by Landon Beach
As far as the cave complex, the Hatteras, and the house on the cliff, the authorities found everything abandoned when they arrived. Granted, it had taken 48 hours to get a team up there, which had given someone enough time to wipe everything clean and escape. They had a description of the man named Sanders, and Trist and Jill had collaborated for the sketch. Even now, he had not been located. The Hatteras had been sold at an auction and was now homeported in Key West. There had been a brief news story about the disappearance of millionaire Grant Livingston—Trist knew better.
As for Evangeline Bertram, Trist knew very little about what had happened after that night. After the horrific and heroic end of his father, Trist had found the sailboat in a hidden cove while traveling south that night. He had rigged Levity, and they towed it until they reached the first town. Evangeline had remained quiet, curled up in a bunk below deck, for most of the ride. The last place Trist had seen her was at the small-town police station. At first, they were split up and interviewed separately and then brought together for a grueling 4-hour group interview.
Trist turned out the salon light and went up the companionway steps. He slid the boards into place that covered the aft portion of the entrance and then pulled the hatch cover over until the clasp fit securely over the metal eye coming out of the top board. He ran a padlock through the eye and locked it shut.
Standing up, he closed his eyes and felt the first breeze of a cool Michigan summer night. He inhaled, held the breath, and then exhaled.
He gave Robin’s Nest a loving pat on the helm as he headed for the dock and then the house to have tea with his mother. Tomorrow was the end of one adventure and the beginning of another.
✽✽✽
Beecher Hardware’s front door chimed as two customers entered air conditioning, heaven compared to the unusually hot June afternoon. Tyee emerged from the back room behind the register. He was still dressed in a suit after coming back to the store from his nephew’s graduation less than an hour ago. There was a small party planned out at his sister’s house in another hour, so he had decided to stay dressed up, though he hated it.
“Help you find anything?” Tyee said to the woman. The man had crouched down out of sight a few aisles over.
“No thank you,” she said politely and approached. “I’m just here with my husband. New in town.”
Tyee went to extend his hand, but it was interrupted by the man’s baritone voice.
“Sherry, look at this.”
She smiled at Tyee as if to say I’ll be right back and headed over to the aisle where the man was.
Tyee watched from behind the register as she crouched down. He heard murmuring, and then they both rose up and started walking toward him.
Tyee studied the man. He was a few inches shorter than Tyee, perhaps a few years older but it was hard to tell because the man walked like he had an infinite bundle of energy. He was also dressed and carried himself like a man who was not pretending to be something he was not. His eyes were intense.
The woman extended her hand. “Sherry,” she said.
Tyee took it and could tell that the gesture was genuine; he’d had his share of fake handshakes and pleasantries over the years.
She let go of his hand and moved to the side. “And this is my husband—”
“Abner Hutch,” the man said and shook Tyee’s hand firmly.
“Tyee Beecher,” he replied.
“Owner, huh?” Hutch said.
Tyee nodded.
“About time I met a hardware store owner who had his bolts and washers properly labeled and separated.” Hutch snickered. “You’ll be gettin’ my business. Although, I’m not sure about this suit and tie nonsense.”
“Nephew’s graduation,” Tyee said.
“Acceptable answer,” Hutch said while rubbing Sherry’s back.
She lovingly rolled her eyes. “Don’t mind this old salt,” she said. “He’s got a big heart.”
“Hey,” Hutch said. “Let’s not be sharing the family secrets just yet.”
Tyee punched up the washers and bolts on the register. “Secret is safe with me,” he said flatly.
Hutch studied Tyee’s eyes, then relaxed a bit. “Somehow, I believe you.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you for reading my book. As an independent author, my success greatly depends on my readers. I know it can be a pain, but I would appreciate it if you could take a moment and leave a quick review (Amazon, BookBub, and/or Goodreads).
If you would like more information on upcoming books, please sign-up for my email list through my website (landonbeachbooks.com) or follow Landon Beach Books on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
If you enjoyed the book, please tell others about it!
