COLD TIDE- A Novel (Coming Soon)
Jacksonville, Florida — 1988.
Dan Foster has built a career out of controlling narratives. As co-founder of Foster & Speer, he’s the architect behind corporate turnarounds and crisis campaigns—polished, persuasive, untouchable. But when a reopened murder case dredges up a name from his past, the tide shifts.
Mason Carlisle.
A star athlete. A summer night. A silence that never settled.
The investigation leads back to Amelia Island, a quiet coastal town where the past clings like salt to skin. Beneath its dunes and boardwalks lie fractured loyalties, buried truths, and the kind of secrets that don’t erode—they calcify. As headlines resurface and investigators circle, Dan must navigate a landscape where reputation is currency and memory is liability.
What begins as a ripple becomes a reckoning—one that threatens not just his firm’s future, but the fragile architecture of the life he’s built.
Cold Tide is a haunting legal thriller that explores the fault lines between ambition and accountability, and the quiet pull of a past that refuses to stay buried. Archie’s upcoming novel is set in the blistering grace of coastal Florida, told through the eyes of someone who lived it and was shaped by it.
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A Sneak Peak ....
Chapter 1: The Pitch
Jacksonville, Florida – March 1988
The morning light spilled through the fifteenth-floor windows of Foster & Speer like it had been scheduled in advance. Golden beams slanted through the vertical blinds and streaked across the mahogany conference table in a precise, almost theatrical way—casting halos around water pitchers and creating long shadows that pointed directly toward Dan Foster. The view beyond the glass suggested motion without detail—glimpses of the St. Johns River's slow shimmer, the steel grid of the Mathews Bridge, and the beige monolith of the Independent Life building rising nearby like a sentinel.
Dan stood at the head of the glass-walled conference room, his navy suit sharp against the burnished wood of the table. He adjusted his cufflinks—silver gators, a quiet nod to Gainesville roots—understated but meaningful. Alumni gift from his brother Rich. He wore them only on pitch days. Like armor.
The walls carried faint echoes of downtown life—horns, heels on concrete, the low buzz of WAPE FM through ceiling speakers. But up here, everything felt suspended, curated. Elevated.
Dan’s voice was clear and composed, suited for courtrooms or boardrooms. “It’s not just the message that matters,” he said, stepping smoothly beside the whiteboard as the projection clicked forward, “it’s who owns it.”
He let that hang for a breath. A subtle shift of posture followed—one foot anchored, the other angled outward. Commanding without posture.
“The first to define the story wins.”
Across the table sat three men in corporate grays and blues. Their faces wore polite detachment, but something in their shoulders said they were listening now. The lead executive—a silver-haired VP of Corporate Affairs for East Gulf Energy—leaned forward, his knuckles pressed together like a steeple. His tie bore tiny anchors, probably from a regional bank gift shop, and smelled faintly of aftershave and recycled air.
Behind Dan, graphs mapped media sentiment curves, perception modeling, and a rival’s transformation of an environmental scandal into a job-creation campaign. No one looked at the slides anymore. They watched Dan.
Michael Speer, his partner and co-founder, lounged halfway down the table. Tortoiseshell glasses, charcoal blazer over a faded Springsteen tee, espresso in hand. He looked like he’d wandered in from a film festival, yet his silence wasn’t disengagement—it was tactical. Speer knew the tempo. He let Dan run the room.
Dan turned, tone shifting. Clinical became aspirational. “Right now, your critics own the narrative. You look opaque. Defensive. That’s the frame we shift. Coastal renewal initiative. Educational partnerships with marine labs. Your biologists in classrooms. Your engineers in evening news profiles.”
Click. A mockup ad filled the screen: an East Gulf technician cradling a sea turtle, oil-slicked but alert.
“We don’t just issue apologies. We make them visible. Credible.”
Silence followed, thick and telling. No one looked at the turtle. All eyes were on Dan.
He felt that silence like a tide beneath him—not pressure, but possibility. Moments like these were why he chased the pitch, rehearsed alone in the dark with the hum of a coffee machine as audience.
Finally, the silver-haired VP broke it. “That’s a hell of a pitch.”
Dan offered a faint smile. Professional, not smug. “That’s what we do.”
The third man—quiet until now—spoke. “You’ve handled this before.”
Dan didn’t blink. “Crisis is just another kind of story. We specialize in both.”
The meeting wrapped like a slow curtain drop—measured praise, tighter handshakes, and no mention of “circling back.” They didn’t ask for revisions or decks. They said, simply, “Let’s get started.”
