Woman Over the Edge Read online

  CONTENTS

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part II

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part III

  Chapter 12

  Part IV

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part V

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Also by Quinn Avery

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. Namely: iPhone, Impala, Camaro, Acura, Beastie Boys, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, John Hughes, Sixteen Candles, Bruce Springsteen, Bush, Lollapalooza, Billy Joel, Nirvana, Impala, Rolex, No Doubt, Agnes Obel, Key Largo

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  Woman Over the Edge

  Copyright © 2021 by Jennifer Naumann writing as Quinn Avery. All rights reserved.

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  ISBN-13:

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  Cover by Najla Qamber Designs

  For Christy, because I admire your strength.

  WOMAN OVER THE EDGE

  QUINN AVERY

  PART I

  Darkest Nights

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  “Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.”

  -Robert F. Kennedy

  CHAPTER ONE

  What Mia Hughes first remembered about the night her life forever changed was comprised of two things—a single sound and a feeling.

  A deep, scratchy voice.

  A hand over her mouth.

  A psychiatrist would later explain the blackout was Mia’s brain protecting her from trauma. The lead detective on the case, however, was convinced it was because Mia had something significant to hide.

  It was a blisteringly hot afternoon in August, just days after her sixteenth birthday. Every last cabin at Shady Oaks, her family’s 25-acre resort on Lake Shetek in southwestern Minnesota, had been rented out by visitors from all over the country. Mia, third generation involved in operating the resort, was eager to finish her chores in order to join her sister, Bella, and their friends for the usual nighttime gathering.

  Mia and Bella’s parents kept them busy, assigning each of them small jobs around the resort, including upkeep and guided activities for the visitors. They’d typically finish up by late afternoon in time to cool off with their tightly knit group of friends. When they were younger, they’d play games on the densely wooded trails. Once the oldest of their crew became teenagers, they mostly hung out on the beach. During the off-season, they all attended the same school, and still met up often. But nothing was quite as magical as the three glorious months of their summer vacations.

  Mia grumbled under her breath as she swept the last cabin. For a time, she actually looked forward to helping her mom maintain the rentals. She once took pride in washing the sheets and making the beds on her own. But as she grew older, she realized she was nothing more than a glorified maid. She craved more complex responsibilities that would take her outside of the musty buildings. Her dad had made her older sister his apprentice, teaching Bella useful trades such as how to stain the docks, paint the trim and shutters, and manicure the yards.

  Before long, Mia would regret that she’d envied her sister to the point of harboring a lingering resentment.

  “Mia,” she heard her mom’s cheerful voice call from outside the cabin, “are you still in there?”

  A moment later, her mom appeared in the doorway, hands set on her slender hips. Sarah Hughes was a small woman with chestnut eyes having the warming appeal of a puppy’s, and thick, honey-blond hair always trimmed in a sensible cut just long enough to draw back into a ponytail. Mia was fortunate to have inherited both. Sarah possessed far more strength than one would expect from her stature, capable of lifting something twice her weight and fixing anything on the resort in need of repair. Their dad would often tease her by saying he could’ve been her trophy husband, and let her do all the work. Sarah would reply by saying if she wanted a trophy husband, she would’ve looked for someone much younger. While she maintained a no-nonsense attitude on the clock, her daughters appreciated that she could be as silly as someone their own age.

  “Mia, I need you to change the linens in cabin nine before you check out for the day. The wife found a spider in the bed.” With a light, youthful sounding giggle, Sarah rolled her eyes. “She claims it was big enough to run off with her hairbrush.”

  Using the back of her hand to wipe the sweat gathered at her hairline, Mia frowned. “Can’t Bella do it?”

  Sarah threw her daughter a scolding look. “That’s not one of her jobs. Besides, your sister got up at the crack of dawn this morning to pressure wash the docks so she could be done early. I suppose she wants to spend more time with your friends before she leaves for college.”

  Just then, Mia’s dad snuck up behind her mom. “What’s this? Two of my favorite people in one place?” His thick arms coiled around Sarah’s slender waist. “How’d I get so lucky? I’m surrounded by beautiful women everywhere I go!”

  Sarah attempted to twist away. “Alex, stop! You reek like sweat and gas!”

  His dark eyebrows wiggled. “Are you sure you’re not just smelling my pheromones?”

  With a giggle, Mia grinned at her parents. She had always admired the playful, loving relationship between them. She often wondered if they’d changed at all since they first started dating. According to stories passed on by her grandparents and her parents’ friends, Alex Hughes had been a ladies’ man in his prime, and had broken dozens of hearts when he set his eyes on Sarah. Dramatic eyebrows, thick wheat-blond hair trimmed just above his ears, dense muscles on his long frame roped from decades of hard labor, he was still handsome in his early forties. Mia could envision him on a wrestling mat back in his prime, pinning an opponent. But it was his playful personality and devilish grin that drew people in, making him a favorite among women of all ages.

