Dark Water (Cooper M. Reid Book 1) by Barry Napier Page B

though?”
    “In just about every paranormal case I’ve ever been on, there’s always more activity at night. Seems clichéd, I know. But that’s just the way it is.”
    Cooper came to a stop several feet away from the stones. Being so close to them, he was able to truly appreciate their size. The one closest to the beach stuck out of the water, reaching at least fifteen feet into the air. It was jagged at the top but seemed to have softer edges on the way down until the sea covered it up. The second rock sat directly behind this one and now that he was this close to them, Cooper thought that the two shapes might be part of the same rock formation.
    He sat down on the beach, mentally kicking himself for not bringing a towel. Of course, when he’d left his motel, he hadn’t thought that he’d be brining Stephanie with him. But she sat down on the sand next to him without complaint. She removed her shoes and instantly stuck her toes into the sand, making tiny holes.
    They sat that way for several minutes, not speaking and staring out into the night-covered sea. Cooper didn’t know why, but the sea at night spooked him a bit. During the day, there were always glittering caps and peaks to the water no matter how far out you looked. But at night, there were entire sections of the sea further out that looked to be pitch black, like the night sky was being devoured. It was easy to picture sea monsters and other unspeakable terrors lurking down there in the black depths.
    That brought his attention back to the two large black rocks. He stared at them, watching how the water sloshed and violently crashed around their bases. Sea water churned between them, spitting up foam in sheets as the tide was interrupted and pulled between them.
    “This silence isn’t like us,” Stephanie said.
    The comment surprised Cooper—not just because it broke his concentration from the rocks, but also because it was a very un-Stephanie thing to say.
    “I agree,” Cooper said. “But I honestly don’t know what to say. I feel like I need to apologize, but I’m not quite sure what I’d be apologizing for.”
    “Maybe for disappearing on me?”
    “I really couldn’t help that. I didn’t want to disappear.”
    “Well, what about the two months between the last time you and I saw each other and the day you left for Kansas? What about that little period of time?”
    She wasn’t angry, but the questions seemed barbed nonetheless. Stephanie had always had a very acute way of being able to ask painful and tricky questions in a harmless way. It had been infuriating when they had been dating and Cooper found it no less irritating now.
    “I let work control me,” he admitted. “I wanted to finish the new book ahead of schedule and take a month or so off to do nothing. If it helps, I wanted to take you with me to do that nothing.”
    After a moment of silence, she said, “It helps a little.”
    “And then when I decided I was going to try this whole… thing with the Blackstocks, I knew you were the only person I could call. I felt like a jerk, calling you out of the blue like that. I really did.”
    “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I still don’t understand what it is that you’re trying to accomplish,” she said. “All jokes aside, but the way you explained it to me when you called, it sounds like you’re setting out to be a ghostbuster or something.”
    “No, nothing like that. It’s difficult to explain. When I came back from wherever I was, I started to get these really strange feelings deep down in my gut. I’d get them when I went online or read an article about the paranormal. These were the same sorts of things I was researching before my disappearance, but this time I had a different feeling about it. And when I read the story about the Blackstocks, I felt like something had kicked me in the stomach.”
    “So you think you’re being…what? Summoned by something?”
    Cooper stared