The Dark Tide
A breathtaking novel of suspense from the co-author with James Patterson of five No 1 bestsellers including Judge and Jury and Lifeguard, and the hit thriller of 2007, The Blue ZoneGET UP. KISS YOUR FAMILY GOODBYE. GOT TO WORK. DIE…They say bad luck comes in threes. But for Karen Friedman’s family, bad luck is just the beginning.It starts with her husband Charlie’s investments going wrong and the sudden death of a family pet. Then one morning Charlie takes the train to work – straight into a lethal terrorist blast. For his widow Karen and their children, all that remains of Charlie is a shared past.Or is it? When the Friedmans begin to receive terrifying threats Karen turns to Detective Ty Hauck for help. Hauck’s family fell apart too, after a tragic accident he still blames himself for. Now he’s determined to keep Karen’s safe. But Hauck doesn’t know about how people who investigate Charlie have a way of ending up dead…
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THE DARK TIDE
Andrew Gross
Contents
6:10 A.M.
As the morning sun canted sharply through the bedroom window, Charles Friedman dropped the baton.
He hadn’t had the dream in years, yet there he was, gangly, twelve years old, running the third leg of the relay in the track meet at summer camp, the battle between the Blue and the Gray squarely on the line. The sky was a brilliant blue, the crowd jumping up and down—crew-cut, red-cheeked faces he would never see again, except here. His teammate, Kyle Bregman, running the preceding leg, was bearing down on him, holding on to a slim lead, cheeks puffing with everything he had.
Reach….
Charles readied himself, set to take off at the touch of the baton. He felt his fingers twitch, awaiting the slap of the stick in his palm.
There it was! Now! He took off.
Suddenly there was a crushing groan.
Charles stopped, looked down in horror. The baton lay on the ground. The Gray Team completed the exchange, sprinting past him to an improbable victory, their supporters jumping in glee. Cheers of jubilation mixed with jeers of disappointment echoed in Charles’s ears.
That’s when he woke up. As he always did. Breathing heavily, sheets damp with sweat. Charles glanced at his hands—empty. He patted the covers as if the baton were somehow still there, after thirty years.
But it was only Tobey, their white West Highland terrier, staring wide-eyed and expectantly, straddled turkey-legged on his chest.
Charles let his head fall back with a sigh.
He glanced at the clock: 6:10 A.M. Ten minutes before the alarm. His wife, Karen, lay curled up next to him. He hadn’t slept much at all. He’d been wide awake from 3:00 to 4:00 A.M., staring at the World’s Strongest Female Championship on ESPN2 without the sound, not wanting to disturb her. Something was weighing heavily on Charles’s mind.
Maybe it was the large position he had taken in Canadian oil sands last Thursday and had kept through the weekend—highly risky with the price of oil leaking the other way. Or how he had bet up the six-month natural-gas contracts, at the same time going short against the one-years. Friday the energy index had continued to decline. He was scared to get out of bed, scared to look at the screen this morning and see what he’d find.
Or was it Sasha?
For the past ten years, Charles had run his own energy hedge fund in Manhattan, leveraged up eight to one. On the outside—his sandy brown hair, the horn-rim glasses, his bookish calm—he seemed more the estate-planner type or a tax consultant than someone whose bowels (and now his dreams as well!) attested to the fact that he was living in high-beta hell.
Charles pushed himself up in his boxers and paused, elbows on knees. Tobey leaped off the bed ahead of him, scratching feverishly at the door.
“Let him out.” Karen stirred, rolling over, yanking the covers over her head.
“You’re sure?” Charles checked out the dog, ears pinned back, tail quivering, jumping on his hind legs in anticipation, as if he could turn the knob with his teeth. “You know what’s going to happen.”
