Virgo's Vice (11 page)

He bent to pick up a log, and another, then headed back toward the others. He felt good and he whistled a tune as he walked.

Chapter 16

“Dude,” Jared says. “I don’t trust that Andy. I bet he’s gonna try and get his end away with Eve. Didn’t you see his eyes? They were kind of shifty, like he was jonesing for something. And I bet that’s what it is. Last night with the hottest pussy out here wasn’t enough for him.”

“Hey, Jared,” Billy says. “Watch your language.” He throws a glance at me.

I slide down onto the grass and stare at the water, thinking about what Jared said. I hadn’t noticed anything strange about Andy’s eyes.

“No, Jake,” I say as he pokes his nose into the shallow water where the fish they’ve caught are being kept. He obediently moves away and crouches to drink a short distance away.

“So, do you want to fish?” Billy asks me. “Provided you don’t have to touch the worms.” He grins. “I’ll put the worms on your hook.”

“No, thanks.”

Jared moves further away and drops his line into the water.

Billy slides down beside me on the grass. “You’re a real city slicker, ain’t you?” He squints at me.

“I guess. I like the country, but I’ve always lived in L.A. with my aunt. I was a little kid when my parents died in a car wreck and she took me in.”

“Whoa. That’s not cool. Both parents.” A shadow crosses his eyes and is gone as quickly as it came.

“I didn’t really understand what was going on, except suddenly I was living with Aunt Jess. She said my parents had to go away. I was mad at them for a long time for just leaving me like that and not even saying goodbye. She was my mom’s only sister. My grandparents had died long ago.”

“So how’d you get to be a camera operator? You said you were at college, but then you left.”

The bad memories rush into my head and my heart gets that sinking feeling. I don’t want to talk about it any longer but I don’t want to be rude. Luckily, I’m saved.

“Yeah,” Jared yells and jerks his rod upward. A good-sized fish is hanging on the end. He stands and unhooks it, and adds it to the bunch of fish they’ve already caught.

“The worms are almost all gone,” he says. “I think they’re burrowing back into the ground.”

We hear a shrill whistle, followed by a yell.

“Hey, where’d everyone go?” It’s Andy.

“Yo,” Billy shouts. “We’re still here.” He stands up and lifts his fishing pole.

Andy comes into sight with an armful of firewood.

“Where’s the Chinese chick?” he asks.

Billy looks at me with raised eyebrows and I stare at him, then Jared, and shrug.

“I left her sitting right there where we first came down to the creek,” I say. “Didn’t you see her? I thought you went to check up on her.”

“Yeah,” Andy says. “I spotted some good firewood, so I left her sitting there.” He throws the wood on the ground and turns around and heads back the way he came. “I’ll go see where she is.”

We all watch him go.

“Maybe you were wrong,” Billy says to Jared. “About him.”

“Maybe. But he was there long enough to do her, and what’s with the firewood? Is he still angling to cook the fish here and not share them with the others? Now someone has to carry it back to camp, and it won’t be me.”

A few minutes later, Andy returns. “She’s not there. She’s not any place nearby. Do you think she would have gone back to camp?” He directs this question at me.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “She would have told us. She knows where we are.” My stomach clenches. I can’t believe she’s just disappeared.

“We’d better all search for her, then.” Billy lifts the bundle of fish from the water. “I’d like to gut the fish here, but she has the knife—Sam said we could use it—and Eve was holding on to it. I asked her to leave it with us, but no dice.”

We all head back the way we came, yelling her name.

“Eve, where are you? Come on, Eve, this isn’t funny.”

Trip and his entourage had been walking for about twenty minutes without finding anything. He was a little irritated with the way both of the women were vying for his attention all the time. It was nice that both of them thought he was hot, even though he was so much older than them, but the game was the important thing. If they had any brains they would know that. And food. They all needed protein.

“Here.” He stopped and bent to touch a broad-leaved plant. “Cassava.” He had seen signs of prior occupation in the general area and this must be what the former occupants had grown.

“Is it good to eat?” Lela rested an arm on his shoulder.

“Of course it is, dummy,” Samantha spat on the ground.

“It’s full of carbs and protein, and add vitamins and minerals. There’s just one problem with it. Don’t ever try to eat it raw.”

“It doesn’t taste good?” Lela was still leaning on his shoulder.

