Sadie Hoffmiller has survived eighteen months of nonstop adventures filled with murder, deceit, and danger. She could really use some rest—and maybe even some time to heal—relaxing in the tropical paradise of Kaua'i. However, palm trees and sunshine are not as effective a medication as Sadie had hoped. And when she finds herself entangled—literally—with a dead body, she is forced to face the compounding fears and anxieties that are making her life so difficult to live.

Her determination to stay out of danger and to focus on overcoming her anxieties soon takes a backseat when she meets eleven-year-old Charlie, the son of the woman whose body she discovered near Anahola Beach. Charlies has some questions of his own about what happened to his mother, and he is convinced that only Sadie can help him. If only Sadie were as confident in her abilities as Charlie is.

With the help of her best friend and a local social worker, Sadie dives into another mystery with the hope that, at the end, she'll be able to find the peace and closure that has eluded her.

You snorkel before?”

Sadie looked up from adjusting her life jacket. Konnie was the last woman, other than herself, still in the small boat that had taken them to where the snorkeling was nani—Sadie hoped nani meant wonderful and not deadly.

“Years ago,” Sadie said. “In Waikiki, when my children were younger.”

“I’m not sure that even counts,” Konnie said with a tinkling laugh. Her wide smile fit perfectly on her round face. Her black hair was in one long braid down her back. “Everyone knows O’ahu has the worst snorkeling in the islands. Kaua’i is amazing. Lots of beautiful coral.”

“I can’t wait,” Sadie said, but her tone was flat. She was still trying to figure out why she’d come today. She didn’t like boats or sand or swimsuits, and she wondered if she’d accepted Konnie’s invitation simply because she’d refused most of the other invites Konnie had extended on behalf of the Blue Muumuus, a group of local older women similar to the Red Hat Society Sadie had seen in her hometown of Garrison, Colorado.

“The weather is perfect today,” Konnie continued. “And the tide is just right. You won’t believe the variety of fish you’ll be able to see.”

Sadie nodded, peering over the side of the boat with trepidation. The water was clear enough that she could make out the shape of the coral beneath the shifting surf, and she shivered, thinking about that hidden, undersea world. Coming to Kaua’i was supposed to cure the anxiety that had overwhelmed her after what had happened in Boston, but despite spending three months in a tropical paradise, Sadie was no better off than she’d been before. Only more isolated.

When Sadie had come to Hawai’i with her children ten years ago, she hadn’t been a big fan of being in the ocean, but the displeasure she’d felt then was nothing like what she felt now. Sadie swallowed her fear and forced a smile, determined not to let her anxiety get the best of her in front of the woman who was trying so hard to be her friend.

Konnie lived a few houses away from the condominium complex where Sadie was staying, and she didn’t care that Sadie was a haole—Caucasian—or malihini—a newcomer—to an island not always welcoming to mainlanders. Konnie was big and loud and wonderful in every way, which Sadie found a little bit scary. Well, everything seemed a little bit scary to Sadie right now.

“You ready?” Konnie asked.

“It’ll be fun,” Sadie lied. They were about a quarter mile off the north shore near Anahola. The drive from the inland town of Puhi, where Sadie was staying, would have been beautiful if Sadie had been able to focus. But she wasn’t used to leaving her condo these days and felt nervous whenever she stepped out the door.

“I’m going in,” Konnie said, getting to her feet and causing the small fishing boat to rock back and forth. Sadie forgot to breathe until Konnie sat her voluptuous self on the side of the boat and the rocking evened out. “You can lower yourself in if you’d rather not jump.”

A moment later, Konnie put on her mask and fell backward over the side just like an islander who had spent half her life in the ocean—which was exactly what she was. The ensuing wave caused by Konnie’s splash made the boat rock more than ever, and Sadie clung to the side with both hands. Konnie surfaced and yelled at her to jump in. “One of the tour companies brings tourists out here around noon—times a wastin’.”

Sadie nodded, hoping to appear confident as she sat on the side of the boat and let her flippered-feet dangle over the side. The water was the perfect temperature—not too cold, not too warm. She chose the side of the boat opposite her companions—Konnie and the five other members of the Blue Muumuus—so that if she freaked out once she hit the water, the boat would hide her from their view. Though she recognized her anxiety, so far she’d avoided the actual panic attacks she’d studied up on. But if ever there was a day for all that to change, it was this one.

