A Following Sea
Page 1
A FOLLOWING SEA
THE “TROUBLED WATERS” SERIES BOOK #5
Attorney Hanna Walsh and Charleston Police Detective Alex Frank return in this sequel to the Amazon #1 for Psychological Thrillers, LIES WE NEVER SEE.
From the author of the Amazon Kindle #1 selection for Mystery Thriller and Suspense, The EmmaLee Affairs, his next intriguing and twisting tale of love and loss, betrayal and murder set in the Low Country of South Carolina.
A novel by
MICHAEL LINDLEY
Sage River Press
Novels by MICHAEL LINDLEY
The “Troubled Waters” Series
THE EMMALEE AFFAIRS
THE SUMMER TOWN
BEND TO THE TEMPEST
LIES WE NEVER SEE
A FOLLOWING SEA
DEATH ON THE NEW MOON
Michael Lindley Amazon Author Page
DEDICATION
A quick note of thanks to the many readers, publishing partners, book retailers and fellow authors who have been so supportive in the pursuit of these stories.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
A Note From Michael Lindley
About The Author
Chapter One
Hanna Walsh stood on the beach in front of her old family home on Pawleys Island along the coast of South Carolina. She felt the low swells of the calm Atlantic Ocean wash over her feet. The moon was out full overhead and a canopy of stars shone bright in the night sky. The scent of nearby beach fires drifted by.
She found herself imagining similar nights, generations ago, when her distant great-grandmother, Amanda Paltierre Atwell, had stood on this very shore, looking up at this same incredible array of stars and moon. Amanda's family had owned a nearby rice plantation during the years before and after the Civil War. This beach house had been their refuge from the intense heat and humidity of the Low Country summers. Hanna had retained ownership of the house following a long progression of family hand-offs over the years.
She heard a splash in the water out in front of her as Alex Frank dove out into the cool summer ocean and disappeared from view. She took a sip from the glass of wine in her hand and cringed as she thought of the big sharks she knew came in close to shore after dark to feed. The reflection of the moon on the water was a long trail extending out to the far horizon. It faltered and sparkled, and Hanna felt a chill at the beauty and calm of the night. Alex surfaced and turned back to her.
"Come on," he said, motioning for her to join him.
"I'm fine right here!" she called back.
Hanna watched him turn and start swimming in a slow crawl out into deeper water. She looked up as clouds from the east started to blow in from behind, across the marshes and the mainland that led to Georgetown and down to her old home in Charleston. She sensed the smell of rain and an electricity in the air. Miles away, she heard the first low rumble of thunder behind the dunes and beach houses and the distant sky lit up with tendrils of lightning arcing across the dark and menacing clouds approaching. She turned to see Alex stop again and tread water.
"Not too far now!" Hanna yelled out across the calm surface of the dark Atlantic. She waded further out into the ocean and felt the coolness caress her bare legs. The line of her khaki shorts dipped beneath a low swell that swept in and caused her to shiver. A freshening breeze from the east came up with the coming storm and blew her brown hair from behind her ears and into her eyes. She swept it back and as she watched Alex swim, she thought back to moments from the past year and their time together since the dark days of her husband's murder and the events that led to her run-in with Ben's dangerous partners. It all led to the kidnapping of her son as her husband's so-called "associates" tried to recover money they thought Ben had stolen from them in the dreadful land deal that had cost him his life. Alex, a lieutenant and detective with the Charleston Police Department, had been there for her throughout that terrible ordeal.
When she thought about it now, Hanna knew she was attracted to Alex Frank in the early days when she first met him, and he was assigned to investigate her husband's murder. It wasn't so much a physical attraction, but more in the man's considerate manner and obvious concern for her dire situation at the time. During those first encounters, she was certainly in no state-of-mind for romantic pursuits, and it wasn't until much later that she began to notice more in her feelings for him.
While her marriage to Ben Walsh had been strained at times, she had loved the man. They had been together over twenty years and had a beautiful son together. There did always seem a thin veil of distance or aloofness about him, like you couldn't quite tell what he was really feeling or thinking. There were only a handful of times Hanna could recall they had really connected at the most basic level and truly been a loving couple.
When Ben's affairs came to light after his death and with his terrible judgment as the Osprey Pointe land development spiraled out of control and threatened all they had financially, it had taken months for the sorrow and embarrassment and grieving to even begin to fade. She came to realize how much the presence of Ben had permeated her life, how she reacted to events around her, how she planned her days and nights. After his death, the emptiness was like a surge of water that held her down and kept her from her next breath. Her son's abduction and ultimate return had taken a further toll.
