Island Promises (15 page)

“I really, really, really, want to get out of here. This isn’t worth it,” Millie whispered.

They were still crawling, Riley in front. Ahead, she could see a shape and her heart almost beat out of her chest until she realized it was Emil, crouched behind some larger pond fronds.

“Just a little more,” Riley coaxed. “Then we’ll get out.”

Emil was gone from her sight but Riley thought she could see another break in the heavy foliage ahead. That must be where he was setting up the camera. She should have worn her contacts but the sun and the dust bothered her eyes and she hadn’t had them on since she arrived on the island. Millie was no better. She had ditched her thick glasses somewhere and had the same issues with her contact lenses.

They got to their feet and hunched over, creeping as quietly as two city girls could toward the sunshine pouring through the palm trees.

About five feet from the opening, Riley stopped dead and let out a grunt and puff of air when Millie smacked into her. Instinctively, Riley reached around and put a dirty hand over her friend’s mouth, knowing Millie was about to let loose with a string of expletives that would do a seasoned sailor proud. Millie tried to pull Riley’s hand away but Riley pointed ahead and then brought her other hand up to her lips in the signal for silence. Angry, Millie ripped at her fingers but she kept silent as Riley let her hands fall to her sides.

Emil was nowhere to be found but ahead of them and below them in a clearing were the pirates who had grabbed Riley on the beach. The sight of them sent a shiver up her back. As a young reporter, Riley had made a pact with herself never to engage in the ‘what if’ game as in ‘What if Joe and Anthony and Mitchell hadn’t shown up when they did?’

Deliberately, she turned her mind from that possible scary scenario to the scary scenario playing out just below her.

She would have to hand it to them. They had selected a near-perfect place to hide. The clearing was probably 25 feet below where Millie and Riley hid. The slope down was steep and rocky. It would be close to impossible to enter without dislodging some of the rocks and alerting those below. The dense foliage on either side of the forest spread across the open chasm, shading it against any prying eyes from the sky. There were enough breaks in the green canopy to allow smoke out and dappled sunlight in. The semi-circle opening was bordered on the flat side by a stone cliff that rose to the height of the surrounding jungle. The one thing it didn’t seem to have was the fabled volcano. The smoke from their fires must have been blown out of proportion. At the bottom of the cliff was the opening to a cave. From this angle, Riley could see that though the mouth of the cave appeared gaping it also appeared to be filled with furniture and chests and wood. Whether that was deliberate or whether they were just sloppy, the jumbled entrance would provide another measure of security because it would be hard for the uninitiated to enter without bumping into something and creating a racket.

The clearing was littered with debris. A broken dresser, nearly as tall as Riley leaned against the stone wall. Boards and pieces of metal were scattered across the mostly dirt clearing. Tools and TVs and computers were interspersed with mangled lawn furniture and bent boat hooks.

“Just goes to show you even criminals could benefit from an organizational expert’s advice,” Millie whispered.

“I can’t believe you,” Riley whispered back. “We’re in the middle of this . . . this dangerous situation and you’re critiquing their neatness? When we need to be as quiet as we can.”

“You’re saying more words than I did,” Millie shot back.

“Okay, okay. So we’ll both shut up.”

A high-pitched, mournful cry came from the clearing and made them both jump and reach out to one another. When she felt safe enough to lift her head again, Riley peeked over the edge. Scully was sitting on a stump in front of a fire circle. He had his head back and was howling in a tone that made Riley think of graveyards and horror movies. He had on a sleeveless vest, a pair of jeans, and a bandanna. His long, greasy hair stuck to the sides of his face, even when he threw his head back to release that bone-chilling bellow.

Like him, the other two held what looked like whiskey bottles in their hands. Mikah, his skin glistening with sweat and his piercings, in both ears and his nose, catching the filtered sunlight, was repeatedly throwing a large, curved knife into a block of wood about two feet in front of him. He seemed to have an OCD thing going, throwing the knife, taking a swig from the bottle, leaning forward to retrieve the knife, wiping off the knife, and starting the whole procedure again.

Candy was dancing around, his skinny body gyrating to the music coming through the earphones stuck in his ears. Every so often he jerked the bottle to his mouth, still dancing, and liquor dribbled down his chin.

