Read Online Hot by John Lutz - Free Book Online

poker player with aces in the hole. What, me wanna get out and devour a couple of tourists? Naw!
    The seaward wall was thick glass from top to bottom to provide a view of the shark. Lined along the other three walls were what looked like large trays on wooden legs. There were a few inches of seawater in the trays, and coral and plant life. And an assortment of creatures that might be found in the shallow reaches of the sea and in tide pools left by receding waves. Two elderly women were standing near one of the trays. They wore baggy knee-length shorts and identical blue T-shirts lettered l ast heterosexual virgin on key west. The larger of the two was poking an exploratory finger at the top of a starfish. The other woman was glaring with distaste at a large crablike creature that was furiously waving its antennae as if warning her to keep hands off, it had had enough of people like this for one day.
    Watching this all with an expression as unreadable as the shark’s was a blond woman in her twenties, wearing a white smock like the ones in the brochure photos. But she wasn’t at all like the woman in the brochure. She was enticingly on the plump side and almost beautiful, with a squarish face, large blue eyes, and a ski-jump nose. Her blond hair was cut short and hung straight at the sides and in bangs over her wide forehead. It was a simple, convenient hairdo, just right for jumping in the water and frolicking with the dolphins, then shaking dry, but on her it seemed stylish.
    She noticed Carver on the landing, smiled at him, then looked back at the tourists to make sure they didn’t hurt the starfish. Carver set the tip of his cane and descended the steel stairs. He was wearing moccasins as usual, since they had no laces to tie, and the only noise on the steps was the clunking of his cane. Down in the room now, he could hear the throbbing hum of a filter pump, or maybe simply the air-conditioning. It made him feel as if he were in a submarine.
    He stood before the nearest display and stared at the largest snail he’d ever seen. The elderly woman got tired of the starfish, volunteered without being asked that she and her friend were from Canada, then left. Carver continued to stare at the snail. For all he knew, it was staring back at him.
    The blond woman in the white smock said, “You can touch anything you’d like.”
    He thought he’d better not touch the answer to that. He said, “Are you Katia Marsh?”
    “You asking me or the sea snail?”
    He turned to look at her. She was smiling. “You,” he said.
    “You’re not really interested in the snail, are you?”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “I’m not sure. You don’t strike me as a tourist. Or a scientist.”
    “Maybe I just like French cuisine.”
    She looked slightly ill but her smile stayed.
    “I’m a friend of Henry Tiller.”
    “Oh.” She took a small step toward him. “How is Henry?”
    “He’s doing all right. He’ll be in the hospital in Miami for a while, though.”
    “I want to send him a card. Can you tell me what hospital he’s in?”
    Carver told her, along with the room number. She carefully wrote down the information in a spiral notebook she’d removed from one of the smock’s big square pockets. Water flowing into one of the trays made a soft trickling sound.
    “Now,” she said, retracting the tip of her ballpoint pen and slipping it and the notebook back in the pocket, “you’re Fred Carver.”
    “How’d you know?”
    “Word gets around Key Montaigne in a hurry.” Behind her the shark was circling, circling, easily ten feet long, and streamlined and deadly. “You’re staying at Henry’s cottage.”
    “Sort of house-sitting,” Carver said.
    “I thought you were investigating the hit and run.”
    “My, my, word really does get around.” He used his cane to point to the circling shark. “Doesn’t he ever rest?”
    “No,” Katiasaid, “they never stop swimming. If they do, they drown.”
    “Drown?”
    “The