Author: Greg Messel
Publisher:
Pages: 453
Language: English
Genre: Mystery/Romance
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Purchase at AMAZON
As 1958 nears an end San
Francisco is being terrorized by a man who calls
himself the “Fog City Strangler,” who preys on pretty young blonde women. The strangler announces each murder by
sending a note and piece of cloth from the victim’s dresses to the local
newspapers.
Private eye Sam Slater is worried that the Fog City Strangler may
be eyeing his beautiful blonde wife, stewardess Amelia Ryan. Sam’s angst mounts
as the strangler continues to claim more victims. His anxiety is further fueled
when TWA launches an advertising campaign with Amelia’s picture on a series of
billboards plastered all over the city. Sam fears the billboards may attract
too much attention--the wrong kind of attention.
Meanwhile, Sam and Amelia are hired to try to find the missing
daughter of a wealthy dowager who fears she has lost her only child. The
missing woman went for a walk with her dog on Stinson Beach San Francisco ,
and seemingly vanished into thin air. The woman’s husband arrived at their
beach house and found the dog running loose but there was no trace of his wife.
The police are stumped in their investigation.
As Sam and Amelia look into the disappearance of the woman on the
beach they discover that nothing is as it seems at first glance. On a stormy
night a shadowy figure sets fire to the beach house where the couple is staying--hoping
to stop their investigation.
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THE BEACH
FIRE
______________________________________________________________________
Amelia
Slater had only slept a short time before she was startled awake by crashing
and banging noises outside the beach house on Stinson Beach
Shortly
after she awoke, another physical sensation hit her as she regained
consciousness. She was really cold. She tried to see if Sam was awake but the
darkness was so thick that she couldn’t see him even though he was right next
to her in the bed.
The house
where Sam and Amelia were staying seemed to be right in the bull’s eye of an
unusually fierce early winter storm that was zeroing in on the northern California
The
two-story beach house was perched on a steep hill which thrust up from the
sandy, wide beach below. The master bedroom where Sam and Amelia were sleeping
had a large sliding glass door which opened out onto a deck that surrounded the
house on the second story offering spectacular vistas of the beach below.
The beach
house also had a round turret with a large leaded-glassed window of Neptune , Kind of the Sea, flanked by two large fish with
curvy tails. On the roof was a large weather vane of a gray whale which was
spinning like a top in the high winds.
Beach
access from the house was a wooden stair case which was built on the steep hill
that was covered by thick, low-growing masses of blooming ice plant. The
staircase had obviously been replaced recently since the wood had not yet
become the weathered gray color of the rest of the house. The raging storm was
roiling the foamy surf which crashed onto Stinson Beach
Their sleep
had been brief. In preparation for a
stormy night, Sam and Amelia had found flashlights and candles to put on the
nightstands on either side of the bed in case they lost power.
Sam
detected Amelia stirring next to him in bed and tried to click on the lamp on
the nightstand. It was then that he discovered that the house had no power. Sam
reached into the darkness until his hand touched the flashlight. He then
clicked it on to look at his wristwatch which was on the table. It was 1:15 a.m.
“Amelia,”
Sam said softly, “are you awake?”
“Yeah,”
came the reply out of the pitch darkness of the bedroom. “How could anyone
sleep through this? I’ve been awake for a while. I didn’t want to bother you in
case you had been able to get to sleep.”
“No such
luck. It’s freezing in the house. I’m going to go check on things. Maybe I can
get a fire going in the fireplace. Light the candles. I’m going to go see if
the house is okay. I heard some really
loud noises earlier.”
Sam didn’t
want to unnecessarily alarm Amelia but he’d swear he had heard footsteps
earlier, like someone running through the house. He couldn’t be sure because of
the sounds of the raging storm.
Sam clicked
on his flashlight so Amelia could find the matches. After she lit the first candle, Sam
disappeared into the darkness. Amelia
watched as the shafts of light from Sam’s flashlight vanished from sight as he
began to walk through the house.
Amelia
picked up the candle and made her way to a chair to retrieve her coat which she
put on over her nightgown to fight off the chill. She listened intently and could hear some
thumping noises. She wasn’t sure if source of the banging was Sam or the storm.
“Sam! Sam!”
Amelia called. “Where are you? Sam, is
that you?”
There was
no response.
