We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Cut, a chilling supernatural horror novel by C.J. Dotson, out from St. Martin’s Press on April 8.
A historic hotel long past its prime and huddled along The Cut, a questionable Lake Erie beach, isn’t Sadie Miles’ ideal place to raise a toddler while also navigating her second pregnancy. After finally fleeing her abusive ex-fiancé, though, Sadie’s new housekeeping position and free room at L’Arpin Hotel are the best she can manage.
On her first night, Sadie runs to help a guest struggling in the hotel’s pool only to find the water calm and empty when she gets there, leaving her with a lingering unease. When a guest then goes missing and her manager insists they simply left without checking out, Sadie suspects he’s covering up darker goings-on in the hotel.
After her ex, Sadie won’t let anyone convince her that what she’s experiencing isn’t real again. So, she keeps digging, quickly uncovering suspicious interactions with the staff, mysteriously vanishing security cameras, more missing guests, and things that go bump in the night…and drip in the walls, slither in the tub, and squirm in the halls. Everything isn’t as it seems within the dim hallways of L’Arpin. Sadie has nowhere to go and nowhere to hide; she’ll need to keep her wits about her to survive and keep her toddler and unborn child safe from whatever lurks nearby.
PROLOGUE
A Moonless Gloom
The beach looked different by night.
A man stood at the bottom of a steep concrete staircase, one hand on the metal railing, a rough patch of peeling paint pressing into his palm. In his other hand, he held a leash looped around his fist, clip swinging free.
Earlier, with a pristine blue sky and bright sun glittering off the expanse of Lake Erie, with the cry of seagulls and the indistinct voices of people going about their day, and with Rosie sniffing the sand and splashing out into the water as far as her leash would let her, he never could have imagined how unsettling it would feel here after dark.
Clouds had swept in sometime between sunset and the dog’s escape from his yard, casting the night into a moonless gloom that should have swathed the beach in shadows. Instead, white light blazed to the right. Floodlights, belonging to the power plant, merely ugly during the day, now a hulking presence crouched over the sand and water. Behind him a shallow shale cliff stood about twice his height, the trees and scruffy bushes lining its edge, giving it the appearance of a more forbidding stature. Their autumn-dry leaves rattled in the wind coming off the lake. Just visible above the branches, the top floors of an old hotel overlooked the lake with the dead-eyed blank stare of windows either dark or curtained and impersonal.
“Rosie!”
At his call, the crickets in the scruffy grass bordering the beach fell silent, but only for a moment. The movement of the tiny almost-waves against the sand sounded like an admonishing hush. Sshh, sshh, sshh, over and over.
He ignored the warning and shouted once more, a little louder, “Rosie!”
There—in the water. What was that?
A shape moved on the surface, low and dark, bobbing near the end of the rocky pier jutting out into the lake.
“Rosie?”
Splashing rose above the soft susurrus of wind and wavelet.
“Rosie!”
Toeing off his shoes, he stepped from concrete to soft, cool sand. He crossed the beach in a rush, bracing for the shock of cold as he ran into the lake, surprised to find it warmer than the night air.
Wet jeans clung to his shins, then to his knees. The shape on the surface drew nearer.
“Come on, Rosie-girl! Come on, baby, let’s go home!”
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The farther out he waded the harder it became to hurry. The water climbed up under his shirt now, and with the depth came some of the chill he’d expected.
“You want a treat, Rosie?” he called, half out of breath.
Rosie barked. He knew his dog’s soft boof-boof anywhere. Relief flooded him, but under it ran a current of almost wary confusion; that bark had come from somewhere behind him. Somewhere on shore.
Nowhere near the low, dark shape splashing nearer to him.
Even as he turned, Rosie barked again, a little softer or a little farther away.
He pursed his lips and whistled. “Rosie, stay! C’mon, girl, wait—”
The faintest hint of light swirled in the corner of his eye and he turned back. Nothing. Lake Erie looked like ink beneath the dark sky. Had he imagined that glimmer? No, there it was again, barely discernible under the weak reflections of the floodlight. If the clouds hadn’t moved in, he never would’ve noticed it at all.
There, again. Nearer. Just like that shadow floating on the surface, which … which—which was gone.
Dread—unexpected and unreasoning but total—coiled in his gut, as cold as he’d thought the water should’ve been.
The shore waited but too far away, the water too deep to run through. The pier, he had to get to the pier instead, clamber up onto the rocks and then he could run. Yes, then he could run, but from what? Nothing he understood, and this nebulousness gave the fear teeth, a sharp scrape under his skin, in his bones.
Something brushed his ankle. He barely had time to feel it before the touch tightened. He drew a sharp breath but had no chance to cry out—before disappearing beneath the surface.
From farther away Rosie barked again.
The lake whispered against the shore. The wind hissed in the leaves. The clouds hid the moon. Nothing more broke the stillness of the night.
