The Heartwood Sea by Elana Johnson

Author:Elana Johnson [Johnson, Elana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AEJ Creative Works

When Shawn woke, he could barely pry his eyes open. He couldn’t believe Lissa did this every day, seven days a week, all year long. He knew she didn’t take days off. Such a thing would mean higher costs as the restaurant bought their fish from a commercial establishment for the day. And if there was anything the local island restaurants prided themselves on, it was fresh fish caught daily.

He realized that his alarm was not going off. But something had woken him. Something like a chime or a ring.

His phone flashed with a blue light, and he reached for it at the same time it rang. That was the sound he’d heard, and he saw Jason’s name on the screen, along with the numbers 2:11.

“Two o’clock in the morning,” he grumbled as he unplugged the device and swiped on the call.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Good, I woke you,” Jason said.

Shawn didn’t see how that was good, but he didn’t argue. “What’s going on?”

“There’s been some vandalism over at the build site. I need you to go check it out.”

“Okay.” Shawn got out of bed and looked down at the gym shorts he wore. Did he really need to put on a suit to go out in the middle of the night? Deciding against it, he simply pulled on his shoes, grabbed the keys to the motorcycle, and headed out.

The engine made such a roar in the quiet night, and Shawn felt bad as he navigated the sleepy streets to the high-rise hotel the Tremmel Group had been building for four months. It was only about three stories high right now, but it was supposed to be fifteen. No one on the island had liked it, so the vandal really could be anyone.

A police officer met him and asked, “Are you Shawn Newman?”

“Yes, sir.” He pulled out his wallet and showed his ID. “My boss said there was some vandalism? He wanted me to find out everything I could.”

“Back here.” The cop led him into the structure, where there were plenty of unfinished walls, plastic hanging over things, and the scent of dust and metal hanging in the air.

The hair on Shawn’s arms stood up as he navigated through the dark maze, his creep-o-meter pinging off the charts.

“There,” the cop said, pointing to where another officer stood with the construction team lead. Shawn had met with Ron the first day he’d come to town. The two men shook hands, and Shawn looked at the words spray painted in red on the cement.

Stop building.

You’re ruining our beach.

“What area of the hotel are we in?” he asked.

“This is going to be the kitchen,” Ron said. “The ovens will go here. You can see the drains for the dishwasher and sinks and things.” He aimed his flashlight on the ground, though it wasn’t so dark that Shawn couldn’t see them.

“Do we have cameras or anything on the build site?”

“No, sir.”

“Any leads?” he asked the cops.

“The only other thing we found was this.” The first cop led him over to the outside door.

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