“To hell with being alive! Did you see the size of that great white? It was the catch of a lifetime and I never got a picture!” He whirled on Chan. “You. This is your fault.”

“Me?” The skipper frowned. “I stuck the rod in the holder. The shark must have tugged it free.”

“Why did you ever let go of it in the first place?”

“Because you fell into the water, sir! You needed help!”

“Take us back to land!” Karlo barked, stalking over to the ice box and grabbing a beer to help with his jittery nerves. “And don’t think you’re getting one penny of that bonus we talked about.”

“But sir—”

“Don’t ‘but’ me, mate. You promised me gamefish. Instead, you almost got me killed, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing! This has been a bloody fiasco.”

“That’s not fair, pookums—”

“And you!” he said, whirling on his wife. “You—you two-faced gold-digging bitch! You probably wanted that shark to get me, didn’t you? That would have made your day. Yeah, I know. I know why you married me. I’m no bloody idiot.” He twisted off the beer cap and launched it, discus-style, as far as he could into the ocean, losing his balance in the process.

“The turtles, pookie—”

“Fuck the turtles!” he bellowed, dropping flat on his ass.

Part 1

Colombo

“I started early, took my dog, And visited the sea; The mermaids in the basement Came out to look at me”

—Emily Dickinson

Chapter 1

ELSA

They call Sri Lanka “the land of eternal sunshine.” This morning it was anything but. Cool, wet, gray. Summertime was the rainy season, the weather affected by the annual south-west monsoon that brought hard and heady showers until October. Even so, the rain tended to fall at nighttime, leaving the days bright and sunny, hence the country’s moniker.

As the day rolled on, however, the weather would likely follow the usual pattern. The streets would dry, the sky would turn a clear blue, and the tropical humidity would reclaim the island’s southern coast, a sticky and oppressive heat relieved only by the ocean breezes.

Dr. Elsa Montero didn’t mind the year-round humidity and heat so much; she’d take it any day over the frigid, snowy winters of Hartford, Connecticut, where she’d been born and raised. She did miss the annual ski trips her family had enjoyed in Vermont and Maine…and of course a white Christmas. In fact, it had been all too long since she’d seen a sky drizzled with lazy snowflakes, front yards populated with crooked snowmen, and big two-story houses lit up with colorful Christmas lights. These memories sent a pang of sadness through her. Time was slipping away all too fast.

Elsa worked in a two-story white building on Mirissa Beach. It was flanked by a tour operator business on one side and a large hostel on the other. The hostel bustled year-round with foreign backpackers. Music could be heard pumping out of the three-story structure at all hours, and every now and then Elsa would catch a whiff of pungent marijuana floating on a warm breeze.