Summary

--- THE LIAR'S TIDE --- Elena Voss has been dead for three years. At least, that's what the town of Port Morrow believes. She wears the ring. She tells the story. She weeps on command-a perfect widow performing grief like a prayer she's forgotten the words to. But there was no husband. No accident. No tears. Elena Voss is a lie wearing a woman's skin-and she's almost convinced herself it's true. Then a stranger walks into her bookstore. He carries a photograph of a man with her face. A man she's never met. A man who calls himself her husband. A man who's been searching for her across oceans, through years, through the wreckage of a life she never lived. And he's not the only one coming to Port Morrow. The fog is rolling in. The tide is rising. And Elena's lies are about to drown everyone she's touched.

Genre: Mystery

Author: Dannycopak

Status: Complete

Chapters: 22

Rating: n/a

Age Rating: 16+

Chapter One: The Widow of Port Morrow

The fog came in at 4:17 PM, like it always did.

Elena Voss watched it roll across the harbor from her bookstore window-gray and patient, swallowing the fishing boats one by one until they became ghosts. She pressed her palm against the glass. The ring on her fourth finger caught the dying light.

Cold.

She'd worn it for three years now. The gold band was thin, unremarkable. A pawn shop find from a town she'd passed through in the rain. She'd chosen it because it looked like it belonged to someone who'd loved simply. Someone who'd lost simply.

Elena didn't know much about simple.

The bell above the door chimed-a rusted sound that always made her flinch. She turned, ready with her practiced smile, the one that said I'm fine, I'm grieving, please don't ask questions.

But the man standing in the doorway wasn't a customer.

He was tall. Salt-and-pepper hair that hadn't been cut recently. A canvas jacket worn thin at the elbows. He held a paperback in his hand, dog-eared, spine cracked like a confession.

He didn't look at the bookshelves.

He looked at her.

"Elena," he said.

Not a question. A statement. Like her name had been sitting on his tongue for years, waiting for the right moment to fall out.

Her fingers curled against the counter. The ring bit into her skin.

"I'm sorry," she said, voice smooth as glass. "Do I know you?"

He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.

"Not yet," he said. "But I know him."

He held up the paperback.

It was a photograph of a man she'd never met.

And yet-the face was hers.