The door shut with a soft hiss behind them.
Michael Speer turned to Dan, espresso cup raised like a toast. “You just bought us a retainer that covers bonuses and Stealer’s hip surgery.”
Dan chuckled. “Didn’t know Stealer had bad hips.”
“He doesn’t. Yet. He’s full Yorkie and half poet. Joint degradation is inevitable.”
Dan tucked his materials under one arm and checked his Rolex. Eleven fifty-eight. “I’m meeting Ella for lunch.”
“Go bask,” Speer said, waving him off. “You earned it.”
Dan had earned it. Raised by a small-town barber and stay-at-home-mom, he put himself through the University of Florida, double majored in Public Relations and Political Science, and tacked on an MBA for good measure. No legacy handshakes. No inherited Rolodex. Just grind and finesse.
As co-founder of Foster & Speer, Dan had become the firm’s anchor and sail—reeling in accounts, shaping headlines, engineering turnarounds. The firm wasn’t a boutique anymore. It was a lifeline for corporations in crisis.
In the hallway, the light dimmed slightly—less golden, more fluorescent buzz—and Dan felt it, the shift from pitch-mode to personal terrain. A humming tension beneath the skin, like the moment after stepping off a stage.
The corridor smelled faintly of old carpet cleaner and new ambition. Someone passed wearing a citrusy cologne. Phones buzzed from cubicles. An espresso machine hissed near the break area. The city’s pulse found its echo here—contained, but insistent.
The lobby—a blend of brass accents, tall ferns, and quiet conversation—was in motion. Heels clicked across travertine tile. A man passed by talking about a City Council proposal to expand riverfront zoning. A woman flipped through a Jacksonville Business Journal with Speer’s name circled in highlighter. Above the reception desk, a reproduction of a St. Augustine coastal watercolor hung crooked in its frame.
This was Dan’s world. Controlled. Curated. Ascending.
Then Angie, his assistant, intercepted him near the elevators. Her auburn hair was neat as ever, but her usual brightness was dimmed.
“This came for you,” she said, holding out the morning Times-Union. Her voice dropped to a register he hadn’t heard in years. “You’ll want to see it now.”
Dan raised an eyebrow. “Bad headline?”
She didn’t smile. Just nodded.
He peeled the paper open, half-distracted, still floating on the pitch high.
COLD CASE REOPENED IN 1978 BEACH MURDER Police Renew Investigation into Death of Mason Carlisle
He stopped walking.
Beneath the bold letters: Former Fernandina Star Athlete Questioned in ’78
Mason Carlisle.
The name hit him like a slap.
Angie’s voice was cautious now. “I didn’t know whether to give it to you before or after your meeting.”
“This was after.”
“I figured it wouldn’t help your pitch to be reminded of... that.”
Dan stared at the paper. A photo—grainy, probably pulled from an old yearbook—showed Mason in his football jersey. Helmet in hand. Grinning. The humidity had warped the ink just slightly, curling one edge of the page like a warning.
The heat behind Dan’s eyes surprised him.
Flash. Main Beach. Late summer. Sand cool underfoot. The sound of an aluminum can opening. Someone yelling. Nikki screaming. Rich grabbing his arm. Mason bleeding. Dan running. No one saying anything until it was over.
The memory ran jagged—not a reel, but a crackle of fragments. He clenched the folder tighter, trying to tuck one into the other: pitch deck and ghost story.
His throat tightened.
Angie touched his arm. “They called twice. A reporter from the St. Augustine Record wants a statement.”
Dan’s voice was low. “Tell him I’m unavailable.”
“Should I loop in Speer?”
Dan shook his head slowly. “Not yet.”
He folded the paper, twice, and slipped it into the folder alongside client pitch materials. A calculated move—fold a ghost into something presentable.
The elevator dinged softly.
But he didn’t move.
Angie watched him for a beat. “Dan…”
“I’m fine,” he said, stepping inside. “Tell Ella I’m on my way.”
The doors closed.
Inside, the mirrored panel caught him. Behind his reflection, the faint outline of Jacksonville’s skyline bled into the glass—like ambition and memory overlapping without permission. And something cracked. Not a breakdown—just a hairline fracture in the image.
He had built a career turning chaos into order. Affairs, bribery, backdated ledgers, smudged NDAs—he’d spun all of it into strategy.
But this wasn’t someone else’s scandal. This time, the story was his.