Deadly Shore Read online

  Deadly Shore

  By Andrew Cunningham

  Copyright © 2015 Andrew Cunningham

  All Rights Reserved

  Books by Andrew Cunningham

  Wisdom Spring

  All Lies

  Deadly Shore

  Eden Rising Trilogy

  Eden Rising

  Eden Lost

  Eden's Legacy

  Arthur Macarthur Series of Children's Mysteries (as A.R. Cunningham)

  The Mysterious Stranger

  The Ghost Car

  The Creeping Sludge

  The Sky Prisoner

  The Ride of Doom

  Acknowledgements

  As always, I couldn't do any of these books without the constant love, support, and ideas from my wife, Charlotte. Thank you!

  To Christopher and Trevor.

  With love … Dad

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  One Day Earlier…..

  JULY 4th

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  JULY 5th

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  JULY 6th

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  JULY 7th

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  JULY 8th

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  JULY 9th

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  A sneak peek at Andrew Cunningham's thriller, ALL LIES

  Prologue

  July 5

  The ladies of the Lifetime Book Club were among the first to hear it. A rare Sunday afternoon meeting, they were—as usual—talking about everything except the selected book. The fact that the book club was named after a television movie channel said it all. At this particular meeting however, they were mostly complaining about the traffic. Traffic leaving Cape Cod on a Sunday in the summer was never good, but today it was the worst they had ever seen. Combine a beautiful Saturday 4th of July with a rainy and windy 5th, along with warnings of a hurricane heading up the Atlantic seaboard in the middle of the week, and the tourists couldn't wait to get home. But the narrow bridges were never meant for the onslaught of twenty-first century traffic. They were built in the 1930s when Cape Cod was an artsy place to visit and traffic jams didn't exist. Now, traffic was what it was all about. Cars would be backed up for miles on a Friday afternoon getting onto the Cape, and then the whole process would be repeated in reverse on Sunday. Sometimes the traffic would be backed up all the way to Hyannis, more than fifteen miles from the Sagamore Bridge.

  Today was special though. Today, people were looking forward to an eight-hour crawl along Route 6, as traffic was backed up all the way to the Harwich exit—a thirty-mile parking lot. Reports were that it wasn't any better on Route 28 heading to the Bourne Bridge.

  The topic of conversation was intelligence—why people couldn't leave at midnight or even four in the morning to avoid the mess. Why they all had to wait until they'd had breakfast. Why was breakfast so important?

  Eighty-four-year-old Claire was proudly explaining how she'd flipped off yet another tourist who didn't know how to drive a rotary when they heard it. It wasn't loud at first. Just kind of a fwump sound, followed by about five more. Then they couldn't help but to hear it.

  The meeting was held at Gloria's house, just a block from the Sagamore Bridge. The house had a beautiful view of the Cape Cod Canal, that is, if you could see over the stalled traffic on the road that ran alongside the canal between the two bridges.

  The new noise was deafening—a cacophony of screeching metal, car horns, and screams. Did they really hear screams? They ran to the window in time to see what was left of the bridge plummet into the canal. Dust and smoke choked the air as the ground on either side of the canal was torn up by the gigantic sections of bridge, and cars littered the area around the bridge. Those not burning were crushed beyond recognition.

  The canal itself was a swirling deathtrap. Waves from the falling bridge swamped and, in many cases, overturned the few small boats that had ventured out in the rain. Two dozen cars were floating—or sinking—in the roaring water.

  And then, except for the faint screams, it was quiet.

  "Oh my God," said Gloria, the only one of the group able to utter a sound.

  *****

  Peter Clark had only been in traffic for an hour. He got on at Exit 2, expecting a short run to the Sagamore bridge. It had been anything but. Crawling at a snail's pace was bad enough, but his two preschoolers had been screaming from the moment they woke up, and Peter was frazzled to the core. But finally the bridge was in sight—not only in sight, but probably a minute away.

  Suddenly the ground shook and a series of muffled explosions was heard over the roar of the AC. A moment later the bridge was gone. Disappeared. He was too surprised to even begin to comprehend what had just happened.

  Everything stopped. No one moved. Slowly, people opened their doors. It was too late to try to take the exit immediately before the bridge; he was already boxed in. Besides, in their haste to take the exit, a five-car pile-up had just occurred, blocking any chance for anyone else to make a break for it.

  No, they were going to be stuck there for hours … maybe longer. Just Peter, his wife, and two out-of-control children.

  *****

  At the Bourne Bridge, Steve Jones had just pissed off about a dozen other motorists, driving along the narrow shoulder of Route 28 to bypass the non-moving traffic. A couple of cars tried to straddle the line to prevent him from passing, but he made it by somehow. When he arrived at the Bourne rotary that funneled cars onto the bridge, he pushed his way into the traffic, ignoring the horns and swearing of the other drivers. Now he was on the bridge, slowly increasing his speed and feeling pretty pleased with himself. And then the bridge started to shake.

