Whispers in the Dunes
BY LINNY MACK
CHAPTER ONE
COLT
“COLT RIGGS, AS I live and breathe,” County Sheriff Hank McCallister greets me with a firm handshake. “How’s the new gig?”
I let out a low chuckle. “Things are quieting down,” I say. “Finally.”
“You’ve had quite a year,” he agrees. Then he turns, gesturing to the large room with various tables and chairs set up. “Find a seat, we’re going to get started soon.” He claps me on the back and moves to greet the next officer.
I move further into the room, picking a seat far away from anyone else who might talk to me.
I jumped at the chance to come to Beaufort for this joint-agency “Coastal Coordination Workshop.” It’s exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of departments trying to play nice, so we stop tripping over each other every time disaster hits.
Emergency protocols. Joint search-and-rescue procedures, lab access, mutual aid for missing persons and drug trafficking investigations.
Boring as fuck, but I could use the break.
Too many sleepless nights. Too many months of adrenaline finally burning off.
Reid and Emery are good—better than good, they’re in love—but I’m still untangling everything last year’s storm shook loose.
I pull out a chair just as Sheriff McCallister gets on the microphone and introduces the first speaker.
I take notes, I ask questions. I’m professional and focused. But I am bone tired.
By the time it wraps, the sun is dropping low, turning the water a gorgeous shade of copper.
I stare out at it briefly, debating whether or not to just go the hell home.
But to be honest, I’m sick of the quiet in my house when I close the door at night.
I want noise. Something cold to drink. Something to make me feel less alone.
I walk into a small bar off Bay Street, just down the block from my hotel. It’s not as crowded as I’d like, but that makes it easy to find a place at the bar. I slide onto a stool and order a scotch, neat.
I’m two sips into my drink when she walks in.
She’s wearing a black sundress, a designer bag slung over her shoulder. Wild brown curls cascade over her shoulders. Her chocolate brown eyes sweep along the bar, sharp but soft at the same time. She takes a stool two seats down from me.
She signals the bartender and calls, “Casamigos, double. Please.”
The bartender brings it over and she shoots it back in two large gulps, slamming her glass down on the bar.
She glances my way, catches me watching, and instead of looking away—she smiles slowly.
“You have cop shoulders,” she murmurs, turning her body toward mine.
I huff a laugh. “Do I?”
She nods, dragging her bottom lip between her teeth. “I would know. I’ve seen a lot of cops.” Her gaze lingers on me. “Long day?”
“Long year,” I say.
She studies me like she’s mapping out all the pieces, deciding where they fit. Then she moves one seat closer.
“I’m Ava.” She holds out her hand.
“Colt.”
Her fingers wrap around mine and something clicks. A heat I haven’t felt in a long damn time races up my arm.
“Colt,” she repeats. My name sounds sultry on her lips. “Are you really a cop?”
“Depends who’s asking,” I say, reaching for my drink. My knee brushes hers and neither of us moves away.
“So, are you here for work?” Ava licks her lips. “You don’t strike me like the kind of guy who sticks around places long.”
“That a problem?” I ask, ignoring her question.
“Not at all.” Her smile tilts. “I’m here for work too.”
She just watches me, eyes darkening, pulse fluttering at her throat.
It’s an invitation, plain as day.
“Where are you staying?” she asks quietly.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
I lean in just enough that she has to inhale when I get close. “Whether you want company.”
Her breath catches—barely. But I hear it. Then she slides off her stool, close enough that her arm brushes mine.
“I do,” she murmurs. “Let’s go.”
We walk out together, heat simmering between us with every step.
She’s staying at the same waterfront motel as I am, and her room is just down the breezeway from mine.
She unlocks the door, and it’s barely closed before her hands are on me—fingertips working the buttons on my shirt, mouth finding mine with a kind of hunger that wipes my mind clean. I’m instantly rock hard.
I press her back against the door, her breath hitching when my hands grip her hips. She pulls me closer, my length pressing into her. She gasps and her lips brush my jaw, her voice a whisper against my skin.
“Don’t overthink this,” she says, taking my bottom lip into her mouth. “You look like an overthinker.”
I let out a low laugh. “How did you know?”
“Just be here. With me. I bet we could both use this.” She finishes the buttons on my shirt, sliding it down my shoulders.
And for the first time in months, I let everything go to stay here in this moment with this stranger who feels so fucking good. Everything else falls away when she pulls me toward the bed, her fingers pressing into my shoulders, her body warm against mine.
The last thing on my mind before everything goes soft around the edges is that I’m going to remember this woman.
Even if I never see her again.
I WAKE BEFORE sunrise and everything is silent except for the steady sound of her breathing. Her dark curls fan across the white hotel pillow and I watch her for a moment, tangled in the sheets, so beautiful and unexpected. And everything I don’t need.
I should wake her. Or leave a note. Something.
But I don’t. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll want to see her again, and she made it clear last night this was all she was looking for. So, I dress quietly, ease the door shut behind me, and step out into the cool morning. I stop by my room and grab the bag I didn’t end up needing before I’m on my way.
I’m sliding into my cruiser before the sun even clears the horizon. The air is cool and damp. Beaufort’s waking up slowly, stretching its limbs. It’s serene and quiet—the kind of peace I wish I felt.
Instead, I just feel emptier than I did yesterday.
I start the engine, pull onto the road, and try not to think about the woman I left sleeping in that bed or the curve of her shoulder in the early light, the way that soft sigh escaped her when she finished, or the tug in my chest that told me I should’ve stayed.
I shake it off.
It was one night. That’s all I wanted.
All she wanted.
My phone buzzes in the console. I glance at the caller ID and my stomach drops.
