Page 2 of Waves of Reckoning (Echoes of Camano Island #1)

Chapter One

T he smell of fresh, roasted coffee filled the air, reminding Nikki she needed to take a break.

She’d been working on stories all morning, coming up with fresh approaches to a column her father had established many years ago.

She rubbed her eyes and walked to the kitchen, anxiously looking forward to the smooth, dark liquid.

The phone rang just as she was pouring the coffee, startling her and causing her to spill some onto the counter.

“Sheesh!” she exclaimed and tapped her earbuds. “Veronica, this had better be good.”

Veronica, her editor, giggled. “Would I call you otherwise?”

Nikki took a sip of her coffee. “I can think of many times when you have.” Nikki chuckled. “What could you possibly want from me at six thirty in the morning?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a fresh piece of gossip I can send to the printer? How’s it going?”

“Uh, I don’t know how my father did this for so many years,” Nikki wailed and sat at her desk again.

“Well, you’ve been doing the very same thing for the past twenty years, and you’ve been awesome.” Veronica applauded her.

“You don’t need to grovel.” Nikki laughed. “I’m working on something. Or some things. We’ll see what I come up with when I get there. But let me get back to work, please. Why are you up anyway?”

“I’m always up. You keep me busy,” Veronica replied.

Nikki laughed. “See you later, Von.”

She sank into her leather chair and stared at the computer screen.

She wore her plush bathrobe like she did every morning.

It was something of a routine for her—get up at five, brainstorm, research, drink coffee, brainstorm some more, and then go to work.

By the time she clocked in, she’d already done half a day’s work.

But she loved what she did. Journalism was in her blood. It was the one good thing her father gave her, and her spirit sank as she thought about him.

But that wasn’t the only thought that crossed her mind, and her face soured when she remembered her good-for-nothing ex-husband, Josh Winden.

“I don’t know how you do this every morning,” he would always tell her.

“Easy. I pretend it’s someone I’m trying to convict.”

“Very funny,” he would say. “I thought you’d have gone on to some more respectable form of journalism.”

“You mean like being in the middle of a war zone reporting on casualties and prisoners of war and extreme political policies?” Nikki asked and rolled her eyes as she often did.

Josh had never liked the type of journalism she did, but it was what she loved.

She didn’t like seeing him deal with criminals all day long, but that was the life they chose.

“You sound as if you didn’t know what I did? I’ve been doing it for twenty years.”

She blinked back the memories and tried to regain focus on her article.

Nikki gathered her documents, stuck them in a binder she kept for her current stories, and returned upstairs to get ready for work.

She made her way downtown to the office of the The Arlington Times , her home away from home for the past two decades. It was a busy morning as she navigated the traffic that was already picking up.

The air was cool, and the sun's early morning rays warmed the store awnings and pavement. Her office was located on the eighteenth floor of one of the skyscrapers in the metropolitan region of Arlington.

“Good morning, Miss Murphy,” the security guard in the lobby called to her. His broad grin rivaled the sun.

“Hi, Gerry,” she beamed in return. “Good day for a swim, huh?”

“Tell me about it.” He laughed. “But someone’s gotta look out for you.”

“I appreciate it,” she replied and hurried to the elevator. She wasn’t late, but a story was brewing in her mind, and she didn’t want to lose the creative spark.

She breezed past Holly, the receptionist who barely managed to throw a good morning her way. She tossed her bag onto the visitor’s chair and started her laptop.

She was itching to start her story and hoped it would make the evening paper.

“What do we have?” Veronica asked as she appeared over Nikki’s shoulder.

Nikki wheeled her chair excitedly and made a sweeping gesture in the air as she stated her headline: Judge Caught with his Pants Down!

Veronica squealed and rubbed her palms together as if she’d never heard a piece of gossip before. “I love it!”

“Now shoo, so I can write it.” Nikki motioned with her hand for Veronica to leave and returned to her computer screen.

“You’ve got it,” Veronica replied, walking off, her red hair rubbing her shoulders as she returned to her office.

She was going over the story of a local judge who had aspirations of making it to the Supreme Court when his dreams were dashed by an unsuspecting maid who caught him cheating. He literally had his pants down, and the political spin-offs were just too juicy not to record.

She was typing what felt like a hundred words per minute when her phone rang. She ignored it. If she lost her train of thought, she’d lose her angle and forget something.

That was one of the reasons she tried to write in the early mornings when everything was quiet.

Nikki was halfway through the story when the phone rang again. “Come on,” she wailed. Who could it be at that time of the morning? It was barely nine.

She kept tapping away, but when the phone rang for the third time, she lost it. She grabbed it, not even noticing the number or the name on the screen.

“Hello!” she said with great annoyance.