  He heard some of the explosions, but didn't connect them to the shaking. He never would. A moment later he was free-falling toward the water, and three seconds after that he was dead.

  *****

  Anyone looking from the Bourne Bridge toward Buzzards Bay would have seen the final structure plummet into the canal—the train bridge. Cape Cod was effectively cut off from the rest of Massachusetts. Those still on the roads weren't going anywhere.

  Their vacations had just been extended.

  One Day Earlier…..

  JULY 4th

  Chapter 1

  "All eyes are looking to the tropics, where Chad has officially become a hurricane. At the moment a weak Category 1, it is expected to rapidly intensify before hitting the coast of Florida tomorrow as a much stronger, but still Category 1, storm. Hurricane warnings have been posted for all of southeastern Florida, with Hurricane watches for central and northern Florida and southern Georgia. After s
triking Florida, the storm track has it moving a bit out to sea, then slowly lumbering its way up the East coast. Most of the computer models have it eventually turning inland and severely impacting the Northeast on Wednesday, particularly Cape Cod and the Islands, where the early season heat wave has warmed the ocean water sufficiently to support a hurricane. It's still too early to predict the exact path of the storm and its impact on New England, but stay tuned…" The Weather Channel

  July 4th in the summer vacation capital of the Northeast, and Marcus Baldwin was bored. He had been following Seth Wakeby for a week, only to determine that he had to be the least interesting person on the face of the earth.

  It was apparent that Wakeby wasn't there to celebrate. There were no cookouts, family get-togethers, or sun-bathing in his Independence Day. As it turned out, there would be fireworks, but of the unplanned variety.

  In the three days Wakeby had been on the Cape, the man had only ventured from his Hyannis hotel room half a dozen times—mostly to fast food joints for meals. Fine dining wasn't his strong suit. This dearth of activity annoyed Marcus to no end. But it was the life he had chosen, and while it lacked the excitement and danger he was once used to, it was also nice to go to bed at night without having to hide a gun under his pillow.

  However, this was frustrating. He was sure Wakeby was on the Cape to meet someone, but it hadn't happened. And there was no chance that the contact had eluded Marcus. He was way too good for that.

  He had been investigating Wakeby for a week, first doing the computer background work, and now the legwork. The problem was, he wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to find. Marcus usually took high-end cases. His P.I. business wasn't in a dingy storefront and he didn't follow people named Knuckles. He worked out of his modest home in a Boston suburb, with a second home/office in the mountains of Colorado. His business was word of mouth—the mouths belonging to CEOs and billionaires. But this job was turning out to be low end—really low end.

  It had come from one of his best customers, who happened to be both a CEO and a billionaire. The man was bothered. Wakeby worked for him in a somewhat lowly capacity, that of driver and all around gofer. Lately, Wakeby had become secretive, bordering on sneaky. That wouldn't usually bother someone of his client's stature. After all, he could just fire the guy or make him someone else's responsibility. The problem with Wakeby was that he was the client's nephew, and he had promised his sister that he would keep Wakeby employed. "Families suck" was how he put it when he asked Marcus to look into it. "Never hire relatives." It wasn't a problem for Marcus in his business—he had no close relatives and no employees.

  So he grudgingly agreed to check into it, and now he was paying the price. Families did suck. He hadn't found any discrepancies in Wakeby's finances, such as they were, or his phone records. He was big into phone sex, hence the lack of finances. The guy didn't seem to be into drugs. He liked beer and bought a lot of it. But to this point, Marcus had come up empty. The idea that Wakeby had come to the Cape to meet someone was his one slim possibility. If this didn't pan out, he was going to have to go back and inform his client that other than having questionable moral values, Seth Wakeby wasn't guilty of anything.

  And yet, why would someone come to the Cape during the busiest week of the year and do nothing but stay in his hotel room? Not to mention that he was staying in a resort hotel in Hyannis during peak season. Having seen his finances, Marcus knew that Wakeby couldn't afford it. Add to the mix the fact that you don't just appear at a hotel on Cape Cod the first week of July and expect to get a room that night. He had to have reserved it at least weeks in advance, if not longer. All the signs pointed toward something illegal. He was meeting someone and that someone was paying the bill. Chances were, that someone was also late or had left the meeting time flexible. Wakeby had probably been told to "hang out and wait for a call."

  There was a sandwich shop and a Dunkin Donuts across the street from the hotel. The employees at both places had come to know Marcus pretty well. Both establishments had a clear view of the hotel and Wakeby's parking spot, so when Marcus wasn't sitting in his car—moving to different places throughout the day so as not to arouse too much suspicion—he hung out in one of the two eateries. He portrayed himself as someone a little down on his luck, the kind of person who could spend hours in one of those places just to pass the time without really being noticed.

  But he was reaching the end of his patience. So when, midway through the day on the 4th, Seth Wakeby emerged from the hotel and strode to his car with a purpose, Marcus uttered a barely audible "Thank God," and started his car. The job might finally be leading somewhere.

