The Devil's Triangle by Mark Robson Read Free Book Online

towel from the wall cabinet on the patio, Niamh stepped quickly across the hot white surface to the nearest sunbed. Seconds later, she had shed her T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops and was standing on the edge of the pool in her white bikini. If anything, she felt hotter for the lack of clothing.
    Niamh hesitated on the brink. She dipped the toes of her left foot into the water, trailing them around in a quick arc. The air temperature was so hot that the water was never going to feel warm. Getting in slowly would only prolong the agony. She took a deep breath.
    Geroni— she thought as she prepared to jump. Her lips tightened in a hard line as she cut the word off midway in her mind. ‘Geronimo!’ was what Sam normally yelled as he leapt into the pool. ‘Stuff you and your stupidity, Sam!’ she muttered aloud.
    She stepped off the side, tucking into a tight ball as she hit the water. The shock was not as bad as she had anticipated. The water felt cool, but not unpleasant. Pushing up from the bottom, Niamh stretched out and began to swim.
    The pool was not long enough to do any more than a few strokes in each direction, but the physical exertion was enough to warm her and disperse some of the tightness in her back and shoulders. After racing back and forth for several minutes, she stopped. Her heart was pumping fast and she was breathing hard.
    Closing her eyes, she laid her head back in the water and tried to imagine her heart and lungs purging the tension from her body. It didn’t work. Rather than relaxing, Niamh could feel muscles throughout her body tightening still further. She hadn’t felt this sort of nervous anticipation since . . . a shudder rippled through her body . . . since she couldn’t remember when. She’d been angry with Sam plenty of times, but her anger had never made her feel like this before.
    She opened her eyes and looked around, spinning suddenly in the water to scan the area immediately surrounding the pool. Was she missing something? Was her body instinctively reacting to a danger she wasn’t consciously aware of? There were some dangers in the Florida Keys. The worst normally came in human form, though there were a few animals that could pose a threat. Niamh scoured the poolside and nearby bushes and trees. The chance of a dangerous animal threatening her here at the house was remote, but she couldn’t imagine much else that would bring her this close to outright panic.
    The barest breath of a breeze was playing gently with the palm fronds overhanging the deck at either end of the pool. A gecko skittered across the poolside, head bobbing as it went, and feet moving impossibly fast. The ever-present chirruping of the cicadas was the only obvious sound. Niamh concentrated, listening hard. The distant sound of cars travelling along the Overseas Highway was just audible, but there were no signs or sounds of anything threatening.
    ‘This is crazy!’ she exclaimed aloud. ‘I’m getting paranoid!’
    She checked her watch. How long had the boys been gone? About an hour? If Sam kept his word, it would be roughly another hour before she could expect them to return. She turned, intending to push off and scull the length of the pool on her back when a sudden overwhelming terror enveloped her.
    Niamh wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. It felt as though her chest was crumpling like a paper bag sucked empty of air. There was a surreal moment as her mind seemed to separate and the part that had become detached looked down at her body in the pool. Then, for the briefest instant, she seemed to be looking at Callum holding a fishing rod. It wasn’t a dream. There was too much detail and texture to the vision. And it couldn’t be a memory, because she had always declined to go on fishing trips, preferring instead to spend the time sunbathing.
    A pulling sensation inside her head suddenly ripped with such terrible violence that it felt as though her brain was being torn in two. Her hands flew to her