  Alex’s sharp eyes, the color of the lake on a clear day, aimed in Mia’s direction as his wide lips quirked with a crooked grin. “Isn’t it about time to meet your friends?”

  Matching her dad’s grin, Mia abandoned the broom at her feet. “Yessir!”

  “Alex!” Sarah scolded with a look that Mia knew not to take seriously. “She has to change the sheets in one of the cabins first!”

  “I can do it,” he offered, shrugging. “How hard can it be to make a bed?”

  “Must be incredibly hard, considering all the times you haven’t made ours.”

  “Come on, Sarah. Her sister got off early to play. Both of my beautiful daughters should be allowed to enjoy time with their f
riends while they’re still young.”

  Without waiting for her mom’s response, Mia sprang across the room and rose on her toes to drop a kiss against her dad’s rough, unshaven cheek. “Thanks, daddy!”

  Behind her, she heard the squeaky pitch of her mom’s protests. As she darted through the woods, her mom’s fading voice broke out into giggles. Her dad had the knack to virtually talk anyone into anything.

  Mia swung by their two-story home several hundreds of feet behind the lodge, tucked among oak trees gnarled with age. Her grandparents had built the house fifty-some years prior using the same pine logs as the cabins. After Sarah and Alex married in their early 20s, Mia’s grandparents had moved into one of the smaller cabins, and gifted the house to their daughter and son-in-law as a wedding gift.

  Mia’s bedroom had once been her uncle Butch’s. Remnants of the cowboy and Indian themed wallpaper her grandma had picked out for him as a little boy still remained inside the closet. The room’s walls and ceiling lined in cedar felt outdated to Mia, and left a lingering odor she was always trying to overpower with candles and potpourri. But she was grateful for the eagle-eye view of the lake it provided. A family of pelicans often roosted on the rocks trailing away from the point at the edge of their lawn, and had inspired her to learn how to paint. Bella’s room across the hallway overlooked the state-owned prairie behind the resort.

  Growing up on a resort was a never-ending adventure. There was a revolving door of strangers to meet, some that Mia would befriend and even keep in touch with after they left. And living on the beautiful little peninsula facing the northwest provided views that changed throughout the day, depending on the season and the weather. No matter how many times she’d sat to soak in the sunset on the massive deck her parents had added to the lodge, it always took her breath away.

  Although her skin was sticky from a day’s work of cleaning cabins, Mia didn’t bother taking the time to shower. They’d be swimming in the warm lake before long. After changing into her favorite pink bikini beneath an oversized t-shirt, she skipped toward the lodge. The 3-story log structure, featuring multiple peaks and wide decks lined with colorful Adirondack chairs, provided a spectacular view of Lake Shetek. Compared to the other bays, theirs wasn’t usually busy. Aside from a few stragglers—usually teenage boys in their dad’s speed boats, searching for “bikini babes” as Alex would say—guests who’d either rented one of the half a dozen fishing boats or rode the resort’s pontoon were its sole occupants.

  She noted the wide beach that flanked either side of the lodge was filled with families soaking in the last of the daylight on towels beneath the resort’s colorful umbrellas. Several of the kids were sunburned, and some of the adults appeared to be well on their way to earning a hangover the next morning.

  Mia was so busy watching a toddler splashing and giggling from inside a little floatie that she didn’t notice the car speeding past. With the sound of a blasting horn, she squealed and jumped back. She caught the cold, dark glare of Jack Pitt from behind the wheel as his rusted station wagon roared past, leaving a trail of dust behind. With a chill, Mia threw her hand over her pounding heart. She was sure Jack hated her, yet her friend, Ben, insisted it was only because his dad had developed a no-nonsense demeanor while in the Army.

  Once she was able to catch her breath, she crossed the narrow gravel road to enter the lodge. The aroma of Gigi’s famous blueberry pie nearly knocked her over once she passed through the double glass doors. She continued past her canvas paintings of the lake her mom had proudly hung over the receptionist’s desk, and entered the dining hall that stretched fifty feet high among cedar joisted ceilings. Ben was hunched over one of the empty dining tables, thick white-blond hair curtaining his eyes as he devoured a piece of blueberry pie.

  As far back as Mia’s memories stretched, Ben Pitt had been the equivalent of the brother she’d never had. When he’d first moved into the area with his father after his parents’ divorce, they’d been in kindergarten. Starting school in a new town had initially been difficult for Ben as a painfully shy 6-year-old. His teacher had sent him to see the school counselor, and assigned a class aid to work with him. Mia had been the only one able to draw him out of his shell by taking him fishing, and riding their bikes around the lake.

