The Killing Sands

by Rick Murcer

  I guided the boat under the bridge and followed it to where the pass widened out into the Gulf of Mexico. I pointed the nose of the boat due west, toward Texas, and eased the throttle forward until the boat was moving at a good clip directly out in the Gulf.

  And then a major disappointment: I went to the back of the boat and discovered that Fama’s companion wasn’t unconscious. He was dead. I shrugged off the fact that my night’s perfect batting average was spoiled.

  I gave him a seat in the captain’s chair and lashed him in securely with rope. With the same rope, I then tied him to the boat’s steering wheel.

  Next, I found a towel, wiped down the cleaver and tossed it out into the Gulf, then used the towel to wipe down anything else I had touched.

  A spare gas can was at the stern of the boat. It was half-full. I splashed gasoline over everything above and below decks.

  Next, I doused the towel with gasoline and poured a trail of gas right up to the bow of the boat.

  When I was sure the boat was heading perfectly straight, I used a lighter I’d gotten from the boat’s dashboard and lit the towel on fire.

  There was a whump as I dove from the bow. I drove myself straight down and then out, back toward land. I swam underwater for as long as I could. When I finally surfaced, a wall of black smoke covered the water, and I caught sight of what was left of Fama’s boat still motoring out into the Gulf.

  Moments later, an explosion rocked the air and debris shot up into the sky.

  I dove again and swam until my lungs were on fire.

  This time when I surfaced, there was only the faint smell of something burning.

  It took me nearly twenty minutes to make it to land for two reasons. One, I was not a very good swimmer. And two, I had to swim at an angle to make sure the current wouldn’t reunite me with Fama.

  I dragged myself onto the beach, took a minute to catch my breath, and then got to my feet.

  The sun was just coming up.

  A day at the beach.

  I’d always wanted one of those.

  THE END

  About the Author of Bullet River

  Dani Amore is a crime novelist living in Los Angeles, California. She is the winner of the 2011 Independent Book Award for Crime Fiction, and her novels have become best-sellers in the United States and abroad.

  You can learn more about her at daniamore.com

  Visit Dani Amore on Amazon.com

  Books by Dani Amore:

  THE KILLING LEAGUE

  DEAD WOOD (A John Rockne Mystery)

  DEATH BY SARCASM (A Mary Cooper Mystery)

  TO FIND A MOUNTAIN

  SCALE OF JUSTICE

  THE GARBAGE COLLECTOR

  FOUR

  HANGING CURVE

  The Lighthouse

  by Rick Murcer

  Chapter-1

  I never thought it would end like that. Who would? Especially in small, tourist communities like Silver Lake, Michigan. But like my dad always says, thinking can get you in a whole lot of trouble. He was right.

  What Maggie Burrows and I did on most Saturday nights by going to the local make-out spot was innocent in the way of small-town traditions. It was our version of Lovers Lane or Park-A-Rama, whatever you want to call it. My parents even talked about their time in the old lighthouse. It was always innuendo and a sly wink between them that wasn’t so sly, but the message was crystal clear: they had a moment or two at the top of the Little Sable Point Lighthouse that was forever theirs. That’s how it should be, right? Lovers should have those nostalgic reminders of how they’d gotten from then to now. I wanted that, and I wanted it with Maggie.

  Maggie.

  She was beautiful with amazing dark eyes and a regal mane of long, black hair. Maggie was petite, but oh so competitive. Looking at her, one would never guess that she hid a fiery spirit for winning, and I suppose for living too, that I’d never seen in any other woman. All that in spite of her smallish stature . . . and the scar.

  At age ten, Maggie had fallen through her front door after tripping over her beloved cat, Ingrid, and had twenty stitches sewn less than majestically across her right eyebrow. I knew it bothered her from time to time, but it was funny how I never noticed it unless she touched it or made some reference to the fact that she had to settle for me because of the faded railroad track on her brow.

