A body washes up on the shores of Lake Templeton, a small town on the coast of Vancouver Island. Sharon Reese, the victim, was a dedicated government employee. Everyone liked her, but no one knew much about her. Was she hiding something? Maybe a questionable past riddled with scandal. And did it lead to her plunge to death, in a drunken stupor, off the dock outside her secluded lakefront lodge?
I get ready in a hurry. Last night’s clothes still cling to my skin through splotches of gluey sweat. I rip them off in disgust and step into the shower, gasping as the cold pellets assail me in an icy gunfire.
There’s no time to wait for the water to heat up in these crummy old pipes. And I can’t go to Pebble Beach smelling of last night’s beef patty and cheddar cheese. Not when Detective Singh will be there, smelling like a snack and looking like a GQ model. By the time I slide into my car, I’ve put more effort into my appearance than I’ve made in job interviews.
Pebble Beach is under ten minutes from the Lakeside Inn. It’s a rocky shelf of land that hugs the lapping tongue of Lake Templeton. A small grassy area is covered with picnic tables and logs for lovers and Instagrammers alike. A grove of trees creates a privacy screen, separating the area from the highway.
I’m parking my car on the dirt shoulder off the side of the road when I realize that I forgot to grab a coffee. I step out of my car in a huff. But my frivolous worries evaporate when I see the flashing police cruiser and the small crowd gathered on the beach.
As I approach the crowd, I notice a pair of feet, encased in runners, resting sideways on the wet grass. Jeans-clad legs extend from the feet. As I get closer, a comatose body emerges, lying bedraggled and motionless. Topped with a shock of damp red hair that conceals a face turned away from me on a pallid neck, marred with dark smudges. Fingermarks, applied with brutal force, as if the perpetrator was pressing down on a dried-out ink pad.
My legs like spaghetti, I hobble over, unable to believe my eyes. Ferocious whispers bubble around me, some civilians, others police officers. I can’t see the dead body’s face but I know who it is.
HS Burney writes fast-moving, action-packed mysteries set against the backdrop of majestic mountains and crystalline ocean in West Coast Canada. She loves creating characters that keep you on your toes. A corporate executive by day and a novelist by night, HS Burney received her Bachelors’ in Creative Writing from Lafayette College. A proud Canadian immigrant, she takes her readers into worlds populated by diverse characters with unique cultural backgrounds. When not writing, she is out hiking, waiting for the next story idea to strike, and pull her into a new world.
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