As far as The Sail…
It’s mostly fiction, my friends. However, the Edmund Fitzgerald was a real ship with brave men who were lost in a major tragedy. If the Griffon is the holy grail of Great Lakes shipwrecks, then the Edmund Fitzgerald is the most famous shipwreck, resting in 529 feet of water north of Whitefish Point. Beyond the commemorative and haunting ballad by Gordon Lightfoot, the Edmund Fitzgerald will forever be linked to Lake Superior. In fact, whenever I mention Lake Superior to someone, the Edmund Fitzgerald is usually one of the first topics that we discuss. Even though the subject occupies only a few pages in this novel, I have tried to recount the tale in a factual and respectful manner. As someone who has been to sea for a living, I know what it is like to put my life in the hands of other capable sailors; I also know what it is like to lose a shipmate. In his book, The Great Lakes Diving Guide, author Cris Kohl notes that, “Broken in half, this controversial wreck has been visited by submersibles, but only once by a pair of trimix divers (1995). The wreck victims’ families have asked that no further visitations take place to the largest shipwreck in the Great Lakes” (p.394). It is this author’s hope that these wishes will be respected. A few books that stood out in my research were: The Great Lakes Diving Guide and The 100 Best Great Lakes Shipwrecks, Volume II, both by Cris Kohl, Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, by Paul Hancock, Indian Names in Michigan by Virgil J. Vogel, and, of course, Hamlet by William Shakespeare—a play that continues to inform my life with each new reading.
Next up: The Cabin.
A Lake Superior-sized thanks to MB, BB, JBx2, EL, and APH who all provided helpful comments on an early draft and to my editor, ED; your perspectives and friendship mean everything to me. To my fans (The Beachreaders), thank you for your support, and I hope The Sail delivered. I look forward to entertaining all of you for many years to come. My deepest gratitude to my devoted mom, talented dad, and supportive sister. Finally, I could not have done this without my dedicated wife and two wonderful girls. Your love, emotional sustenance, and encouragement have guided me on this fun journey!
Happy Beach Reading!
L.B.
If you enjoyed The Sail, expand your adventure with The Wreck, the first book in The Great Lakes series. Here is an excerpt to start the journey.
PROLOGUE
LAKE HURON, MICHIGAN: SUMMER 2007
The Hunter 49’s motor cut, and the luxury yacht glided with no running lights on. Cloud cover hid the moon and stars; the water looked black. A man in a full wetsuit moved forward in the cockpit and after verifying the latitude and longitude, pushed the GPS monitor’s “off” button. The LCD color display vanished.
Waves beat against the hull, heavier seas than had been predicted. He would have to be efficient or he’d need to reposition the boat over the scuttle site again. The chronometer above the navigation station read 0030. This should have been finished 30 minutes ago. Not only had the boat been in the wrong slip, forcing him to search the marina in the dark, the owner—details apparently escaped that arrogant prick—had not filled the fuel tank.
He headed below and opened the aft stateroom door. The woman’s naked corpse lay strapped to the berth, the nipples of her large breasts pointing at the overhead. A careful lift of the port-side bench reve
aled black wiring connecting a series of three explosive charges. After similar checks of the wiring and charges in the gutted-out galley and v-berth, he smiled to himself and went topside with a pair of night vision goggles.
A scan of the horizon. Nothing.
He closed and locked the aft hatch cover. Moving swiftly—but never rushing—he donned a mask and fins, then pulled a remote detonation device from the pocket of his wetsuit. Two of the four buttons were for the explosives he had attached to the outside of the hull underwater, which would sink the boat. The bottom two were for the explosives he had just checked on the interior.
He looked back at the cockpit and for a moment rubbed his left hand on the smooth fiberglass hull. What a waste of a beautiful boat. How much had the owner paid for it? Three...Four-hundred thousand? Some people did live differently. With the night vision goggles hanging on his neck and the remote for the explosives in his right hand, he slipped into the water and began to kick.