“Hello? Is this Nikki Murphy? Or Nikki Winden?”

Nikki paused and pulled the phone back to check who the caller was. It read: Frank Lynch. Suddenly, her whole world paused, and her story was forgotten.

“Mr. Lynch?” she asked timidly. He was the lawyer her parents had retained when she was growing up, and the last time he’d called her, eight years ago, was to tell her that her parents had been in an accident in Mexico while they’d been on vacation.

They’d been out snorkeling and had gotten caught in a riptide that pulled them under.

The vast amount of money and possessions that Nikki and Trish had inherited didn’t do much to stay that measure of grief, and Nikki felt the familiar lump form in her throat all over again.

“Yes. Is this Nikki?” he asked again, just to make sure.

She gulped. “Yes, it is. What’s wrong?”

She could almost feel it—the enormous sense of dread—and watched as goose pimples filled her arms.

“I’m sorry to be calling you at this dreadful hour of the day, but I’m afraid I have some bad news. It’s your sister, Trish.”

The tears started rolling down Nikki’s face before he even relayed the bad news. “Please tell me she’s okay.”

Mr. Lynch cleared his throat. “She’s been in a serious accident and has severe internal bleeding, so the doctors had to induce a coma to keep her alive.”

He kept explaining things, but Nikki didn’t hear any of them. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed to the point of bursting as the tears streamed down her face.

The last time she’d seen her sister had been at their parents’ funeral and later at the reading of the will. They’d promised to keep in touch, but like the years before that, they’d returned to being distant relatives.

To hear of her demise was a huge blow for Nikki that left her paralyzed.

“Are you there?” She heard Mr. Lynch in the background.

“Y-yes,” she stuttered and cleared her throat. “I’m here. How bad is it?”

“It’s hard to predict, but the doctors say it’s up to her now. You need to come to Camano Island right away. We need to discuss some business.”

“Forget the business,” Nikki fumed. “I need to see my sister.”

“The business has to do with your sister,” Mr. Lynch continued.

“She’s not dead yet!” Nikki cried as her voice got louder.

“I understand, ma’am,” Mr. Lynch said nervously yet with understanding. “If I could have done things any other way, I would have. I don’t like this any more than you do.”

Nikki sighed and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll be there first thing tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you then,” he said and hung up.

It was difficult after that to complete the article, but Nikki struggled through it. It didn’t take Veronica long to figure out something was wrong with her. Nikki told her briefly about what had happened with her sister right before she put in for a couple of days off.

She wasn’t sure how long her trip to Camano Island would be, but she couldn’t think about that. She got the rest of the day off and returned home, but she wasn’t sure which was worse—being at work or being alone in her huge house, wandering aimlessly from room to room as the guilt washed over her.

Since Trish and her parents decided not to give her the baby, she hadn’t spoken to them.

She hadn’t returned to Seattle. Then her parents had died, and now Trish.

She and Josh had never adopted children, but they’d remained married, if even in a loveless marriage that ended up with him cheating on her for three years and impregnating someone else.

She’d rationalized that it was partly her fault for not being able to have children, and she cursed Trish silently at the time.

The hours ticked by, and before she knew it, it was evening. She thought nothing of it when the doorbell rang, and she dragged herself to the door.

She swung it open, only to see Ava, her best friend of over a decade, donning a big grin and holding up a bottle of wine. “It’s girls’ night!” she yelled, seconds before she noticed Nikki’s tearstained cheeks and sunken eyes. “Uh-oh. What’s wrong, honey?” she asked as her hands fell to her sides.

Nikki walked back into the house as Ava followed her. Her raven-black hair was pulled back at her nape, and it swished across her back as she walked.

“I totally forgot about tonight.” Nikki sighed, then sank into the sofa.

She curled her legs under her and pulled the cushion between her legs.

“I got a call from Mr. Lynch today. Trish has been in a car accident, and she may not survive,” she said as fresh tears emerged.

“Ava, I haven’t seen her in years, and now I may never talk to her again. ”

“Oh, honey,” Ava muttered as she reached over and pulled Nikki into her arms. “I’m so sorry. I know you two didn’t get along, but this is awful.”

Nikki sobbed against her friend’s shoulder. “I have to go there tomorrow. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“Shush! Don’t worry about that now. Your sister needs you. Have you eaten at all today?’

“Not really,” Nikki replied. “I hadn’t thought much about it.”

“Okay, I’m going to order us some takeout,” Ava said as she pulled away from Nikki.

“I can’t lose her, Ava.” Nikki sobbed. It was as if the tears wouldn’t stop raining down, consuming Nikki in the process.

“You won’t,” Ava promised her. “You won’t.”

She pulled her in for another hug, but deep down, Nikki dreaded the worst.