Cassidy Kincaid Mysteries Box Set

approaching. One of the trio of surfers was lined up for it, stroking slowly forward, his gaze over his shoulder to gauge his final approach.
Bruce reached the woman, who was saying something Cassidy couldn’t hear over the wave’s roar. Her eyes had that desperate “deer-in-the-headlights” look. Bruce gave her some kind of instruction, his face tense. The surfer from the peak dropped in, and Cassidy lost sight of them all as the wave swept past. Had the surfer seen Bruce and the woman in time to avoid a collision?
The wave broke, a foamy, thick cloud of icy blue and white. Bruce’s head popped up. Then, Cassidy watched in horror as the tip of the woman’s board punched through, but then was sucked backwards into the exploding wave. Bruce swam back to her, and Cassidy caught a glance at them as she bobbed up and over the lip of the set wave. The woman took a lungful of air and dove, while Bruce paddled her board expertly forward, then scooped beneath the water.
Both of them popped up outside. The woman, eyes wide with desperation, paddled to Bruce. He returned her board and Cassidy heard them exchange a few words. Then the woman paddled slowly in the direction of the boat.
“What happened?” Cassidy said when Bruce returned. The woman’s husband had caught up to his wife, and though Cassidy couldn’t hear what they were saying, the woman’s shoulders shook with sobs.
“I think this wave is more than she bargained for,” he said.
Cassidy knew what that felt like. It was terrifying.
The group continued trading waves until the wind kicked up, shearing the lips off the waves to blow shrapnel-like mist against her cheeks. It became difficult to see the drop while paddling into a wave because of the windborne spray.
Bruce rounded up the group, and one by one, they took their last waves and headed back to the boat, lined up like a row of ducklings. Augusto helped load everyone’s boards, handing out waters or beers, and soon Bruce was pulling in the anchor. The woman who had been caught inside looked revived, though she sat in the shade on the side of the boat, staring into the horizon.
Cassidy rinsed her face with fresh water from a jug on the stern, thinking about Reeve shirking good surf to edit footage of the guests. Maybe he’d finally grown up.
The wave at Ollie’s Point was not as powerful, but the rides were long and the offshores softer. The group spent a few hours enjoying the spot until the tide changed and it was time to go home. Bruce came out to film for a short while, and spent the rest of the time on the boat. It gave Cassidy time to process some of the things she had learned, but when they returned to Coco Beach, she still felt just as clueless about where Reeve was, or if he was okay.
When she checked her phone back at the hotel, a text message from Rebecca was waiting:
Have you found out anything?
Cassidy tossed the phone on the bed and took a long shower, trying to use the time to organize her thoughts before typing:
He disappeared in Nicaragua.
What was he doing in Nicaragua?
He was working on a boat. He went ashore in San Juan del Sur and never came back.
Did you go there?
Cassidy frowned. Go to Nicaragua? She typed: No. There was a pause, and Cassidy was about to toss her phone back on the bed when it chirped.
Have you been to the police yet?
No
They say they’re looking into it but I don’t think they are
Okay, I can go tomorrow. Time for a drink, she thought.
Rebecca replied with a “thumbs-up” emoticon.
Cassidy took her laptop to the restaurant, where she ordered a plate of fried shrimp and beans. While she ate, she tidied up her inbox and then edited a paper she was collaborating on. Her study on Arenal focused on understanding how a certain type of seismic signal, called harmonic tremor, was related to changes in the behavior of the volcano. Her goal was to see if she could find a way to forecast the next explosion and correlate the characteristics of tremor signal with the eruption’s size. This paper, along with a handful of other papers she was either writing or co-authoring with others, was a key step towards landing a permanent job. Being a post-doc was sort of like having a two-year job interview; the university gave you money, and then everyone, including faculty at other universities that were hiring that year, sat back and watched how well you used it. The antidote to worrying about it was to publish like crazy.
Her stomach did a little flip when she saw a note from Héctor. He had sent a short message saying that all six of their seismic stations were functioning. “Yes!” she said. Because she wasn’t scheduled to return to the volcano for another four months, this was excellent news. Though Héctor’s note was professional, he did sign off with, “Be safe.”
She was so lost in her work, taking breaks only to sneak bites of her food and sip her beer that when she was done, it was after ten o’clock, and her eyes felt gummy. She noticed a basketball game on the TV over the bar and Mel leaning against the counter watching it, with a few other guests clustered nearby. She paid her bill and slid out of her chair, feeling the soreness in her arms after the day of surfing and the stiffness in her butt from sitting so long. She approached the brightly lit bar and pulled up a stool. Mel floated her way.
“So, are you Crazy Mike?” she asked, tucking one leg under the other.
“Nope,” he said. “My Pop. He helped me build this place.”
“Is he crazy?” she asked.
“He was, a little, but in a good way,” Mel said with a tightness around his eyes.
“Oh,” Cassidy said, chiding herself for intruding. “I didn’t mean . . . ”
Mel shrugged. “It’s okay,”