Shark Beach

by Chris Jameson

  “Yeah,” Emma said, looking at Jesse. “Good thing.”

  Kelsey took Jesse’s hand. “Thanks, Jess. You saved her life.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Jesse said. “But I definitely saved her from swallowing a lot more water.”

  “Well, if I drowned,” Emma said, “at least Mom and Dad would have to stop being assholes to each other for a few hours.”

  They all turned to look back through the trees, but they could see only the outline of their rental house and the glow of lights from within. With the sheriff’s deputy showing up at the house, and the tension between her parents, Emma worried far more about what was happening on dry land than she did about what happened in the ocean.

  But then she remembered the panic she’d felt when the wave had dragged her under, the terror as she’d swallowed water, the certainty that she would drown. And then Jesse’s arms around her, hoisting her out of the Gulf.

  Emma glanced up at him, touched his arm, and thanked him quietly. Jesse looked faintly embarrassed, but he managed a muted “You’re welcome.” Kelsey watched, smiling thinly, but this time she didn’t tease Emma about her crush.

  The storm might be coming, but it wasn’t here yet.

  “Let’s keep walking,” Emma said, gesturing further along the beach.

  “But no swimming,” Kelsey replied.

  Emma gave a nervous laugh, but she wasn’t afraid anymore. They were in paradise, after all, and nobody dies in paradise.

  CHAPTER 3

  Simone stood at the kitchen island in the beach house, slicing limes to squeeze into the bottles of some of the local beers they’d bought at the Island Market. The others were scattered around her—Nadia, Marianna, and Rashad at the kitchen table, Tyler and Kevin perched on the edge of the sofa. The TV in the living room had been muted, but nobody was looking at it anyway.

  Everyone’s attention was on the fucking cop.

  Not that Simone had any particular hatred for cops. Sure, way too many of them were either violent, racist bastards or totally fine with other cops being violent, racist bastards, but she had encountered her share of folks in blue who seemed to be genuinely interested in doing their jobs and wanted to improve their communities. And this particular woman did not seem to have any issue with Rashad being Pakistani American, or with any of the other brown people in the room. But she was still here, fucking up their night.

  Marianna was the first one to get fed up enough to say something. She pushed her chair back from the kitchen table and stared at the deputy. “You know this is ridiculous, right?”

  Deputy Hayes cocked her head, lasering in on Marianna. “Sorry?”

  Rashad shifted uncomfortably. “Be cool, guys.”

  “Guys?” Nadia said. “As in more than one of us? Nobody but Marianna has done anything but answer questions.”

  Simone sliced one last piece of lime, put down the knife, and picked up a beer. When Nadia seemed irritated, there was always the possibility of fireworks. Marianna shot Nadia a dark look, apparently hoping she wouldn’t start trouble.

  “Folks, I’m not sure what you’re getting upset about,” Deputy Hayes said. “If your friend Rashad was the one assaulted—”

  “If?” Marianna echoed.

  Kevin tutted the way Kevin always tutted. It normally irritated Simone, because Tyler had brought Kevin into this group. Tyler was the only one they’d all agreed could bring a significant other on this vacation, mainly because the rest of them only had insignificant others. But it still felt like presumption anytime Kevin acted like he had some intimate knowledge of them.

  “It’s pretty straightforward, Officer,” Tyler said, holding Kevin’s hand on the sofa, both of them very serious. “Rashad was nice to this man’s family, including his wife. The guy seemed to get angry.”

  “Jealous,” Kevin put in.

  “Jealous,” Tyler agreed. “Words were exchanged and the guy—”

  “Scully,” Simone said, finally speaking up as she twisted a lime wedge into the neck of her beer bottle and then took a sip. “His name’s Rick Scully.”

  Tyler shrugged. “Whoever he is, he shoved Rashad pretty hard. Like, slammed him in the chest. Rashad didn’t fall down and that seemed to make this Scully guy angrier. When he tried a second time, Rashad knocked his hands away and shoved him back. Scully fell on his ass. I admit we laughed, and I’m sure he was embarrassed in front of his family and friends, but whose fault is that? He started it. He assaulted Rashad. The push back was self-defense.”

