Twenty minutes after dropping off Kris and the tourists, the tour boat streaked through the growing dusk. Alex avoided rapids, eddies, and boulders, the mouth of the Niagara Whirlpool opening in the gray haziness downriver. Only an hour had slipped away since the fist of water came at the boat, so Alex was confident whatever it was might still be around. Plus, he needed to check out whatever was floating in the dirty foam by the beach.

  The current twisted the boat, pulling it toward the center of the whirlpool as Alex worked the wheel, using the river’s momentum to silently approach the western shore. The nasty rot smell caught in the back of Alex’s throat.

  Celeste said, “I’ve never smelled anything like that on the river before.”

  He hadn’t, either. Small whitecaps broke on the surface in the failing light, the boat slicing through the streaks of foam that marked shallow water.

  “Take the wheel,” Alex said as he grabbed a flashlight.

  In the bow, leaning over the gunnel, Alex’s senses were assailed. The rank odor was twice as bad up close, and his eyes watered, and his nose dripped mucus.

  His flashlight’s beam revealed dark mounds that looked like black cotton candy floating in the river foam, and blue goo streaked through the sludge-like fudge through vanilla ice cream. It appeared to be waste of some type, but it was unlike anything he’d ever seen on the river.

  Alex retrieved a water from the pilothouse, poured out its contents, and used the empty plastic bottle to get a sample of the viscous waste. He squeezed the stuff into the bottle, its consistency like ice cream. Back in the pilothouse, he put the bottle on the command console. It looked like dirty green water with a topping of mousse with blue fudge streaks.

  Celeste asked, “What do you make of it?”

  He hiked his shoulders. “I’m meeting with your professor tomorrow night, and I’ll give it to her. I’m sure they can run tests at the university.”

  Celeste said nothing.

  “Can we keep all this between us for now?” he said. His crew already had enough reason to think he was a flake, all they needed was to hear he was chasing his father’s monster and the pranks and jokes would be relentless, well-executed, and brutal.

  Celeste nodded as she turned the boat around, heading toward the gap in the whirlpool that would take them back upriver.

  A hum rose above the rush and crash of water. A cicada-like trilling, low at first, then growing in intensity and pitch as it drowned out the roar of the churning river. The steady buzz hurt Alex’s ears, the closed confines of the wheelhouse like an echo chamber.

  Darkness filled the river’s edges, puddles of moonlight creating white spots on the surging river. Celeste cycled up the engines and the boat eased forward, the current helping now rather than hindering. The angry unnatural whine faded into the purr of the engines and the rumble of the falls.

  It was full-on dark when Alex and Celeste docked the Mists Edge. “I’m paying you for your extra time,” Alex said.

  Celeste nodded. “Thanks. I’m off tomorrow and Kimberly is filling in.”

  Alex grunted.

  “I can’t be here all the time, and soon…” Like a child threatening to leave the nest, no more needed to be said.

  Alex grabbed beers and wine on his way home and found Lilly already in the shower when he entered casa Weston, smooth jazz cajoling over the house speakers. The dining room table was set, and dinner was in the oven; roasted chicken with rosemary potatoes and green bean casserole. All favorites. He sat the water bottle with the sample in it on the living room coffee table, put away the drinks, minus one beer, and plopped on the couch.

  Lilly emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later wearing a sheer robe and silk nightshirt. She looked amazing and he felt a stirring he hadn’t felt in weeks. “You get off early?” he asked.

  She hiked her shoulders. “Amazingly, things were slow today, so the bigwigs took the opportunity to cut back on the OT, and since I’m way over my regular hours...”

  Alex smiled, but frowned inside. Not good for the Weston family bank account, but Lilly had been working so hard she needed a rest.

  “What’s that?” She pointed at the water bottle containing the sample taken from the river.

  “There were developments today.” Alex held up the plastic bottle and told her about fishing the sludge from the river, hearing the strange sound again, and the fist of whitewater charging the boat. When he was done, she wore a face that said she wasn’t impressed. Realizing this, he added, “Dinner smells great.”

