Skinny Dip Read Online Free PDF Page A

corpse—cloaked in a bright yellow tarp—being hoisted on a stretcher to a Coast Guard cutter. Interviewed later at dockside, a sun-bleached young mate on the charter boat said of the gruesome catch: “We knew right away it wasn’t no sailfish because it didn’t jump.”
    Eventually, the grave-spoken newscaster revealed that the victim was a tourist from Newport News who had vanished three days earlier after crashing his rented Wave Runner into a pair of copulating loggerhead turtles. Chaz fell back on the bed with a hoot of relief—his wife remained safely lost at sea.
    Chaz had chosen to stay at the Marriott because of its proximity to Port Everglades and the Coast Guard station. His house was only thirty minutes away on the interstate, but he felt that staying closer and readily available to the authorities would fortify his credibility. It was important to appear to be keeping a vigil.
    He was surprised when a reporter from the Sun-Sentinel tracked him down, but he didn’t lose his cool. The reporter explained that she had been checking the daily police logs when she’d come across the missing-person report, which listed the Marriott as a contact point for the subject’s husband.
    “Have you heard anything yet?” Chaz asked the reporter, who said she hadn’t.
    “When was the last time you saw your wife, Mr. Perrone?”
    “It’s Dr. Perrone.”
    “Oh? What’s your specialty?”
    “Wetlands ecology,” Chaz said.
    “So you’re not an M.D.”
    “No, I’m a biologist.” Chaz hoped that the woman on the other end of the line couldn’t hear the grinding of his molars. It annoyed him when people got snooty about addressing him as “Dr.”
    The reporter asked, “So when’d you last see Mrs. Perrone?”
    Chaz gave an abbreviated version of the same account that he’d given the detective. The reporter didn’t exactly sound riveted, which was fine with Chaz. A big splash in the media was the last thing he wanted.
    “Do you have any theories about what might have happened?” the reporter asked.
    “I can’t imagine. You ever heard of anything like this?”
    “Sure. People disappear off these cruise ships every now and then, but usually it turns out to be …”
    “Turns out to be what?” Chaz asked, though he well knew the answer: drunken accidents or suicides. Oh, he’d done his homework.
    “They’re not telling me very much. It sure is frustrating,” he added.
    “I’ll call you if I hear anything,” the reporter said. “How long will you be at this number?”
    “Until they find her,” Chaz replied stoically.
    Afterward he hurried down to the lobby and phoned Ricca from a pay booth.
    “Something terrible’s happened,” he told her. “Joey fell off the ship.”
    “Fell off? How?”
    “Least that’s what they think. They can’t find her anywhere.”
    “Oh my God,” said Ricca.
    “It’s just unbelievable.”
    “You think maybe she jumped?”
    “Why would she do a thing like that!”
    “Maybe she found out about us.”
    “Absolutely not.”
    “Well, that’s good,” said Ricca.
    There was a pause on the other end that Chaz deciphered immediately.
    Ricca said, “Maybe she found out about something else.”
    “Please don’t start with that shit. Not now,” Chaz pleaded. Ricca didn’t trust him as far as she could spit.
    “Maybe someone else. Like another girlfriend.”
    “Don’t be asinine. You’re the only one.”
    “As if.”
    “Ricca, I don’t have time for your Glenn Close impersonation right now. Half the U.S. Coast Guard is out hunting for my wife— boats, jets, helicopters, it’s unbelievable.”
    “You don’t have any other girlfriends? Really, Chaz?”
    “Yes, really. Look, I’d better sign off—”
    “I could come by tonight,” she suggested, “take your mind off all this depressing stuff.”
    He was tempted to say yes, but Ricca was a noisy one. On no less than three occasions, her orgasmic caterwauling had brought hotel security officers thundering