Deputy Tyler Harris – Tidehaven PD.
I tap the screen in the center of my dash. “Riggs.”
There’s wind on the other end, then Harris’s voice. “Colt. You on your way back?”
I straighten in my seat. “Driving now. Everything okay?”
“We got a call from a teenager who found something at Old Cay Point. He and his friends were messing around in the dunes last night after a party. He lost his phone and came back to look for it this morning. He found…” He hesitates.
“Harris.” My voice hardens. “Found what?”
“A body, Colt.” His words come out small. “Or…bones. Wrapped in this old white lacy fabric. Like a dress or…hell, I don’t know. And there was this red thing tangled up with it. A sash maybe? It’s—faded, but still there.”
A chill crawls up my spine.
A white lace dress.
A sash.
My pulse races. “Where exactly?”
“In that old dune corridor on the marsh side,” Harris says. “You know the place—used to be a hangout back in the day.”
Yeah. Of course I know it.
Every kid in Tidehaven knew that spot. It’s where we hung out when we were doing things we weren’t supposed to be doing.
“Don’t touch anything,” I say. “I’m thirty minutes out.”
I FLICK ON my lights and make it back to Tidehaven in less than thirty.
Harris’s cruiser is crookedly parked where the dunes meet the edge of the marsh, its light flashing silently in the early morning glow.
The tide is pulled so far back that the grass flats look like silver ribbons in the morning light.
A few other deputies stand nearby, looking shaken.
Harris meets me at the entrance to a narrow sand path cut through the dunes—a wind-carved corridor leading from the marsh side toward the ocean. He’s pale and grief-stricken. Most days he’s so buttoned-up and steady that I forget he’s still a rookie.
“Show me,” I mutter, gesturing toward the trail.
He nods and steps ahead, leading me into the corridor. The dune walls rise steep on either side, thick with sea oats, funneling the wind into a low, hollow whistle. The sound shivers down my spine—soft and eerie, almost like the dunes are whispering.
Teens used to party out here in the nineties, in pockets where the sand dipped low. Fishermen used it as a shortcut to the flats. And before that, if the rumors are true, during Prohibition, smugglers used these sheltered channels where the law couldn’t easily follow from the beach or the marsh.
Now a recent storm has ripped open part of the dune face, carving away thousands of pounds of sand and creating high wet walls. Harris steps aside so I can see what it exposed.
Bones. Human bones. Half buried and wrapped in what’s left of white lace.
It’s difficult for me to discern specific body parts but there’s no mistaking it.
This is the body of a woman. Caught in the sea oats near what might’ve been a leg is a faded red sash, tangled like the wind itself tried to free it.
My mind goes to the photograph I’ve been hanging onto for the better part of a year and the vibrant blond girl who is circled in the middle.
The memory hits me in the chest like a weight.
I crouch down, careful not to touch anything.
The lace looks…old. Thirty years at least. The sash is tattered, its red only visible in some spots, the rest covered in muddy brown along the folds.
“What the hell happened to you?” I murmur under my breath.
“We didn’t move anything,” Harris assures me. “Waited for you.”
“Good.” I stand, letting out a sigh. “This is bigger than us.”
Decades-old remains. Fabric preserved oddly well. A location with historical use. And that sash—bright enough to matter, even now. Someone hid her here, where the dunes could be the scapegoat.
I stand and take a slow breath.
“We’re not equipped for this,” I say. “This isn’t ours.”
Harris nods quickly. “So, what do we do?”
I pull out my phone. “We call the feds.”
THE SOUTH CAROLINA Bureau of Investigation picks up on the second ring.
“Agent Martinez,” a crisp, female voice chirps, even though it’s just eight a.m.
“Good morning,” I start. “This is Chief Colt Riggs with the Tidehaven PD. I’m calling to report the discovery of human remains—likely decades old—in an old dune corridor, just at the border of Tidehaven and Hollow Creek—”
She cuts me off. “Is the scene secure?”
“Yes, of course.” I bristle.
“Is there any indication this is connected to an active case?” she asks. I hear typing in the background.
“Not yet.” I don’t mention the photograph. That will be for whomever they send out.
“Got it,” she murmurs. “Can you please hold?”
“Sure,” I mutter.
I pace the path, glancing back and forth between the remains and Tyler Harris who is watching my every move like I somehow have all the answers. I am in way over my head.
“Mr. Riggs?” Agent Martinez’s voice jolts me back. “I have our lead forensic anthropologist for you. She’s in Beaufort for a conference and can be there within the hour.”
Damn. That’s fast. Fast is good.
“Great. What’s her name?” I ask.
“Dr. Ava Whitmore.”
Everything stops as my world tilts. The air punches out of my lungs.
Of all the people in the damn SCBI, of all the people in the world, it’s her.
The woman whose bed I left not two hours ago.
Or maybe it’s not. It could be pure coincidence.
I didn’t get her last name. I suck in a breath, silently willing my heart to stop racing.
“Mr. Riggs? Are you still there? Dr. Whitmore will contact you when she’s close,” Agent Martinez says.
I force my voice to be steady. “I’m here. Copy.”
I end the call and lower my phone slowly.
“You okay, Chief?” Harris asks.
I clear my throat, nodding. “Yeah.”
Except I’m not. Not even close.
“Let’s make sure the area is secure. Put a few deputies on the road. Have them redirect traffic until she gets here.” I glance at the remains and then turn away.
Another secret that Tidehaven left long ago buried.
And now the woman who warmed my bed last night is coming here. To assist in my investigation. To a crime scene that could tie directly into the darkest era this town has ever buried.
I inhale once, steadying myself.
This is the beginning of something.
I can feel it.