  “Yeah, it does,” she said as she turned to leave.

  “Something I said?”

  She spun like a ballerina, prancing with her hands on her hips. “I go through all this trouble, trying… trying to give us a break, a reprieve, and you’re talking about a container of sea-shit?”

  To that, he had no response.

  Lilly changed into sweats and a t-shirt, and they ate a quiet dinner, no wine or beer. They capped the evening watching TV before turning in early.

  His wife nodded off to sleep in minutes. Alex stared at the dark ceiling, the angry, all-consuming buzz of thundering water filling his head.

  10

  Thursday dawned clear and bright, the rain clouds of the prior day a dark smudge across the eastern horizon. Alex woke to an empty house and went about his morning routine in a daze. The house had been vacuumed and the kitchen cleaned because company was coming, and if there was one thing Lilly was obsessive about it was appearances. Nurses can’t have a dirty home. Just wasn’t acceptable.

  He pulled on shorts and collected his phone—no messages, his keys, wallet, and his father’s Indian head penny. He cycled it through his fingers as he went to the living room and pulled out the black shoebox and placed it on the decluttered coffee table. Alex flicked on a table light and wiped the top of the box, leaving a streak in the thin coating of dust, his fingerprints all around the box’s edges. He took everything out of the box; the notebook, copies of articles, maps, pictures, and stacked everything neatly like he was going to court, which in a way he was.

  He’d tried to recruit Katelyn, convince her, and Professor Silverfish was trying to recruit him. That reminded him he needed to check in with Katelyn, fill her in on the prior day’s events and see if she’d heard anything new about the reservoir. He and Gabe were scheduled to search the park tomorrow, and he needed new intel, or they’d spend the afternoon wandering around like lost ducks.

  He held his father’s penny up to the table light, admiring the Indian’s face. He rubbed the coin for good luck, then dropped it in the box.

  The lightbulb in the table lamp fizzled and winked out.

  Alex sat in the gloom for several minutes, listening to a clock tick, air push through vents, and the faint, but always present rumble of the falls.

  Celeste was off, which meant he needed to get to work early and prepare for the tours. Kimberly showed up exactly on time and did her job and nothing more. On his way to work he called Katelyn, and as the phone rang, he considered what he should tell her. It wasn’t just a simple matter of telling the truth because… What had he seen? Some fish shit and a wave? There’d been no stinger sighting this time, and certainly no mouthful of teeth. But that sound. That trilling that climbed through your ears and infected your brain.

  “You there?” Katelyn said.

  “Yes, sorry, an ass just cut me off.” He was cruising along I-190 and the closest car was a hundred yards ahead of him.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “What about you? I’m scheduled to… take a hike in the park tomorrow.”

  “Nothing new on my end, but I’m going to make sure I run into a couple of people today. Folks who hang around the power plant more than I do. I know a guy, a park police officer assigned to Reservoir State Park.”

  “Any chance he’ll be on duty Friday?”

  “A possibility.”

  “Listen, I found some strange… shit, I think it is, on the river yesterday.”

  “Really? What makes this shit special?”

  “No idea, really, but there was a lot of it. Like nothing I’ve ever seen on the river, it smelled like rotting flesh. I took a sample for Dr. Silverfish.”

  “Smart.”

  Alex waited, but Katelyn knew him too well. Even though they hadn’t been close in years, unbreakable bonds were formed on those hot teenage summer nights, when promises were made and everything seemed so clear, their lives laid out like an interstate.

  “There’s more? Spit it out,” she said.

  He told her about the sound, the knot of water.

  “It was dusk, right?”

  “Darker, but Celeste can back me up.”

  She said nothing.

  “That’s all I got.”

  “Should I come with you Friday?” she asked.

  Yes, please do. He said, “No. It’s probably best if we’re not seen together. I don’t want you getting sucked into the craziness unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “O.K. Talk at you,” she said, and closed the connection.

  Alex pulled into Mists Edge River Tours parking lot and blew air through his lips, making a motorboat sound. The lot was half full, a line of tourists on the dock before the ticket booth, waiting to board. Kimberly and Javon were nowhere to be seen.