CHAPTER ONE
At Least Appear Confident
Though it was a handful of minutes past three in the morning, the idea that the bathroom doorknob might turn at any moment made the skin on the back of Sadie Miles’s neck prickle. Still, while she waited the two minutes for the pregnancy test to show its result, she didn’t lock the door. She’d made that mistake when Sam had first hit her—opening the floodgates of his rage for the first time—and then never again.
It had been easy to ignore the weight settling down around her anytime she thought about marrying Samuel Keller. The wedding wasn’t until next September, eleven months away, and though Sadie had never allowed herself to scrutinize the thought, she’d reminded herself more than once that plans sometimes change. Anything could happen. And even if nothing changed, she couldn’t imagine life beyond the wedding day anyway—beyond Sam smiling for the guests as he read his wedding vow to Sadie and a new-stepparent vow to Izzy. Her thoughts always turned away from the days and months and years that would follow.
Now her imagination finally kicked in, finally showed her not the night-dark bathroom she sat in nor the white-dress fantasy of the wedding, but her future.
The unborn baby held hostage through the whole pregnancy.
New motherhood again, adjusting to having a toddler and an infant while dancing around Sam’s whims.
Sam giving up the charade of caring about Izzy.
Sadie taking the blame for every bump and bruise Sam’s baby collected while learning to crawl or walk. Hiding her own bruises.
Sam realizing the baby would be all the hold over Sadie he’d ever need.
Her phone lit up, the two-minute timer on silent. She used the screen’s light to look at the test, her heart lurching faster.
Two lines.
“I’m pregnant,” Sadie whispered, and she heard the fear in her voice a second before it swelled cold and thick in her chest and tight in her throat.
She sank to her knees in the dark, feeling her way through the bathroom cupboard. Her trembling fingers closed over her tampon box, and she withdrew it quietly. Breath caught in her throat, she tucked the positive pregnancy test underneath the neatly wrapped cylinders and then closed the flap with delicate care. Only after she slid the box back into the cupboard did she examine what she was doing.
Because if she had a child with Sam Keller, plans would never change enough to let them escape.
That word struck her like a blow. Sadie froze on the floor as if afraid the mere thought of it would summon Sam and all his wrath. But he never came, and when she dragged herself back to lie awake in bed that single word lingered and grew in her mind all through that dark, dismal night.
Escape.
For three days, Sadie carefully avoided even glancing at the walk-in closet where they stored the suitcases. For three days, that one word chased itself around her mind while she cleaned the living room, while she braided Izzy’s hair, while she shared Sam’s bed, while she cooked, while she read her book club’s monthly pick, helped Sam with his tie for a formal appearance as Finneytown’s mayor, went to the store, checked the mailbox.
On the fourth day, she woke with the knowledge that if she didn’t act now she never would. She moved through that morning with electricity buzzing under her skin, her face stiff and cold, every breath thin and strained. But Sam noticed nothing, said nothing, even as she forced a smile and held stone-still while he kissed her cheek and then stepped out into the garage.
Sadie scurried to the front window and didn’t breathe as she watched, carefully obscured by the curtains and blinds, while Sam pulled his low-slung purple coupe out of the driveway and onto their quiet street. The thinning shade of trees already losing their leaves slid over his car as he accelerated. He slowed at the stop sign, then turned left.
He drove out of sight.
Sadie’s lungs burned. She didn’t inhale yet. Counted to ten.
Then she sucked in a shaking gasp and whirled. She didn’t look at Izzy’s toybox in the living room as she hurried past it to the hallway. They’d have to leave a lot behind. Too much. Right now, her toddler sat buckled into a booster seat, cheerfully crushing blueberries with her thumbs instead of eating them, but confusion and hurt waited in Izzy’s future. The thought nearly pushed Sadie’s breath right back out of her.
She’d find a way to make it right. She would. She could, if they got out now.
Her steps grew faster. Sadie twisted her engagement ring off her finger. As she crossed into the hallway she broke into a run, scrambling for those suitcases.
Sam wouldn’t be home from city hall until dinnertime, but Sadie didn’t have a second to lose.
Four days and nearly two hundred and fifty miles later, Sadie surveyed the truck stop’s public shower stall—ill-lit and dingy in spite of the lingering odor of bleach—and a dizzying swell of pride nearly lifted her off her feet.
She’d gotten them this far.
She shut the door and twisted the dead bolt, then turned to Izzy and warned her, “Don’t touch anything in here yet, stinker.”
The sudden buzz in her pocket wiped the smile off Sadie’s face. A thread of tension pulled her shoulders stiff. Sam? Or maybe only Mr. Drye calling about the interview this afternoon. If not for that possibility, she’d have put her phone on mute and tried to forget all about it. Sadie let go of Izzy’s hand and angled herself to hide the worry in her eyes, then checked her phone.