  Deputy Hayes glanced around at them all. “Everyone agree with that version of events?”

  “Jesus.” Marianna sighed. “It’s not a fucking version. It’s what happened.”

  Rashad threw up his hands. “Look, Deputy, we’re right here. Nobody’s going anywhere unless you make us. I don’t deny I was kind of flirting with the lady, but it was all in good fun until Mr. Scully decided he needed to prove his manhood. I know you have a job to do and I respect that, and I know it’s harder to believe us than it is to believe them—”

  “Not necessarily,” the deputy said. “His wife and the other adults over there didn’t exactly contradict him, but they didn’t back up his version, either.”

  That was enough for Simone. She set her beer bottle down hard on the kitchen island counter. “Then what the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Simone,” Rashad warned.

  “No,” Nadia said, touching his shoulder. “Let her alone.”

  Simone knew that was Nadia just enjoying her flaring temper, but she didn’t care. She stayed where she was because she didn’t want the deputy to get nervous and accidentally shoot her in the kitchen, but she didn’t hide her frustration.

  “Seriously, Deputy,” Simone said, staring at the uniformed woman. “I know we’re younger, and college students on spring break have a reputation, and yes we’re drinking, and yes there was a scuffle, but we told you what happened and the guy’s own wife won’t back his play, so why are you still here? With everything else going on, don’t you have something better to do?”

  The deputy’s weary politeness cracked. She inhaled sharply and straightened her spine, looked as if she might be trying to decide how much trouble she would get into if she smashed Simone’s head into the kitchen island.

  “I don’t get to decide which calls I respond to and which I don’t,” she said. “But you’re right. Here I am giving you kids the benefit of the doubt, when I could certainly be doing something much better with my time.”

  Simone felt her throat go dry. “I wasn’t … I didn’t mean…”

  Deputy Hayes fixed her with icy blue eyes. “You should stop talking now.”

  Rashad sighed. “Good idea. Thanks for suggesting it.”

  The deputy looked at him. “I believe you, Rashad. I don’t think Mr. Scully is a bad guy, but I think he’s embarrassed and taking it out on you. For everyone’s sake, I hope he decides not to press charges. Less trouble for everyone involved.”

  Deputy Hayes glanced at Kevin and Tyler on the couch. “I’ll see myself out.”

  She walked toward the door. Simone followed her, trying to find the words to apologize. The woman had come in with an open mind, trying to do her job, and Simone and Marianna had made it difficult for her.

  “Deputy…”

  Hayes drew open the door. The wind howled past them both. “Keep an eye on the forecast. If it hasn’t changed for the positive by morning, get your asses out of here.”

  Then she was gone, tugging the door closed behind her.

  Simone shook her head as she locked the door. Unlike a lot of her friends, she tended not to drink herself into oblivion for amusement or to escape her troubles, but tonight felt like a good night for beer. A lot of beer.

  “Well!” Tyler said, clapping his hands as Simone walked back through the house. “We won’t forget this vacation!”

  Nadia shoved Rashad playfully. “That’s for fucking sure.”

  Simone retrieved her beer from
the counter, grabbed a second one and two more lime wedges, then opened the sliding glass door and went out onto the screen porch at the back of the house.

  “Anyone wants to join me out here, I’ll be drinking in silence and wondering if we’ve made a terrible decision by staying here.”

  Rashad was the first to join her. Nadia and Marianna followed, and Kevin and Tyler went upstairs to have sex. While the four of them didn’t drink in silence, Simone got the feeling they were all wondering what tomorrow would bring.

  The leaves on the palm trees behind the house bent with the gusting winds and they could hear the crashing of the surf even from this distance. A light rain began to fall, whipping sideways, spattering through the screen and forcing them all to shift their chairs backward to keep from getting wet. In the sky, thunder rolled, muffled and far off, but promising more.