  “Chase Andrews, you’re the luckiest man on the planet,” she’d say. But that twinkle, that special turn of her head, would always lead to a grin and an accompanying kiss that was beyond description. Part of me did wonder what she saw in a tall, lanky kid with glasses who came up a little short in the social graces, but I didn’t question it. I was almost afraid to.

  As it turned out, those times would be one of the few “moments” that I’d be able to keep.

  We had, Maggie and I, been breaking into the Little Sable Point Lighthouse that stood guard over our section of Lake Michigan for two years, ever since we started dating in our senior year of high school. She’d gone to Shelby High; I’d attended Hart. Our schools were the kind of natural rivals that books are written about. It was close to total traitorhood to date and to fall helplessly in love with someone from the other school, but we didn’t care.

  We’d met at the top of our famous sand dunes after I’d fallen from my ATV and she stopped to help . . . and laugh. Five minutes later, she was all I could think about. I must have had some effect on her too because she went out with me, though it took a few minutes to stammer out the “question.” I practically flew home.

  Even after we had gone on to college in separate parts of the state and pursued different ends of the academic spectrum, we found time for each other. She was studying chemistry at Michigan State, and I chose Muskegon Community College to further my knowledge regarding the family business: cherry and peach farming. I know, not sexy, but farming is honest. Anyway, we’d find time for a few trips up the cold, metal, spiral steps. The view was spectacular. I swear there were nights when Lake Michigan’s breezes cleared away every wisp of cloud and haze, revealing the dancing stars in amazing contrast to the dark sky. And it was just for us. We even thought we could see Chicago, some one hundred twenty-five miles across the lake, a time or two. That’s how it was last night.

  Late May is when business really gears up for our community, and we didn’t think we’d have a chance to do a Saturday rendezvous. I picked her up after her summer-job shift at the Sands restaurant on Thursday around midnight, drove through the village past Termite Bridge, and eventually parked at one of the vacant cabins along Natural Beauty Road. The moon was an evening away from being full, and the smell of cottonwood and late lilacs was unusually persuasive in the warm night’s breeze, laying ground work for a romantic rendezvous. I was up for that.

  We had walked the last half-mile along the beach, holding hands, bumping hips, and making plans that young lovers make. Kids, dogs, cars, vacations, winning the lotto so we could do whatever we wanted. We even talked about grandkids. I think that hurts the most, making plans, I mean. Now it just seems like words in a magazine or some forgotten book. You know, like it was someone else’s life. But it wasn’t. That part is sinking in, at least.

  Anyway, when we had reached the door to the lighthouse, I took out the lock-picking tool I’d made in shop class and started for the lock, then I stopped and swore. I couldn’t believe what the bright moonlight revealed. There were now two locks, one high and one lower, and they weren’t padlocks. Bright, shiny, bolt locks were embedded in the black iron door, more imposing than Fort Knox. I swore again.

  Maggie had giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Your dumpy expression, for one. But wait. You’re gonna like this, Chase.”

  She’d reached into the front pocket of her tight jeans and produced a key.

  “My mom is volunteering to work the lighthouse and collect entrance fees for the rest of the month. She gave me the key before I left for work and told me not to lose it.”

&n
bsp; I was shocked. Not so much by the key, but that she’d given it to Maggie. Maggie’s mom had always volunteered for stuff like that, but to give up a key so we could make out on the top of the lighthouse? Maybe I was growing on her.

  Jill Burrows and I had gotten along okay, but it had been just Maggie and her mother for fifteen years, and her mother had no real trust in men—with good reason. Cheating spouses could do that to anyone.

  “So maybe your mom thinks this is serious?” I asked.

  “Oh, I think she gets that. Especially since I told her we’ve never had . . . you know . . . done it.”

  “Whoa. You told her we haven’t fooled around yet?”

  “Yeah,” she smiled. “I tell her everything.”

