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IT WAS A clear afternoon on the Lake Huron shore during the last weekend in May, so there weren’t many swimmers. Whitecaps slapped against the sand, goosed in by a mild breeze. Gulls keened in the sky overhead.

Down the beach, a kid was throwing a softball for his dog. The big yellow Lab was having a blast, splashing through the shallows, snapping up the ball, and fetching it back to the boy.

Farther out, three teens were waist deep in the breakers, tossing a Frisbee around. A lifeguard in a tower chair was on duty—sort of. He seemed to be more interested in chatting up a gaggle of summer girls in micro-bikinis.

It was a gorgeous afternoon on the darkest day of my life.

And it was going to be my last.

I was sitting on a low sand hill behind my family’s beachfront cottage, still dazed, dressed for court in a three-piece Armani pinstripe suit. It was scorched and torn, and spattered with blood.

I had a pistol in my lap.

I wasn’t sure whose blood was on me. My fiancée’s? Or mine? It didn’t matter. The blood was on me.

Hours ago, my fiancée died in a car bombing. I’d managed to escape, yet I knew one thing for certain. Her death was my fault.

And I couldn’t live with myself because of it.

Immediately after the accident, I came here. As a boy, the Port Vale shore was my favorite place on the planet. I spent my summers here, swimming, running with my buds, and combing the beach for soda cans to earn ten cents a pop.

In high school, I was a lifeguard. It was a magical job. I got twelve bucks an hour to tone my tan, and scope out the summer girls from my tower chair. At sunset, I enjoyed beers and bonfires on the beach. I was Lord of the Shore in those days.

They were the best times of my life.

And this was the perfect place to finish things up.

I looked down at the pistol again. It was a battered Japanese Nambu automatic my grandfather brought home from Vietnam. “Imagine the stories it could tell,” he used to say. Now it would have one more.

Except…

Guns leave a god-awful mess. My first week as an assistant DA, I was called to an Iraq vet’s suicide. The poor guy did his best to go out clean. He parked a kitchen chair on a tarp in the middle of his garage, then wrapped himself in a plastic sheet before putting the muzzle of a 12 gauge in his mouth…

But…

He’d overlooked the laws of physics. The blast sprayed the garage ceiling with his blood and brains. The cops, the coroner, the EMTs, and I, all had to do our jobs in a steady drip, drip, drip of red goo and gray matter.

I burned my suit afterwards.

Here on my hill, the sand would soak up most of the blood, but…a body’s an awful thing for a little kid to find.

So.

Forget the gun. The surf would do. I’d walk out in the breakers, slip under and breathe in deep.

Maybe they’d never find me at all.

Laying the pistol aside, I rose on shaky legs, swaying slightly. I couldn’t focus. I knew I was forgetting something big. Was it the laws of physics? No. But something just as important. My head was thumping like a bass drum. I couldn’t remember…

Drawing a ragged breath, I took a last look down the shore…

And in that moment, I swear I saw Death. Not the guy with the scythe, wearing the cowl. More like a dark distortion, hovering above the waves, in deep water.

Crouched, poised, ready to strike.

Waiting…

But not for me.

THE BOY’S SOFTBALL had splashed down near one of the Frisbee players, who tossed it farther out. Naturally, his Lab chased after it, dog-paddling into deeper water, and into deep trouble.

As she lunged for the ball, a wave broke over her. And with the ball in her jaws, she couldn’t close her mouth.

Gagging, in a panic, the Lab thrashed about wildly, attempting to keep her head above water, and then she slipped below the surface.

That’s when something in me snapped.

On pure reflex, I went reeling down the beach, barely able to keep steady on my feet. I staggered into the surf after the drowning dog.

The kid was screaming now. The lifeguard looked up, baffled by the racket. He clearly had no freaking idea what was happening.

After splashing through the shallows, I plunged into the surf, swimming desperately toward the spot where the Lab went under. The icy water cleared my foggy mind as I bulled through the waves, fighting the breakers and the drag created from my sodden business suit.

When I popped my head above the water, I’d lost sight of the dog. She’d disappeared completely.

Damn it! If she’d sunk to the bottom, there was a chance I’d never find her—

Suddenly, she exploded to the surface of the water. She was hacking and gagging, but she still had the damned ball clamped in her jaws.

Desperate to reach her before she went down again, I sprinted toward her. But the dog started frantically snapping her head back and forth, trying to spot the shore. She kept paddling farther out and as I raced after her,  I felt my strength fading fast. With a last, despairing surge, I lunged for the Lab’s collar.

Grabbing it, I yanked her head around, trying to swing her toward the beach, and the ball popped out.

But she was out of her mind with fear and rage. The moment I touched her, she whirled on me, savagely snapping. She bit down on my arm, sending a sharp blaze of pain through my body.