“You’re okay,” Sadie said to herself under her breath, eyeing the water and keeping her breathing even as she double-checked the clasps of her life jacket. She was the only woman who had chosen to wear one. “You’ll be just fine. You can do this.”

She looked over her shoulder, where six backs bobbed in the water; the snorkeling tubes looked as though they were poking out of six heads of dark hair. The stillness of the bodies bothered her, and she turned away, pulling on her mask and putting the mouthpiece of the snorkel in place. Another deep breath filled her with just enough courage to finally plunge into the water.

She hadn’t considered that the snorkel would fill with water, and her first attempt at breathing was salty and wet. She headed for the surface and spat out the mouthpiece and the water, coughing and sputtering. Her heart raced, and she felt a wave of nausea as she gripped her life jacket with both hands and went to work convincing herself she wasn’t drowning.

After taking a minute to get her bearings, and berating herself for being so dramatic, she replaced the salty mouthpiece of the snorkel and practiced breathing for another minute. Maybe two. Or four.

Konnie rounded the boat, her mask still on while her snorkel lay awkwardly against her left ear. “You okay?”

Sadie gave her a thumbs-up, bit down on her snorkel, took a deep breath, and put her face in the water.

The coral reef was full of fascinating shapes, colors, and textures. She’d been warned that the brain-shaped coral was alive and therefore not to be touched—not that she wanted to touch it. The water was clear enough that no detail of the scene below her was lost. A school of yellow tangs darted beneath her.

It’s beautiful, she told herself even as she felt her heart rate increasing. Ethereal. Amazing. And yet her lungs struggled to draw a breath as she watched a parrot fish lazily swimming a few feet away as though she weren’t there. But she was there. She was in their world, trying to appreciate the resplendence while battling the fact that their world was completely creepy! Some of these things around her were probably poisonous, and there were certainly unseen creatures lurking at the bottom, ready to pull her to the depths and never let her go. She’d seen Jaws.

After twenty seconds, she had to lift her face out of the water. Deep relaxing breaths didn’t help when they were inhaled through a snorkel. Konnie was nowhere in sight, and Sadie couldn’t subdue her growing terror. With her head lifted, she was more aware of her feet dangling deeper in the water and closer to those unseen, bottom-dwelling creatures. She tried to pull her feet up, but would that really deter the monsters lurking beneath her? She’d also seen that movie about the surfer who had had her arm bitten off by a shark. What did Sadie look like from the bottom of the sea?

Sadie spat out the mouthpiece and tried to inhale, but it was as though her mouth were no longer connected to her lungs. She couldn’t get the air in. Why not? What was wrong with her?

She headed for the boat, knowing she had to get out of the water. Now. Once she reached the side, however, she couldn’t figure out how to get in. The rim was too high for her to grab onto. Her gasps were ragged and noisy, making it sound like she was drowning even though her head was out of the water. She couldn’t see any of the Blue Muumuus.

What if she passed out in the ocean? Would the fish eat her before anyone discovered she was gone?

You are being ridiculous, she told herself, ripping off her mask in hopes it would help her breathe. She clutched at her life jacket and closed her eyes, trying to pretend she was simply resting on a punctured water bed. After a full minute, her lungs opened up again. She took long, deep breaths and tried to clear her head. She felt oxygen returning to her brain as her body relaxed.

Then something touched her foot, and her eyes flew open in panic. She began thrashing toward the shore.

She had to get out of the water!

That the boat was right there or that Konnie or the other women would certainly have helped her get in it didn’t cross her mind until she was crawling onto the sand, coughing and spitting up water, her lungs and arms burning from her desperate swim to shore.

The sand turned from wet to dry as she crawled out of the ocean; the shore was littered with sticks, rocks, and broken shells left behind by the tide. This wasn’t one of the groomed beaches like they had in Florida, where machines cleaned up the shoreline before the tourists woke up. This beach was natural and messy, and the sand stuck to her wet skin. Something cut her knee, reminding her that she should stand up. But she didn’t want to do anything that would slow down her escape.

Finally, she collapsed, the bulky life jacket keeping her face out of the sand while she once again focused on breathing like a normal human being. It felt like forever before she felt safe. Her thoughts turned to how she would apologize to her new friends, who probably thought she was absolutely bonkers. She wasn’t so sure they weren’t right.