Fifty yards away he began to tread water and looked back at the yacht. It listed to starboard, then to port, as whitecaps pushed against the hull. He pressed the top two buttons on the remote. The yacht lifted and then began to lower into the water; the heaving sea had less and less effect as more of the boat submerged. In under a minute, the yacht was gone. He held his fingers on the bottom two buttons but did not push them. The water was deep, and it would take three to four minutes for the boat to reach the lake bed.
At four minutes, he pushed the bottom two buttons, shut the remote, and zipped it back into his wetsuit pocket. He treaded water for half an hour. Nothing surfaced.
He swam for five minutes, stopped, scanned the area with his night vision goggles, and swam again.
After an hour of this, he pulled the goggles over his head and let them sink to the bottom. He continued his long swim to shore.
1
HAMPSTEAD, MICHIGAN: SUMMER 2008
The sand felt cool under Nate Martin’s feet as he walked hand-in-hand with his wife down to the water. A bonfire crackled away on their beach behind them—the sun had set 30 minutes ago and an orange glow still hung on the horizon. The Martins’ boat, Speculation, bobbed gently in her mooring about twenty yards offshore.
They parted hands and Nate stopped to pick up a piece of driftwood and toss it back toward the fire. Brooke Martin continued on and dipped her right foot into the water, the wind brushing her auburn hair against her cheek.
“Too cold for me,” she said.
Nate took a gulp of beer before walking ankle deep into the water beside her.
“Not bad, but colder than when I put the boat in,” Nate said.
“Glad I didn’t have to help,” Brooke said and then took a sip from her plastic cup of wine.
“Not up for a swim?” Nate joked.
“No way,” Brooke said.
They started to walk parallel to the water, with Nate’s feet still in and Brooke’s squishing into the wet sand just out of reach of the lapping waves.
Four zigzagging jet skis sliced through the water off the Martins’ beach. Two were driven by women in bikinis and the other two by men. They weren’t wearing life jackets, which usually meant these were summer folk who spent June, July, and August in one of the beach castles smoking weed in mass quantities. These four were probably already baked.
One girl cut a turn too close and flew off.
“Crazies,” Nate said.
She resurfaced and climbed back aboard. Her bikini bottom was really a thong and her butt cheeks slapped against the rubber seat as the jet ski started and took off.
“Should they be riding those things this late?” Brooke asked.
“No,” said Nate, “but who is going to stop them?”
They continued to walk as the sound of the jet skis faded. A quarter mile later, they reached the stretch where the larger homes began. The floodlights on the estates’ back decks illuminated the beach like a stage. The Martins turned around.
When they arrived at their beach, Nate placed a new log on the fire and sat down in his lawn chair. Brooke sat down but then rose, moving her chair a few feet further away from the heat.
“What are your plans for tomorrow?” Nate said.
“I think I’ll lay out. I looked at the weather report and we’re in for a few good days until rain arrives,” Brooke said, “then I’ll probably go to the bookstore.” Her voice trailed off. She gathered her thoughts for a moment. “We need to make love the next four nights.”
“Okay,” Nate said.
“You could work up a little enthusiasm,” Brooke said.
He had sounded matter-of-fact. “Sorry. It’s just that scheduled sex sometimes takes the excitement out of it. We’re on vacation. We should just let it happen.”
“So, you get to have your strict workout regime everyday, but when I mention a specific time that we need to make love in order to give us the best chance at conceiving, it’s suddenly ‘We’re on vacation’?”
She had a point. He thought about trying to angle in with a comment about her obsessive need to clean the house the moment they had arrived earlier today, but as he thought of it the vision of his freshly cut and edged grass entered his mind. If they really were on vacation, as he had put it, then the lawn being manicured wouldn’t be so important to him. Damn.
“What is your plan for tomorrow?” She said.
A switch of topics, but he knew she was circling. “I’m going to get up, take my run, and then hit the hardware store for a new lock for the boat.”
“What happened to the lock you keep in the garage?”
“It broke today,” Nate shrugged.
“How does a lock break?”
“I put the key in, and when I turned it, it broke off in the lock.”
“You mean our boat is moored out there right now without a lock?” Brooke asked, while shifting her gaze to the white hull reflecting the growing moonlight.