  “So much for paradise,” Nadia said, after her third or fourth beer.

  “It is what it is,” Rashad said, slumping in his chair with a nodding wisdom. “Even Eden had a snake in it.”

  * * *

  Jim Lennox had lived on Sanibel Island for twenty-three years, and in that time it had gone from feeling like heaven to feeling like a prison. His marriage hadn’t fared much better. Once upon a time he had viewed Kris as his guardian angel, and now he called her his warden, often to her face. They had been together a quarter century, starting off across the bar at Dunphy’s Upstairs Lounge, a century-old drinking hole in Philadelphia frequented by a lot of the players in the city’s advertising and marketing fields. Lennox had been in there twice a week with clients—big man, rolling high, paying the tab—and the gorgeous Caribbean princess tending bar had caught his eye the very first time. He’d been performing for her ever since, like he was DiCaprio in some Martin Scorsese movie instead of director of client services at an ad agency. He wasn’t even a creative. What the fuck did he have to be proud of, except his expense account?

  Two months later, she’d finally broken it off with a loser boyfriend who had been selling drugs on the side—and banging his female customers who would do anything for a discount—and Lennox had taken her home.

  Her home, of course. Lennox couldn’t take Kris to his own house because back in those days, his family had been living in it. First wife, Noreen. Two sons who had been toddlers at the time. A lot of guys had women on the side, especially in his business. Some of those fuckers even took the women away with them on business trips, traveling with colleagues, acting like everyone should just ignore it. Maybe those wives missed the signs or maybe they looked the other way, but not Noreen. She smelled Kris on him, more than once. Told him he smelled like a strip club, and that once might be a hug from a client or an actual night at a strip club, twice was suspicious, and a third time was pussy on the side—and she wouldn’t stand for that.

  Noreen was as good as her word.

  His wife tossing him out of the house, dumping his clothes on the driveway, smashing his old acoustic guitar, had a curious effect on him. Lennox could have taken the path so many guys he knew had followed, moved into some apartment, taken whatever custody deal a judge would allow, worked his ass off to maintain an income that bled out to the ex and the kids but left him no money to spoil the women who’d been worth it all—but fuck that.

  Lennox had grown up fishing the Delaware River, and at the Jersey shore in summertime. All through college, fishing had been the only thing that really made him happy. Noreen had claimed she understood, but he had always seen the truth behind her eyes, that she begrudged him that time, and the second she gave birth to Timmy, their first, his fishing days had been over. After fucking in the back of his Audi one night, he had told Kris his real dream was just to buy a little fishing boat, move to Florida, and do charter trips and dolphin tours; spend his life at sea, in the sun, and never put on a goddamn suit again, not even for his own funeral. Kris had looked at him with those green eyes, little golden sparkles in them, and told him that sounded like Heaven.

  They’d done it. At first, he had seen his sons a couple times a year, but by the time the younger one hit high school, he had stopped trying. The boys were even less interested in him than he was in them, and there seemed no point in pretending. Last he’d heard—about six years back—Timmy had joined the Marines. What had become of the younger one, Drew, he had no idea. If they wanted to find him, they were grown men now. Their mother knew where he lived.

  Heaven. Sanibel hadn’t turned into Hell for him, but yeah, prison was a good word for it. Kris had wanted children, but Lennox had convinced her that was a bad idea, been so persuasive that she had believed it herself for a long time. Now the resentment had piled up. Once she had been a free spirit, came out on fishing charters with him, entertained the tourists, but then she had gotten a job in a real estate management company and her sense of humor—of fun—had withered on that particular fucking vine. She came home tired, and he had learned not to ask her how she could possibly be more tired than he was after a day hauling fish out of the Gulf and babysitting tourists who sucked at fishing and thought they knew every damn thing about boating.

