Brooke didn’t get very far before it became a herculean struggle to keep herself afloat in the frigid sound. The otherwise tiny swells seemed enormous now as her strength was being sapped from her faster than she’d anticipated. About 150 feet from the shore, and she had to resort to flailing her numb, clothing-ladened limbs.She…
Category: Stories
The Beast of Bell Island part 8
Brooke tried using her phone to contact her father, but she couldn’t get even the weakest signal here. Must be some part of the magic, she thought. Or maybe Ilyin planned things that way when he built the house. She flopped backwards down onto the bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, puzzling…
The Beast of Bell Island part 7
Seeing him destroy the tree had shaken her, and Brooke took to running back to the house. “He’s in one of his moods,” Amos said as it stood between the pool and the courtyard, head perked in Ilyin’s direction. “I knew asking him to talk about it would make him angry,” she said, passing the…
The Beast of Bell Island #6
Aren’t Russians supposed to be happy drunks? she thought as she scrounged up some paper and a pen. Maybe if he tried rum instead of vodka… Brooke went downstairs, going over the questions she had to ask him, swearing up and down that she wouldn’t let him intimidate her. But once she saw the great-room-turned-bedroom,…
The Beast of Bell Island #5
Brooke had to wave her father goodbye from inside the tree line as he boarded the small private craft headed for Anacortes. She trudged up the cedar path back to the villa alone and contemplated just what she’d gotten herself into. Her stomach started growling as she stepped back in through the front door. It…
The Beast of Bell Island part 4
Jack Ilyin bore little resemblance to the man in the TED Talk video. His face and bare shoulders were ruddy from sun exposure, his dirty blond hair long enough to tie into a sloppy ponytail, and his chin was burdened with a beard that would make the most discerning of Portland wanna-be lumberjacks green with…
The Beast of Bell Island part 3
The door undid itself with an unassuming click of a latch and swung inward. It was dim, lit only by the natural light filtering through the thinning marine layer of clouds and fog outside, but not dark. The entryway was large and deceiving in its grandeur; Brooke knew money when she saw it, even with…
The Beast of Bell Island part 2
Brooke made small talk with Andy on the way out from Anacortes, but it was hard over the roaring drone of the runabout’s outboard motor. And she was distracted besides. He asked about her dad, but she didn’t have much to tell him – he just assumed that it was a sensitive case and didn’t…
The Beast of Bell Island part 1
“Did I tell you that they’re sending me to Bell Island?” Martin called from the hallway bathroom where he was doing a last once-over before leaving for work. His daughter, Brooke, who was reading in the living room of her father’s Anacortes home, looked up from her book. “No. Where’s Bell Island?” “Just east of…
[ITS] Chapter 13: The Guard
Bad news, his email starts. I don’t think I’ll be able to grab you your stuff this time. This time or… for the forseeable future. Holly frowns, though not because she feels entitled to this stuff he’s doing for her. She frowns because it means something’s changed for him, and from what little she knows of his…