Hanna had to admit her husband's affairs had really come as no surprise. She knew something had changed between them in the past few years, and she likely overlooked some of the warning signs in a naive effort to keep their marriage together for her son. What was a surprise was one of the other women in Ben's life was her best friend, Grace Holloway. She and Grace had become the closest of friends over the years as their husbands worked together at the
same law firm in Charleston. She couldn't have felt closer to Grace if she was her sister. The night of her son's return, over a year ago now when she learned of Grace's complicity in her husband's murder, as well as their affair, continued to haunt Hanna's sleep. She still found it hard to believe her closest friend could have kept her betrayal and liaisons with her husband, Ben, from her as long as she had.
Grace was now in prison and her partner-in-crime, Thomas Dillon was dead. The family friend and real estate agent had also been in on the illicit land scheme and ultimately had killed Ben when the deal was headed south, and Ben had threatened to bring in the authorities. It was still unclear who had killed Thomas. He had run away to the island of St. Croix as the deal continued to fall apart. The FBI agents who had helped in her efforts to get her son back had convinced her the organized crime elements from Miami who were Ben's silent partner in the Osprey Pointe deal were certainly the prime suspects.
The betrayal of her husband and two of her closest friends continued to gnaw at her. She felt not just a victim, but a foolish innocent who should have seen it all coming long before it spiraled out of control. Alex Frank had been there as she fought to come out of the deep depression of loss and betrayal. He was just a close friend at first and his steady presence was a comfort and a safe harbor as she struggled to put her life back together again. And then, it became much more than that.
She took another sip from the wine and smiled as she thought about how they had become a "couple".
Hanna knew they both had strong feelings for each other, but Alex had always kept a distance, even when he became her closest ally in her recovery. Nearly six months after all had been resolved in Charleston and her son was back safely at school in Chapel Hill, Hanna had invited Alex out to the beach house on Pawleys Island for a weekend to thank him for all his support through the "dark times" as she often referred to them. In her mind, she had convinced herself it was a friend inviting another friend out for a weekend together at the beach. She had made up one of the guest bedrooms for his stay and honestly had no intentions of letting things go further than the close friendship and bond they had formed.
Alex came out on a Saturday morning and they got horses from a nearby stable outside Georgetown and rode together through quiet trails in the Low Country. She cooked a big dinner of local seafood and they drank too much good wine. They walked on the beach that night and he took her hand for the first time. When they got back to the house and were standing together on the big deck, looking out over the water, she thought he was going to kiss her, and she actually hoped that he would. Maybe it was the wine or the need to feel close to someone again, but she really felt she might be ready to get closer with this man. In the end, he stammered and stalled and an awkward kiss on the cheek was all he offered before thanking her for a beautiful night and going up alone to his own room.
It was three more weeks before she saw him again. He had sent her a "thank you" note for her hospitality at the beach house, but he didn't call. Hanna was tempted on several occasions to put her foolish female pride aside and just call the man, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.
Alex finally called and apologized about how busy he had been on several new cases. Hanna had been skeptical but cordial. He invited her to join him at his father's fish camp for dinner and a night on the marshes far upriver from Dugganville, his hometown just north of Charleston where his family had been in the shrimp boat business for many years. That was the night the ice was broken. She smiled again at the memory and then looked out when Alex called to her.
"Are you going to come in or do I have to come and carry you?" he yelled out across the water.
She started walking back to shore, the lights from her house glowing above in the low dunes. She yelled back, "I'll be waiting for you inside with a warm towel and your favorite robe. Don't dally!" She could hear him swimming now toward shore and she smiled as she made her way up the beach to the house.
Chapter Two
The sailboat drifted silently on the incoming tide, illuminated on the dark water of the bay by the full moon overhead. The summer air was thick with the musty smells of the Low Country backwater. An alligator grunted in the marshes along the shallows of the bay, lying in wait for its next unsuspecting meal to pass near.
Connor Richards had lowered the sails on his boat when they returned earlier from an afternoon out on the Atlantic Ocean, just offshore from Dugganville. His girlfriend, Lily, pressed closer as they sat together on the soft cushions lining the cockpit of the sailboat Connor had named Allowance when he had purchased it the previous year.
