I decided to clear my head. At least, that’s what I thought I was doing. I looked back along the beach and saw my footprints in the sand as far back as I could see in the dark. Other people had walked on this beach, left their own footprints. Some had faded, others mingled with my own on their way to the water.

Ahead of me, the moonlight caught on some wind chimes that hung in the windows of little driftwood huts. You could rent one for the night, if you really wanted. I’d looked into it. Kept my options open, but hadn’t thought to much of the fact that an abnormally high tide could wash the shack, with me in it mind you, out to the horizon.

People come to the beach to walk all the time, with the intent to clear their heads with the sea air and chilly, ocean spray. But something was bugging me more than this salty mist could cure.

How did I get on this damn beach?

I’d been drunk in my hotel room. There was a dead man on the floor. The man from the picture I’d found in the girl’s suitcase. Then… what?

I picked up a shell. I had nothing else to do. My legs were tired and my bare arms burned, the hair on them matted to my cold skin. The ridges on the rough shell dug into the pad of my thumb. It hurt, but it felt nice in an odd way.

Suddenly I was blinded by a flash of white light. Then, just as the reddish hue had begun to fade from my vision, the light flashed again. At first I thought I’d stumbled upon a lighthouse, stupidly oblivious to the fact that it had turned its light on when the sun set. But then the noise behind the flash made sense. A snap followed by a rapid clicking.

I rubbed my eyes with numb fingers, managed to get the red out of the way this time. No third flash came after the clicking. I focused and found a silhouette before me, against the lights coming down from the balconies and hotel rooms lining the beach. Then I heard her laughing.

As laughs go, this one was fairly innocent. She’d gotten a kick out of momentarily blinding me. So I waved and walked over to her.

“Where did you come from?” I asked her.

“The train station,” she said and I might have heard a click again, this time in my own head.

“You’re the girl I bought the case from,” I said. I’d stopped about four feet down the beach from her. Her face was in shadow, but she looked familiar. She continued to wind the camera in her hand. “And you took my picture.”

“I want my case back,” she said and raised her camera for another picture. I raised my hand to protect my eyes from the flash, but I was too late. The spots bloomed in my vision.

“Can you knock that off?” I said.

“Sure,” she said, but I heard her thumb working away to wind the camera again.

“Look,” I said. “You can have the case back. I just want to know a couple of things.”

“You want to know who that man was in the picture,” she said. “And you want to know how you got to this beach.”

“I want-” I stammered. Lost for words I took a step backward instead. She didn’t move toward me. In fact, she hadn’t moved at all throughout the whole conversation except to wind her camera.

“I took the picture of that man,” she said. “I found him rooting around my kitchen one day looking for something expensive.”

“Then how the hell did he end up in my hotel room?” I said. My legs felt like cement.

“That was my friend,” she said. Fresh waves crashed behind us, closer than they’d been when we started talking.

“Your friend,” I said. “And was it ‘your friend’ who brought me out to this beach?”

“That’s right,” she said. “He helped me find you, then he helped you find us. He’s very good at finding people.”