White Tide Rising

Chapter One

1995 San Francisco, California

Two figures in military fatigues slipped into the alleyway, the San Francisco fog obscuring their movement as they made their way through the night. The taller of the two men leapt atop a dumpster and hoisted himself onto the fire escape with the ease of a schoolboy. Within minutes, his silhouette disappeared through a window on the second floor, his partner’s cue to follow.

The short man pulled a balaclava over his face before ascending, cursing under his breath until he reached the second-floor platform and made his way inside the apartment. In the darkness, he could just make out the tall man’s silhouette at the end of the hall, motioning him forward. They stood together, motionless, as they listened for breathing sounds from the bedrooms. 

The two men crept forward into the master bedroom like jackals stalking their prey. The tall man slipped a roll of duct tape from the pocket of his fatigues and moved around to the far side of the bed, pausing briefly to study the sleeping woman and synchronize activity with his partner. They exchanged looks, and then the tall man slapped his hand over the woman’s mouth while the short man sprang onto the bed and squeezed the quilt around her body, restricting her movement within a tight cocoon. A muffled scream and a moment of violent thrashing ensued before the tall man could wrangle the duct tape over her mouth, free her from the quilt, and tape her wrists and ankles.

The tall man hoisted the woman into a standing position, his breath pounding on her face. He hesitated to use brute strength as he grabbed her slender frame, but when she wrenched sideways to escape his grip, his arms tightened around her torso and her ribs cracked. He winced as she recoiled in pain, but this was no time to indulge in sympathy. He felt a momentary flush of rage at having been dragged into this job, one that was ill-suited to his nature. He was a technical guy, used to mental wrangling—not some low-level street thug.

His mouth was so dry he could barely speak. He threw a nod at the short man, who stepped over to the walk-in closet and opened the door. Unexpectedly, a flood of light poured over the three of them, and the tall man found himself staring directly into his victim’s eyes. For a timeless instant, they stared at each other until he recovered his wits, then he spun her around and shoved her into the closet. She hit the wall with a thud before slumping backward into a helpless wad on the floor. The reality of what just happened shot through his mind; she’d gotten a good, long look at his face.

“I told you to wear the goddamned hood, Jack!” the short man hissed. “This is why I fucking work alone!” He caught the stunned look on Jack Barnett’s face and added, “Go on, I’ll take care of this—get over to the other room!”

Jack Barnett cussed under his breath as he stepped out of the bedroom. In the shadows of the hallway, he leaned back against the wall, a bitter combination of guilt and relief furrowing his brow. He took several deep breaths as he waited for his body to stop trembling and then wiped the sweat out of his eyes with a gloved hand. Being recognized was an unacceptable fail even minutes before a kill; if something went wrong at the last moment, it risked exposure. He scowled with the bitter knowledge that his partner would never let him forget it.

A wail pierced the darkness like the howl of a wounded animal, shocking Jack into action. He headed toward the second bedroom and quietly opened the door. He had a job to do, and he wanted no part of what he feared his partner might do back in the other room, before or after the kill.

Colin Peterson looked down at the woman in the closet, her auburn hair tangled and wet from a flood of tears, terrified green eyes staring up at him, pleading with him, asking him why. He took a moment to calm his adrenaline-fueled thoughts and focus. He was already hard from the rush of the struggle. The primal smell of fear rose like perfume from every pore in her body, mingling with the musk of his own sweat.

He remained motionless above her, his icy blue eyes burning into hers through the eyeholes in his balaclava. He was centered now, in total control, watching and waiting like a zen master. A long moment stretched between them as she stared up at him, and then he saw it—the understanding. She had stopped struggling and knew she was going to die; she had surrendered to her fate as if death had already come and only her corpse remained.

Colin closed his eyes and imagined the moment after death bleeding backwards through time and pouring over the living, an ethereal backwash from the afterlife offered as foreplay to their single, ultimate climax together. They would traverse the cusp of life and death together, and after he drove her soul from her flesh, it would live on inside of him forever.

Just as he prepared himself for attack, he heard a rushing sound in his ears. He shook his head and caught his breath—what was it? He stared down at her pale face as a wave of déjà vu passed over him. There was something about that face, those eyes. Slowly, the memory rose from the deepest recesses of his mind. Eliza—the woman looked so much like his own Eliza!

He flashed back to the moment of Eliza’s death, those last seconds after the bullet ripped through her neck. Her piercing green eyes looked up at him, asking him why, before shifting up into the Montana Big Sky as if to ask God instead. His mind reeled as the images flooded his brain, dredged up from a past that surfaced in sweat-drenched dreams he tried to keep at bay with frequent shots of Jack Daniel's. His mind’s eye flashed to the crimson stream of blood pouring from Eliza’s body. He saw a split-second silhouette of a tall man standing in the barn doorway holding a shotgun, where the nightmare always ended.

Colin reached up angrily and smashed the overhead light so he couldn’t see that face in the dark—Eliza’s face! He leaned back against the wall as a strange sensation washed over him. A wave of heat flowed through his body like an erotic tsunami, and unexpectedly, he came in his jeans. The ripples of pleasure lasted only moments before being replaced by an aftershock of disappointment at his loss of control. His face flushed as his fantasy of a perfect kill faded into the shame of a schoolboy’s nocturnal emission. With his kill ritual thrown out of sequence, he fought to regain his focus and take control.

He looked back down at the motionless woman sitting in the dark on the closet floor and pulled out his gun. As he lifted it to take aim, he realized he hadn’t attached the silencer. He spewed a string of profanities, and his confidence faltered with this second, inexcusable failure… but at least Jack Barnett didn’t witness it! He pressed the cold barrel against the woman’s temple and stood there, hands shaking, ready for the kill, but even as he held his breath with finger on the trigger, he couldn’t pull it. A gunshot was not part of the plan, and he had no intention of letting Jack find out about such a major error.

What to do with this woman now that his virility had left him—a powerless Samson fallen to this unexpected Delilah?

The raspy whisper of Jack Barnett calling from the other room startled him. He reacted instinctively, turning the gun around in his hand and bringing the butt down hard against her skull. He heard the crack of bone as she slumped, and he inhaled the rusty stench of blood. His heart pounding madly, he took a moment to justify the fact that he’d completed his contract despite whatever else had just happened in that room. He backed out of the closet and closed the door behind him.

In the other bedroom, Jack Barnett was collecting what they came for. Colin entered the hallway just as Jack emerged with a loaded quilt over his shoulders, confused cries coming from within a pink cocoon, hanks of blonde hair glowing from tangled bedding, four little feet dangling from Jack’s arms in the sepia darkness. Silently, the two men hoisted their cargo out the window and vanished into the night.