Venom: A Thriller in Paradise (The Thriller in Paradise Series Book 3) by Rob Swigart Read Free Book Online Page B

happen. You could see her from the Kuhio Highway, but who pays attention? You drive along, see a ship out to sea, say, ‘Oh, how nice, a ship.’ Later, driving the other way, you see a ship. Same ship? Who knows? So you say, ‘Oh, how nice.’”
    Cobb laughed. “Okay, Okay. She was out there for up to thirty hours, drifting back and forth with the tides. And before that, she was returning from Tahiti. But why would she come to Kauai instead of Honolulu? In fact, why wasn’t she headed toward Vancouver?”
    “Ship’s log?” Sammy suggested.
    “No help— no entries for the past three days. There may be other pages missing, we can’t tell. There are gaps in the sequence.”
    “Curious.”
    “Very curious. Pages missing, perhaps. The log was written on lined paper in a three-ring binder. Anyone could have taken them out. It’s just that some days there are no entries. So we don’t know why she was headed this way. And the implications, if someone got rid of pages from the log, are ominous.”
    The silence that followed was broken abruptly by the startlingly loud and insistent beeping of Cobb’s pager. He smiled and went reluctantly to the telephone in the hallway behind the dining room. Sammy smiled broadly at Sergeant Handel. “Now tell me the truth, Sergeant,” he said softly, as soon as Takamura was out of earshot. “Is there a poison, toxin, disease or other biological threat here or not?”
    Handel was surprised. “What makes you ask that?”
    “Tut tut, young man. I am in finance, now. Expenditures are my business. An airplane, even a small one, dispatched to the Big Island to bring one Dr. Charles Koenig back to Kauai on very short notice has implications of a toxic sort, don’t it?”
    “The paramedics were worried about Mrs. Takamura. She’d gone on board to investigate— didn’t know the ship wasn’t a derelict when it drifted into the bay, so she looked it over before calling in. She touched two of the bodies and lowered the anchors. She didn’t touch anything else, but I think the lieutenant felt that Dr. Koenig might be able to help.”
    “And?”
    “And Mrs. Takamura is fine. Badly shaken for a while, but fine. She was reading someone named Hegel.”
    “Mmm. Bad sign. Dr. Koenig any help?”
    Scott smiled. “Worried about the expense?”
    Sammy shrugged “Almost three hundred dollars, county money. I write the checks.” He looked up as Cobb sank back into his seat. “What’s up, Boss? You look funny.”
    “Very strange,” Cobb said, so softly they had to lean forward to hear his next words. “That was Dr. Shih. One of our bodies has come back to life.”

FIVE
    THE BEAST
    The air in the bowl of Nawiliwili harbor was hot and close and dead. Vacationers lay around the enormous Roman pool and panted, from time to time rousing themselves from their lethargy to order iced tea or rum drinks from the outdoor bar. On the small, narrow beach the few bathers draped towels over their faces and fell into a sun-drugged sleep. The tennis courts were deserted, heat waves rising from their green and red surfaces. The golf course was green but still.
    Narni stared down at the pool until her eyes hurt from the sun’s glare. The pool was impossibly blue, with geometric patterns laid into it in black tile. In the middle an irregular island scattered with beach chairs displayed ample racks of skin to the sun. A bestiary of monumental sculptures— smooth-flanked rabbits and hippos and the like— spat water in looping arcs over the swimmers. The brochure assured her this was the largest swimming pool in the entire state of Hawaii. Narni believed it, though this startling fact held less interest for her than the hotel’s promoters might have wished.
    She pushed her hands against the balcony railing and went back inside, pulling her beach robe around her. Enough. Enough sun. Enough sitting around her room waiting for something to happen. Enough drinking in the bar with other doctors’ wives.