Heat Wave (25 page)

My leg snapped taut behind me as a vice gripped my foot. The force tugged me backwards and away from the sanctuary of the beach, as cruel as the rebound at the bottom of a bungy elastic.
Shark! Shark! Shark!
My brain beat against my skull like a bird inside a tiny cage as I kicked and thrashed, draining the last of my precious strength away.

It was no good; my foot was being squeezed brutally and wasn't going to be released. I could feel blood seeping from the sharp wounds along my sole and around my ankle. Utter fatigue swamped me as I rolled onto my back, my leg trapped beneath me; I didn't have the strength to fight off a shark. I couldn't have fought off a butterfly at that point.

I'm sorry, Tanner,
I cried inside my head, hoping that somewhere he heard. If I had to die, if this was my final sunset, I wanted his face to be the last thing I saw.

I let my lids flutter shut as a grinning cowboy tipped his hat at me and drew me into his chest. Beyond him was a gorgeous farmhouse with a shining crimson tin roof and wide verandas. There were two little figures on a porch swing, a girl with blonde hair and a tall boy whose blue eyes called to me.

My life.
What should have been my life. With the absolute clarity that came with imminent death, I realised how much I loved Tanner, more than my career, more than my ridiculous pride, more than my fear of unwanted celebrity and more than a million other stupid factors that could potentially derail our love.
I love you, cowboy.

And with that final thought, I smiled and waited for the shark to drag me down to my death.

***

After about a minute, I started to get bored waiting for death.
Come on, sharky, how long does it take? If you're going to eat me, hurry up …

Another thirty seconds passed. With the rest they'd been enjoying, my limbs were revitalised and I found the strength to cautiously kick again against the teeth gripping my foot.

Nothing budged.
Nothing?
Surely, even a massive shark head would have some give in the water when it was kicked. I wasn't moving
—
at all. I hadn't floated further away from the island either, trapped in a weird limbo.

I rolled onto my belly and peered into the water, expecting to see cold, soulless shark eyes staring back at me.

Instead, all I could see was coral.

Coral …?
My poor brain struggled to keep up. No shark, just a wall of coral right under the surface. My foot was trapped in a crevice, wedged between the sharp fingers of coral, which had cut into my skin. No shark.

Slowly, I brought my other foot around and placed it shakily under me, standing on the reef. I still couldn't loosen my ankle, but I couldn't have cared less. I had made it. I wasn't going to die inside a shark mouth, or drown in the vast ocean. I had saved myself.

I started to shiver, shock kicking in. Glancing across to the beach, I saw a dark-skinned islander in a hotel uniform hosing down deck chairs on the sand. With a trembling voice, I called out, ‘Help! Please!'

He glanced up, looking up and down the sand in confusion. When he finally turned his head my way, he almost fell over. ‘Miss? You shouldn't be out there! Are you okay?'

‘Yes! No!' I was struggling for the right words. ‘I'm stuck on the reef. But that's a good thing, because coral isn't a shark, right?'

I wasn't sure he understood, but he knew enough to call for help, and in less than five minutes, gentle hands, soft words and dry towels surrounded me.

As they stretchered me towards the main bungalow, a manager leaned over me. ‘Miss? We can inform your family for you. Are you a guest of Erotic Island?'

‘Of where?'

‘Erotic Island. That's where you are right now.'

I almost giggled.
Surely not.
‘Like … where the TV show was filmed?'

‘Yes, miss.'

And then I did laugh, so hard that I cried, so hard they offered me a sedative, so hard that when I asked for my pretty cocktail, no one dared to say no.

Chapter 20

Maxine strode into the bungalow late that afternoon. Immaculate as always, the executive producer wore a navy bolero jacket over a fitted cream skirt, her bob sleek even in the ninety-five per cent humidity. ‘Maddie.' She acknowledged me with a nod.

‘Maxine.' I was equally as cool. I didn't rise to greet her; what with my foot bandaged almost to the knee and swollen from coral poisoning, my body throbbing savagely from my fall, and my total exhaustion from the entire ordeal, I couldn't stand and feel confident about staying upright.

