Dead Girl Beach Read Online Free PDF

crimes—breaking and entering, spousal abuse, and drug possession. Seabury’s size—six feet two inches and 210 pounds of corded muscle—kept them at a distance. All except for one man. A loquacious Brit—bald, soft, and doughy—went over the moment the cell door slammed shut.
    â€œDon’t get too close.” The guy motioned to one of the inmates. “Thailand’s full of tuberculosis. The one over there in the corner, coughing? He probably won’t live the year out.”
    Seabury said nothing.
    â€œWhat you in for?”
    â€œTuberculosis,” Seabury said and watched the Brit’s head recoil in surprise.
    â€œThat’s a bloody good one, Old Man. Now, what’s the charge?”
    â€œReckless endangerment, but it’s completely bogus.”
    â€œWell…fancy that,” the Brit said. “Whoa, that’s a nasty one. I hadn’t figured you for a
Barmy
.”
    â€œWhich means you think I’m crazy?”
    The guy cracked a smile. “You must have traveled a bit to know the term. Please accept my apology.”
    He extended his hand, but Seabury didn’t bother to shake it.
Probably a good idea not to
, Seabury thought, considering the crowded conditions in the cell. Seabury saw the guy’s face flush, half-embarrassed.
    Â â€œOkay, Old Man. Have it your way. I was just trying to make light of a bad situation.”
    Seabury kept quiet.
    â€œThey got me on a drug violation. Now, I’ll be lucky to see the likes of Manchester for another decade.”
    â€œWhat drug?” Seabury asked.
    â€œCocaine taped to my body. They caught me at the airport.”
    Seabury said nothing.
    â€œI wasn’t very bright,” the guy said. “I do a favor for a bloke back home. Now, I’m banged up abroad. Have you seen the series on the telly? It’s wildly popular. Now, I’m a common criminal like all the others, locked up here in a foreign land.”
    Probably not a good idea to destroy the guy
, Seabury thought, but drug possession in Thailand was serious business. So serious that it carried the death penalty if convicted. The holding cell was hot and humid inside. A noisy babble filled the air. Harsh, strident, unfamiliar sounds boomeranged off the chipped, rust-stained walls. They reached Seabury’s inner ear with the thrust of an ice pick. His head throbbed, and his eyes began to sting. The rancid smell of unwashed bodies surrounded him. The Brit named Billy Brooks slumped down in a far corner and left Seabury alone near the cell door.
    The slang word
barmy
popped in and out of his mind. Crazy…hmmm? He wondered how long it would take to go crazy if he had to spend two years in a Thai prison. He guessed not long, judging from the looks of his cellmates. Wild, bloodshot eyes and lean, sunken faces—the grim dehydration of bodies withering away from a life of drug abuse surrounded him. Not long.
Not long in a place like this
, he thought.
    Guards came up to the cell, opened the door, shoved prisoners out into the hall, shoved new prisoners back inside. In and out, in and out—for the next three hours—and in the midst of his depression, Seabury remembered a name. It broke from the gloom and the darkness like a beacon of bright light. Dao Suttikul.
    * * * *
    She was young with long, raven hair and a tiny butterfly tattooed above her navel. She was young and alive, with a dazzling smile, just twenty-four. He’d met her at a coffee shop along Sunset Beach two years ago, and they’d fallen in love. He remembered how it happened.
    â€œI’m not a bar girl, Seabury,” she’d told him. “I work in an office. I have a regular job. It’s not that I have anything against what they do. Most of the girls come from poor, rural villages. They’ve had a hard life, made even harder by having to work in those places. My heart goes out to them. I can’t imagine what it would be