Tidal Rage by David Evans (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

to wander out on the deck during a storm when no one else would, apart from Sebastian. She went over the side some two hours later, lacking most of her hair and part of her scalp, just seven miles off the coast of Fremantle in Australia. Sebastian was pretty sure, storm or no storm, the sharks and other predators of the sea would devour her before the week was out.

Miss Daphne—this was how she insisted on being addressed—was a young woman of breeding and standing. Born in the Channel Island of Guernsey, her father was a banker who plied his trade in London and came home on weekends. As it happens in so many cases, he met and fell in love with someone other than his wife, and young enough to be his daughter. When the banker’s wife found out, she shipped daughter Daphne on a Balkan cruise with her close friend Gemina Montgomery while she tried to calm the waters back home.

Daphne was eighteen and had vivid red hair with rosy good looks; she looked like a flower ready to pluck, to Sebastian. Gemina was handsome rather than pretty. She was lean bordering on malnourished and had closely cropped black hair. She was of no interest.

Gemina was getting ready for the return to England, so it was not much of a problem to find Miss Daphne alone. She had a habit of walking around the pool deck at night-time, enjoying a glass of Chablis, when most people were watching the shows.

Sebastian reconnoitred the area. In the last year, closed-circuit cameras had been introduced into some cruise ships. These were in communal areas, and predominantly based around the casinos. There was one or two around the decks, but none covering this area. At the stern of the ship on this deck was a Crazy Golf course within some netting, with a storage cupboard built into the bulkhead the ninth hole nestled up to.

Sebastian knew from previous nights she would show up around 9 pm—only problem was, she did not. He had to wait a further twenty-four frustrating hours to take his pleasure, and he made her suffer for making him wait. He was furious when he finally got her; for she was a fake. He killed her quickly in disgust, as there was no hair to remove. Daphne was nearly bald from alopecia and wore expensive wigs.

“False little bitch,” he said, as he threw her from the top deck on the starboard side. He could not throw her over the stern, as there was an open-air restaurant on deck five, and there was the possibility of someone seeing her body fly by. The best option was starboard, as there were no balcony cabins this far back, and the chances of someone spotting her falling were slim. Even if they did, it would be assumed she had jumped.

Her torso ended up on a remote beach several miles up from Golden Sands on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. The Bulgarians flew investigators out to the ship. The investigation lasted twelve hours, six of which the investigators spent enjoying the cuisine in the breakfast hall, at lunchtime, and again in the early evening. After a cursory Bulgarian investigation, it was closed with the outcome she had probably committed suicide. They reached their conclusion based on Gemina telling the investigating officers about Daphne’s parents’ problems.

Melissa Rodrigues had lush, jet-black hair that flowed freely down her back and sat in a straight line, converging into a sleek, smooth wave nestled on the rise of her pert buttocks. She needed some Vitamin D in the form of sunshine to help her hair and skin bloom. She got her vitamin D aboard the cruise ship Bonny Prince Charlie.

This was an old Cunard ship that had been too old for service in the Cunard fleet for the past ten years. Bonny Prince Charlie had been purchased by the Belgium Cruise Co. and transported her guests around the Red Sea.

Bonny Prince Charlie would start her journey from Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt and cruise along to the ports in Jordan, so the travellers could pay exorbitant prices to walk in the footsteps of Lawrence of Arabia, or visit the beautiful but fly-ridden shores of the Dead Sea. Or for the more adventurous, taking the trip down the narrow gorges to Petra, the ancient trading city built into the hills in the desert.

Sebastian had taken the soft option and joined the multitude of visitors to the Dead Sea, where he first observed Melissa.

What attracted Sebastian was her demeanor. While not that tall and with a lithe, slim body, she seemed to take up all the space around her as the long mane of black hair swirled from side to side as she alerted everyone in line of sight to her presence. She showered beside the walkway down to the Dead Sea, swatting away the numerous flies from her skimpily covered body, which had the eyes of every heterosexual male between the ages of ten and ninety fixated.

When Melissa immersed herself in the Dead Sea, she jumped up and yelped a little as the salt initially stung her openings. The second wave of pain was caused by the areas she had shaved prior to departing the ship that morning. She settled down and soon followed the others in the dense salty water, trying to float. They were not floating in the Dead Sea, but on top of the sea, as it is virtually impossible to submerge oneself in the saltiest sea in the world. Her hair turned white, as did her slim body as it was covered and baked in the salt.

Looking down at her from the hill overlooking the spot was a stone structure, supposedly the remains of Lot’s wife, as this was the setting of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife died because she looked back to the forsaken city. Melissa would be killed for