“Not that. It’s poisonous. You’ve heard of cyanide, I’m sure,” Trip said.

“You’re not really saying this plant that we’re gathering to eat could kill us all?” Samantha wrinkled her nose.

“Only if you don’t know how to handle it. Millions of people all over the world manage to eat it without dying.”

“I didn’t know it, cyanide, came from plants.” Samantha scratched her head and scowled at Lela.

“It doesn’t always. It can be made in a laboratory, but a lot of plants have traces of cyanide in them,” Trip said. He lifted the shovel he was carrying and started digging the plants. He wondered if he should really have shown these two women where to find such a great source of just about everything they needed to survive. Samantha opened Rodriguez’s black trash bag and held it so Lela could drop the plants into it.

“The leaves are good to eat, too,” Trip said.

“Well, if the cowboy gets some fish we could make a fish stew,” Samantha said.

“How would you poison someone with Cassava?” Lela asked.

Trip frowned and stared at her for a few seconds before turning back to his digging. “There are two kinds of Cassava,” he said. “The sweet kind is not toxic enough to harm anyone permanently.”

“And what kind is this?” Lela asked.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to soak it for at least twenty four hours to be sure it’s okay. I’m talking about the roots, now. The leaves are okay to eat and we need vegetables.”

“And if we don’t soak it?”

“It could poison us.”

“And we would die?” Lela persisted.

Trip was getting pissed off at the way Lela was interrogating him, and he was pretty sure Samantha felt the same way. He squinted at her again. “We would die.”

Chapter 17

Rodriguez stood back to survey his work. “It’s gonna be pretty good when it’s done,” he said to anyone who was listening.

Stretch stopped chopping with the machete and walked across to see what Rafael had made. “That’s real good, brother. You’re pretty smart with construction.”

“Yeah. If my leg wasn’t so painful I would be a lot better,” Rodriguez said. He was worried about his ankle. He hadn’t told Maria how much it still hurt, or she would want to examine it, and he was determined not to be evacuated from the game. Until Dockery showed up he was okay and he had to hope it would be healing by the time they had to start competing against one another. He glanced across at Stretch, who had gone back to the construction of the other latrine. He seemed a decent sort, but he would be hard to beat in a physical contest. The dude had played for the NBA. He might be old now but he was big and athletic.

Maria was a hard worker. He hadn’t counted the number of times she had come past with an armful of wood, and the pile was getting quite high. The redhead had hobbled around and helped pour water into the canvas water bottles for a while, but she was passed out on the bed now.

He turned his gaze to the fire, where the tall thin woman, Faith, was sitting feeding wood into it and fussing over the cooking pot. He didn’t mind, as long as she did the cooking. He hoped there would be something more than rice to eat that evening.

Jared picks up the bag with the water-filled condoms. I tell him to be careful because they burst easily. I don’t think he believes me.

We all shout for Eve at first, but after a while we stop and nobody says much. We’re probably all thinking about Eve. I can’t believe she would just leave without telling us. So where is she then? I’ve been worried about wild animals the whole time we’ve been here and no one else seems to care about them. What if a lion or a crocodile ate her? I glance around me. It’s weird the way there are so few animals in sight, but they’re here.

Jared walks close behind me and says quietly, “That Chinese chick is desperate to win this. She lost her job and her apartment was foreclosed.”

“What?”

“So I figure she’s either living with a friend or relative or out of her car. That hasn’t been repossessed yet. Her parents still live in China.”

“How do you know that? Did she tell you?” I say.

“Nah. I did some background checks. Got all their names when we were at the party, and there was plenty of time during the stopovers in the airports on our way here from the States. I wanted to know all about the others, you know, all of their weaknesses, so I can use them if I need to.”

“I can’t believe you had time to do that. Anyhow, weren’t you supposed to leave your cell phones at home?”

“Nobody searched us.”

“You only found out their names that night, when you were all introduced. How did you even remember them?”

Jared grins. “I texted the names to myself in-between greeting them.”

I shake my head. “That’s crazy. I can’t believe you could get all that information so easily.” I pat Jake and I wonder if Jared checked my background.

“The first person I checked into was Dockery. Long before the party. He needs this reality show to be a success big time. It’s like this is his last chance. Every other show he’s tried to produce in the past three years has gone splat and been pulled from the networks. That dude must have an endless source of cash. If he doesn’t, he’s in deep shit.”

