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

They’re towing her to the harbor. Some question the ship might have been derelict. I don’t know much about it. Lieutenant Takamura’s handling the investigation.” He laid the pen down very carefully, aligning it with the edge of the pad. He reached down for the magazine again. Vincent cleared his throat. “This, uh, Takamura…? Is he here?” Hirogawa shook his head. “Went out, oh, maybe an hour ago. Day shift went home.”
Newsweek
rose before his face.
    Vincent waited, patiently, he thought. The sergeant said nothing further. Finally, he turned and walked briskly to the door.
    “Oh…” Vincent turned. Sergeant Hirogawa had lowered his magazine. “They’re all meeting at the harbor. Around eight. Tonight.”
    Vincent nodded. “Thanks.”
    The sun gilded the skimpy clouds hovering near the top of the crater with a peculiar greenish light Vincent found repellant, like the early signs of disease. He climbed in the car. “Hotel,” he said, not looking at the young woman.
    She stopped in front of a three-story stucco building. The sign indicated this was the Prince Kuhio Hotel. “It’s where the Hawaiians stay,” she said apologetically. “Not a tourist place.”
    “It’ll do,” he said shortly, climbing out. He got his bag and went inside, leaving the girl to figure out what to do next. She parked the car and followed him into the hotel.
    The lobby was deserted. She called his room from the house phone. “You should eat something,” she suggested.
    “Why?” Vincent asked. He’d eaten on the flight over — they had direct flights to Kauai from Vancouver now. The airline chicken sat in his stomach and complained.
    Carrie shrugged, a gesture Vincent on the other end of the phone could not see. She almost hung up when he said, “You go eat something. We will go to the harbor at eight. There’s a meeting. You know where the Coast Guard is?”
    “I can find it.” She hung up and went next door to a tiny coffee shop. At seven forty-five she was back in the lobby, waiting. She did not call Vincent again, but he appeared a few minutes later. His pale hair was damply brushed back over his ears, framing his heavy face. Somehow the damp hair gave his features a coarse texture.
    They were coming down the hill off Rice Street toward the sheltered harbor at Nawiliwili when he said, “Stop.”
    She pulled over and looked at him.
    “They’re all…”
    “I heard they were all dead,” she said finally. “That’s what I heard, but I don’t know. I tried calling the hospital, but they wouldn’t give out any information.”
    Vincent gestured for her to shut off the engine. The hood clicked as it cooled. From time to time a car passed, rocking her small car with its passage. “Damn,” he said at last. “What happened?” But he was not asking her. How could she know? She was just a volunteer.
    “They got fabulous coverage,” she said after a moment. “It was even in the local papers. They sailed right up to the reef at Moruroa. Television footage, even, from very far away. They were brave people.”
    “Stupid,” Vincent muttered. “They weren’t supposed to do that. They were supposed to stay outside the legal limit. Like all the others.”
    She said nothing. The darkness began to gather along the cut on the opposite side of the road. Beyond that cut was the new resort hotel, $400 million worth of bad taste. Vincent knew about that, too. He’d studied this island in the plane’s in-flight magazine.
    What the hell was
Ocean Mother
doing in Kauai? She had been en route back from Tahiti to Vancouver. Hawaii was as far off course as any place short of Asia even if it was the only land between Tahiti and the continental United States. He said it aloud. He could not be sure why. Perhaps he thought she would have an answer, perhaps it pushed away the growing shadows.
    She shrugged. She was still miffed— after all, she was putting herself out to do this, pick the fat slob up at the airport, take him