The large floor-to-ceiling glass doors which
opened off of the bedroom were rattling to the point where Amelia wondered if
they would be able to withstand the strong winds. Amelia heard noises outside
on the deck and saw a shadowy figure throwing a large can which clanked onto
the deck. The man then turned and ran.
She strained her eyes against the dense darkness.
Amelia
instinctively walked towards the glass doors. She wondered if the man on the
deck was Sam. If it was, what was he doing?
She held up
the candle but could see nothing. She
reached for the flashlight on the table and clicked it on. Amelia shined it out the glass door, but she
could see nothing but her own reflection.
As she walked closer the beam of her flashlight fell on a red gas can
lying on it’s side on the deck.
Amelia
moved closer towards the door and then to her horror she saw flames racing
across the deck outside the doors.
Amelia was simultaneously confused and frozen with terror as she watched
the deck become a wall of fire being buffeted by the high winds from the storm.
The
bewildered Amelia shrieked before turning to run towards the bedroom door with
the flashlight illuminating her path.
She began shouting Sam’s name as loudly as she could. As she opened the bedroom door two shots rang
out and ricocheted off the wall and door frame above her head.
Amelia
squealed and retreated into the bedroom, slamming the door. She looked for a
way to lock the door to protect her self from the assailant but there was no
lock. It was an old fashioned lock that required a skeleton key.
There was
so much noise from the fire roaring outside on the deck and that storm, that
Amelia couldn’t tell if the shooter was pursuing her further or attempting to
break down the bedroom door. She leaned
against the door but knew she would be defenseless if the gunman wanted to
force his way into the bedroom.
Where was
Sam? Was he okay? Who fired the shots at
her? Who set the deck on fire?
Amelia was
now trapped between an unknown assailant outside her bedroom door and the fire
raging on the deck on the other side of the glass doors. She knew she had just moments to make a
decision about how to escape.
She decided
to take her chance on the deck since the shadowy figure who fired the shots at
her was undoubtedly just outside her bedroom.
Amelia
tried to grasp the door handle to the sliding glass door but it was getting
hot. She couldn’t figure out how to unlock it and didn’t have time in the
darkness to deal with it. Amelia decided to take more direct action--she picked
up a wooden chair and threw it at the large glass doors onto the deck.
The chair
cracked the glass but mostly bounced off of the door and fell onto the floor.
She quickly scanned the room for something heavier that she could throw through
the glass door.
Amelia
spotted a large metal paperweight on a writing desk in the bedroom. It looked
like some kind of navigation tool from a boat.
Amelia cocked her arm and threw it as hard as she could at the cracked
glass door.
That did
the trick, but the glass shards from the door went flying all over the bedroom
floor and the deck. The breaking of the door only made her situation worse as
the high winds now pushed the flames into the bedroom and closer to Amelia.
The
curtains around the large glass door ignited as the fire now snaked it’s way
towards Amelia. It was now going to be impossible for Amelia to escape onto the
deck because of the intensity of the flames.
Amelia let out a blood curdling scream.
“Sam! Sam! Help! Sam, help me!”
The storm
and the crackling of the fire which exploded into the bedroom onto new sources
of fuel drowned out Amelia’s cries for help.
She eyed the bedroom door and decided she had to open it and confront
whatever was on the other side.
Sam had
taken his gun when he left moments ago. She had no idea what had happened to
him. The defenseless Amelia stood in
front of the closed bedroom door, She glanced over her shoulder at the
advancing flames.
Amelia
didn’t know what awaited her on the other side of the door but she was going to
have to make a break for it.
To her
horror when she grabbed the knob and turned it but the door was locked. Someone
had used a skeleton key to lock her in the burning bedroom.
She was
trapped.
About the Author:
Greg Messel grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and now lives in Follow news about Messel’s writings and books at www.gregmessel.com.
Connect & Socialize with Greg!
Giveaway
Details:
Greg Messel is giving away a 3 book
set of his Sam Slater Mystery Series (Last of the Seals, Deadly Plunge and San Francisco Secrets AND
a $25 Amazon Gift Card!
- By entering the giveaway, you are confirming you are at least 18 years old.
- One winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter to receive the 3 book set and $25 Amazon Gift Card.
- This giveaway begins February 3 and ends on March 28.
- Winner will be contacted via
email on
- Winner has 48 hours to reply.
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