The Hidden: A Novel of Suspense

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Crime is a fact of the human species, a fact of that species alone, but it is above all the secret aspect, impenetrable and hidden. Crime hides, and by far the most terrifying things are those which elude us.

—Georges Bataille

But how do we recognize ourselves? How can man know himself? He is a dark and hidden thing.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

P R O L O G U E

M I D S U M M E R – L A T E  F A L L

Midsummer

HE MADE HIS WAY slowly down the steep, winding cliffside path. From there, the curved stretch of beach below looked deserted. Clean white sand studded with scattered chunks and piles of driftwood and dark wormy ribbons of kelp. But there were sheltered places under the long rocky overhang toward the bottom that you couldn’t see until you were all the way down.

Clouds shifted away from the moon, and the sand and the slow-breaking waves lit up with a kind of iridescent white glow. A long yellow-white streak appeared on the ocean’s surface, extending out over some of the offshore rocks where the gulls nested, giving their limed surfaces a patch-painted look. He paused to take in the view. Nice night. Warmish, not much wind. The tide just beginning to come in. He liked nights like this, quiet, peaceful, empty, as if he had the sea and the scalloped shoreline all to himself.

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