Virgin by F. Paul Wilson

Author:F. Paul Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2018-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

The Greenbriar—off Crete

Second mate Dennis Maguire was rounding the port side of the superstructure amidships when he saw her.

At least it seemed to be a her. He couldn’t be sure in the downpour. The figure stood a good fifty feet away in the center of the aft hold’s hatch, wrapped head to toe in some sort of blanket, completely unmindful of the driving rain as she stared aftward. He couldn’t make out any features in the dimness, but something in his gut knew he was looking at a she.

They’d run into the squall shortly after dark the first night out of Haifa. Maguire was running a topside check to make double sure everything was secure. A sturdy little tramp, the Greenbriar was. With a 200-foot keel and thirty feet abeam, she could haul good cargo in her two holds, and haul it fast. But any storm, even lightweight Mediterranean squalls like this one, could be trouble if everything wasn’t secured the way it was supposed to be. And Captain Liam could be hell on wheels if something went wrong because of carelessness.

So Maguire had learned: Do it right the first time, then double check to make sure you did what you thought you did.

And after he wound up this little tour of the deck, he could retire to his cabin and work on his bottle of Jameson’s.

I’m glad I haven’t touched that bottle yet, he thought.

Because right now he’d be blaming the whiskey for what he was seeing.

A woman? How the hell had a woman got aboard? And why would any woman want to be aboard?

She stood facing aft, like some green-gilled landlubber staring homeward.

“Hello?” he said, approaching the hatch.

She turned toward him but the glow from the lights in the superstructure weren’t strong enough to light her features through the rain. And then he noticed something: the blanket or cloak or robe or whatever she was wrapped up in wasn’t moving or even fluttering in the wind. In fact, it didn’t even look wet.

He blinked and turned his head as a particularly nasty gust stung his face with needle-sharp droplets, and when he looked again, she was gone.

He ran across the hatch and searched the entire afterdeck but could not find a trace of her. So he ran and told the captain.

Liam Harrity puffed his pipe and stared out at him from the mass of red hair that encircled his face.

“What have we discussed about you hitting the Jameson’s while you’re on duty, Denny?” he said.

“Captain, I swear, I haven’t touched a drop to me lips since last night.” Maguire leaned closer. “Here. Smell me breath.”

The captain waved him off. “I don’t want to be smelling your foul breath! Just get to your bunk and don’t be after coming to me with anymore stories of women on my ship. Get!”

Dennis Maguire got, but he knew in his heart there’d been someone out there in the storm tonight. And somehow he knew they hadn’t seen the last of her.

Paraiso

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,” the Senador said, shaking his head sadly.

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