Soundkeeper by Michael Hervey Page A

morning rituals. She started with Downward Facing Dog stretches and finished her yoga session thirty minutes later in the Warrior position feeling physically and mentally refreshed from her workout.
    An hour after she finished her exercises Arnold rose again, and walked out the door. Gale heard him pee off of the dock into the water, then he came back inside. He opened a soda and a box of Pop Tarts and tossed her one of the packages. She avoided junk food under normal circumstances, but she knew that she had to eat. She washed them down with a bottle of water and brushed her teeth with one of the few clean spots on her shirt. Arnold turned on the small black and white television.
    He was soon riveted to a talk show featuring a woman who was waiting on a paternity test to see which of her cousins was the father of her unborn child. Members of the studio audience egged on the participants, and two of the possible fathers got into a fist fight and had to be restrained. During a commercial break a news update flashed on the screen, and she saw an aerial view of her boat being towed in from the ocean. Snow white with a mural of fish and turtles painted on the hull, there wasn’t another boat like it on the east coast. A Coast Guard officer was talking about hypothermia and how quickly someone would succumb to the elements, even in mild weather. The commentator said the search for the missing boater had been suspended and a picture of her, from the press packet that was distributed when she became Soundkeeper, flashed across the screen. She recognized several of her Coastwatchers who were keeping vigil at a local church.
    After the news broadcast ended the station returned to the train wreck already in progress. Gale turned away from the television, and bit the inside of her cheek so she wouldn’t cry. She did not want to show any weakness or vulnerability, but she was terrified. She knew that there could only be one reason why Arnold was keeping her, and it made her sick to her stomach. She had to control her breathing to keep from hyperventilating.
    Her boat had been found adrift at sea, and the search had been called off. No one was looking for her anymore.
    The topless bar opened at noon, and Blondie was the first customer. Like most patrons of the White Pony he mistakenly believed that one of the dancers fancied him, believing her feelings had nothing to do with the fact that he stuffed a twenty in her g-string each time she danced for him. Blondie knew it made the man he was doing business with nervous to meet him here—another reason he liked the place.
    Thirty minutes and three drinks later his other partner arrived. Just as he had done every time before, he sat at the bar and looked all around the dimly lit room. When he seemed satisfied, he joined Blondie at his table.
    “Buy me a drink.” Blondie ordered.
    The man hailed a waitress and gave her a twenty for the ten dollar drink. Then he looked all around the bar again.
    “Relax,” Blondie said. “It’s not like you’ve got a truckload of coke sitting outside.”
    This off-hand remark only made the real estate developer more nervous, regretting the day he’d ever met his accomplice.
    Mark Lancaster had bought a fifteen parcel lot outside of Beaufort with plans to cram three hundred condominiums on it and run with the profits to Florida, Mecca of shady land deals. Two days after he closed on the land his dream ended abruptly. The land, for which he had mortgaged everything he owned, failed to pass environmental standards for development. The soil was contaminated and possibly the groundwater.
    After a day of research at the Registrar of Deeds, which should have been done before the purchase, Lancaster learned a sawmill had occupied the land thirty years ago. It supplied wooden ties for the railroad and had huge tanks of creosote that the railroad ties were dipped in. After that process the railroad ties cured and aged in the sun. Just like a telephone pole