  A man and a woman wearing dark suits and shaded sunglasses stood away from the throng, and they eyeballed Alex as he got out of his car. If they weren’t feds, they were sure as hell trying to look the part. They met Alex at his car as he dug his gear from the backseat.

  “Mr. Weston?”

  Alex looked over his shoulder, pretending to look for someone. “You must be looking for my father,” he joked.

  The guy, who Wahanu had said was Agent Dixon, said, “Your father is deceased, is he not?”

  Alex turned to face the agents, but said nothing.

  Dixon flipped his ID open and said, “I’m Agent Dixon, and this is Agent Perry. We’d like a word.” His tone left no doubts that Alex didn’t have a choice in the matter, and he figured they taught speech enunciation classes at Quantico.

  “Sure, but…” Alex pointed at the growing line of tourists. “Let me get things going and when my crew arrives, I can spare a few minutes. Otherwise, you’ll have to come back.”

  “That’s fine,” Agent Dixon said.

  Alex took up position in the ticket booth, and he’d worked halfway through the line when Javon’s mom dropped him off and he took over. Alex found the agents waiting in the shade under the tour office porch awning.

  “Tour leaves at 11, so I’ve only got a few minutes.”

  Dixon put away his phone, but Perry only glanced up for a second, then went back to reading whatever captivated her attention.

  “We know your background, and we’re familiar with your father’s history. We spoke with his friend, Wahanu, and Dr. Silverfish. We’re just looking to cover all the bases,” Dixon said.

  “Shoot,” Alex said. “Don’t shoot, but…”

  “We know the theories, have seen all the supporting documentation. Our file is much thicker than your father’s, I’m sure,” Dixon said.

  “Then what do you need me for?”

  “Have you seen anything on the river lately? Do you have any new information? We know it’s a year of the beast,” Dixon said.

  Agent Perry continued to play with her phone.

  “You sound like you believe,” Alex said.

  The agent shook his head. “I’m no Fox Mulder, but I’ve been around long enough, seen enough strange stuff to know things aren’t always what they seem.”

  Alex nodded, buying time. Should he tell the fed what he’d seen? Why not? How could it hurt? The same argument as the professor, so he told the agents what he’d seen out on the river, but left off what he and Gabe had seen and heard in Reservoir Park because he didn’t want to jeopardize Friday’s field trip.

  When Alex was done Dixon pulled his phone and made a few notes, his eyes ranging back and forth. He slipped the cell back into his pocket and presented a business card like a magician. “We’re hanging around until the end of the summer. Call us if you learn anything new. Need backup.”

  Alex took the card. “Backup?”

  The fed chuckled, and so did Perry, though she didn’t look up. “We know you’re not going to leave this alone. How could you? We asked around about you, and we understand you’re a full-on believer, but blood is blood,” Dixon said.

  He said nothing.

  “Is there anyone else we should speak to?”

  “Officer Katelyn Mattis, NYS Park Police.” Alex’s mind froze for a heartbeat, like an overworked computer processer. What had he just said about not getting her involved? He was an impulsive idiot, but his guilt fled quickly. Katelyn was a cop, and it could be a good thing that she talked to the feds. If the FBI believed there might be something going on, that lent serious credibility to his father’s story.

  “Will do. Talk soon.” The agents walked away without another word, just like in the movies.

  The first tour was uneventful, except for when Alex hit a rapid in Devil’s Holes at too sharp an angle and the boat’s bow plunged beneath the Niagara River. For a brief horrifying moment, Alex thought the vessel might flip. It didn’t, and the passengers got a story to tell their friends and family. The day wore away, the weather beautiful, the river a shimmering green oasis.

  He thought of Lilly cleaning bedpans, bandaging and cleaning infected wrinkled skin. It wasn’t fair. Not by a long shot, and the fact that she was the Weston family’s main breadwinner plunged him deeper into the whirlpool of depression.

  Tourists screamed, the Mists Edge floated in and out of the mists, and when the last tour of the day rolled in, he worked the gift stand, because Javon had a basketball game and Kimberly didn’t know, or want to know, how to work the register. He was so going to miss Celeste.

