Prologue

Jamie Jones sat in a plastic recliner on her balcony attempting to work on her laptop, though she had succumbed to the temptations a neighbor's unencrypted wireless signal provided and was instead browsing the Internet. After forwarding a pointless joke email to a college friend, she sat up and took a sip of the mildly flat soda that was her only refuge from the heat of the hot California day. For a moment, she contemplated continuing a paper for her summer psychology class, but was struck once more by procrastination. With a yawn, Jamie Jones stood up and walked to the edge of the balcony, surveying the street, looking for something interesting to distract her from the impending exercise in academia. It was a pointless move, she knew, since nothing interesting ever happened here, but a thirty page paper detailing the history of prescription anti-depressants called for desperate measures.

She leaned on the wooden railing, cursing her decision to rent an apartment in Orange Beach for the summer. It was her first real exercise in living on her own – sure there was college, but that didn't really count, since her parents had still been banking her. The apartment was small, but Jamie Jones didn't mind. Rather, her biggest gripe about spending summer break on Cassidy Place was the lack of activity. In the two weeks since she had moved in, Jamie Jones had done almost nothing but work, go to class, and bake in the sun.

She surveyed the street. Two large apartment complexes, including Jamie Jones', stood across from one another at a diagonal, dominated the 700 block of Cassidy Place. An assortment of beach bungalows was clustered around the apartments. At the west end of the street, the beach was visible over a wooden bulkhead engulfed in grass-speckled dunes. To the east, Cassidy Place ran up a slight hill, which served to only partially conceal the large condos and businesses of downtown Orange Beach.

As Jamie Jones stared, an older gray SUV drove over the rise, with dust caked to its underside and surfboards strapped to the roof. The young man sitting in the passenger seat was on a cell phone while the driver, also male, rested his deeply tanned arm on the windowsill. As the jeep approached, the final strains of "Hotel California" blared from its open windows. The car stopped in front of the apartment building opposite the street. Immediately the passenger hopped out, waving to a young couple standing on one of the apartments' balconies. Jamie had seen them arrive the day before, though they had brought no furniture and little luggage. Since then she hadn't seen them leave the apartment.

She turned her attention back to the passenger, who was shouting a greeting to the couple on the terrace. He was a jovial looking man of about her age, with rock star hair and thick-rimmed glasses. A pair of Dickies cut-off at the upper calf was slung low around his waist, held up by a plain brown belt. Topping off his ensemble was a bright red t-shirt advertising some band that Jamie Jones had never heard of. He was excited, grinning and bounding, practically skipping up the door into the apartment.

By sharp contrast, the driver took his time exiting his car, and took a moment to examine his surroundings before giving a smile and a quick two-fingered wave to the couple standing on the porch. He was taller than his companion, but a little stockier. Tawny hair just barely brushed the top rim of his Oakleys. The driver wore a plain t-shirt over a pair of swim trunks that rode low on his hips. His head stopped moving and he reached into the car and withdrew an olive drab army duffel. The driver took one last long gaze around before joining his friends in the apartment.

But not, Jamie Jones noted, before he stole a quick glance in her direction.