Shark Beach Read online

  But it felt like a good kind of crazy.

  * * *

  Deputy Agnes Hayes stood on the side of the road and watched a minivan roll up Captiva Drive in her direction. She had parked her cruiser in the lot beside the Manatee Grill and her flashing blue lights strobed across the minivan as it slowed to a halt. The window shushed down and the driver—a thirtyish woman with her hair in a thick braid—poked her head out.

  “Excuse me, Officer?”

  Once Agnes would have corrected her, explained that she was a sheriff’s deputy, but travelers seemed only to become confused by the distinction. “Officer” was fine.

  “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

  “This whole evacuation.… How long do you think it will be before the governor knows if it’s necessary?”

  Kids started fighting in the back of the van, their voices floating out through the window. In the passenger seat, another woman turned and snapped at them to be silent.

  “Are you asking when we’ll know the storm’s path for certain?” Deputy Hayes said. “When you can come back?”

  The woman’s forehead crinkled, as if the deputy’s tone irritated her. “Well, if the storm doesn’t make landfall here—”

  “Go somewhere and settle in, ma’am,” Deputy Hayes said. “The governor and his staff are watching the reports the same as you and I are. As soon as he’s sure it is safe for you to come back onto the island, he will make that announcement.”

  The woman in the passenger seat began to mutter angrily, rude words sprinkled into her monologue despite the presence of the children. The driver cast Deputy Hayes a regretful glance as she began to drive away, leaving the street empty for a moment. The deputy looked up and down the street and what she saw worried her deeply. Even though they should know better, even though the whole world had seen coverage of one extreme weather event after another, people just assumed everything would be fine.

  Headlights swept around the corner to her left—a car coming the opposite direction. Someone returning to Captiva, maybe from a restaurant on Sanibel. Deputy Hayes sighed. What she wanted to do was stop the car, ask the passengers how stupid they must be to stay when rational thought suggested getting the fuck off the island would be the right move. Instead, she stood where she was. The sheriff had posted her out here to facilitate with the evacuation, but it was after ten p.m. and the flow of traffic had trickled down to almost nothing. The people who were going to leave tonight had already gone.

  “Excuse me, Deputy?”

  She spun around, boots crunching on the gravel in the Manatee Grill’s parking lot. Unconsciously, she shifted her hand so that she could quickly draw her gun if she needed to, but she relaxed when she recognized Charlie Wellman, the restaurant’s owner. Wellman shambled toward her, six-foot-six and pushing three-hundred-and-fifty pounds. He’d played pro football for many years, finishing his career with the Miami Dolphins. Though he’d racked up some impressive statistics, commentators had noticed the Florida native’s weight and what they perceived to be his slowness, and they’d nicknamed him the Manatee. With his thick gray mustache he looked more like a walrus, but the name had stuck. His local friends usually just called him Tee for short.

  “Evening, Mr. Wellman.”

  The man smoothed his mustache. “Anything I can get for you? Something to eat? A coffee?”

  Deputy Hayes softened. “Kind of you, but I’m okay. Just another hour out here, I think, unless the voluntary order becomes mandatory overnight.”

  Wellman stiffened. “You anticipate that happening?”

  “I don’t know what to anticipate.”

  “I hate this ‘voluntary’ bullshit,” Wellman said. “It’s such a cop-out. Either evacuate or don’t. If there’s not enough danger to force an evacuation, what’s the point of fucking up people’s vacations—not to mention my profits—by scaring them away?”

  She almost gave an honest reply, because she agreed. People weren’t frightened enough by something the authorities told them might never happen at all. They had come seeking paradise and they would not abandon it voluntarily. But there was another side to that argument.

  “You ever been in the middle of an evacuation from Captiva or Sanibel?”

  “By boat,” Wellman replied. “From here to the mainland.” He shrugged. “But I know the traffic is a nightmare.”

  “Nightmare doesn’t even cover it.”