  Alex stopped and grabbed two bottles of wine on the way home, and Lilly was vacuuming the living room—again—when he arrived. Iggy and the prof were due at 6:30, and Alex and Lilly didn’t speak as they both went about killing time, she cleaning, Alex watching SportsCenter as he went through his father’s documents one last time, organizing his thoughts, finetuning his case. The prior night's flameout had made Lilly and Alex wary, and an unspoken timeout had been called. Alex was fine with that, but he wasn’t looking forward to when the game resumed.

  Dusk had inched into every corner when Professor Silverfish and her grad student Iggy arrived. The professor’s van had black heavy-duty roof racks that held an aluminum skiff. The rig’s front grill was covered in black metal pipes, and all the windows except the windshield were tinted beyond the legal limit.

  Alex watched the duo get out of the van, Iggy sliding open the rear door and pulling a brown box free. The professor straightened herself in the van’s side-view mirror, and the pair made their way to the Weston front door.

  “They’re here,” Alex called.

  Lilly appeared wearing a sundress, and she stopped in the foyer, smiling. If Alex didn’t know better, he might’ve believed she was looking forward to the company.

  A bell chimed and Alex pulled open the front door.

  “Hello!” the professor said.

  The researchers came inside, and introductions were made.

  Professor Silverfish said, “I hope you like Chinese? I’ve brought a bunch of different dishes.”

  “Perfect,” Lilly said. “I see the bags are from Hong Kong Takeout. Our favorite place.”

  “The only place,” Iggy said. “For good eggrolls, anyway.” The kid looked at the floor like he was going to get scolded for speaking, and sure enough, Silverfish shot him with ‘shut up’ eyes.

  “And to drink,” she said as she pulled a brown paper bag from the box.

  “Ripple?” Alex joked. The professor didn’t laugh.

  “Oh, no, something special,” she said. “I’ve brought us four bottles of Monstrey Cellars. Two 2013 Riesling and two 2003 Cabernets. All fabulous stuff.”

  “Let me get an opener and glasses,” Lilly said.

  Alex took the food box and said, “And I’ll put this out on the table inside. You guys hungry now or do you…”

  The doc and Iggy were both nodding vigorously.

  “Now it is then,” he said.

  The four companions sat at the dining room table and dished out Chicken Chow Mein, eggrolls, beef and broccoli, and an assortment of spicy chicken and beef, all with rice or noodles, or in Alex’s case, both. The food was hot, tasty, and there was plenty of it. So much he and Lilly would be eating Kung Pao chicken for the foreseeable future.

  “Iggy, are you from around here?” Alex asked.

  “Not originally. Why do you ask? I’m normally pegged as an out-of-towner pretty fast.”

  “You knew Hong Kong Takeout was the best place in town for Chinese food, so I assumed…”

  “Ah, no. If there’s one thing college students know, it’s cheap food.”

  They all chuckled like they were friends, Alex’s gaze drifting to the living room where his father’s life waited to be pawed over. He said, “What about you, Doc?”

  “I’m from Kansas City.”

  “Where the only seas are of corn?” Alex said, then felt embarrassed. He didn’t know this woman well enough to be joking about her home.

  Lilly shot him a disapproving glare.

  The professor took the ribbing in stride. “Yup. Land lover. Then I saw the Grand Canyon, and I got interested in geology, and when I saw the falls. Well, let’s just say it was love at first sight.”

  “The falls are amazing, but when you live in their shadow your entire life their splendor tends to fade,” Alex said.

  “And the sound, right?” Iggy said. “My apartment by the university always sounds like there’s a huge toilet constantly running.”

  Lilly said, “You never get used to it. Not fully.”

  “When we go on vacation,” Alex said, and turned to his wife, “Not that we have recently, but when we do leave Niagara, I hear the falls when I sleep, even when I’m just sitting still. I know it’s the hum of traffic, and a million other things, but the roar of the falls holds a prominent position in my frontal lobe.”