Prologue

The deserted beach stretched for about four miles in each direction. The sand far above the tide line was heavy going, so she veered to the strip of beach where the tide had probed farthest inland, and the footing was nearly pavement-hard. It was after two in the morning, but she had spent nearly her entire life on this beach and even in the dark began to feel encouraged.

She ran along the beach almost every day, which was unusual for a young woman in 1968. Her husband didn't want her to work even though they had no children. Money was tight, but running didn't cost much of anything. Running got her out of the house when he was . . . well, it got her out of the house when it was advisable.

Her bare feet fairly skimmed over the packed sand as she flew down the beach. Ahead were the huge sea stacks; she could reach them before anyone could catch her. She'd be safe there until morning, and by then she would have decided what to do.

She felt an irresistible urge to glance over her shoulder. As she had suspected, behind her she could see beams from two flashlights sweeping back and forth across the sand. Her heart pounded; her breathing became more labored as she sprinted harder. Fright is a powerful motivation.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she saw a faint shadow running on the wet sand ahead of her. They had found the tracks where she had started running south and then had pinned her with their lights.

She didn't look back again. The mass of rock known as Sentinel was ringed by tide pools surrounding partly submerged rocks crowned with razor-edged mussels and barnacles, and it could be dangerous for the unwary or for those whose night vision had been diminished by bright light.

Her shadow disappeared; they must need the lights to watch their own footing. She knew they were still coming, though, so she kept up her speed to outdistance them. They weren't runners.

On she ran, pacing herself as best she could, concentrating only on seeing what little she could ahead of her.

She knew by the sound of the waves to her right when she was near Sentinel Rock. She slowed abruptly, veered right, and splashed into the water just where the curl of the waves broke. She knew exactly where she was heading, a place that could only be reached at low tide.

On the northwest side of the huge monolith was a series of step-like ledges stretching in rows about four feet apart up the steep bluff. At very low tide it was just barely possible to negotiate the treacherous area around Sentinel and climb from shelf to shelf until you could stretch out on the top one, some ten feet above the highest normal tide. Once there you were invisible to everything save the seabirds. Any time other than low tide, the water's turbulence in the immediate vicinity was too great for anyone to reach this natural refuge.

The tide was just beginning to come in, so her hope was that by the time they finally realized she was no longer in front of them, it would be too late to search the tidal pool area around the massive rock for her; she would be hidden from their sight, no matter how hard or how long they searched.

She risked one more quick glance to the north, and her heart thudded in her chest. One figure had stopped far back, but the other was indeed a runner, and a good one, the beam from his torch slashing up and down in rhythm with his stride. He was much too close for her to still count on the incoming tide to prevent his reaching her. She could only hope he hadn't seen when she changed direction.

She plowed into the surf, executing a shallow dive as the water reached her waist and began swimming strongly due west just north of Sentinel. It was hard, pulling against the strengthening surge, but fear drove her on. She was counting on the cross current in this area to push her slightly southeast after she passed Sentinel, and it was working -- she could now feel the wave-smoothed rocks with her left hand!

Hand over hand she started working her way against the pull of the water to reach the first shelf. With the swells alternately lifting and then dropping her -- and the long run coupled with her terror having weakened her more than she realized -- she couldn't feel the first ledge. Where was it?

Half crying, panic beginning to set in, her fingers torn and bruised from scrabbling at the rock, all at once she felt the ledge -- it was going to work! She was going to make it!

With renewed energy she hooked her right heel over the ledge just as the water level receded. She hung there, waiting for the next surge to help her lift her exhausted body onto the shelf.

But with the next surge also came a hand which wrapped itself in her hair and simply whipped her from the rock. The hand thrust her under the water, and the assailant started kicking strongly for shore.

There would be no refuge, no safety, no succor. The man, physically far stronger than she, continued to drag her once they reached shallow water, at last hauling her choking and retching to her nerveless feet. He picked up the flashlight he'd dropped on the beach with his free hand, with it quickly found one of the tidal pools surrounding the jagged surface of a big rock, and then halted.

He dropped the light to the sand again, whirled her around so she was facing him, smiled, and shoved her viciously backwards onto the rocks in the center of the pool.

To be sure, he waded into the shallow pool just beginning to fill again with the colder water of the incoming tide. With both hands gripping her sodden hair, he beat her head as hard as he could onto the knife-like shells anchored firmly to the rock two more times.

He felt around for the carotid artery in her throat, lingered gently on it for a minute, and then hoisted himself from the pool. His breathing was already even and regular. For some thirty minutes he waited patiently in the dark, gradually edging back from the encroaching tide.

At last he turned north again and strode up the still black beach to where the other figure waited, seated on an old driftwood log. The second shadow stood erect, shorter than the killer, and the two of them slogged through the soft sand to where sea grass had firmed the footing, leaving the beach they way they had come. Shearwater Beach slept peacefully on through the darkness, blissfully unaware of what the morning would at last disclose.

The tide continued to advance, washing away all traces of the chase, the struggle at the pool, and the departure of the two figures. All that was left to be discovered by an unsuspecting tourist was the pale body, swaying gently in the swells, tangled by her clothing and hair with the ragged rock which had killed her. The death was, subsequent to the coroner's inquest, logically ruled death by misadventure.