Besides, there was a nice shift in balance between us. Maxine was the one walking into my domain while I greeted her nonchalantly, wearing my fluffy hotel robe like a queen. She eyed my leg and said, ‘We'll get you checked out at a private hospital, of course. How are you for now?'

‘I was almost killed today, Maxine, by a psycho you hired. I've been better.' I sipped my drink, the cute pink umbrella bumping gently against my nose. ‘However, Ralph the bartender makes a mean Pina. So, where is Tanner now?'

‘They've radioed him. He should be here within the hour.'

‘And her?'

‘On her way.'

‘What has she been told?'

‘Nothing
—
just as you asked.' Maxine sat across from me, smoothing her skirt, her scarlet lips pressed into a firm line. ‘You don't have to do this.'

‘I know. I want to.'

We sat in silence as I drained the dregs of my coconut milk and rum combo. I had to admit
—
Maxine was coping well, all things considered, but I was fairly certain it was because she was in fact a highly advanced robot woman, rather than an actual human being.

‘There.' Maxine pointed across the water, where a water-taxi was speeding towards the island. It bumped up to the jetty and Callie stepped out, looking so sweet and harmless in a white peasant shirt and a pair of pale denim shorts.

Two burly bodyguards flanked her, and I could see her chatting and charming them, as if she were a normal girl and not one who'd attempted to murder someone mere hours before. They trod along the soft sand, reaching the steps of the bungalow so they were close enough for me to hear Callie's ‘show' voice.

‘Oh, gosh! This is where they filmed
Erotic Island
, isn't it? How incredible! This is really exciting
—
are you sure you can't tell me what's happening? Is Tanner here?'

I kept my back to her as Maxine called out, ‘Thank you, gentlemen. Please, don't go too far. Callie, over here.'

Callie dropped the sweet persona as she walked towards Maxine, hissing in annoyance. ‘What the fuck, Maxine? This isn't a great time to call a meeting. My mark is going to be back on board soon, and he'll need comforting and all that shit. What do you want?'

‘To speak to you about your work methodology.' Maxine's voice was dry; her British accent could turn even a murder accusation into a calm chat over tea. ‘I believe you two know each other?'

‘Who are
—
' Callie stepped into view and she saw me, her mouth dropping open in shock. ‘You!'

‘Me,' I said, smiling calmly. ‘The woman you tried to murder by throwing overboard.'

She recovered fast, rolling her eyes churlishly. ‘What are you talking about, bitch? Maxine, she's clearly delusional. She fell off the ship, probably because she's the world's biggest disaster magnet, and now she's trying to pin it on me because she's threatened by me!'

‘I may be a klutz, but I didn't fall off the ship. I was pushed
—
by you.'

‘Prove it.'

Callie's face was so confident and self-righteous. I almost didn't want to shatter her delusions.

Who was I kidding? Of course I did. ‘Show her, Maxine.'

The English lady said, ‘Maddie contacted me a few hours ago. Of course, we were aware she had fallen overboard because of the footage captured by a camera in the room she fell past, but no one knew where she'd fallen from.'

‘I told Maxine I'd been forced over the railing on the storage deck on the lower bow.'

Callie fluttered her eyelashes, affecting innocence. ‘You mean the deck with no cameras? Is that where you're saying it happened, so no one can prove your outlandish accusation?'

‘Actually,' said Maxine, producing an iPad and swiping up a video, ‘every common area of the entire ship has motion-activated hidden cameras fitted. We just don't monitor all of them, which is why some of our crew mistakenly believed they had found a blind spot on that deck. They were wrong.'

She flipped the tablet over and showed Callie the surprisingly clear footage of her ramming into me and forcing me off the side of the ship. ‘And so were you, my dear. So very wrong.'

Callie was silent, her eyes blazing with fury. She watched the clip play on a loop, then railed on Maxine. ‘You told me to do whatever it took to win, to make him fall in love with me!'

‘Yes, and then last night, when you stormed into my office like a toddler throwing a tantrum, I told you to let it go, that Beau had made his choice, and I didn't really care one way or another as long as he chose someone.' Maxine lowered an eyebrow in disdain. ‘Did you really think I'd condone murder?'

