New Year Island (44 page)

Hours had passed. The candles had burned down to stubs. They had found a place together that was no place, where there were no words, where the passage of time had no meaning. Juan’s eyes wanted to close, to let him be carried away by sensation, but he didn’t want them to. He wouldn’t be able to see her, then—wouldn’t be able to look into those bottomless green eyes.

Her breathing quickened. She slowed their rhythm, and a tiny furrow of concern appeared between her eyebrows. He reached up and smoothed it away with his finger, but it reappeared. Her gaze flicked back and forth, from his left eye to his right; she was almost frowning. Then her eyes flickered and glazed over, the way a shark’s nictating eyelid closed white to protect the only place it was vulnerable, the second before it struck.

Jordan went rigid, shuddering above him, her muscles locked. He laced the fingers of both hands through hers, and her eyes widened, deepened, pulling him in. Juan gasped, drawn into the expanding ripples where their bodies joined. Arms shaking, he held her suspended over him as the waves washed through them as one. He fought to keep his eyes open, staring up into her perfect face.

Timeless, the moment. Endless.

Jordan’s body relaxed, slumping down on him a little at a time. She lowered her head, the waves of her hair falling forward in a curtain that hid her expression.

There was silence. When she spoke at last, her voice was inflectionless.

“I’ve never felt this way before,” she said. “Not ever.”

He tensed. What did she mean?

She looked at him, trembling, eyes wide with fear.

“I’m scared, Juan.”

He relaxed, but a needle of disappointment wormed its way through his chest.

Her unblinking eyes were fixed on his face now. She didn’t breathe.

He raised a hand to her cheek. “I am, too, Jordan.”

Her expression softened.

He looked out the open doorway, toward the darkness they had escaped together for a few hours, and thought about it.

“I think we all are,” he said.

Jordan rolled off him suddenly, a blur of motion, moving toward the door. Scooping up her dress with one hand and the speargun with the other, she exited, leaving him staring at the empty, dark doorway.

A hollow sense of loss spread through his chest and tightened his stomach. Had he said something wrong?

She was gone.

T
ravis blinked, his consciousness returning. The moonless sky above him was now diamond clear, lit by millions of bright pinpoint stars. From the change in the sky, and the way the sweat had cooled on his body, chilling him, several hours must have gone by. The broken scaffolding of the tower loomed above, blocking some of the stars. His shoulder still hurt like a motherfucker, but the pressure was gone.

Staggering to his feet, he untied his wrist from the spar. Then he sat down again, with his back against the tower’s wreckage. His forehead ran with fresh sweat from the pain, but he found he could move his bad arm a little and flex his fingers. Lifting his knees, he cradled his injured arm in his lap, looking at the stars. They stared down from above, silent eyes watching him, cold and indifferent. They didn’t care what he did here—what
anybody
did here. A million years from now, they still wouldn’t care.

All around, the island lay dark and silent. The shapes of seals shifted restlessly around him, but most lay huddled, sleeping. He sat a while longer, thinking of camping trips in his childhood, so long ago. Then he stood up.

He retied the sling around his shoulder. Down the slope, he could see a change in the factory warehouse buildings where Julian’s crew had been hiding. Faint light gleamed from a window that the boards no longer covered.

Who was in there? Not that it mattered anymore—they had
all
fucked him over. Julian and his crew had, too. Travis owed them all now, but he wasn’t going to make the same mistake as last time. He would find a safe place to hole up… catch them one by one.

It was time for some payback.

J
uan found her an hour later, sitting by herself on the shale beach of a narrow cove near the north end of the island. The sun was coming up, painting the edge of the horizon in pink and peach. Jordan sat very still, holding the speargun across her knees, watching the sunrise. She seemed smaller somehow, shrunken, huddled against the cold. A train of pelicans crossed overhead, looking like pterodactyls, visitors from a bygone age.

He settled himself on the sand next to her, and she leaned against him. He pointed.

