Hard Tide

6. Ari

CHAPTER 6

ARI

Monday 11 July

07:12 Kai Kealoha arrived at Torres property.Haven’s Rest. The Torres home was called Haven’s Rest. Every time I saw the nameplate screwed to the front wall, I felt a pang of homesickness.

07:26 ZT and KK loaded surfboards into ZT’s pickup and left property. 07:32 ZT and KK arrived at Seagrass Beach. 07:59 Tyler Peralta arrived at Seagrass Beach. 08:25 - 11:49 Various unidentified women dropped by to speak with ZT. Appeared to be fans. Ref photos SP32 - SP38. 12:18 ZT returned home alone. 12:26 ZT went running with Chuku Haruna.The trainer was a tall Black man with the physique of a long-distance runner. But he was tough too. I’d seen him do fifty push-ups on the lawn beside Zach and barely break a sweat.

13:12 ZT and CH arrived back at Torres property. 13:47 CH left property. 13:57 ZT left property with Maya Torres. Visited grocery store. 14:29 ZT returned home with MT. Three unidentified females noted outside property, one holding a “We love you, Zach” sign. ZT waved but did not converse. Ref photo SP39.At first, I’d considered joining the girls. Being a surf groupie would have given me the perfect excuse to loiter near Torres for hours. But potentially, I might have to keep up the surveillance for the remainder of the surf season. Holding a “Zach, you’re the best” sign for that long would not only tip me from superfan into deranged stalker territory, but it would also destroy the single ounce of self-respect I had left. And I very much wanted to keep that.

14:35 Brunette female arrived at Torres property. Identified as Sharon Sansom, freelance journalist. Ref photo SP40. 15:08 Middle-aged female left property. Did not see her arrival. Drove away in white Toyota Corolla with license plate 3HCF521. Ref photo SP41. 16:24 Sharon Sansom left Torres property. 16:32 ZT observed swimming laps in pool for approx 20 mins. 16:47 Package delivered by UPS. Truck license plate 6KYD947. 16:59 MT observed speaking on phone while pacing backyard.And she’d looked upset. Bad news? When Zach came out a few minutes later, she visibly pulled herself together and offered him a smile. So, it probably wasn’t a work issue. I’d considered a strategy of befriending her to get closer to Zach, but she seemed to be something of a loner and barely left the house.

19:05 Tyler Peralta and Baylee Sarterfeld arrived at Torres property.Baylee was Peralta’s girlfriend, according to social media. They’d been dating for over six months.

20:17 Pizza delivered by slim Black male driving red Honda Civic with sign for “Milano’s Pizza” on door. Limited conversation, tip changed hands. Ref photo SP42. 22:11 TP and BS left Torres property.Six thirty a.m. on Tuesday, and I finished writing up the logs for the past five days, attached those and the photos to my summary, and pressed send. Then yawned. Lone surveillance was tough, I was already shattered, and there was no end in sight. Damn, I hated mornings. Vegas came alive at night, and only the school run got me out of bed before nine.

Think of the money, Ari.

Plus the fact that this wasn’t the most challenging assignment I’d ever done, not now that I’d found somewhere to stay and begun to settle into the role. Boring, yes, tiring, yes, but not technically difficult. I was a tiny cog in a big machine. Jankowski’s men were running down the leads and determining whether anyone I spotted was a viable suspect. All I had to do was submit my reports on time.

So, where was I staying?

Right in Seagrass Point.

The small settlement sat between a redwood forest and the ocean a little way north of Santa Cruz. To call it a town would have been generous—there was no real infrastructure, no Main Street, just a surf store that sold a variety of boards, clothing, and accessories, and a general store-s***h-diner that sold everything else. I suspected most of the trade came from tourists, either surfers or people passing through on their way to and from San Francisco. The place was pretty, I’d give it that. Cutesy in a driftwood-and-pastel-colours kind of way, and most of the homes were expensive. Big, fancy places in a mishmash of styles, each one unique. Think Grand Designs versus 100 Day Dream Home.

When I’d checked the listings online, there were precisely three properties available for rental in Seagrass Point. No way would Rennick spring for the mansion, which left two. The first was a super-cool Airstream trailer, immaculately restored and rated five stars. Free Wi-Fi, utilities, and use of the pool included. When I was a teenager, I’d dreamed of buying a trailer like that, just hitching it up and taking off to see what the rest of the United States had to offer. Of course, fate had come up with other plans for me, and this week was no different.

The second option was a garage apartment that worked out four hundred dollars a month cheaper, and there was a good reason for that. Reviews mentioned the smell of mothballs, the intermittent hot water, and the landlady’s attitude problem.

Can you guess which of the two was next door to the Torres place? I’d bought an air freshener, steeled myself for cold showers, and vowed to avoid Wilma Carrington at all costs. Cranky didn’t even begin to cover it. But if I stood on the wobbly chest of drawers in the bedroom, a small round window in the eaves gave me a good view over the single-storey Torres home. A swathe of overgrown ivy meant Zach and Maya were unlikely to notice me watching, and at least I didn’t have to hunker down in the forest to carry out surveillance. Things could have been worse. They could also have been a lot better, but when had my life ever gone smoothly?