My stomach clenches. Could the Old Man really be so short of cash? Is that why he left us here with no backup or crew members? I’ve heard some talk around the studios that he’s struggling financially, but what does that really mean? If he was down to his last million he would probably think it was a disaster.

“The only one I couldn’t find anywhere in the system is Trip,” Jared continues. “I know you knew him before the game, so what can you tell me about him? He must be using a false identity.”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” I say. “So did you check on me and Mark?”

Jared laughs. “Nah. You’re not competing. But you should be careful of the cowboy, of Billy.”

I check to see if Billy is anywhere nearby. He’s behind us chatting to Andy. “Why? He seems pretty normal to me.”

“If I tell you, will you tell me Trip’s real name?”

“No. I told you I don’t want to talk about him. Anyhow, you can’t do any background checks here.”

“Billy was in Juvie for more than a year,” Jared says with a smirk.

“What?”

“Juvie, kids’ jail.”

“I know what Juvie is. What did he do?”

“Don’t know. Records are sealed. Just be careful of him, though. He’s not who you think he is.”

Who do I think he is? Jared drops back and starts chatting with Andy and Billy and I am left with my thoughts. Is anyone who I think they are? What does Jared know about Andy that made him make that comment about him jonesing for something?

It takes us over an hour to get back to camp.

There Eve is.

Just sitting by the fire.

Hard to believe.

“Why did you leave without telling us?” Andy almost yells what we all want to say.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know I had to tell you where I am.” She sounds a little angry.

Billy shakes his head and mutters something. Jared remains silent.

“Maybe we should tell one another if we are gonna go off on our own,” Andy presses on in a loud voice. “You could have been in trouble, and I told you it wasn’t smart to sit there by yourself.”

“Well . . . I’m sorry,” Eve says. “I won’t go with you again. I’ll stay here so you all know where I am.”

Billy puts his hand on Andy’s arm. “Don’t, bro,” he says. “It’s not worth getting into a fight.”

I turn off my camera and set it down. Andy opens his mouth then gawks at me. I shrug and hold my hands out in the WTF position. He closes his mouth and turns his attention to Faith, who is throwing wood on the fire.

“We got some fish,” Andy says, pointing at Billy with his thumb. “And more wood.” He dumps the armful he’s carrying on top of the already tall pile.

“And water,” Jared says, dumping the bag on the ground.

“Careful with that,” I almost shout.

“Sorry.” Jared doesn’t sound it.

“I could use a drink,” I say, staring at the water bags where they’re hanging on the underside of the tree. I get my tin mug and Eve follows me to the tree.

“What’s with them?” she asks, glancing across at Billy and Andy.

“They were worried about you,” I say in a low tone. “You know, a lion could have eaten you.”

“Oh, I guess. I’m not afraid of that. I don’t think there are any animals here. I’ve been meaning to ask you. Do you have a problem with Trip?”

My heart beats a little quicker. “No. Yes. Sort of. I don’t like him. Why do you ask?”

“It sounded like you were arguing last night.”

I stare into her face. “It was nothing,” I say, carrying the bag over to the others and acting cool like my emotions are not all messed up. The shaking problem with my hands has been better, but it’s coming back all of a sudden.

“Here.” I offer water to the others and they take it with thanks.

Faith and Maria are moving the bag with the condoms in it to a spot under a tree close to the water bags.

“That was dumb,” Faith says to Eve. “Anything could have happened to you. Dumb people get themselves killed.”

“I’m not dumb,” Eve shoots back. “Don’t call me dumb.”

Faith stops what she is doing, stands, and puts her hands on her hips. “I’ll call you anything I want. The others will back me up.”

“Well, I think
you’re
dumb. And you don’t do anything around here to help out. At least I went to help get water.”

Faith’s face darkens and her eyes narrow. “I don’t do anything? Who do you think cooked dinner last night, huh? And who boiled water and poured it into the water bags? Don’t you dare say I’m not helping.”

“Forget it.” Eve stomps away to the periphery of the camp.

“Don’t you walk away from me, you bitch,” Faith yells after her.

“Leave it alone.” I wasn’t planning to get between them, but I can’t help myself. “It’s not worth arguing over.”

For a minute I think Faith is going to yell at me. She opens her mouth, closes it, and then says, “She’s looking for trouble.”

I help her finish organizing the water.

“Where’s Billy?” I ask Stretch, who is lying on his back on the bed.