Sam’s name lit up the screen. Sadie’s stomach twisted and her chest tightened. She turned the phone over and set it face down on the counter next to the door without swiping to ignore the call. Giving him even that much attention would be a mistake.
Sadie pushed her red hair back from her face and ran her fingers through it, snagging on a couple tangles. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing for a few seconds, settling herself.
When she opened her eyes, Izzy sat tracing the lines between the tiles with her fingers.
“Isabelle Miles,” Sadie said with an exasperated sigh. “What have I told you about touching the floor in bathrooms?”
“No.”
Sadie hesitated. Was no the answer, or a refusal to answer? At three years old, Izzy had entered a contrary stage. Maybe if Sadie reacted the right way, she could encourage better behavior today.
“That’s right, stinker. No sitting on the floor in bathrooms. Stand up for Mommy, please?”
Izzy jumped to her feet with a smile, and Sadie breathed a sigh of relief. Even with permission, showing up to her interview with a toddler in tow felt risky. Showing up with a toddler set on tantrums and misbehavior would be disastrous.
“Let’s get undressed, baby. We need to get all clean before we go meet the hotel man, okay?”
“I’m all clean already!” Izzy protested.
“Well, let’s get double clean, okay?” Sadie helped Izzy pile their clothes, along with her own purse and glasses, away from possible splashes or puddles, and opened the shower stall.
Within, the smell of bleach intensified. Sadie wrinkled her nose. Just like when she’d been pregnant with Izzy, her nose had given her the first clue this time as well. Sadie tried to ignore it as she started their shower.
“Are we going home soon?” Izzy’s innocent question broke Sadie’s train of thought. She’d asked the same thing each day they’d spent at the motel in Columbus, now a three-hour car ride behind them, never mind that Sadie had told her every time that they were going to find a new home as soon as they could.
Sadie rinsed herself off and decided to roll with Izzy’s question this time. With a gentle hand she tilted Izzy’s head back to shampoo her hair while answering, “Kind of, stinker. We’re going to a nice hotel today to see if I can get a job there for a little while, and we’ll find somewhere good to stay close to there, okay?”
“Okay, but no more car, Mommy.”
Rinsing accomplished, Sadie shut off the water and moved quickly to wrap Izzy in a towel before she had time to fuss about the cold.
“A little more car,” she said. For a three-year-old, Izzy had been an angel during the two hours they’d spent driving from Finneytown, Ohio, to Columbus, and again during the longer drive north from Columbus all the way up to the run-down lakeside town of Walton. “If you’re good, after Mommy’s interview we can go see the big lake, okay?”
“Opay.” Izzy’s tone held the warning tremble of an incoming tantrum.
Something close to panic fluttered in Sadie’s chest, but she kept it out of her voice as she toweled herself off. “Mommy needs you to be good today, okay? I need the job at the nice hotel or—” She paused, sucking in a breath and holding it for an instant before letting it out again. The money dwindled day by day, and Sadie had watched enough special reports and true crime shows to be wary of withdrawing more or using her credit card. Burdens like that didn’t belong on Izzy’s little shoulders, though. She knelt next to her daughter and unwound the smaller towel enough to help her dry off. “I need the job so I can take better care of us. That means I need the people I’m going to talk to today to like me. Can you be a good girl for Mommy, to show them how nice we are? Will you help me?”
After a moment, Izzy’s impending pout turned into a bright grin. “Opay!”
Some of Sadie’s nerves eased, but not all. She knew better than to trust the fickle moods of a toddler. Especially a toddler in the middle of a total life upheaval. Sadie had no choice, though. So she tried to get a handle on her anxiety as she helped her daughter get dressed in a clean unicorn-patterned outfit before pulling on a cream turtleneck sweater dress and dark purple leggings. She could have showered and bathed Izzy at the motel, could have dressed herself and her daughter in their nicer clothes before they got in the car, but she didn’t want to risk spoiling or wrinkling them with the long drive—these presentable outfits represented the only clothes from what she’d haphazardly thrown into her suitcase that might pass for interview-worthy.
Another worry: their clothing. Most of Izzy’s winter clothes wouldn’t fit her this year. And though Sadie’s pregnancy wasn’t showing yet, in only a few short months she’d need at least a few new outfits. Sadie added that concern onto every other burden and fear slowing her steps and speeding her heartbeat and then shoved them all as deep down as she could manage. She and Izzy emerged from the shower room, clean and put together and ready to at least appear confident.
Until she buckled Izzy into her car seat, slid behind the wheel, and started the car. She watched the needle on the fuel gauge rise by the tiniest fraction and let out a muttered curse as it stopped to hover just on the line over E. They barely had enough gas to reach their destination.
“I better get this job,” she sighed. If worse came to worst, she didn’t want to find herself stranded at L’Arpin Hotel.
The Cut. Copyright © 2025 by Chelsea Young. All rights reserved.