The Torres property certainly fit with the locale. The long, low rectangle was nestled into a slope, the front a wall of mirrored glass that overlooked the ocean and the roof covered by an expanse of grass with a pair of lawn chairs perched on top. Red-and-yellow cushions stood out against the white frames. More chairs sat on a floating concrete terrace in front of the building, and skylights—glass domes topped with metal birds that rose from the immaculate sea of green—suggested the house went deeper into the hillside than it first appeared. A narrow pool ran the full length of the building, shimmering in the sunlight, and in between the terrace and the water, ribbons of ornamental grass wove through a strip of gravel. A small bridge crossed the pool, more decoration than of any practical use.

The drive led around the side of the main house to the double garage, which wasn’t so different from the one I was currently living above, except it was painted white and had obviously been well-cared for. Maya Torres appeared to have made the garage apartment her home. I saw her coming and going, and she parked her silver Toyota outside. Zach usually left his Dodge Ram in a small pull-off near the pool. Nobody parked in the garage, and from what I could work out, that space was reserved for Zach’s collection of surfboards. His quiver, according to the jargon I’d picked up. In the mornings—or at least, every morning since I’d been watching—he’d select a board, load it into the back of his pickup, and drive to a local surf spot.

With me following.

Outside, I heard the crunch of feet on gravel and clambered onto the chest of drawers, muttering a silent prayer that it didn’t tip over. Right on time. Zach Torres strolled along the driveway wearing board shorts, a tight rash vest, and a pair of flip-flops. Dressed for the office. As I watched, he turned to stare at the ocean for a few moments. What was he thinking? Deciding where he wanted to surf this morning? In four days, we’d been to three different places. He seemed to favour a quiet beach a two-minute drive away, and I could understand why—when he ventured to the more popular spots, he spent more time signing autographs and posing for photos than actually surfing.

Maya’s windows stayed dark while Zach loaded gear into his truck. She didn’t appear to share his love of early mornings. Or surfing, or even beaches. On the internet, I’d found a single candid shot of her in a bikini, but that had been taken several years ago, and she’d put on weight since then. Now, she tended to favour long skirts and loose, floaty tops teamed with sandals.

The day before yesterday, she’d shown up at the beach three hours after Zach arrived and spent a quarter hour speaking with her brother, pausing every so often to point at her iPad. Some sort of scheduling meeting? Zach had nodded frequently, interspersed with the occasional grimace and head shake. I’d recorded the interaction from my position farther along the beach on the pretence of photographing surfers and seabirds. I wasn’t the only person out with a camera that day. A guy up on the cliff—well, perhaps “cliff” was too generous a word, but there was a definite step—he was taking photos too. Seabirds mainly, judging by the angle of his camera. When I caught him looking in my direction, I waved, and he waved back.

Was I worried about being noticed? No, not really. If I was working a surveillance detail for a day or two, staying hidden had its advantages, but I couldn’t skulk around in a place like Seagrass Point for months without raising suspicions. Better for Torres to see me around. To get used to my presence on the beach. That way, he’d tune me out. When I followed him to contests, then I’d have to keep out of his way and Maya’s too, but for today, I could relax in plain sight.

Initially, Jankowski had taken that approach too. After I signed Rennick’s contract, Lila had forwarded me copies of the Twilight Agency’s reports, and Jankowski had sent a man in undercover as a surfer. I knew the guy, and yes, he was tanned and toned and looked the part, but he was also the world’s biggest bullshitter. Five bucks said he’d lied about his surfing ability, which was probably why he’d ended up in the hospital with a broken leg two weeks into the job.

I wasn’t dumb enough to try climbing onto a surfboard, no siree. If the weather was good, I might fulfil Rennick’s wish and wear a bathing suit to the beach, but swimming was out of the question. Even the sound of the waves left me slightly nauseated. After my near-drowning, I’d had nightmares for years—murky water closing over my head, thrashing arms and legs followed by the paralysing fear of not knowing which way was up, my chest getting tighter, tighter until I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. Then blackness. I later learned that a teenage boy had seen me fall into the lake and run to save me, but in those long moments while he searched, I’d been terrified. Even now, I much preferred showers over baths, and swimming pools were firmly off-limits.

But that was okay. I could work around my fears. Secretly, I’d set myself a goal of paddling at the water’s edge before I went back to Vegas, but this was early days. No pressure. I had a cover story. Yesterday, I’d photographed the beach for the travel blog I’d set up—Ari’s Big Adventure—and today, I planned to embrace my inner eco-warrior. This was a marathon, not a sprint. All I had to do was hover around the periphery of Zach Torres’s world, note everything I saw, and collect a paycheck at the end of each week.

I watched as Torres pulled out of the driveway. The tracking device I’d placed in his wheel well meant I could give him a head start while I gulped down a bowl of cereal.

Get close, but not too close.

Right?

Wrong.