  Most of the streets on Captiva and Sanibel were two-lane roads—one in each direction. The governor had put the voluntary order in place in hopes that more than a trickle of people would take the wise course and get out early. If the order became mandatory, the scene would become very ugly. There were not enough Lee County deputies and Sanibel police officers to keep it all running smoothly, but they would do their best, as always.

  Wellman started into some farewell pleasantries, but Deputy Hayes’s radio squawked and she turned her back on him, even as she waved for a slowing car to speed up. Every vehicle leaving the island was one more she wouldn’t have to deal with later.

  “Hayes,” she said.

  “Agnes, it’s Heidi. We got a call from Sunset Captiva earlier. Some kind of scuffle on the beach today. I’ve put the guy off twice but he insists he wants to file charges, so the sheriff wants you to go out and take statements.”

  Beautiful. This was all she needed.

  “I’m on it,” she told the dispatcher. “Anything’s better than standing on the side of the road and waiting for the wind to blow.”

  * * *

  Emma Scully barely heard the doorbell. She lay sprawled on the loveseat in the beach house’s living room, legs dangling over the side as she scanned through Instagram posts. Her father hated her being on Instagram, said it encouraged a shallow mindset for young people to need so much psychological reinforcement when it came to everything from their bodies to the food on their plates. Emma had bitten her lip so many times to avoid telling him she had to get her positive reinforcement somewhere, but she knew how that conversation would go, so she kept her mouth shut. She loved her father, but sometimes he seemed so old.

  When the doorbell rang again, she frowned, wondering where the noise had come from. Only when Kelsey jumped up from where she’d been lying on the floor with a coloring book did Emma realize what she’d heard.

  “Someone’s at the door!” Kelsey called toward the back of the house, where the four adults sat on the screen porch, drinking and making sightseeing plans for later in the week.

  “Hey, kid, wait up,” Jesse said, rising from the couch.

  He’d been reading a book—some historical thing—but now he cast a disapproving look at Emma and followed Kelsey toward the door.

  “I didn’t hear it,” Emma said, squirming a bit.

  “No worries. I got it,” Jesse replied.

  But it bothered her, the quiet implication that as the big sister, she ought to have gotten up right away, not allowed her nine-year-old sister to answer the door in a strange place, long after dark. Mostly, it bothered her because she couldn’t stand Jesse disapproving of her. They fought like siblings sometimes, and they’d spent enough time together growing up that when they were little it had sometimes felt like they were, but they weren’t little anymore and Jesse had grown quieter. Quieter and way, way better looking.

  She stayed on the loveseat, trying to pretend nothing mattered to her.

  “Can I help you?” she heard Jesse say.

  “I’m looking for Richard Scully. Is he in?”

  The sound of scurrying feet whipped through the living room, and Emma sat up to watch as a wide-eyed Kelsey raced through the kitchen to the sliding glass door that led to the screen porch. As her little sister hauled the slider open, Emma turned to see Jesse leading a uniformed police officer into the house. She stiffened, throat going dry, wondering what the hell was going on.

  Emma’s parents came in from the porch, leaving the Hautalas out there alone.

  “I’m Rick Scully,” she heard he
r dad say. “This is my wife, Corinne.”

  “Deputy Agnes Hayes, Lee County Sheriff’s Department,” the woman replied. “I’m told you had an altercation on the beach today.”

  “I called three times, Deputy,” her father continued. “I didn’t think anyone was going to show up.”

  Emma rolled her eyes, flushed with embarrassment. She’d had no idea her father had called the police, and she could tell from her mother’s expression that she wasn’t the only one.

  “We’re shorthanded with storm preparation, Mr. Scully. Is there somewhere we can sit, so I can take your statement about the incident?”

  “Em, I’d like you to take Kelsey for a walk on the beach,” her mother said.

  Normally Emma would have argued, but she could see the stress on her mother, and she really didn’t want to be here for this anyway.

  Mr. Hautala poked his head in from the screen porch. “Jesse, go with the girls.”

  Jesse didn’t argue either. He looked from the deputy to Emma’s father and then nudged Kelsey with his foot. “Come on, kid. Put your flip-flops on. We’ll see if we can spot any good shells in the moonlight.”

