty of the moment now lost entirely. “Sorry, I’ll call you later tonight. Okay?”

“Oh, I see.” Carol’s voice took on a syrupy tone and she actually had the audacity to wink at Sarah. “I’m interrupting… something.”

“No,” Sarah insisted too quickly, drawing skeptical looks from both Finch and Carol. “It’s not like that. We’re just working together.”

Carol continued to give Sarah a series of bemused looks. “Working? For the Rest Home all the way out here?”

“Something like that,” she whispered, hoping that either Carol would leave or that she herself would die before the embarrassment could get any worse.

“Hey, Carol,” Finch shot in, just as it seemed Carol was finally going to be on her way. “Since you’re here, we may as well ask… Do you know anything about Bayside General Hospital?”

“Bayside General? Hmm.” Carol shifted her weight to the side and brought a hand to her chin as she thought. “I went there years ago with a broken leg, but I tend to stay away if I can.”

“Because you don’t like hospitals?” Finch provided, his eyes widening as he waited for whatever potential clue Carol was about to reveal.

“Well, not much. I mean, who does? But that one in particular…” Her voice dropped several notches, taking on an eerie tone Sarah had never heard from her before. “Let’s just say I know the scandal was before my time, but renaming the place isn’t enough to make me forget what happened there.”

Finch and Sarah exchanged quick glances. “What happened there?” they asked in unison.

Carol laughed. “Actually, it’s been so long I can’t remember exactly what it was, just that it was really bad.”

Sarah felt the thrill of the mystery rising in her once again. “Do you remember what the hospital used to be called before?”

“Yeah, give me a second here.” Carol motioned for both of her dogs to sit, then reached for her phone as if she could simply ask Siri for the answer. “It was one of those really generic names like Mercy or St. Something,” she continued before her entire face lit up with triumph. “Oh, St. Mary’s. That was it! I liked that it was named for a woman. Lot of good that did it.”

“Yes, yes! Thank you so much for your help,” Finch said, saddling Carol with an impromptu hug.

Now the old breeder was blushing. Ha! “Not sure what exactly I did to help, but glad you seem so happy. I’ll let you two get back to it. Oh, and Sarah?” she added the last bit while adjusting her shirt and fluffing her hair.

“Yeah?” Sarah braced herself for whatever ribbing Carol had planned for her next. What she didn’t expect was the warm hug and soft words that followed.

“We miss you on the Reel Life group chat. Come back soon.”

As soon as Carol left them in the clearing, Finch grabbed his phone and typed “St. Mary’s of San Francisco” into the search engine. A flurry of results popped up featuring headlines that included scandal, shock, and murder. Finch scrolled down a ways, then clicked on one that linked to some kind of local history website.

“What is it?” Sarah asked, drawing closer, Lucky’s leash wrapped tightly around her fist.

Finch suppressed a shudder and read aloud:

“Murder?” Sarah worried her lip, looking to Finch for more.

A shiver ran through him as he continued to skim the article. “Here it is,” he said, zooming in to make the text even larger.

He stumbled over the unfamiliar drug names, then looked up at Sarah, his own shock reflecting back at him in her eyes.

“He was poisoned. But why?” She tucked into his side as they both stared down at the phone in disbelief.

Why had he insisted on pursuing this, and why had Eleanor knowingly sent them toward such a gruesome case? Would they face dangerous repercussions if they dug too deep? If anything happened to Sarah, he would never forgive his aunt… or himself.

Finch continued through the article quickly, unsure of how much more he could handle just now. “It says here that Dr. Karda was widely known as Dr. Death. His infant mortality rate was more than three times the average of others in the hospital. People started to suspect…”

“That he was killing newborns?” Sara’s voice caught in her throat, and he wondered if she might start to cry. If he might also shed some tears. “That’s awful.”

“I don’t think it was on purpose.” Finch stuffed his phone back into his pocket, unable to look at it any longer. “Either he was really bad at his job or really un—”

“Lucky,” they said together.

