She liked waiting for the wave more than riding the wave.
Facing the cliffs, straddling the board, her hips finding the up-and down rhythm of the surface. Riding it like a horse, making her think about Kaupo Boy when she was a child. There was a reverence to the moment before the next set came in and it was time to dig down and paddle.
She checked her watch. She could fit in one more. She’d ride it all the way in if she could. But she savoured the moment of just floating, closing her eyes and tilting her head upward. The sun was just over the cliffs now and it warmed her face.
“Haven’t seen you here before.”
Ballard opened her eyes. It was the guy on the One World board. An OG with no wetsuit, no leash, his skin burnished to a dark cherrywood.
She braced for what she knew would come next: territorial male posturing.
“I’m usually at Topanga,” she said.”But there was nothing there this morning.”
She didn’t mention that she’d consulted a wave app. The OGs would never look at an app.
He was 20 feet to her left, riding the low rollers sideways so he could keep an eye on her. Women were unusual at Staircases. It was a big boy’s break. Lots of rocks in the short tide. You had to know what you were doing, and Ballard did. She hadn’t crossed anybody’s tube, had not pulled out of a wave too soon. If this guy was going to try to school her, she would shut him down quick.
“Van,” he said. “Renee,” she said.
“So, you wanna get breakfast at Paradise Cove after?” A little forward, but okay.
“Can’t,” she said. “Got one more set and then I got a job. But thanks.”
“Maybe next time,” Van said.
Before the conversation got more awkward, somebody farther down the line began paddling, aligning his board with an incoming wave. It was like a bird startling and jumping the whole flock into flight. Ballard checked over her shoulder and saw the next set coming in tall. She flipped forward and brought her legs up on the board. She started paddling. Deep strokes, fingers together to get speed. Digging down.
She didn’t want to miss the wave, not in front of Van.
She glanced to her left and saw him paddling stroke for stroke with her. He was going to press her, show her whose break it was.
Ballard paddled harder, feeling the burn in her shoulders. The board started to rise with the wave and she made her move, jumping up into a crouch on the centre line. She put her left foot behind her and stood just as the wave crested. She pushed the nose down and began slicing down the face of the wave.
She heard Van’s voice in the wake, calling her Goofy-foot.
She put her hands out for balance, heeled the board into a turn, and went up the wall before cutting it back down and taking it all the way in.
For eight seconds everything about the world was gone. It was just her and the ocean. The water. Nothing else.
She was coasting on foam when she remembered Van and looked back for him. He was nowhere in sight and then his head came up in the surf along with his red board. He raised his hand and Ballard nodded her goodbye. She stepped off, lifted her board, and walked out of the surf.
She had her wetsuit stripped down to her hips by the time she rounded the dunes and got to the parking lot. The combination of sun and wind was already drying her skin. She leaned her board against the side of the Defender and reached under the rear wheel well for her key box.
It was gone.
She crouched down and looked at the asphalt around the tire for the magnetic box.
It was not there. She leaned in, looking up into the well, hoping she had set the box in the wrong spot. But it was gone.
“F***.”
She quickly got up and went to the door. She pulled the handle and the door opened, having been left unlocked.
“F***, f***, f***.”
There was the key and the magnetic box on the driver’s seat. She saw that the glove compartment was open. She leaned in, reached under the driver’s seat, and swept her hand back and forth on the carpet.
Her phone, gun, wallet, and badge were gone. She swept her hand farther under the seat and pulled out her handcuffs and a seven-shot Ruger boot gun that the thief had apparently missed.
She stood up and looked around the parking lot. No one was there. Just the row of cars and campers belonging to the surfers still out on the water.
“F*** me,” she said.
• Extracted from The Waiting by Michael Connelly (Orion, £22). Visit expressbookshop.com or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on orders over £25
