Dark Vengeance by Kristi Belcamino (libby ebook reader .txt) 📗

He had the electrical shock delivered at the level of an average person’s chest. This was the best place to jolt someone fatally. The same current across ankles wouldn’t be as potentially fatal. But across the chest? Yes.

Most people didn’t know that a lighting strike wasn’t always fatal, either.

It was crazy to realize that a lightning bolt’s billion volts and current of about 30,000 amps was not automatically lethal.

So, for him, watching to see what died on his fence was a sport. So far, two of the dogs had committed unwitting suicide. A delivery man had walked right into it and burst into flames. He was buried in the backyard. Numerous squirrels and chipmunks. A few birds. Even a monkey or two.

And now the second human—a punk kid surfer.

He thought again about the woman on the motorcycle. She was much more than she seemed. She had easily bested one of his best security guards. He still wasn’t sure how that had happened. The man had obviously forgotten to turn on the perimeter security system. X suspected it was because he’d called for a prostitute. The nanny cams he’d set up had caught this very thing happening in the past when he’d left the island on business. He’d found it amusing. And sometimes titillating to watch his burly bodyguard fuck a tiny call girl half his size.

But now he was dead. And X was faced with the hassle of replacing him. He’d have to look off island for a replacement. Then again, maybe he would just move off island, as he’d just been contemplating. The nearby island of Enganno would suit his needs. He’d go on a real estate scouting mission as soon as he found Rose and got this fucking crazy fuck off his back.

He had no doubt that he’d find the girl, but he worried it wouldn’t be in time.

For now, he’d take a long hot shower, smoke a cigarette, drink a cognac and probably jack off, since the head the girl had given him had been unsatisfying. Then, he’d sleep on his problems. The answer might come to him in the night, through his subconscious. It had worked in the past. He’d fallen asleep with a problem and woken with the solution.

Stripping down naked in the bathroom, he admired his body in the mirror. This physique and his above- average good looks had saved him from a life of poverty.

Thank you, dear mother, for the good genes, he thought.

When his inheritance had run out, he was left with his looks and charm and they had always served him well.

With the hot water beating down on his head, he closed his eyes.

 His only lead had been the dog. And the dog was gone. But something else would come to him. There would be another way to find the girl. If the fishermen didn’t have any information, he’d send his men to the surrounding islands.

If they asked around, with the right combination of brute force and a cash bribe, someone on some of the nearby islands might remember a girl and a dog arriving.

He’d just dried off and slipped on a warm robe when an alarm sounded. It was his perimeter security. He flipped on the monitor. It took him a minute to figure out what he was looking at but as soon as he realized what it was, he smiled and turned off the electric fence.

It was one of the surfers. A kid with white blonde hair. And he was holding something in his arms.

The goddamn dog.

19

Back at the surf camp, the skies over the water had grown dark, nearly black as night, and a roiling mix of swirling dark clouds loomed on the horizon.

My phone dinged. My heart leaped in my throat, but when I looked down it wasn’t Ryder. It was my best friend, Dante, calling from San Diego. It showed I’d missed five calls from him. I hadn’t realized there had been that many. I put my phone away. I couldn’t deal with it right then.

I couldn’t bear to hear the concern in his voice.

When I reached the beach, nobody was out on the water even though the waves were enormous.

Instead, a dozen or so people were huddled around two bonfires, all facing the ocean.

“These waves are the bomb for aerials,” someone said.

I took Makeda aside and told her what I’d found. At first, she seemed distracted, one eye on the water, her hands tucked under armpits.

As soon as I told her that Matteo was dead, her green eyes turned gray and cold.

I’d expected her to burst into anger or tears, but her face had turned to stone. She spun on one heel and left me standing there. I watched her robotically grab her surfboard where it was stuck upright in the sand and head for the water.

A few people tried to talk to her as she passed, but she kept her eyes straight ahead.

The waves were crashing wildly, and I felt a trickle of fear as I watched her swim out to the break. I tried to keep sight of her yellow and black wetsuit, but lost her a few times when the waves crashed over her body.

At the bonfire, everyone grew quiet when I walked up. Then all eyes turned back to the water.

“She’s gonna die out there,” a guy said, shaking his head. “Those are not waves you wanna surf.”

“Nah, man, those are some bomb waves. Double-overhead for sure,” this time it was Arrow, the guy with the ponytail, speaking.

“Definitely someplace Eddie would go,” one of the Australians said, and everybody murmured in agreement. One woman made the sign of the cross.

“Who’s Eddie?” I asked. They all laughed.

“It means it’s very dangerous,” a girl said. “It refers to Eddie Aikau. He was a rad Hawaiian surfer who would surf twenty-foot waves when everyone else was afraid.”

“Makeda’s like Eddie. She doesn’t care,” someone else said. “She’s fearless.”

Maybe that was true. But she might be