The nightmares that had plagued Sadie after her trip to Boston had led to insomnia and too many late-night infomercials that had provided her with more kitchen gadgets and exercise equipment than she could ever use. When her friend Gayle, her son, Shawn, her daughter, Breanna, and her boyfriend, Pete, had sat her down for an intervention, they told her she needed to get away for a little while. Unwind. Relax. At the time, she’d been optimistic about the change of environment—who wouldn’t want to go to Hawai’i?

But, though she was no longer ordering useless items off QVC, she still stayed inside most of the time, and the only people she interacted with were the Blue Muumuus every few weeks. She slept through the afternoons and was awake most of the night, double-checking the locks at regular intervals.

The only other time she left the condo was to do her job cleaning the additional seven condos in the complex that were rented out by the week. Housekeeping in Hawai’i was very different from housekeeping at home—sand got everywhere, and mildew was a constant battle. It was good to have something to do, though, and the cleaning job was her way of paying rent to her friend Tanya, who owned the complex but preferred her husband’s ranch in Arizona this time of year.

It was because of Tanya that Konnie even knew Sadie had moved in. Konnie had said any friend of Tanya’s was a friend of hers, but Sadie couldn’t help feeling like she was a burden all the same. The women, all of them grandmothers—tutus in Hawaiian—were very nice, but Sadie had yet to really feel like she was a part of their group.

“I need help,” she admitted out loud as water dripped off her long hair. She had grown it out past her shoulders, longer than it had been in decades. Before leaving Garrison, she’d had her stylist lighten it, in hopes that she’d have more fun as a blonde, but she hadn’t kept up the color, and it had faded to a brassy grayish-yellow. Two inches of gray roots had grown out since her arrival. The climate seemed to accelerate how fast her hair grew, and she lacked the courage to go to a salon full of strangers. Most days, she tied her hair back with a bandana and avoided mirrors, blaming her lack of style on the humidity.

Her senses refocused, and she could hear the incessantly pounding waves. The admission that whatever she was dealing with was more than she could handle on her own washed over her and filled her with both fear and relief.

“I need help,” she said again, wondering if it would be more powerful a second time she said it. It was. She did need help, and she needed it soon. Things had happened to her, scary things that had obviously taken their toll on her mental health. She needed to get back to who she was; she needed to feel whole again. Though she talked to her family and friends on a regular basis, she’d kept how bad things were to herself. She didn’t want them to worry. What would they say if they knew the truth?

She flipped onto her back, staring up at the blue, blue sky and wondering how her life had become so dark. Optimism had always been Sadie’s foundation. It had gotten her through her husband’s death more than twenty years ago. It had helped her raise her two children by herself. But in the wake of what had happened in Boston, she’d lost her confidence, and her world had been spinning out of control ever since.

Getting to her feet, she yanked off her flippers and looked out at the water that appeared so innocent now that she wasn’t in it. The Blue Muumuus were back in the boat, heading toward the shore, and she felt overwhelmed by embarrassment and shame, while grateful she wouldn’t have to consider swimming back to them. They had been so kind to her, and she had so little to give back. Now she’d ruined their adventure.

Konnie waved her arms, and Sadie waved back to indicate she was all right. The saltwater was beginning to dry the sand to her skin, making her feel like a big worn-out piece of sandpaper. The cut on her knee stung; she’d need to wash it out with freshwater.

A small boat dock had been built into the rocks along the beach, and Sadie headed toward it with a flipper in each hand. The floating dock moved gently beneath her feet when she stepped on it, and she froze for a moment, afraid she might fall in.

Konnie pointed the boat toward the dock, and Sadie walked slowly down the weathered boards, dreading the explanation of her bolt to the shore. What could she tell them other than the truth? Hi, my name is Sadie, and I’m losing my mind. Congratulations on winning front-row tickets to the show!

When she reached the end of the dock, Sadie waited for the boat like a penitent child. Watching the water lap against the sides of the wood that was green with moss and other sea life gave Sadie the chills. Long strands of dark seaweed flowed alongside, like the hair of a mermaid from some long-ago fairy tale. Sadie watched it move, fluid and graceful, and tried to draw calmness from its easy motion.

After a few seconds, however, she realized the seaweed was black, not green. Despite her misgivings, she bent down to get a closer look into the water and was soon on her knees, peering at the underside of the dock where what she thought was seaweed was actually hair connected to a human head.

Scrambling to her feet as fresh panic descended like a hammer, she screamed for help at the same moment that she lost her balance, dropped the flippers, and plunged headlong into the sea that had already claimed one victim.