Tom Jessiman

          Early on the morning of June 13, 2022, Jake MacKay walked through the mist of Dunrobin Castle’s hedged gardens. The twin spired castle was the northernmost in the Scottish Highlands, a white fortress jutting from the hillside against the sea.    
          Jake crossed the vast lawn to the wooded spot, where the caged birds of prey watched, their heads pivoting— massive eagles, falcons owls. He found Tavish Kerr, the falconer, in his thatched hut picking over rabbit parts for the birds on a long table. Older now, stooped— still with his worn, tweed cap, he nodded. "Today is the day." He sized up Jake. "You shrank.” 
          “I lost my rugby weight a long time ago.” 
          "The ten years went fast." 
          “Let’s just get the time capsule, Tavish.”
          The old man led Jake out to the bird cages. He pulled on his leather glove, as he unlatched a cage door. An orange-eyed eagle owl jumped up onto his gloved arm. "Kai has been a good guard." He opened a latch at the base of the cage and brushed away straw and cobwebs. He lifted out and handed over a rusted box.
          Jake felt the weight of the time capsule. “I should have looked there.” 
          “You ripped this place apart that day.”
          Jake was looking at the box.
          “Kate made me promise not to let you open it before its time.” 
          Jake nodded.
          "Come on then." Tavish walked back to the hut and pulled out a brown bottle from under the cutting table. He poured two whiskies and pushed one across.
          Jake held the Scotch. “Time to work."
          "You are man enough now for whatever is in there. Here’s to that beautiful girl."
          The two men drank.

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          Scourie village stood like a dot on the northwest tip of Scotland. A hundred years earlier, the hotel had been full of fishermen who came north for the trout and salmon fishing. But now the village of a hundred people relied on tourism from the big road built to ring the Highlands. Caravans with stickers from England, Germany, Italy and other countries parked in the camping lot with a view of the bay. The locals worked at the hotel, the store, the gas pump or the pub at the camp site. The school had closed years ago, along with the two churches.
          Jake's house and land lay just past the village— on a hill above a loch. Sheep grazed the mountain across the loch. Seagulls called drifting over the ocean inlet where waves broke on black rocks. Far past a cliff bluff, on the horizon, lay the charcoal silhouette of Stornoway, of the Western Isles.
          Jake laid the tin box on the stone table in his front lawn. He opened the box and took out the two manilla envelope time capsules. In her neat hand, Kate had written "Kate— June 13, 2012" on hers and "Jake— June 13, 2012" on his. With a knife, Jake slit open hers and emptied the items onto the table.
 

1) Story Statement. Quest of Protagonist.

Find his college sweetheart who disappeared ten years ago.

2) Sketch the Antagonistic Force

Gordon and Blair Walker, brother and sister, run a crime family in Glasgow, Scotland. Gordon once dated Kate Cameron, the girl who disappeared, and rivaled Jake MacKay, the protagonist, for her affection. Gordon is the everyday operator of the family who has expanded their operation into legitimate real estate. Older, Blair went into politics and is the glamorous front for the family that has run the city for three generations. The Walkers have gained credibility by opening a charity house to help in need teenagers. Gordon won businessman of the year. The Walkers do not want Jake coming back into town causing trouble. 

Jake is from the Scottish Highlands— remote country. The Walkers are city; he is country. They are ruthless; he is not. They have killed people; he has not. They have a chokehold on the city that he walks into now by himself.

Jake has always suspected the Walkers’ involvement in Kate’s disappearance. With clues from an opened time capsule he shared with Kate, he begins to confirm his suspicions. Ten years have passed. Wiser than he was and with the help of his own ancestry DNA company, he is not going to let the Walkers stop him from discovering what happened to Kate.

3) Title

Cover the Water

4) Genre & Comparables

Literary Mystery. 71,500 words.

Comparables: The Italian Villa, The Irish Cowboy.

5) Core Wound & Primary Dramatic Conflict

 Haunted by guilt from the night his college sweetheart disappeared a decade ago, a forensic DNA entrepreneur opens a shared time capsule and sets out to find her— and, if necessary, avenge her. 

 6) Two More Levels of Conflict

The love story of Jake and Kate, told in flashbacks from their college years, provides a secondary conflict. Jake wants to measure up to Kate. He is younger than his years; she is older than hers. Is he streetwise enough to help in brutal Glasgow where she is trying to solve her father’s murder? When he says he loves her, does he even know what love is? Has today’s Jake matured enough to solve the riddle of Kate?

Jake has his own internal conflict— guilt from not being there when Kate disappeared that night. For a decade, he has wanted to fix a past he cannot escape. If he finds Kate, can he finally start living again? Can he allow himself to love again with the woman helping him today, a social media influencer? He has lived so long in the past. Can he come of age enough to let Kate go and enjoy a future?

7) Setting

The story plays out across today’s Scotland— primarily in Jake’s home in the Highlands in the far north and in the industrial city of Glasgow. Other locales include fishing villages, a historic battlefield, the air force base, the University of St Andrews, the cities of Inverness and Edinburgh— and London, the English countryside and Mississippi.

Jake’s family home is more than a house. His home anchors him. He draws strength from his family who has lived and fly-fished there for generations. And for 600 years the MacKay clan has called the village and environs home.

The setting extends to today’s technology. Jake is an entrepreneur who employs the forensics of his own ancestry DNA company to uncover the truth. His new influencer friend in Glasgow taps her social media platform to generate leads. 

And the setting includes Jake’s friends who sustain him. He begins as one man going up against a crime family, but he learns to trust and lean on his own network: his best friend, the duke, with unlimited financial resources; Kate’s younger brother, part of the crime family now— but who risks that to help Jake; the skeptical detective who finally works with Jake; and Jake’s father, gone now, but a wise force still in Jake’s life.