Sweet Jesus, she was going to drown us both! Cursing, I pushed at her with my free hand, trying to break her hold, but she clamped down even harder.

And that’s what saved her life.

With her jaws locked on my arm, she couldn’t swallow any more water. But I couldn’t swim, either.

Rolling over, I managed to support her as I side-stroked back to the shallows with my free arm, hauling her with me until my feet brushed the bottom.

Even then, she wouldn’t let go, so I gathered her up. I staggered ashore with the exhausted dog cradled in my arms, her jaws still clamped on me.

Not a soul came to help me. They were all too busy filming the whole episode with their phones.

I dropped to my knees in the sand. The second the Lab’s paws touched solid ground, she squirmed free of my arms, and went tearing off to the boy and a woman who were both crying and yelling.

Suddenly the lifeguard was in my face, hauling me to my feet by my lapels.

“Are you out of your freakin’ mind?” he shouted. “What the hell were you doing out there?”

“Your damn job!” I roared back. Pushing him off me, I took a wild swing at his jaw that missed the muscle-bound clown by a foot and dropped me to my knees in the sand.

As I struggled to rise, I realized the Lab had ripped my arm open. Christ, blood was everywhere.

I felt my body sinking.

Then the sun winked out…

I WOKE IN a world of white. White ceiling tiles, sterile white walls, white machines beside my bed. One was for oxygen, I think. The others were…complicated. I had no idea what they were for.

My bracelet was silver, though, because my right wrist was handcuffed to the bed frame.

A heavyset woman in blue hospital scrubs was swabbing down my left arm with disinfectant. She was a big woman with legs like tree trunks and no waist at all. A black flat-top buzz cut, kept boot camp short, adorned her head. She had a tattoo on one bicep and an LGBT tattoo on the other. Three more icons decorated her skin, proclaiming: Man, Woman, Equal. It worked for me.

I tried to sit up, but it was a bad mistake. I sagged back into the pillow, stifling a groan.

“Stay still, sport,” she said without looking up. “Mess up my handiwork and I’ll bite open your other arm. What happened to you? A big dog tear you up?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s not all that happened.” It wasn’t a question.

“No ma’am,” I admitted. “Not all.”

“In addition to the dog bite, we treated you for a dozen contusions and lesions, plus third-degree burns. I’ve seen injuries like yours before in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Car bomb?”

I managed a nod.

“But not in Helmand, right?”

“In Detroit. Where the hell am I?”

“You’re in the Port Vale Samaritan ER, sport. I’m Dr. Lucille Crane. My friends call me Lucy, but you’ll call me Dr. Crane. You’re Brian Lord, aren’t you? The lawyer who got blown up with your girlfriend a few days ago? It’s been all over the news.”

I nodded.

“I thought so. The police are waiting outside, dying to talk to you. You might want to put that conversation on hold.”

“Why?”

She leaned in close, making sure I could read her eyes. “Listen up, Mr. Lord. You are in shock. I suspect you have been since the explosion. You may have sustained a concussion as well. But a minute ago, just before you came to? You were talking to somebody named Serena, like she was actually here. Was that your girlfriend?”

“Serena Rossi was my fiancée, Doc. She’s dead. It’s my fault and that’s the simple truth. So bring on the cops. I really don’t care.”

“It’s your funeral,” she shrugged.

But she was wrong about that. It wasn’t my funeral.

It was Serena’s.

THREE COPS CAME into the room. The first was a slim redhead in a black Donna Karan jacket and matching skirt. It was stylish, but practical. Her skin was pale as alabaster and if she was wearing makeup, I couldn’t see it.

She introduced herself as Lieutenant Beverly Hilliard of Detroit Metro homicide. It made sense, since the car bombing happened in Detroit. Though Port Vale is a beachfront community twenty miles up the Lake Huron shore, Motown detectives work with locals all the time.

Her partner, Stan Buchek, was from the Metro bomb squad. He wore a brush cut, a tweed Sears sport coat, and looked as square and dense as a cement block.

A policewoman trailed them in, but stayed by the door. She was tall and lanky, and a bit older. She was dressed like a nun in a blue shirt and navy skirt. Maybe she worked hospital security. Buchek and Hilliard ignored her.

Buchek started the good cop, bad cop show. He played the bully, which suited him. Hilliard played the sympathetic sister. I knew the game better than they did. I’ve run it a million times myself.

Buchek threatened me with arrest that included a million years in prison. I didn’t say anything till he began reading me the Miranda warning. Literally. He had it on a card. “You have the right to remain silent—”

Blah, blah.

Chief

Buchek glanced at Hilliard in exasperation.

“What the hell is this?”