  Since the beginning of their freshman year, he’d grown almost an entire foot, and had yet to shed his pudgy baby-face. After collecting countless bumps and bruises, he’d begun to manage his spindly arms and legs with some finesse. He even put in extra time at the gym that summer, hoping to make the varsity basketball team the next season. Mia was aware that he was becoming handsome with time, and worried she’d lose him as a friend once he started dating the countless girls who went out of their way to get his attention.

  “Your dad almost ran me over,” she told him, taking a sip from his untouched glass of milk. Gigi always poured him a glass with his pie, and for some reason he never drank it.

  “He’s in one of his moods.” Ben huffed, glancing up at her. As she sat on the bench at his side, his sky-blue eyes narrowed with annoyance. “If you hadn’t been so chicken about taking your driver’s exam, he wouldn’t have to keep giving me rides, and you wouldn’t have to deal with him.”

  Scowling, Mia slugged the rest of the milk down. She was scared she would never pass because she struggled with parallel parking. She wanted to ask her dad to teach her when he wasn’t so busy, but he was always fixing something.

  She hated that Ben mentioned the subject nearly every single day. And she hated how vulnerable, how exposed those beautiful blue eyes made her feel. “It’s not my fault you were born so late in the year. And besides, it’s too hot to do anything inland. We should take one of the resort’s boats to Sandy Beach.”

  He scarfed down the last of the pie, replying with a mouthful. “You really want to be seen pulling up to Sandy in one of those hunks of junk?”

  She crossed her arms over her budding chest. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Where’s Bella?”

  “My mom said she started early so she’d have more time to hang out.”

  “What about Matt and Liz?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows what Liz is doing. But I think Matt was on dock duty today.”

  Ben stood, nudging her shoulder. “Let’s go ask if he’ll take us out on his dad’s boat.”

  Mia’s cheeks warmed. “Do we have to?”

  Matthew Martin was the most beautiful boy alive. Wavy brown hair the color of walnuts, green eyes more brilliant than the stars whenever he’d tease her, square jaw, broad build, sharp features that made him appear closer to twenty than eighteen. He’d been voted the homecoming king, and was the star quarterback of the football team for three years in a row. Along with half the girls at their high school, Mia had crushed on him pretty hard throughout the past year.

  And the night before, he’d crushed her in a different way.

  Sometime after midnight, he’d climbed up to her bedroom on the second story, slurring her name. When she discovered him perched on the roof outside of her windows, stinking of cheap beer, his eyes shone like liquid silver in the pale moonlight. He had a dreamy look about him that reminded Mia of an untouchable movie star.

  “I have somethin’ important to ask you,” he’d said to her.

  Daring to think he was there to ask her to be his girlfriend, she’d sucked in a sharp breath and pressed her lips together. She realized she was mostly unremarkable at that age, as uniform as a board, and had yet to grow into her sharp facial features. Her shoulder-length blond hair was lackluster, and she struggled to keep acne outbreaks under control. Bella was the beauty in their family, having been admired by literally everyone in the community her entire life. She’d even been voted homecoming queen alongside Matt.

  “Does Bella ever talk about me?” he’d asked. “I’ve been thinking about askin’ her out before we leave. I know it’s crappy timing, but…there’s just somethin’ about her. Ya know?”

 
Heart deflating, she'd scowled back at him. A part of her wanted to shove him right off the roof. “That would be a dumb idea. No one goes to college with a new girlfriend going to a different school. It would never work. Besides, she thinks you’re stupid. She told me that just the other day.” The blatant lie had been better than giving into the tears burning behind her eyelids. With the look of defeat that crossed Matt’s face, however, she’d almost wished she could’ve taken it back.

  The light had left his eyes. “She thinks I’m stupid?”

  “Sorry, Matt.”

  Those were the last words they exchanged before he’d sulked away.

  Ben threw Mia a dark look eerily similar to the one she’d received from his dad just minutes earlier. “Why do girls have to act so damn weird? What is it about you that makes you seem happy one minute, and as crabby as a wet cat the next?”

  Mia had become accustomed to Ben’s occasional mood swings, but there was something about the sharp tone in his voice that made her take a step back. She nearly collided with her beloved grandmother, Gigi, as she was exiting the kitchen.

  Gigi’s halo of white hair stuck out around her head in kinky tufts from the combination of the summer humidity and the heat of the kitchen’s griddle. Eyes the same welcoming shade of brown as her daughter’s and granddaughter’s sparkled as her deeply creased lips twisted with a bright smile. After many decades of managing the resort she’d built along with Mia’s grandfather, Gigi was considerably energetic for her advanced age. Even after her beloved husband had passed from a stroke fifteen years before, Gigi remained loyal to keeping the family business running.