“Yep.”
“Do you think someone would steal it?”
“Nah. The keys are in the house. If someone wanted to steal a boat worth anything, they’d go down to Shelby’s Marina and try and take Shaw’s Triumph.” Leonard Shaw was a Baltimore businessman who had grown up in Michigan and now summered in the largest beach mansion in Hampstead. Once his two-hundred foot custom-built yacht was completed, he’d hired a dredging crew to carve out a separate berth in the marina to dock the boat. With the dredging crew working mostly at night, locals and vacationers complained of the noise and threatened to pull their boats out of Shelby’s. Nate was glad he had avoided the hassle by keeping Speculation moored off of his beach.
Brooke swiveled her eyes between Nate and the boat. “Why didn’t you get a new lock today?”
He moved behind her and started to kiss the back of her neck. We’re on vacation, relax, baby. “Is that a hint? Do you want me to swim out and sleep on board tonight?”
“Of course not,” Brooke whispered back, enjoying the foreplay. “Are you trying to get a head start on tomorrow night?”
“No. Just trying to enjoy tonight,” Nate said. “Can we concentrate on that?”
She leaned her head back and he kissed her lips.
Ten minutes later, the fire started to die with two empty lawn chairs sitting in front of it.
2
Sun rays peeked around the edges of the horizontal blinds in the Martins’ bedroom window. Nate opened his eyes and looked at his watch, eight o’clock. He was normally up by six. Brooke was snoring, and he eased out of bed and lifted one strip of the blinds. Speculation was in her mooring. He smiled and dropped the blind back into place.
After putting on a pair of shorts and a tank top, he grabbed a pair of socks and his running shoes and exited the bedroom. The hallway was dark as he made his way to the kitchen. He pressed “start” on the coffee pot, and the coffee he had prepared the night before began to brew as he put on his shoes.
The past year had been a revolving door of pain, uncertainty, and disappointment. They had b
een trying to conceive for six months when his father died. Only last month had it felt right to try again. He hadn’t been himself in the classroom either. His ninth grade physical science lessons at W. M. Breech High School had wandered aimlessly, his tests were rote memorization, and the usual passion he brought to each day had been missing; his students let him know they knew it.
His mother had lasted in the beach house until Christmas. The original plan had been for Nate and his older sister, Marie, to share ownership when their parents were unable to handle the upkeep, but Nate had bought Marie’s half and the house was now his and Brooke’s. His mother had left in January to move in with his sister in St. Petersburg.
He pushed the brass button on the doorknob and closed the door behind him. After wiggling the knob to make sure it was locked, he hopped off the small porch onto the stone walkway, went past the garage, and followed the dirt driveway until he was parallel with their mailbox. After stretching, he looked at his watch and started to jog down Sandyhook Road.
Each lakeside house had some sort of identifying marker next to its mailbox. A red and white striped lighthouse carved out of wood. A miniature of the house painted on a three foot by three foot board. A post. A bench. Something with the owner’s name and the year the house had been built on the marker. This five miles of beach, once sparsely populated with neighbors in similarly sized residences, was now dominated by beach mansions that looked more like hotels than houses. The lots were owned by lawyers, congressmen, real-estate tycoons, government contractors, Detroit businessmen (of the few businesses that remained), and a few others who had money. Some were migrants from the already overcrowded western shore of Michigan. White collar Chicago money had run north and was moving around the Great Lakes shoreline like a child connecting the dots to make a picture of a left-handed mitten.
The sun flickered in and out of Nate’s face as he ran under the oak trees spanning the road. He thought of the advice his father had given him when he was searching for his first teaching job: “Make sure that you buy a house east of the school so that when you go into work you’ll be driving west, and when you come home from work you’ll be driving east. That way, you’ll never be driving into the sun. Just a simple stress reliever that most people don’t take into consideration—that is, until they rear-end someone for the first time.” As with all of Nate’s father’s advice, it had sounded too simple but ended up being right. Last June his father had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. Three months later, on an overcast September day, Nate had buried him.