Page 9 of Slack Tide Kill

"I can't remember. Check the records. For now, Rogers, she's 76 and she's been standing in a gale since 6 o'clock this morning. She's better off back home."

Sally remained calm, looking into Mayhew's eyes. "It feels like you're trying to block my investigation, DCI."

Mayhew snorted. "Your investigation? You're here as a courtesy, Rogers, operating with my permission. And with your history, I'm not surprised you're dredging for monsters already. I need you to rein that in."

Sally frowned. History? Thanks to the paparazzi rag The Gaze splashing it across their front pages during Dark Peak, everyone knew how she'd survived a catastrophic Louisiana shooting where 18 of her sorority sisters had perished.

They'd called her the 'Bulletproof Belle'.

"You want to talk about my past, DCI?" she asked softly. "At least I'm not hiding it. Can you say the same?"

Mayhew stared back, eyes alight. Gulls screamed above them. The wind cut through Sally's jacket.

"Watch it, Rogers," she said at last.

"Call me if there's anything," Sally fired back, then turned into the blasting wind and stalked north up the beach.

5 A CALL FROM THE TIDE

Liam O'Connell woke to the sound of rain drilling against glass, and bass beats still pounding in his skull.

For a moment he thought he was still at the club; lights strobing, sweat in his eyes, vodka burning down his throat as strangers moved like ghosts around him. Then the silence folded in. Just his own room. Just him.

He lay sprawled on top of the duvet, one shoe still on, shirt half open, the reek of stale spirits seeping from every pore. His head thudded in dull, rhythmic waves. When he rolled over, the empty vodka bottle on the bedside table clinked softly against another.

Another night. Another failure to escape.

He dragged himself upright, blinking at the daylight leaking through the blinds. His mouth tasted like metal. On the floor by the bed, his phone vibrated again and again, rolling in a slow circle like it too was trying to escape.

Good luck, he thought.

He grabbed it and shuffled into the kitchenette, yanking open the freezer. Ice-frosted bottles. He snatched one, twisted off the cap and took a long, shuddering pull straight from the neck. The vodka hit like battery acid, sharp and merciful. For a few seconds his thoughts burned away; the memories, the flashbulbs, the headlines.

Dark Peak. The look on Sally's face on that terrible, glorious night when he'd become the hero, when things were still black and white.

Before everything went wrong.

He wanted to drink more, keep going until the fire hit his gut and steadied his hands, but his phone was flashing now. He checked the screen through bleary eyes. One new voicemail.

"Liam, it's me. En route to Dungeness now. Get here when you can."

Sally. Her voice froze him.

Flat, controlled, but with that undertone he recognized: the tiny tremor she could never hide when adrenaline and fear braided together.

He played it again, slower, as if he could read between the breaths.

Dungeness.

The word meant nothing at first. He opened his laptop, typed it in. News flashes from Kent Online bloomed across the screen:

‘MAN FOUND DEAD ON DUNGENESS BEACH – SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES'

He let out a quiet laugh that wasn't really a laugh at all. Of course Sally was there already.

She'd been rotting behind a desk for months, same as him, their partnership dissolved into paperwork and avoidance, working opposite sides of the same silent room. He'd watched her shrink in on herself: running at dawn every day, drinking her weight in coffee, steadily shutting down.

He'd wanted to reach out. But after Dark Peak, after everything, he wasn't sure what words would do but detonate them both faster.