Keri shrugged, held up a bikini top that, to Sara, seemed to consist of a few cunningly-woven pieces of string.
“It’s real flimsy but colorful, like me,” Keri commented. “I am kind of a ditz. Like, I believe in psychic stuff? I know it’s dumb and science has found no proof, yadda yadda. But somebody I cared about, someone who’s not around anymore, they once told me I was psychic, and I’ve often wondered if it’s true. But I doubt it, you know? I guess I just imagine things. Heck, the kind of stuff I used, it’s a miracle I can see the real world at all.”
Suddenly, Keri’s expression changed from pensive to joyful.
“Hey, let’s go for a swim!”
“Okay!” said Sara, “I’ll go and get changed. Maybe the guys will come.”
She went back through the living room and caught sight of herself in a mirror. She decided she still looked uptight and practiced a smile. Then she spun around, staring at the shelf above the empty fireplace. There was nothing there.
“What’s up?” asked Joe, emerging from their bedroom.
“Nothing,” she said. “Thought I saw a monkey in the mirror.”
“There’s an obvious joke there, so I won’t crack it,” Joe said.
Sara rolled her eyes at him and invited him and Ryan to join them for a swim. Minutes later, the four of them were walking through the deserted resort, with Ryan commenting that it felt like a movie about the end of the world. Sara resented the remark, mostly because it was all too accurate. Pirate Cove had the odd, artificial feeling of a half-finished complex, with empty swimming pools, half-finished bungalows, a car park with no bays outlined, a few plots that had no obvious purpose. Now that Sara had time to scrutinize it more closely, she felt sure it could be popular and profitable. But it needed to be finished in time for the winter season. It was already too late for this summer.
“If there’s nobody around,” Ryan commented as they approached the beach, “how come I get the feeling I’m being watched? Like, all the way from the bungalow?”
They all looked back at the jungle, the green hills rising above the complex. A smudge of blue smoke rose some way inland, and Sara wondered if people went camping in Sainte Isabel’s interior. She felt as if she was being watched as well, but she put this down to suggestion.
“You get anything, Keri?” she asked, breaking the sudden silence. “Psychic antenna quivering?”
Keri did not seem to hear. The tall girl was staring out to sea, apparently fascinated by the waves breaking on the reef. Beyond, Sara could see a white dot that might have been a passing boat. Then she shook her head, smiled.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s probably nothing, but I think Ryan’s right. We’re not alone here.”
They walked down the beach to the splash zone to put on their fins. Joe changed the subject to practical matters, running over questions they could ask Laplace, the site manager. Sara agreed that they should go in hard with criticism to establish just how pissed they were with the delays, but also be fair, and give the man a proper hearing. They were soon paddling in the warm water of the Caribbean.
“Makes me feel pampered,” she said to Keri, fastening her fins to her feet. “Like we got upgraded to first-class seawater.”
She looked back at the way they had come, glancing casually at their footprints in the light brown sand. Then she frowned and stood up again to look more closely. Nearby their tracks, she could just make out some smaller footprints. She pointed them out to Joe.
“Big sea bird, maybe?” he said, not interested.
“Yeah, I guess,” Sara murmured, half to herself, looking up at soaring white shapes with long, scythe-like wings. “But I haven’t seen any near this beach.”
They finished putting on their fins and snorkels and waded out, planning to swim to Wreckers Reef. Keri, who had been Googling a lot to prepare for the vacation, explained the origin of the name. Sara knew it already but let the girl talk. She felt more tolerant of the tall redhead now, feeling that they had bonded in a quirky way.
“I read on Wikipedia,” Keri shouted above the sound of the wind and waves, “the locals used to put fires on the shore to lure ships in because the captains thought the fires were the lights of Port Louis. And in those days, they couldn’t find their way around so easily because—well, no satellites or stuff like that.”
“And then, when the boats hit the reef, all the cargo drifted ashore?” Ryan asked.
Keri shrugged, looked out at the reef, hand shading her eyes.
“Yeah,” she said, “or maybe they went out in little boats and fetched stuff. But, from what I read, the point is if anyone survived, the wreckers would cut their throats, so there were no witnesses. Horrible.”
