"What the hell do you mean I have to go investigate?" Sandra shouted at her boss.
"You're the PR person for that area and besides it was an unexplained death. All you have to do is go
there and check things out. Just make sure that there is nothing funny going on. Think of it as an
involuntary paid vacation."
"I'm going to make it as quick as possible, ok. I hate that area."
"Whatever. . . I don't really care. It's just to go and make sure that there was no foul play involved."
"Alright I'll leave first thing tomorrow." Sandra muttered as she left the regional manager's office to
head for her car. She had been giving everything for this job lately and se was just not getting the
recognition she deserved for all her hard work. After all she sacrificed everything for this job, her
social life, her friends and family, and even a good portion of her salary to attend night school. She
graduated from Georgetown University with only a bachelor's degree in human relations and was hoping to
earn her master's a local college. The last thing she wanted to do was to go back to Rhode Island to
investigate a stupid drowning even when she knew that it was going to be nothing more than an accidental
death.
"Oh well," she thought aloud to herself driving home, "the old coot is right, after all, I am the PR
person for the beaches in that area." She arrived at T.F. Greene Airport mid-afternoon Wednesday after
a short flight from New York."
"Oh yeah Stonybrook is about twenty minutes down that way. Why do you want to go that far to get to a
beach? Everything in and around here is only about five minutes away." Inquired the man working the counter
at the rental car agency.
"Good old Rhode Island mentality. Thanks I'll se ya later."
"You know you have a pretty nasty attitude lady. What do you have against RI? It sounds like you've
never even been here before. Maybe you should give it a chance."
Not exactly, but thanks for the impartial advise anyway." Sandra said under her breath as she walked
out the door to her car.
**
**
"That was pretty strange what happened last week, huh?" Paul asked Kevin in a noncommittal way. He had
never been told the specifics of what had happened to Stephanie.
"Hey Paul I got a good idea, why don't you stop asking me because I've already told you that I'm under
police orders not to say." Kevin replied in a sarcastic manner.
"Oh yeah, right."
"Are you Kevin Godspeed?" A female voice asked from behind his chair.
"I'm Sandra Matthews. I work for the company that owns this beach."
"Oh, yeah I figured you'd show up eventually. So what do you need?"
"If you come with me I have to ask you some questions about the incident last week."
"Yeah, sure no problem." Kevin muttered as they both walked back to the nearest pavilion.
"I guess I'll start from the beginning."
Kevin repeated the story of what happened exactly as he already had to endless string of police officers
and newspaper reporters. He couldn't help but feel bad for Stephanie. He didn't really know her but
he had seen her often. The visions of whatever was under the water that day still haunted him. He had
to find out what that was one way or another.
"So that's pretty much the entire story, huh? Looks pretty cut and dry from here, I guess that no foul
play was involved. Poor girl, I heard she was pretty too. I may have to stay another couple of days
so don't be surprised to see me around."
"Yeah sure, maybe I should show you around some time."
"Not likely, but you never know. Stranger things have happened" Sandra said as she exited the pavilion
to go to her car." Sandra drove back to her hotel turning over all the information in her head. "It
just doesn't make any sense," she kept repeating to herself ,"there isn't any fish off the coast of RI
that would match that description. At least not that big or fast, and there weren't any markings on her.
It looked as if it tried to capture her." She barely got any sleep that night.