Chapter 1 - The Weight of Silt

The brown water of Savannah Creek tasted like rust, gasoline, and rotten cedar.

Underneath the rusted floorboards of the submerged Lincoln Navigator, the pressure popped in my ears with a hollow, sickening crunch. Air bubbles hissed through the torn rubber seals of the sunroof, racing toward the gray mirror of the surface eight feet above us.

I coughed against the plastic mouthpiece Tobias had shoved between my teeth. The compressed oxygen in the miniature pony bottle tasted stale, like rubber and bicycle tires, but it burned down my freezing throat.

Tobias’s grip on my bicep wasn't the weak, trembling touch of a man who had spent fifteen years in a motorized titanium wheelchair. His fingers dug into my flesh like steel vices.

He pulled me flat against the riverbed, pinning my shoulders down into the thick, freezing mud beneath the rotting timber pilings of Pier 9.

Above us, through the murky ripple of the surface, two silhouettes stood outlined against the overcast gray sky.

Garrett had his arm wrapped around Penelope’s shoulders. He was dripping wet, his white linen shirt plastered to his chest. Penelope leaned her head against his neck, holding a black golf umbrella over them both. Her free hand rested flat against the rounded swell of her five-month belly.

Garrett pulled a slim silver lighter from his pocket, flicked it once, and touched the flame to the tip of a cigarette. He didn't dial 911. He didn't shout for help. He took a long, slow drag, blew the smoke out over the water, and tossed the spent matchbook into the river right above where our car had settled into the mud.

Then he turned and walked toward Penelope’s parked Audi, his hand sliding down to rest against the small of her back.

Tobias didn't move until the sound of the Audi’s engine faded down the river road.

He yanked me upward by my collar, breaking the surface behind a wall of slimy green creosote timber.

I spit out the mouthpiece, retching brown river water onto the slick wood. My knees hit the concrete ledge of the drainage tunnel, scraping through my wet jeans.

"You walked," I rasped, the word tearing out of my chest in a breathless, ragged sob. I looked at his legs—his real, muscular legs clad in black neoprene diving tights beneath his slashed slacks. "Fifteen years, Tobias. You let me feed you. You let me lift you into the shower."

Tobias stood dripping in the dark tunnel, his face pale and sharp in the dim light filtering through the sewer grate.

"If I had stood up fifteen years ago," Tobias said, "they would have shot me in the hospital bed."

NEXT CHAPTER 👉 👉 👉

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