  Kelsey agreed happily, as she always did when Jesse asked her to do something. Even when he called her “kid” she didn’t mind, but whenever Emma tried it, Kelsey was furious. Her little sister might only be nine, but Emma figured Kelsey had her own sort of little kid crush on Jesse.

  “Deputy, let’s talk on the porch,” Corinne said.

  The adults started moving toward the screen porch. Rick offered the deputy a drink, which seemed monumentally stupid to Emma, but by then she and Jesse and Kelsey were headed for the front door. Emma went out first, let the door hang open behind her, then hurried down the steps. Tiny lizards scurried out of her way. Big curled leaves that looked like something out of Jurassic World skittered on the round stone tiles of the front walkway.

  “Emma, what’s your hurry?” Kelsey said, irritation tightening her voice.

  “Just eager to get away from them,” Emma said. “It’s so embarrassing.”

  Jesse came up beside her, matching her pace. “Let them worry about it. You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  Emma glanced over her shoulder at Kelsey, who struggled to keep up with them. “It wasn’t your father punching some college kid.”

  “He didn’t punch the guy, dummy,” Kelsey said. “All he did was push him a little.”

  “Does that make it okay?” Emma asked, slowing down, studying her little sister.

  “Of course not. But he’s just ‘Dad,’ y’know? He’s not even really jealous. He’s just angry and he doesn’t even know who he’s angry at—which is himself, as usual—so he’s trying to find someone to blame.”

  Emma and Jesse both stopped in their tracks and stared at her.

  Kelsey scowled and twisted up her body like she could make herself disappear. “Why are you guys looking at me like that? You’re so weird!”

  “And you’re, like, ridiculously smart,” Emma replied.

  “Perceptive,” Jesse said. “And wise.”

  Kelsey squirmed again. Emma could see how much she liked the compliments, just as she could see how much her sister didn’t want to show it.

  “Beach,” Jesse said.

  With a tacit agreement to change the subject, they fell into silence as they walked along the path to the wooden boardwalk, which led out onto the beach. The boardwalk had been put in maybe a decade before and the wood was in excellent shape, beautifully maintained by the property managers of Sunset Captiva. Emma loved the thirty feet of thin tree cover that separated the houses from the beach. Kelsey went wild for all of the animals they could see around the island, including dolphins, sea otters, and manatee, but Emma always found herself staring at the trees and their underbrush. She counted what appeared to be at least four varieties of palm tree, not to mention many other trees, including a mango. At night, with the wind picking up and the menacing whisper of wind through the branches and leaves, she loved the strange layers of shadow they provided.

  When they reached the end of the boardwalk and stepped out onto the sand, Emma hoped to see the moon over the water. Instead, clouds had moved in and the waves on the Gulf seemed angry as they crashed on the shore. The night they had arrived, the moonlight had been beautiful, the sky clear, the waters gently beckoning, and she had laughed as she’d taken her sister’s hand and they had run into the ocean together, still in their shorts and shirts.

  Not tonight. Looking at the Gulf of Mexico now, with the low clouds lit from within by dim, diffused, almost suffocated moonlight, Emma did not trust the water.

  Laughter erupted off to her left. She glanced that way and saw that there were others who did not share her feeling of unease. Two of the spring-break girls were sitting on the sand, bottles of beer in their hands. Emma had been watching the group for the past couple of days, sometimes eavesdropping while she lay on her beach mat. The girl with the flawless skin and massive brown eyes was Nadia, while her shorter, louder friend was Simone. Nadia might be beautiful, but Simone had the sculpted muscles and powerful legs of a gymnast. The way she walked—back straight, light but confident on her feet—Emma guessed that had to be it. Dancer, possibly, but gymnast seemed much more likely.

  As the two college girls gossiped about their friends, sipping their beers, Emma walked within thirty feet of them. Kelsey had begun regaling Jesse with dramatic complaints about the teachers and principal at her school, with Jesse offering meaningless grunts and faux interested replies. Emma glanced over and immediately understood the reason—he shot a furtive glance at the spring-break girls, then a second look, this one lingering a moment on Nadia.

