Titanoboa Read Online Free

exactly is it you need help with?”
    She pulled up a photo on her phone and handed it to him. On the screen was a young man, perhaps no more than twenty. “My brother. He disappeared here two weeks ago.”
    “Here as in Vusa?”
    “Yes. Well, just outside the city. He was on the beach, Chaundry Beach, and he called me. We spoke for a while, and he hung up. No one’s heard from him since. He didn’t check back into the hotel, he never called his girlfriend, nothing. He just vanished.”
    “Hm .” Mark handed the phone back to her. “You sure he didn’t just lose his phone?”
    “No. His girlfriend is pregnant. He’d been calling her several times a day. If he’d lost his phone, he could just call from the hotel until he got a new one. But the hotel said the last time they saw him was that day. Two weeks ago, the day I talked to him. As far as I know, I was the last person to talk to him. His name’s Billy Gilmore.”
    “Where’s he from?”
    “San Diego. That’s where we live. He hasn’t called into his job , either. They had to replace him.”
    Mark leaned back in his seat and glanced out the window at a passing car, an old Buick or Chrysler with rust on the side. “Sorry for asking these questions, but I have to be thorough. Is it possible your brother ran off with another woman?”
    “Not a chance. He loves her. Something’s happened. I just know it. I flew out here a week ago and went to the police. They don’t care. They said they would file a report and look into it, but I don’t even know if they’ve done that.”
    He shook his head. “Without any evidence of what happened, they won’t look too deeply. Have you tried the consulate?”
    “They’re even worse. They made an entry on their computer and said they would call me if he turned up.”
    Mark considered his options. Had he been desperate for cash, he would’ve jumped at the case. But he wasn’t wanting for money. His pension from the police force and the few thousand dollars a year he made here were more than enough to meet, and exceed, all his needs. So the only real question was whether he wanted to take the case.
    When he finally made detective his last year on the LAPD, he worked for six months in the Missing Persons division. Most MPs were actually just runaways. Or people that had up and left their families without a word to their spouses or children. Murders, kidnappings, and accidental deaths weren’t as common. And that was in Los Angeles. He couldn’t even imagine the odds against a murder on a small island where everybody was in everybody else’s business.
    The problem was that, if he actually found Billy and discovered he had run off to Las Vegas or Mexico or somewhere and shacked up with a cocktail waitress, the family w ould be bitter and angry. And Mark might be the target of that bitterness. Though unlikely, Fiji had strict refund laws surrounding services to tourists. A lawsuit was an easy thing to bring if the family wanted their money back or a reduced fee and Mark didn’t provide it.
    Besides, finding missing people, even on a small island, was a lot of work. He enjoyed waking up at ten and leaving work at three every day.
    “I’ll tell you what, Ms. Gilmore, I’ll think about it.”
    “What’s there to think about? I’ll pay your fee.”
    “I know, but it’s just a matter of whether or not I want to take the case. Give me a day to sleep on it, will ya?”
    “Sure .” She stuffed her phone back into her purse. “My brother’s probably dead in some ditch, and you want time to think about it.”
    Mark kept quiet as she rose, said “thank you” curtly, and stormed out of the office.

4
     
     
     
     
    The crackle of lightning startled Mark as he walked out of his building. Storms, though infrequent, appeared out of nowhere, pouring over the island in anger then disappearing.
    Massive rain droplets crashed into the pavement and the trees. Mark lifted his collar and trotted to his car. The home, tucked