Prologue
Since the night of his 30th birthday, the night he was raped on Miami Beach, Bertram Davis would be forever changed. What was once a model human, cast in the mold of a routine and complacent life, had been broken and reassembled into a flawed state. Whether it was from the horror of the event, the shock from his near death experience, or the ridicule he endured for the many months that followed, one thing was certain: he would never be the same man again.
Feeling a little drunk and a little reckless, Bertram stripped off his clothes and walked out into the warm water for a swim. The sea was placid, reflecting the lights of his beachfront hotel. All around him, a vast floating universe of phosphorescence suspended in the water added a surreal atmosphere to his clandestine skinny dip. It was a perfect way to wrap up his visit before returning to work in Baltimore the following week. Now floating on the surface of the gently rolling tide, he looked up into the night sky and wished he could forever remain in this blissful state.
However, Bertram was not alone that night. He was quietly observed from a distance since his first tentative footsteps into the surf. The predator waited patiently until the man was floating on his back before he closed in on his quarry.
The attack came from beneath, quickly and violently. Bertram felt the strong grasp around his ankle, followed by inescapable water that started a silent clock ticking against his life. He thrashed wildly as he was pulled below the ocean’s surface, vainly trying to make some contact with his aggressor. Suddenly, he felt the hold on his ankle release. His attacker was on top of him now, and in total control of an ever-deteriorating situation. Between the pain and the rapidly depleting oxygen, his grip on consciousness ebbed. With one final effort, he marshaled the strength necessary to roll and push himself away. In those last desperate moments, he finally saw the attacker and looked into his soulless eyes as he back paddled toward shallower water.
Crawling out of the surf and onto the sand, he coughed a seemingly endless volume of water out of his lungs, and passed out. The following day, early morning beach goers discovered him prostrate and unconscious. Upon revival during the ambulance ride to the hospital, he recounted every horrifying detail to the rapt attention of the paramedics, and again with the police during his post-operative recovery. The following morning, the headline in the local newspaper read, “Baltimore Man Raped by Dolphin.” Within three days, it was all anyone anywhere was talking about.