“
Zalophus californicus
. Sea lions. See the ears? And over there, harbor seals—
phocidae.
Offshore in the kelp, you’ll find otters, too. They’re quite playful when you come across them underwater.”

Jordan took his hand and held it to her cheek.

“Julian was clever,” she said. “The contract had no nondisclosure clause, no grant of exclusivity on distribution. When I saw that, I figured they’d slipped up. Do you see?”

He nodded. “The ultimate scoop. You’d be able to report the story any way you saw fit, even before the show aired. They’d be at your mercy. You’d be able to dictate your own terms to them.”

“Especially if I won. They gave us half an hour on the ship to look at the papers, and I was jumping up and down, eager to sign before they caught on to their mistake. I fell for it, Juan.”

“This isn’t what it was made out to be.”

“I know that now,” she said. “But I don’t know what’s really going on here.”

He slid his hand free, tossed a pebble into the water. “I’m going to find out.”

Curling against him, she tucked her forehead into his cheek. Her hand sought his again, lacing their fingers into one. “We’ll find out together.”

Then she stiffened. “Your hair is wet, Juan.”

“I know.”

She leaned away, looking up into his face, surprising him with the vulnerability of her soft gaze. Then she lowered her eyes.

“Juan, I… I think I’m in…” She squeezed his hand.

“I…” Her voice had lost all inflection again. “…trust you.”

He looked at her feet, bleeding into the sand again. At the speargun across her lap. Face stiffening, he closed his eyes and held her to him.

“I know.”

Wednesday: December 26, 2012

M
orning. Camilla stood on the boardwalk at the top of the bluff, a breeze rippling her hair as she looked down at the beach below. Elephant seals moved back and forth, shuffling along the sand, but they seemed to be staying well back from the water—something she didn’t remember them doing before. Did they sense the shark, lurking somewhere nearby just offshore? Fragments of last night’s dream came back to her, and she shivered.

But she recalled the long-ago Woods Hole shark expert saying that great whites didn’t stick to one location for long, preferring to cruise up and down the coast. In all probability, the shark that had killed Lauren and tried for Dmitry was long gone.

No, they had other predators to worry about now.
Human
predators. Travis was still lurking somewhere, and none of them would be safe until they found him.

“Didn’t we catch him this way once already?” Mason’s hushed voice drifted out of the chicken coop behind her. “I doubt he’s dumb enough to fall for it twice.”

“Be quiet,” Camilla said in a loud whisper, without looking in his direction. “I’m thinking maybe
you
should’ve been the bait this time.”

Mason laughed. “No doubt. But then again, I
am
the one with the bear spray.”

“I thought I threw that away, by the way.”

“A secret admirer left another can of it by my bed. It was there when I woke up.”

“Oh god, you must be lying. Does this mean you’re Julian’s spy?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if you were?”

“No. Probably not.”

“Wonderful.”

Could Mason be Julian’s spy? She had to admit, his actions made him a good candidate for it. If he was lying about the bear spray now, though, it was a pretty weak effort. He definitely hadn’t chained the scientist’s boat, either. Still, there was a pattern to Mason’s outrageous behavior. He had antagonized people, angered them, pushed them until they reacted with violence. Her stomach coiled as she remembered the blade that had come so close. Mason’s taunts had almost gotten her killed yesterday. And these morbid theories he kept spouting…

But what
was
Julian trying to accomplish here? That he had recruited proven survivors was beyond a doubt, but that wasn’t all he had done. There were other patterns visible in the specific mix of contestants he had chosen. Disturbing ones.

A violent child molester, a girl who had suffered sexual abuse as a child, and a woman who reacted to abuse with lethal violence?

A recovered drug addict provided with a tempting supply of drugs, and an outspoken young woman who had lost her drug-addicted fiancé to suicide?

There was no reason to include a rescue beacon in the scavenger hunt, unless its destruction had been intended all along, to throw suspicion onto JT—who, she was now sure, hadn’t broken it.

