The phantom cottage

the long version

A hit-and-run accident leaves Laura Crane enshrouded in mystery, as enigmatic in death as she had been in life. No relative comes forward to claim kin to the girl, who died alone on a crowded Manhattan street. But in Jane Warren, Laura found one true friend. Fleeing from the memory of a broken love affair, Jane quits New York for a little Cape Cod town where Laura once stayed. There she meets Gabe Harmon, who once knew Laura. With his help, Jane rents a windswept cottage by the sea. Soon she realizes there is something very wrong: the specter of a dead girl's past has traced her steps. Long shadows stretch across Jane's solitary path, and at its end a shapeless evil waits. (book cover description)