  “Damn. She’s going to think I don’t like women.”

  “. . . or that you’re a gentleman, and I mean more to you than a few rolls in the sack. Not that rolls in the sack aren’t important,” she had said, smiling.

  Maggie had me there, on both counts. Small-town manners were ingrained by great parents, and I’d wait for God to come back before I made love to her, if she wanted me to. It didn’t mean it wasn’t difficult or that we hadn’t come real close a couple of times. It meant she was that important to me. I wanted to protect her from regrets and pain forever. I failed there too.

  I closed the door behind us, and she started her patented race to the top of the tower, some one hundred and thirty-nine steps. I was feeling good, so I tried to catch her. About halfway up, I reached up to pinch her rear. As fingers gripped cheek, she jumped, then lost her balance. Only God knows how she fell backward instead of giving her shins the thump of a lifetime. I caught her, and then slammed into the dark brick wall as her fingernails dug into my forearm and raked down to my wrist. It had hurt, but I held tight.

  As the staircase filled with the sound of adrenaline-enhanced breathing, she’d begun to laugh. You know the kind. Musical and as alive as any human expression. Being a little more terrified than Maggie, it took me a few moments to see what was so funny. But it wasn’t really humor triggering her laughter, then eventually mine. It was relief and a sense of gratefulness that we’d be all right. That we’d make it another day . . . at least one of us would.

  Chapter-2

  After one more deep breath, and a lingering kiss that brought me back to the moment, to her, we’d scrambled up the last sixty steps or so and burst through the door facing back away from the beach and lake. A moment later, we were sitting against the wall facing Lake Michigan. The waves waltzed to the shore in that mysterious rhythm that calmed every sense of distress and concern preying on one’s mind. Visitors to the lake thought wave therapy worked, but beach people knew it.

  Maggie snuggled close, and I’d wrapped both arms around her, nuzzling her hair and thinking how her scent was the best aroma ever . . . even better than freshly-baked cherry pies.

  The large, glass octagon that housed the seventy-inch Fresnel lens loomed behind us. It was usually operational, but not every night, and it was much more for show than function. Tonight it wasn’t lit because of one last cleaning session to be completed by the weekend. Funny how that worked. Maybe if it had been lit, things would have been different. Of course, if I'd kept my temper and not gotten so pissed off, things would’ve been different too.

  After pointing out two cargo ships, lights blinking, easing through the water, Maggie had become silent. I hated that because it meant that she wanted to tell me something that I wasn’t going to like. I was right, again.

  “So, Chase. I don’t know how to tell you this other than how I always tell you things that involve us.”

  “Shoot,” I said, trying to sound confident and reassuring. Of course, I felt neither.

  “I’m. Well, I have this professor at State, and he thinks I have a real future in chemical engineering. He graduated from MIT and got his doctorate there too.”

  I already hated where this was going, and a feeling of dread and irritation brewed much faster than it should have.

  “Okay. So what does that mean?”

  Maggie sat up straight and drew her face close to mine. “It means he did some legwork, and I can transfer to MIT, beginning the fall semester, with a full, all-expenses-paid scholarship that practically ensures a six-figure job when I finish.”

  I stood up and leaned over the iron-rod railing, angrier at her than any other time I chose to remember. I could tell from her voice, her excitement, that she’d already made up her mind. Worse, she knew that I knew it. I continued focusing on nothing and everything as the silence between us expanded into an almost intolerable level. What an awful feeling that can be.

  Squeezing my hands together, I panned to the right and saw someone walk down the beach, then disappear into the tree line. Late-night beach walks were not unusual for people around here, and I didn’t care if anyone saw me because I was wallowing in every self-pitying emotion under the moon. I should have paid more attention.

  I heard her stand, but she stayed behind me. I couldn’t see her, but I knew her head was bowed, and her hands were folded in front of her. I also knew discussing this was out of the question, at least for her.