  “Jeez,” she muttered to him. “Stare a little longer.”

  Jesse glanced away guiltily, then fixed Emma with a withering look. “I wasn’t staring.”

  “She’s just jealous,” Kelsey said, in a high, squeaky voice. She smirked with such satisfaction that Emma silently vowed to murder her later.

  “You were definitely staring,” Emma countered quietly, as they reached the crashing waves. “The way tigers watch mothers push baby carriages past their enclosures at the zoo? That was the look you just gave her. Even worse, your taste in women sucks.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You want the girl who tosses her hair and laughs at your jokes instead of the one who won’t take the back seat to anyone.”

  Jesse faced her. The sky over the Gulf rumbled with distant thunder. “What do you know about what I want?”

  A wave crashed onto the shore. Kelsey laughed and raced away from it, but neither Emma nor Jesse moved an inch as the water rushed around their legs.

  “Why do you even care?” Jesse said.

  “I don’t.” Emma felt the surf dragging at her calves as the wave receded.

  “I wasn’t staring.”

  “Fine.”

  “I—”

  Kelsey shouted something. Emma turned toward her, tried to rewind in her brain to figure out what her sister had said, but even in the split second she did that, she saw the look on Kelsey’s face, the way her sister’s gaze shifted oceanward, and Emma turned to see the wave coming at her. She reached out for Jesse, but then the wave hit. It came up to her chest. If she’d braced herself she might have stayed on her feet, but the wave crashed into her, carried her with it, drove her under and then began dragging her backward. She felt the undertow grip her, felt the power and hunger in it. As she choked on salt water, panic seized her and she flailed, unable to tell up from down, rolling in the undertow.

  Something struck her in the water. A fresh jolt of panic surged through her, but then arms wrapped around her and she felt herself hauled bodily from the waves. Drenched, coughing, she grabbed hold of her rescuer, knowing it had to be Jesse, the only person close enough to have reached her.

  He set her down where the water still came up to her knees. A fresh wave of fear washed over her and she rushed from the surf, coughing up a lungful of salt wat
er. She dropped to her knees and drew long, ragged breaths, with fits of coughing in between. Someone knelt by her, and for a moment she thought it was Kelsey, but then she heard her little sister crying. Emma looked up to see Simone beside her. Kelsey stood with the other college girl, Nadia, the two of them staring.

  “You’re okay,” Simone said, her eyes narrowed with concern. “Just breathe.”

  “That was terrifying,” Jesse said, his voice coming from somewhere above and behind Emma. She wasn’t sure if he had been speaking to her or to the spring-break girls.

  Nadia swore, unconcerned about Kelsey’s age. “Totally fucked up. They need to put up signs warning people not to swim until after this storm has passed.”

  Emma coughed again, or she would have laughed. “They want people to evacuate. They’re probably not thinking about swimming.”

  As Emma stood, Kelsey hugged her.

  “You weren’t even swimming,” Simone said, studying Emma’s face as if to make certain she hadn’t suffered any real damage. Then she glanced at Nadia. “We need to tell the others, or someone’s going to go for a drunk skinny dip and we’ll never see them again.”

  “Oh, can it be Marianna? Please?” Nadia said.

  “You’re such a bitch,” Simone said. But she laughed.

  The moment when they had all been one group, five people together, seemed to have passed. The two spring-breakers moved together again. Kelsey hugged her sister, something Emma realized she hadn’t done in a long time.

  “You okay?” Jesse asked, shifting closer to the Scully sisters.

  Emma nodded. “Yeah. That was pretty scary, though.”

  Nadia and Simone started back toward the beers they had left jutting from the sand.

  “Good thing you had your own personal lifeguard,” Nadia said, flipping her hair and smiling at Jesse as if bestowing a blessing on him. Simone bumped her, Nadia stumbled, and then the two of them plucked their beers from the sand and started walking back toward the footpath to their rented house.