Tidal Rage David Evans (novels for teenagers .txt) 📖

over by the company. In the end she believed it was her husband’s cabin steward, Emilio, who sent her the letter but try as she might, he would not agree to see her.

Cheryl and Cutler were so deep in discussion they had not noticed that the sun had gone down over the Everglades. The light came on automatically and illuminated the immediate area. Outside the balcony, the darkness was intense due to the overwhelming over-illumination you are exposed to in any other city. The oppressive heat of the day was replaced by the humid atmosphere which envelops the Everglades at night.

After several bites, Cheryl pulled down the fine netting to keep the mosquitoes and other night-time parasites away from them. She took a short break, leaving Cutler with a Budweiser, and returned with sirloin steaks and a bowl of salad. Cheryl turned on the gas grill, and after coating the thick steaks in olive oil, she threw them both on the grill.

“Medium rare,” Cutler asked politely, as his nostrils flared to take in the aroma of the cooking steaks.

They both ate in comparative silence, enjoying the food and the noises of the night kept at bay by the net.

Over the next few hours, they discussed their options in detail. They brought up both sensible and outlandish ideas; the problem was, it always came back to money. Neither the governments nor the ship owners were willing to finance investigations nor were they prepared to have the publicity that went with it. This was definitely not the case of any publicity is good publicity.

Cutler had known within two weeks of Elisa going missing that there was no set organization to investigate people lost at sea. It was a Bermuda Triangle; facts went into one police force or another, and nothing ever came out. He also knew that if he was going to keep his promise to his father, he was going to have to take some considerable time away from the Secret Service. In fact, what he had planned may mean a permanent break.

Cheryl was smart, driven, and sane, as far as Cutler could make out. All too often people in authority make the mistake of underestimating or categorizing driven people as mentally unstable. Cheryl had suffered a nervous breakdown due to the stress and loss of her husband, and subsequent revelations concerning his death.

She explained to Cutler that she had, with some difficulty, purchased a photograph of everyone under the age of twenty who had been on the cruise. It had not been easy; she had single-handedly tracked down the photographer from the cruise her husband had undertaken. Matt Rice, known to all his friends as Basmati, no longer worked for the cruise line industry. He now worked as a crime scene photographer for the crime scene unit working out of Tampa.

Once Cheryl had tracked Basmati down, he was a mine of information. The digital age had revolutionized his trade, and he kept a digital record of every cruise and of every photograph he had taken.

The reference he filed it under was 12987, and this was the disc with everyone’s first photograph aboard the ship. The cruise lines ensure that about fifteen photographs and more are taken of every guest on-board, but it can be a bit hit-and-miss. What is not hit-and-miss is the picture captured by the digital camera for their ship’s pass, and Basmati downloaded these images, as well as keeping his own. He loaded them onto his computer and entered a filter. Within the hour, he had a download of every picture of males under the age of twenty-one on the ship that week; one hundred and twenty-nine young men in all.

“I had shown all hundred and twenty-nine photographs to Mr and Mrs Yacoub, when sitting in the moonlight a hundred yards away from the Sphinx. The Egyptian couple meticulously studied the photos and identified the two boys. Two days and several hundred dollars later, I had a notary sign the Yacoubs’ statements in front of them all to say they were true accounts,” Cheryl recounted.

“You had good, solid leads,” Cutler replied.

“On my return to the States a few days later, I gave the statements to the police in Fort Lauderdale. They basically said it was up to the Bahamian police force, as it had happened in their waters. The Bahamian police refused point blank to investigate anymore. They also claimed the investigation had been closed and recorded as a suicide, and, therefore, no crime. I tried every law enforcement agency I knew, but no one wanted to know.”

“The evidence was circumstantial, but strong evidence. You have sworn statements and two names to go with, and no one wanted to know,” Cutler said, somewhat perturbed.

“After that I tracked down one of the lads. His name is Bernard Rothhelm, and he lives in Palm Beach. I went there but could not get past the security at the gate. The place just oozed money. I wrote to his parents and explained the circumstances, and within two weeks, I had been institutionalized, and had Esme removed. It took nearly a year to get out of the institution, and I still cannot get Esme back. I’m ashamed to say I have been fighting that for the past two years, not concentrating on my husband’s death.”

“Sounds like exactly what I would want you to do, if I were the boy’s parents,” Cutler said.

Cheryl offered him a room for the night, as it was clear to them both they still had more talking to do in the morning, and Cutler had drunk several Budweisers. She retired to her room, leaving Cutler on the veranda drinking a final beer, and with an awful lot of thinking to do.

When Cheryl arose early the next morning, she cooked a Canadian breakfast of thick bacon, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes with maple syrup. She was surprised to find him still