The two of them, Riley and Millie, were so intent on making as little noise as possible and so mesmerized by the scene unfolding before them that neither one of them heard Emil creeping in next to them until he touched Riley on the arm. She jumped and yelped, her heart beating so hard she thought it would break a rib and jump out of her chest. On one side, Millie smacked her hard, which made her let out another yelp of pain. On the other side, Emil clamped a dirty, sweaty hand over her mouth to keep her from yelling any further. Now she knew why Millie was so mad when Riley had done the same thing to her.

Below them, Candy had stopped dancing and was almost still, only his leg shaking from the hip down. “You hear that?” The other two barely looked up. “I heared something, Scully, I know I heared something. Somebody’s out there, watching us right now. Yeah, they might be. Just lookin’ at us. You can never tell.”

The world seemed to be turning upside down. Riley could barely breathe and beside her the other two were so still it was eerie.

Scully picked up a pebble and threw it so that Candy had to duck to keep it from hitting him in the face.

“That ain’t nice, Scully.” Candy hopped on one foot and whipped his head from where Scully stood to where the pebble had landed in the dirt. Scully took a drink from the whiskey bottle and grinned, his gold tooth shining like a hole in the shadows. Mikah interrupted his knife throwing ritual and laughed in that husky cartoon voice of his.

“No, it weren’t nice. People ought to be nice toward each other. That’s what my mama always taught me,” Candy said. “Besides, I know what I heared and it’s there. They’ll be sorry when I’m right, when they knows something’s there.”

Scully stood, stretching his arms up high, holding the whiskey bottle at a precarious angle. He turned in a slow arc, studying every inch of the clearing and especially the forest above him. For a long time he stared at the spot where she, Emil, and Millie were watching, so low to the ground that Riley could taste dirt, only her forehead tilted up just enough that she could see what was happening below. Seeming satisfied, Scully sat back down on the stump, took a sloppy swig from the bottle, and dug in the dirt with a long stick.

“That’s all you gonna do?” Candy jiggled around the perimeter of the clearing, his high-pitched voice slicing through the jungle noises.

In a move so fast and so fluid she wouldn’t have believed it were possible if she hadn’t witnessed it herself, Riley squinted as Scully rose off the tree stump, lifted the stick into the air, and sent it sailing in the direction where they were hiding. She heard Millie’s soft moan and Emil’s breath being sucked in. Riley was just about to scream herself when the spear landed in the bushes about 20 feet to their left. A ruckus ensued. A steaming, grunting, angry wild boar honked and ran from the place where it had apparently been napping. So scared she wasn’t sure she was getting enough air, Riley forced herself to look. She could tell the animal hadn’t been hurt by the stick, just disturbed.

“That’s what you ‘heared’, Candy. It’s Abigail taking her afternoon snooze. You happy now?” Scully stood with his hands on his hips glaring at Candy. The contrast between the calm, controlled, danger of Scully and the loose, kinetic throb that was Candy couldn’t have been sharper.

“How wuz I to know it was just Abby?” Candy pouted. “You always tells us to be on the lookout.”

As the boar thrashed around, angry at whoever had interrupted its sleep, birds in the shrubbery became upset and began squawking and fluttering, beating their wings, flying in loops around the clearing.

In the midst of the uproar, Emil touched her on the arm, nodded, and began to slip away on his belly. Riley repeated the gesture for Millie and they, too, began to slither their way back to civilization.

“Now look what you did,” Candy yelped. “You upset everything. We won’t be able to get no sleep this afternoon.”

“Shut up, or the next time it’ll be your ass I’m aimin’ at,” Scully growled at him. “Get yourself all in a state over a damn hog and some birds. I never seen nothin’ like it.”

It was the last thing Riley heard before she was back in the dense part of the forest. Ahead of her, Emil rose to a semi-crouch and she followed suit. Behind her, Millie did the same. Even when they were far enough away that they felt safe enough to stand and walk, still no one spoke.

Quietly, they loaded the camera equipment into the trunk. Riley tensed and grabbed for Millie’s hand as the taxi rumbled into life. Not until they were on the outskirts of the village, until she could see Rosalee’s nestled in the palm trees on the hill and
Reprieve
swaying at her anchor in the cove below, did Riley feel she could take a deep breath.

“That was something,” Millie said beside her. “Of all the stories we’ve been on, this one is at the top of the list. Remember the one where we interviewed the hit man in the back of that bar on Third Street? Or the time that guy who was threatening to jump off the bridge asked to speak to you? Or the pawn broker who threatened to smash the camera and throw us out on the street? Of all of them, this was the worst.” She picked leaves out of her hair and dug at the caked dirt under her fingernails.