The Golden Retriever barked happily at the mention of his name and tried to tug them back down the trail.

“Or,” Sarah said after a thoughtful pause, not taking Lucky’s bait. “Something else was going on.”

“Like what?” he asked, unable to make any sense of this new information within the context of the larger mystery. Maybe when the shock wore off, the pieces would rearrange themselves into a clearer picture…

Sarah shook her head, letting Lucky’s leash go slack. “I don’t know, but I have a feeling we both know someone who does.”

“Eleanor.” He pictured the hostile old woman who had turned his life upside down, but he’d also introduced her to Sarah… “She’s been refusing my visits.”

“Well, lucky for you, you have a friend who can get you in anyway.” Sarah grabbed his hand and turned them back toward the start of the trail. Even though she immediately let go, he felt her lingering grip as the ocean wind continued to breeze past. She was softening to him again. He felt it as sure as the sky was blue.

“Friends?” he teased, loving the taste of the word on his tongue. “Not just partners in crime?”

She shrugged, already losing some of her newly gained bravado. “That okay with you?”

Finch thought about this. He wanted to be so much more than friends with this girl, but he also didn’t want to push her faster than she could handle. He grabbed her hand again and squeezed it in his own. “For now,” he told her, making sure she caught his signature smile before looking away.

Night had already begun to set in by the time they traced their way back down the trail and drove over to the Redwood Cove Rest Home. Sarah needed to use her employee key card to get them through the front doors.

“Are you sure she’ll be happy to see us?” Finch asked as he followed her down the hall. This was only the second time he’d set foot in the facility. It felt strange that so much had happened since his last visit.

Sarah made a noise that was halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. “Actually I’m pretty sure she won’t be, but maybe we can catch her off her guard. Maybe she’ll actually tell us something worth knowing this time.” She rapped on the patient’s door before sending Lucky in ahead of them.

“To soften her up a bit,” she whispered to Finch by way of explanation.

“I know you’re out there, and I don’t want to see either of you,” Eleanor called from within the dark room.

Finch flicked the heavy switch on the wall, bringing in a sudden burst of fluorescent light.

Eleanor groaned. “Can’t I sleep without being harassed?”

Finch plopped himself onto the end of her bed, unwilling to be ignored. “You told us to find the truth, set things straight, and so here we are.”

“So you found your true family?” She refused to look at him, settling instead for keeping her eyes firmly shut as they spoke.

“Not yet, “Finch admitted. “But we know about the murder.”

“Know what exactly?”

“Umm, that it happened.”

“And under suspicious circumstances,” Sarah added quietly, still standing in the doorframe and watching the scene unfold from a distance.

Eleanor laughed bitterly, then broke apart in a coughing fit. “I’m surprised it took you this long to find that little tidbit that was splashed all over the news. Even with grossly lacking research skills as you seem to have, you should have been able to find that on day one. At least tell me you found the killer.”

“What? No. That’s why we came to see you.” The old woman’s laughter set him on edge. Finch had already been mocked more than his fair share by the media, and he refused to let Eleanor add to it. He’d come here to help her, for crying out loud!

“If I wanted to spoon-feed you every last detail, I would’ve done that to begin with. Now go away and leave me alone.” She flicked her wrist nimbly, shooing him away as if he were a naughty animal and not a human being.

“No,” Finch answered, refusing to budge from his spot on the bed. “You’re not some queen who can hand off orders from on high. It’s clear you have the answers we need, so just spit them out already.”

Sarah sucked in a deep breath.

Lucky sat and waited.

Finch held his ground.

At last, Eleanor groaned and strained to sit up in her bed.

And for one blissful moment he thought she might actually cave…

But in the next moment she was pressing the call button and bringing the night shift nurse scuffling into the room.

“Is everything okay here, Ms. Barton?” the nurse asked with a worried glance toward Sarah and Finch.

“No, it’s not,” Finch answered hotly. “And at this rate I doubt it ever will be.”