The Ghost Boat
An empty Whaler. An incoming windstorm. A veteran lifeguard braces for what he’ll find.
Excerpted from the novel Nearshore (Viking, 2026).
Palmer was midspan on the Tunitas Creek Bridge, southbound, when the boat came into view through the gunsight notch of the arroyo. It was a Whaler circling clockwise fast and tight, maybe a quarter mile beyond the surf.
He’d wanted to ride a few waves at a sandbar that had been assembling itself over the past few days at Pomponio. A quick lunch-break session before the wind came up. But then he got the call about the boat, and now that he saw it spinning he also saw that his day was officially fucked. He crossed the bridge and powered up the Coast Highway to the overlook at the top of the rise. He lifted his Bushnells from the dashboard and got out of the truck and glassed the vessel.
The wake’s widening spiral told him the wheel had been hard to starboard a good long while. It looked to be stirring up some kind of suicidal whirlpool
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