He points. “Got the knife from Eve and he and Jared went that way.” I figure they are gutting and cleaning the fish. “We got latrines.” Stretch sits up and yawns. “Come check it out.”

We head out back of the shelter. “That there is for the men, and the other one’s for the ladies.” He points to each one in turn.

Rodriguez has also gotten off the bed. He limps toward the ladies’ latrine. I pick up my camera again and focus on his face. I’m glad to get away from Faith. She has a sulky scowl on her face and her eyes are weirder than before.

Andy and Kelli appear from somewhere and follow Rodriguez to inspect his work.

“Wow,” I say. “Not too bad.”

It’s a hole in the ground with a box on top, framed by bound together saplings, with a square hole in the middle so you can sit on it. They’ve dug quite a deep hole beneath it. It has privacy walls made of some sort of leaves and vegetation strapped together. I make sure I get shots from all angles, then I do the same for the men’s one. Andy is holding Kelli’s hand and I start to wonder what he meant when he said we don’t know anything about him—or was it his marriage?

I move back, set the camera down and stand beside the fire. Andy and Kelli stop a little way off from everyone else. Kelli’s laughter reaches me. She sounds happy. I think about what Jared said. What was he hinting at when he said Andy was jonesing for something?

I tense up when Trip and the other two women show up, with Mark behind them. Trip is carrying something in Rodriguez’s black trash bag.

Lela tips it up onto the sand. “We found some food. He knows a lot about this kind of stuff. We’re so lucky to have him with us.” She chin-cocks Trip. “Look, this is Cassava. It has protein in it. You can eat the leaves, too.”

I watch Trip out of the corner of my eye, even though I don’t want to. He and Sam have gone over to get a drink of water.

“We can cook this?” Faith is standing beside us.

“Yeah,” Lela says. “But it’s probably poisonous.” She scratches her stomach.

Faith wrinkles her brow. “So we can’t cook it?”

“Ask him,” Lela says. “He knows.” She saunters off toward the water and pats Trip on the shoulder and says something to him. Sam is wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and I see her stiffen and shake her head.

“Can we eat this or not?” Faith yells over to Trip. He comes toward us and I move away.

“It’s probably poisonous,” I hear him say in that dreaded voice. “Cyanide. But if you soak it for twenty-four hours you can eat it. You’ll have to find some sort of container.”

My fists are clenched so tight my nails are digging into my palms, and I have short nails. My hands are still shaking a little. I hate him. I hate everything about him and I still cannot believe that he is here. Memories that I’ve pushed away for so long are trying to force themselves back into my mind, bringing with them the horror, the fear, and the revulsion.

“I guess I didn’t get back in time to film the latrines being built, but they’re pretty good,” Mark says from behind me. He stares into my face. “You look tense.” He turns off his camera.

“It’s not important,” I say quietly, still watching Trip.

“I wish you’d tell me why you hate him so much.”

I take a couple of deep breaths and try to calm myself. “It’s a long story and I don’t want to talk about it, but he’s a sleaze.”

“So why did you come if you hate being around him? You must have seen him when we were doing the final interviews. You could have pulled out at the party, even.” Mark isn’t gonna leave it alone.

I wish it was that simple. “I can’t believe you’ve forgotten already, the Old Man told us one of the contestants couldn’t make it to the party. Remember?”

Mark scratches his chin. “Yeah, now that you mention it. But I know they interviewed everyone.”

“And he was the one they interviewed online. They didn’t let me see it. Why would they?”

Mark rolls his shoulders. “What about a list of names? Surely you saw one.”

“I-I don’t want to talk about it, Mark. Please.”

He must have seen how my hands are shaking and heard the quaver in my voice. I don’t want to tell him that Trip isn’t his real name because it’ll lead to more questions.

“I’m sorry, Lex. It’s none of my business, but if he gives you any problems, you will let me know, won’t you?”

I drop my gaze to my shoes and notice how dusty they are.

“Promise me, Lex,” Mark says, his hand on my shoulder.

“Yo, what’s going on?” Billy interrupts us. He stares at me with his eyebrows raised. “You okay?”

“We’re cool,” Mark says, and walks away.

“I need to go wash my hands,” Billy says. He holds them under my nose. They stink of fish. “Want to come?”

I wrinkle my nose and nod. “If you promise me nothing will eat me.”