Dead Low Tide Read Free

butting in. “Frank, are you driving or am I?”
    Dad released my shoulders and stared blankly at Mom as though he’d forgotten she was there.
    “Fine, I’ll drive,” Mom said coolly. She marched to the driver’s side of the Buick and slid behind the wheel.
    I could tell she was working on autopilot, processing the situation and setting things in motion. While Dad screamed in my face, Mom had calmly demanded I tell her the exact time Wendy went missing (“I dunno, Mom, probably like a quarter to nine”), phoned the emergency operator, and checked the condo to make sure it was locked. My mother would fall apart later when she was no longer in charge.
    “You two coming?”
    We piled into the Buick. Mom and Dad in the front, me slumped in the back seat. With both hands on the wheel, Mombacked out of the parking space and raced out of the parking lot. She knew the way to the marina. Or, sort of knew. At Dad’s insistence we’d spent part of the afternoon checking out boats. But I could tell from the way she kept slowing down to read street signs that she wasn’t 100 percent sure of where the turn was.
    “Nick, this has to stop.” Mom glared at me in the rearview mirror.
    I braced myself for Mom’s lecture. Normally Dad’s the calm one, but when it’s something really bad, Mom becomes quiet, stews, and then unloads with both barrels.
    “No more ghosts. No more vampires and zombies, do you hear me? You’re done writing for that website.”
    I leaned forward and pointed at the windshield. “Turn at that sign.”
    “Did you hear your mother?”
    “Yeah, Dad, I heard.”
    “Don’t take that tone,” said Mom. “You’re in plenty enough trouble as it is.”
    I almost started to explain (again) that Wendy’s disappearance wasn’t
all
my fault. That she and the zombie-thing shared some blame, but instead I kept my mouth shut. Not that my parents cared, but I felt horrible. It had been my idea to go to the boathouse. My editor, Calvin, had suggested the Laveau incident might make for an interesting article. He hadn’t exactly promised front-page placement on the website, but I knew with the right pictures it was a possibility. That’s why I’d wanted to go at low tide. To snap some pics and video with my tablet.
    Mom swung the Buick into the marina parking lot and jumped out. A fleet of expensive-looking motor yachts and sailboats greeted us on the main dock. Floodlights illuminated a walkway as the three of us hurried past the marina basin and down to the creek. One look at the crime-scene tape blocking access to the pier’s busted dock pilings and Mom lost it.
    “This is your fault! You’re the reason he’s like this!”
    “Me?” said Dad, rounding on Mom.
    “Yes, you, Frank. If you weren’t so busy trying to be Nick’s buddy instead of his father …”
    I felt about an inch tall. Dad and I
had
become closer over the past year. Our buddy-buddy time began after our trip out west to Deadwood Canyon. Before then, the two of us could hardly stand to be in the same room. But after I’d solved the mystery surrounding the identity of Billy the Kid’s killer, Dad began treating me differently. “Not every fifteen-year-old gets a write-up in
Police Blotter
magazine,” he’d bragged to me. “You keep on solving cases and one day maybe you’ll be able to make a living doing this.”
    Now Dad only looked disappointed.
    Mom jogged up the beach to where the uniformed officer stood questioning a group of teens.
    “You have to find my daughter,” I heard her say to the officer as we walked up. “You just have to.”
    Mom had inserted herself between the officer and a girl who appeared to be about my age. The teen wore a baggy denim shirt, jeans, and bright red flip-flops.
    “I’m afraid there isn’t much we can do right now, ma’am. We’re just getting started on the search.”
    The young woman quickly glanced my direction, then wandered back to join her friends by the campfire.
    The officer