“Hey, was not so bad,” Emil said from the front seat. For some unexplained reason, he didn’t appear nearly as dirty or disheveled as they did. “We are here, the camera is here. They do not know. All of it is good. Even my shirt, this one I always wear on this day, is not too bad with dirt. My wife she will holler about it, say ‘Emil, you are worse than all your children, like a little child yourself, wallowing in the dirt.’ But she will know when I am one day in Meeamee with the air-conditioned cars and the fancy offices. She will know then why my shirt has stains.”

“When you get to Miami as a cameraman at one of the TV stations, we’ll all go out to a big dinner and do up the town,” Riley said.

“I know some producers there. They took me to a nice restaurant once that overlooked the ocean. We could go there. Get some fruity drinks with those tacky little umbrellas that I love.” Millie sounded wistful.

“First we will get this dirt out of our noses,” said Emil. “And we will eat no wild boar. Not even tame pigs.”

Maybe because it was a release of tension, maybe it was feeling so good to be alive and safe or maybe it was just school girl idiocy but Riley began to laugh hysterically. She laughed until she made funny little hiccupping noises trying to catch her breath. She laughed until Millie caught her mood and laughed with her. She laughed until Emil, a little incensed at first that they might be laughing at his expense, decided the joke was not on him but on the circumstances and began to laugh, too. Emil’s laugh was much lower and deeper than his regular voice and was interspersed with honking noises, which made them all laugh even harder.

When they finally dropped her off, Riley was dirty, hot, and emotionally exhausted. She walked up the dock to
Reprieve
just as the tropic sun was lighting the sky with fiery reds and oranges, giving its final farewell for today but in a last glorious blaze reminding mere mortals that it would be back tomorrow to rule their universe with its fickle decisions to shine or hide behind clouds. Grateful Joe wasn’t on board yet, Riley broke the rules about not showering on the boat when they were at the dock. She stripped off her dirty, smelly clothes and bundled them into the trash. She stepped into the guest shower, the bigger of the two, and stood under the hot water until it began to run tepid.

Had Joe been there he would have been appalled at her flagrant use of
Reprieve
’s precious resources. But he wasn’t, and what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Even after all that hot water and soap, the smell of the jungle lingered. It was inside her, along with the smell of fear and disappointment. They had been too busy saving their own hides to shoot much footage. The whole escapade was probably a bust and without some solid footage, the story would probably be a bust, too. Tomorrow Emil would drop off the footage but she wasn’t optimistic about what she’d see on them.

She was too tired to care about eating. Normally at this time of night, she would be reading, surfing the Net, catching up on e-mails, and waiting for Joe. Tonight she dug out the key for the liquor cabinet, poured a good cup of whiskey, settled into the stateroom, and was asleep within minutes of downing the last drop.

The video was jumpy in spots. Emil had turned it on the moment they’d started into the jungle and had apparently never turned it off. They were lucky it was new equipment with a new, fully charged battery or the camera would have died before they could get it back to
Reprieve
to be plugged into the shore power and recharge. Watching the first part of the video where they slogged their way through the jungle, the picture weaving in and out, the focus jumping like a cat on a hot sidewalk, was enough to make Riley queasy. She fast-forwarded through as much of it as she could.

Emil had dropped the video off mid-morning, after Joe had left for his training with the Island Guard. This misadventure had cost more than time and money. It was the first time since they had become a couple that they had barely spoken to each other, let alone made love. She had been dead asleep when he crawled into the bunk beside her last night and this morning he had been up long before her, walked up to the shower, then came back to kiss her awake. As he handed her a cup of steaming strong coffee, he’d lifted one of her chafed, bruised arms from the bunk. In the intense early morning light, every scratch and gouge stood out. There were many of them from her elbow to the pale line where the T-shirt hit her upper arm.

“What the hell happened? It looks like you wrestled with a tiger and the tiger won.”

“It’s fine. It’s nothing.” She turned away, taking her arm back, and covering herself to her chin with the sheet. Self-conscious, she wondered how bad her legs and face looked.

He sighed and sat on the bunk, his back to her, his eyes on the docked boats outside the porthole.

“Not good enough,” he finally said. “You look like you’ve been dragged through the jungle behind a pick-up truck. And you want me to just pretend all those bumps and bruises aren’t there? Come on. Even you can’t be that manipulative.”