Camilla thought of little Avery and her other kids, the bond she felt with them, and how she had reacted when she heard about the child Brent had killed. It had been hard for her to keep silent. A bitter taste soured her mouth, and she looked at her feet.

If Julian’s goal had been interpersonal conflict and strife among the contestants, he had chosen them all well.

“…and other qualifications
,” the Vita Brevis letter had said.

She felt violated.

They all had given Julian exactly what he wanted, too, playing into his hands right up to the point where Lauren died. But things were completely out of control now. Why were the producers allowing this to continue?

If Mason was Julian’s spy, was he also here as a catalyst, to instigate more problems? If so, this plan to catch Travis, which she had talked him into this morning, could very well blow up in her face.

“Forget about it,” she called. “This is a waste of time.”

“That’s what I said an hour ago.” Mason ducked out of the chicken coop. “Travis probably crawled into a hole somewhere to lick his wounds… unless he decided to swim for it and save us all the trouble.”

“Mason, that’s awful. Can you try acting like a normal person for a few hours? For
my
sake?”

“Name one normal person on this island.” He paused. “Well, okay, maybe our three new guests. But then again, how normal is it to make great white sharks the focus of your life? Normal is overrated, Camilla. If you believe Brent, normal people aren’t survivors.”

“You called the SEC, didn’t you? You’re the one who brought them in. To investigate your own firm.”

Mason grinned. “I hated to see the taxpayers bear the burden of such irresponsible corporate greed.”

“You’re so bad.” Camilla shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

Movement drew her gaze to the narrow southern end of the beach below. Two human figures, small in the distance. Veronica, demonstrating something to Natalie. Teaching her. Camilla’s stomach tensed, watching their movements.

“Krav Maga,” Mason said, drawing up beside her. “A martial art developed by the Israeli Defense Forces.” He chuckled. “Makes sense that the most picked-on, most abused people in history would come up with the deadliest form of self-protection. And that Veronica would be drawn to it.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” Camilla found it disturbing to watch.

“That’s because there’s no way to turn it into a sport like karate, jiu-jitsu, et cetera. Krav Maga’s all business—strictly killing and maiming.” He pointed at the women down on the beach. “Watch. There aren’t any purely defensive motions. Every single move includes a counterattack.”

“When JT grabbed her yesterday, I was terrified,” Camilla said. “I thought for sure she was dead.”

He nodded. “Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, but this does make a lot of sense after what happened in her first marriage. She made sure she’d never end up in the same position again.”

“Julian’s profile was a bit vague about her second marriage.”

“I wondered about that, too.” He smiled. “But I think it’s safe to say that Veronica can take care of herself.”

Camilla watched Veronica correct Natalie’s stance, holding her shoulder and guiding her elbow through a short arc. Even from a distance, she could see that Natalie appeared eager to learn but lacked any kind of physical aptitude. Veronica seemed patient with the younger woman, encouraging her.

“It makes me sad to watch this,” Camilla said.

“Yeah, she is a pretty hopeless student, isn’t she?”

“That’s
not
what I meant…”

Footsteps pounded the boardwalk behind them. She looked up as Dmitry came to a stop beside them, red-faced, catching his breath.

“You see Heather this morning?” he asked. “Jacob thinks maybe she went for walk. But I look everywhere.”

The concern in his face deepened into fear.

“I can’t find her.”

“W
hen and where did you see her last?” Brent asked.

“Last night,” Jacob said. “She was right next door to us, trying to get some sleep in the other room of the station.”

Brent tucked his hands into his vest pockets and glanced at Camilla. He was high again, she could tell. If anything, his eyes were worse now than last night.

Everyone was gathered on the flat ground outside the houses, except for JT, who was still sedated upstairs, and Travis. And, of course, Heather.

From their brief meeting, she had seemed a nice, thoughtful person. Camilla’s heart sped up. If something had happened to her, then Camilla herself was to blame. She’d been right there at the seal barricade last night when Veronica turned back.

“Travis is where he belongs,” Veronica had said, wrinkling her nose. “With all the other animals. You can do what you like. I’m going to bed.”