  Wakeby's ten-year-old Toyota Corolla let out a little puff of smoke as it pulled out of the parking lot and turned left. Marcus followed at a safe distance. Another left by Wakeby put him on Rt. 28 heading toward Falmouth. The ride was excruciatingly slow, clogged with tourists, but made slower by some orange cones put there the day before by a road crew fixing a crack in the pavement. While sitting in Dunkin Donuts, Marcus had heard people complaining about the state of the roads and how the extreme prolonged heat wave was wreaking havoc with all of the post-winter pothole fixes.

  A half hour later, Wakeby took a right on Rt. 130 in Mashpee, the midway point between Hyannis and Falmouth, then made a series of turns on back roads. With each turn, Marcus dropped further behind his quarry in an effort to avoid detection. Finally, Wakeby pulled down a dirt path leading to a remote cranberry bog. Seeing no other car waiting, Marcus circled through the neighborhood and parked on a side road that gave him a good view of the bog entrance but still left him somewhat inconspicuous.

  He didn't need to wait long. A late model Nissan Altima—probably a rental—entered the bog road and pulled up close to Wakeby's Corolla. A tall man got out and waved to Wakeby. Marcus figured the man to be about 6'5" and was skinny as a rail. In his late thirties-early forties, he had a protruding Adam's apple—the young Clint Eastwood look. Marcus got out of his car, camera in hand, and crossed the street into the line of trees along the edge of the bog and out of sight of the two men. He found a position that afforded him a good view of the impending meet. But while his position was good for viewing, he wasn't close enough to hear more than the occasional word.

  He took several shots of the new man, and of the two men together, and then stopped. Voices were being raised. The friendly encounter wasn't so friendly anymore. Marcus looked around at the nearby houses and saw no movement. People were all at the beach or other celebratory gatherings. He laid his camera on the ground and took out his gun from a holster clipped to his belt under his loose-fitting shirt. He and his Sig Sauer 9mm had been together a long time. He had other guns for different situations, including a Walther P-22, a smaller caliber gun for close-up jobs, but the Sig was his favorite. With only a slight hesitation, he reached into his pocket for the silencer that he had taken from his bag at the last minute, and screwed it onto the barrel. It had been a long time since he'd had need for a silencer—back in his previous life—but the muscle memory of screwing it on came as naturally as if he had just used it the day before.

  The conversation was growing more heated and Marcus made his way closer to the men. He heard Wakeby say in a whiney voice, "But I did everything you asked. I'd never tell anyone. I'd be in as much trouble as you." Marcus couldn't hear the man's response, but it wasn't what Wakeby wanted to hear. "You owe me that money. I need that money. I thought we were friends." If anything, Wakeby's voice was getting whinier. The man said something else. If he'd been talking in a normal tone, Marcus would have heard him, but he was talking softly. That raised flags for Marcus. It brought back all kinds of memories of his dealings with professional hit men.

  "So what are you going to do?" asked Wakeby. There was a tremor in his voice. "Kill me?"

  Of course he was, thought Marcus. He balanced his gun on a tree trunk and aimed it at the man. He was now less than fifty feet away, an easy shot. He waited to see what the man would
do. He didn't have to wait long.

  "Sorry Seth." Marcus heard that one. The man pulled out a gun and Wakeby took a step back.

  Marcus fired two shots a second apart. The gun made two loud pops. Unlike in the movies, silencers weren't really silent, they were just quieter than an unsuppressed gun. However, being July 4th, hopefully they would be dismissed as firecrackers. The first shot got the man in the side, spinning him around, and the second caught him in the heart. He dropped to the ground in front of a bewildered—and scared—Seth Wakeby.

  Marcus emerged from the woods and lowered his gun. Wakeby, by this time, was wild-eyed and had a wet spot growing on the front of his pants. He looked at Marcus, then down at the dead man, and back at Marcus again.

  "Who are you?" It came out as barely more than a whisper.

  "Today, I guess I'm your guardian angel." Marcus looked back up toward the houses. Still no activity. It would have been hard to see this spot clearly—a momentary advantage—but he would have to act quickly.

  Marcus was now faced with a dilemma. He had just killed a man. Legally, as a P.I., he should call the cops. But questioning Wakeby would reveal who his uncle—and Marcus's client—was, and Marcus couldn't allow that. The confidentiality of his clients was sacred. He wasn't overly worried though. His former profession had allowed him a tremendous amount of leeway when it came to rules and laws, so stretching another one wouldn't bother him.

  He looked at Wakeby, who had sunk to the ground, his whole body trembling. "Stay here," he ordered. Wakeby didn't move.

  Marcus put on a pair of latex gloves—something he was never without—and searched the dead man's pockets for his keys. He went back to the man's car and moved it out of the middle of the dirt path and closer to the tree line. He went back to the man, took his wallet, and put it in his pocket. He would look through it later. He approached Wakeby.