  Fifty-three years old, and Lennox wanted to run again, take off on yet another wife. He had been thinking about it for the past couple of years and had decided on Seattle, for a change of pace. Trouble was, what little money he had was invested in the business and his boat, and Kris had always kept their finances separate. Maybe because she’d seen the way he’d vanished on his first family and always suspected he had it in him to become a ghost again.

  Which meant he needed money.

  All of his trips had canceled. He had deposits from the charter clients, and some of the tickets he’d sold for dolphin watches and shelling day trips were nonrefundable, but this hurricane was sucking money out of his wallet already, and nobody even knew if it would make landfall in Florida. A lot of boat owners and fishermen had already started relocating their craft, moving them up the Caloosahatchee River toward Fort Myers, finding a mooring up there. Others figured that was premature and were rolling the dice for now. Most of those who were staying behind would keep an eye on the forecast and lift their boats out of the water if the storm came calling.

  Lennox had other plans. He knew the old-timers on Sanibel and Captiva used to shelter in Braynerd Bayou over in Buck Key, or in the bayous in the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. If the blow turned out to be anything less than catastrophic, his boat—the Kristen, naturally—ought to be safe there, and it meant he could take shelter at the last minute, which was good, because Lennox had some errands to do on Captiva if the storm really started to kick up.

  All of those houses on the Pine Island side were owned by rich fuckers. Some were rented to comfortably middle-class folks week to week—people on vacation—but not all. The ones that weren’t rented, that were owner occupied all winter and empty much of the summer, would be full of the owners’ precious possessions right now. Lennox knew which houses were which, and he had a pretty good idea about who had already left for the mainland during the voluntary evacuation. As the wind picked up, glass might shatter. Doors might blow open. Burglar alarms were certainly going to go off, but nobody would be coming out to check on them until after the storm passed, meaning a guy with a boat might tie off at one private dock after another, rob a few of those mini-palaces, and sail away as soon as the storm was over.

  He doubted Kris would miss him. Seattle would be colder, and rainier, but after twenty-three summers in Florida, he was ready for it. Lennox had never robbed anyone before, but that hadn’t been due to any moral hesitation. He had just never needed money badly enough to take the risk, never had an opportunity like this before.

  If the storm really came knocking, she might just break him out of the prison his Heaven had become. Lennox figured he was the only one praying for rain, for waves, for winds that would scour the island clean.

  Hurricane Juliet might just be his saving grace.

  * * *

  Maurice Broaddus had d
riven back to his little one-bedroom condo just long enough to take the dog out for a short walk and fill her food and water bowls. The air-conditioner sounded clanky and he knew he ought to take a look or shut it off until he could find the time, but the humidity outside was suffocating and he didn’t want to leave Sugar to pant and sweat on his own until he could sneak home again.

  “You’ll be all right, pup,” he said, crouching by the door. He held the dog’s head in his hands, tugging on the loose skin of Sugar’s face. “Gunther next door is going to come and check on you tomorrow, feed you if Daddy can’t make it back. Maybe by the time I get home, I’ll have done something you can really be proud of.”

  Sugar licked his face. He kissed the dog’s snout and then slipped out the door, knowing Sugar would whine for a few minutes and then shuffle back to his favorite spot on the living room floor and conk out for a while before hunger dragged him into the kitchen. Lazy dog, he thought, a smile on his face.

  When he stepped outside, whipped by the wind, his smile vanished.

  Broaddus got into his car and started it up. When he flicked on the headlights, their beams illuminated the palm trees at the edge of the condo parking lot, and he could see the way the trees bent and swayed. A tremor of regret passed through him as he wondered whether he ought to have left the island already. Too late now, though. He’d promised Dr. Tremblay that he would stay and guard the Institute, and he would keep that promise, with one significant exception. No man could protect the world from himself.

  It started to rain again as he pulled out of the parking lot and turned toward the Institute. The rain, strangely cold, had come in pockets thus far. It would drizzle for ten minutes and be dry for an hour, then it would pour for five minutes as if the apocalypse had come, and then dry up again.