‘I thought you'd understand doing what was necessary! I thought you were like me, Maxine, but you're just as weak and gutless as the rest of them.'

‘You will learn, you foolish girl, that sometimes doing what is necessary means doing nothing at all.' Maxine folded her hands neatly in her lap. ‘I regret thinking you would be an asset. You've doomed yourself, and you alone are to blame for that.'

Not that I was on Callie's side exactly, but I felt an odd burst of sympathy for the other girl as she seemed to realise the weight of her actions for the first time. ‘But … but you were supposed to understand …'

‘Maddie,' said Maxine, looking thoroughly bored with the entire situation, ‘do you have something to say?'

I had thought of about a thousand things to say while I'd been waiting for the showdown. I'd planned on tearing Callie a new one, of screaming in her face and accusing her of being a total raging psycho who was on her way to spending the rest of her life in jail. I'd even entertained a cruel notion of waiting until Tanner could join us, just so she could see once and for all that he was mine and she had lost.

But it just wasn't who I was. ‘Callie, you tried to kill me. You wanted to
end
my
life
, and realistically, you're going to serve jail-time over that decision. But have you even thought about
why?
Would it even have been worth it?'

She swelled up, her breath growing ragged in defence. ‘If you'd died, it would have been.'

‘Yeah, but
why?
You didn't think through the risk, or the consequences of getting caught, which seems like an oversight for someone as smart as you. Why were you so intent on winning at any cost
—
even your freedom?'

I was so sure she might have had a deeper layer; perhaps she'd been forced into competition as a child, or she'd suffered some sort of horrific loss that had altered her forever. Instead, she simply said, ‘I wanted to win. Fuck the consequences.'

As I watched her dead eyes stare right through me, I realised I was in the presence of a true sociopath. Callie might not have cut people into little pieces to serve with a perfectly matched wine, but her total lack of empathy made her even more terrifying
—
and pitiful. Without the ability to feel anything for anyone besides herself, she'd be alone for the rest of her life.

I was done. ‘Well, for what it's worth, best of luck, Callie.' I nodded at Maxine, and she clicked her fingers, calling the two burly guards over to flank Callie.

She didn't quail as they gripped her at the elbows, but she did have a final question. ‘Wait! I have to know … how did you beat me?'

‘You still don't get it,' I said, feeling so sorry for the woman who'd tried to murder me in cold blood. ‘I
didn't
beat you. I was never even competing.'

Her face was a twisted snarl of bitter confusion as the guards led her away. Maxine wasn't even watching, her attention back on her tablet as she said, ‘Not to worry
—
I'm sure that resourceful trollop will be running her cell block in no time. Her kind always land on their feet.'

‘Her kind? Don't you mean
your
kind?' I said.

‘I beg your pardon?' She looked up at me disdainfully.

‘She may be a cutthroat bitch, but you employed her. You knew exactly what you were doing. You intended on Tanner falling for a woman who didn't love him, and if I wasn't here, it might actually have worked. You would have been setting him up for the worst kind of heartbreak the second the reunion special was over. Her methods were worse, but both of you are the same kind of heartless.'

‘How
dare
you
—
'

‘Oh, don't even.' I shook my head at her. ‘You cast an unstable personality with violent tendencies, and this wasn't the first time you've done it. Tara told me all about Dante the other night.'

‘That was a different situation.'

‘Bullshit.'

‘
Excuse
me, but might I remind you that you are technically my staff member? You can't speak to me this way!'

‘Yeah, I can.' My aching body thrummed with power. Maxine no longer scared me. ‘From here onwards, Tanner and I owe you nothing. We'll film a final scene to show that we're together, because I know your crew
—
who you don't give a damn about
—
are depending on the credit from this show to land their next jobs. But after that, we're out. You don't own us; you don't sue us. You leave us be, and maybe I won't reveal to the whole world about how you set a psychopath loose on board a ship full of innocent people. I'm sure I could sell my story for a fortune to another network. There are probably a bunch of people in the industry who'd love to see a heartless TV producer go down in flames.'