Lily reached for the bottle of red wine and refilled both their glasses. She raised hers in a toast and then kissed Connor on the cheek as she felt his arm come around her, pulling her in. The acrid-sweet smell of marijuana filled the air as Connor took another pull on the joint before passing it to her. She looked up when a large bank of clouds started to push across the moon and the darkness engulfed them. The air was getting cooler and she stood to go below for a sweatshirt.
"Do you need a jacket?" she asked.
"No, I'm fine, just fine," Connor said, smiling back and taking another hit from the joint.
Lily came back up a few moments later, pulling a gray University of South Carolina sweatshirt over her head before she sat back down next to him.
"Damn glad these clouds finally blew in," Connor said.
"When's the storm supposed to blow-up?"
"We have plenty of time," Connor said, reaching for his wine glass in the teak cup holder next to him.
He looked behind them and noticed they had drifted out of the channel that led into the little town of Dugganville. His house was further upriver, a sprawling ranch house built on the water with a long pier for his sailboat and Donzi "go fast" boat. He reached down and turned the key to the ship's engine. The low rumble broke the stillness of the night. Connor stood to steer the boat back into the channel and deeper water to keep his six-foot keel from running aground. To the west, he could see the horizon line of the Atlantic Ocean out beyond the entrance to the bay. He saw the light signal before he could see the boat... three long, two short. A few moments later he saw the signal again. He reached for a spotlight on the cockpit seat and returned the same signal, twice as he had just seen.
"OK, here we go," he said.
Lily stood and looked out toward the ocean. "They're here already?"
"Drop the bumpers over the port side," Connor said and Lily climbed a bit unsteadily out of the cockpit. She made her way forward, holding on to the mast shrouds and railing wires along the sides of the big sailboat. She dropped two large rubber bumpers over the side that were tied to cleats both fore and aft.
They could hear the approaching boat now and the shadow of another large sailboat began to emerge in the low haze coming in across the water from the marshes. Neither boat had any running lights on. Connor heard his radio squawk and then a quick, "All clear." He had a man in town monitoring the police and Coast Guard radio channels.
He looked around the small bay and took a deep breath when he saw no other boats out on the water. Only a few faint lights shimmered through the haze back in town. He pushed the throttle forward and steered slowly out toward the mouth of the bay and the approaching boat.
The two vessels slowed as they came alongside, and Connor maneuvered the Allowance carefully up next to the hull of the other boat. Three men were onboard, one at the helm and two standing at the rail to help tie up.
"Hey, amigo," Connor and Lily heard from the other skipper with traces of a Spanish accent.
"Let's do this, boys," Connor said. He went below and came back up with a large black duffel bag. He struggled with the size and weight of it as he came up the stairs from the cabin.
The other skipper said, "How you been, man?"
"Never better." Connor carried the bag over to the rail and handed it to one of the other men. "You need to count it?" he said and then laughed.<
br />
"You're good for it," the other skipper said. "Never a problem from you, man."
The two crewmen from the other boat took the money below and both came back up with large bails of pot, wrapped in heavy plastic. They began handing them over to Connor who placed them along the deck of the Allowance.
The skipper said, "Thought the Coast Guard was gonna bring us over this afternoon, south of Charleston."
"What the hell happened?" Connor said, his heart leaping in his chest.
"Some drunk kids overloaded on a wake board boat came screaming by and the Coast Guard took off after them."
"Any other problems?"
"Smooth crossing from Nassau," the other man said. "Damn glad the storm's coming in to block that moonlight."
In twenty minutes the cargo had been transferred and secured.
"Nice doing business with you," the skipper said as the lines were pulled in and the two boats began to drift apart. He fired up the "kicker" on the sailboat and slowly headed out toward open ocean.
Lily came up and put her arm around Connor's waist. "Shall we take her home, baby?"
Chapter Three
Alex Frank walked into the downtown precinct of the Charleston Police Department and across the long room of desks and other police officers scurrying on with the affairs of the day; phones ringing, suspects being led in, the normal chaos of a Monday morning. He sat at his desk and started to sort through the dozen pink phone message slips he pulled from his mail slot on the way in. He sorted them into piles based on urgent, not so urgent and the trash can.
He stood to get a cup of coffee from the kitchen along the back of the office. A few colleagues engaged in the usual banter as he made his way. His mind was faraway though, thinking of the past night with Hanna at the beach house. When he finished his swim, he found her upstairs in the bedroom under the covers of the warm comforter of her big king bed with nothing but her silk robe on.