  “Chase. It’s a great opportunity for me, for us.”

  “Whatever happened to discussing everything? You’ll be a thousand miles away, and it’ll be months in between seeing each other,” I said, seething.

  “It won’t be that bad. You can even come out to see me and we . . .”

  “We won’t do shit,” I whispered.

  I felt her hand reach for mine, and I pushed it away and then headed for the stairway, leaving her at the top of that Godforsaken lighthouse.

  I hit the bottom step, pushed open the door, and circled the lighthouse to the beach and started north, hands in the pockets of my plaid shorts, feeling betrayed and as hurt as anyone could. And why shouldn’t I? We had been talking about life plans twenty minutes ago, and now that was all on hold. At age twenty-one, I felt everything I had wanted was being jerked from me or, at the very least, delayed a few years. And of course, the thought that someone would sweep her off her feet, some rich dude who wore argyle sweater vests and socks to match, was the worst thing. It wasn’t like it had never happened before, and it scared the hell out of me.

  Ten minutes later, I pivoted in the cool sand, raised my arms to the sky, then started back to the lighthouse, my anger devolving to a shade of shame. Then I smiled. Maggie Burrows knew me better than myself and realized I needed to think about this before we could talk like we always talked. It wasn’t going to change anything, because she was right. I’m young, but I recognize truth when it talks to me, mostly.

  After walking around the small bend that led to Little Sable, my I’m an ass and I’m sorry speech running through my head, I stopped and shook out the sand from my sandals. Just as I’d put them back on, I heard it.

  The scream that pierced the starry night was as horrifying as anything I’d ever heard, mostly because I recognized that voice. The only thing worse was the sickening thump echoing in my head a split second later. It shattered my world.

  Chapter-3

  I wish I could tell you what ran through my mind as I sprinted toward the lighthouse. I could try to describe it, but unless you’ve been there, it would be impossible. All I can say is that it was the total culmination of every fear, anxiety, and terror I’d ever felt wrapped into one merciless package. Because I knew. I knew.

  Splashing through the small pool that guarded the left side of the lighthouse, and then hurdling the old log embedded in the sand, I’d gotten within thirty feet of the large granite rocks piled in front of the structure, and then I saw her. I will forever try to blank out the image of Maggie lying across three of the gray stones, her head and left leg posed at impossible angles, but that’d be like raising the Titanic.

  My whole body shook as I inched closer. The silvery moon seemed brighter than ever, giving me more nightmare material. There was blood running down the rock near her head, and
it trickled down to the white sand, conjuring up some hellish, red-sand collage. Even from twenty feet, I could see her dark eyes were open.

  I know people do dumb things in situations like that, but I think it was hope against reality that made me do it. My denial was alive and well.

  I called her name.

  “Maggie? Maggie?”

  She didn’t respond, just continued to stare. I don’t know what I’d expected. Like I said, crazy thinking.

  I was suddenly struck with the thought of how she’d reached the rocks. She must have fallen. She wouldn’t have jumped. Had she gotten too close to the edge and lost her balance?

  I’d glanced at the railing at the top of the lighthouse, still not understanding how this could have happened. It didn’t make sense that she was where she was. Then, inexplicably, I blamed myself. Maybe it was my asshole attitude that led to this. The feeling was like getting blamed for doing something to your kid brother or sister, and you hadn’t done anything at all, but felt guilty just the same. I know, more crazy ideas, but like I said, unless you’ve been there . . .

  Shaking off that thought, I took a couple steps closer, then rushed the last few strides, tears running down my face.

  As I kneeled against another group of rocks, I reached out and touched her cheek. She was already cold. I jerked my hand back, then immediately felt more guilt. I stood again and looked at her legs and the way her torso was turned, and the tears started again. I wanted to help, but didn’t know what to do. My mind had never been so jumbled. But I had to do something, right? Then I recalled what I’d learned in lifeguard training: don’t move the injured, call for help.