Undertow

Chapter 1 Pulling into the first empty parking spot he could find, Derek Meredith cut off the engine of his car and doused his headlights. The night seemed to rush in, pressing against his windshield as if testing it for entry cracks. For a long moment he sat in the darkness, listening to the tick tick tick of his car’s cooling engine and, beyond that, the sea breeze that rustled the leaves on the palm trees surrounding the parking lot. Through his windshield he could see the ocean roiling below the cliffs like a dark beast uneasy in sleep. Derek knew that feeling, all too well. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the mission-style adobe dwelling behind him, the windows lit from within, a neon sign beaming the name of the bar into the night. Den of Thieves. For all the time he’d spent on the shore, he’d never been here before. Then again, he wasn’t the type to frequent bars—up until a few months ago, he’d been in a happy, satisfying relationship that kept him home nights with his lover, Tad Archer. A few months ago, he would have laughed if someone suggested he’d find himself in the parking lot of the Den of Thieves, about to meet a man he knew nothing of beyond a cryptic message on his voicemail. The passenger seat of his car, empty. The bed he used to share with Tad, just as bare. His heart, somehow still beating despite it all… Thinking of Tad aggravated the wound. With a jerk, Derek tugged on the rearview mirror, and the warm, bright sign of the bar was replaced with his own dark, haunted eyes. They churned like the sea out there, torn up with pain he no longer allowed himself to feel. Tad was gone, he admonished silently—how many times did he have to remind himself of that little fact? Half his soul, his reason for breathing, had slipped beneath the waves one rough afternoon four months ago today and never reappeared. In the rearview mirror, he studied his reflection, the smooth skin of his cheeks that looked stretched and pale in the darkness, the tight set of his thin lips, the faint lines around his pain-filled eyes and, above them, the shock of red roots beginning to grow beneath the black dye he’d used to smother his fiery hair. Like a thumb ground into a healing wound to reopen the pain, he forced himself to say the name out loud, “Tad.” His heart pounded in his chest, his head ached. Tad is dead, he wanted to say, but his throat worked around the words, refusing to let them out, give them weight, make them real. Pushing the mirror away from him, Derek yanked his keys from the ignition and opened his door to stagger out into the night. The cool sea air licked his hot face and ruffled his hair. The slam of the door was lost in the wind; turning up his collar, Derek set his back to the cliff and the sea below it and headed for the bar.