Sara almost asked if Keri’s psychic powers told her the place was haunted by the souls of all those victims. Guessing what the answer would probably be, she decided not to. Instead, she looked out at the reef herself and tried to imagine the terrible plight of the crews, suddenly realizing they had been tricked on a moonless night, their panicky attempts to turn their clumsy sailing vessels around, the sickening crunch of timbers striking razor-sharp coral.
“How do I know it was on a moonless night?” she murmured to herself.
“What?” Joe asked, looking up at her as he washed out his mask.
“The wreckers, they wouldn’t try their trick if there was a full moon, would they?” Sara asked. “I was just trying to imagine it. On a full moon, a lookout would see the reef. So, the new moon would be the time to strike.”
“Guess so,” said Joe, looking faintly puzzled. Then he nodded at Keri and Ryan, who were already disappearing beneath the surface. “Hey, the young lovers are getting ahead of us. Let’s race them to the reef.”
The Hansens pulled down their masks and plunged into the limpid blue waters. As she glided down toward the sandy bottom, Sara reflected on the ironies of fate. The very same reef that had doomed so many people kept the waters of the bay much calmer than the rest of Sainte Isabel’s rocky south coast. She tried to visualize the island, its east coast a great curve of cliffs and hazardous rocks, Port Louis, and a few smaller settlements over to the West. She visualized the little towns lying in the great inlet of Refuge Bay, where battered sailing ships that had weathered Atlantic storms often found a haven in the old days.
A fish, striped silver and black, goggled at her from a few inches in front of her mask, and then zoomed away with a flick of its tail. She stared after it, felt her heart racing. She had been daydreaming underwater. Joe tapped her arm and mouthed syllables at her. They had been diving so often together they had both learned to lip-read at a basic level, but she did not get the message this time. Instead, Joe used sign language, spelling out individual letters so she eventually got the name—SAILOR’S CHOICE.
Sara nodded, gave him the thumbs up. Learning all the weird and wonderful names for local fish would, she knew, be just one of the little things she’d have to pay attention to. She and Joe were both planning to qualify as diving instructors, combining business with pleasure. Assuming, she thought ruefully, that their grand project ever came to fruition. Sara pushed aside doubts about the resort, made herself concentrate on the here and now, the unique pleasure of diving.
Soon, they were approaching the reef, spluttering a little every time they broke the surface for air. High tide was approaching, and the reef was almost totally submerged, making the sea on the sheltered side more turbulent. They caught up with Ryan a few yards short of the coral barrier, but Keri was already cruising parallel to the reef. Sara had to admire how easily the girl moved through the water, swift and sinuous as a fiery-haired mermaid.
Though if Disney created a princess with curves like Keri’s, there’d be one hell of an outcry.
It was only later, when they were walking back up the beach after their swim, that Sara noticed the water filling Keri’s footprints. She recalled the tracks she had seen in the sand before their swim. She was almost sure they had been more like tiny ha
ndprints than the footprints of some large bird. But the tide had flowed in since then, and all the earlier marks in the sand were long gone.
Chapter 2: Dreams and Disputes
When they got back to the bungalow, they found a neatly-uniformed maid, a young local who introduced herself as Hyacinth and apologized profusely for not meeting them earlier. The bus from Port Louis, she explained, had been late.
“You don’t live in the resort?” asked Ryan. “It’s a long bus ride over those roads.”
Hyacinth shook her head and explained that the staff quarters at Pirate Cove were not ready yet. There was still no water, no power, and, in some cases, no windows. Sara saw Joe frown at that—more bad news. She anticipated a heated lecture when he tracked down the elusive Laplace, who was supposedly in charge of the construction.
“Well, you’re here now,” Sara said. “And it’s nice to meet you.”
After introductions were made, Hyacinth got on with cleaning a house that seemed pretty clean already. Sara guessed that, if the girl didn’t turn up, she wouldn’t get paid. Then it occurred to her that the maid might have some inside information about what was holding up work.
“Would you like some tea, or a soda maybe?” she asked, while Hyacinth was working in the kitchen. “I feel kind of guilty just watching you after I’ve had a lovely swim.”
“Guilty?” Hyacinth flashed a smile, and Sara realized she was very young, perhaps Keri’s age or less. “You are here to do hard work, to take charge of things, isn’t that so?”
“I guess so,” Sara replied. “But so far we’ve not been able to contact Philippe Laplace—the construction boss? Do you know him?”
Hyacinth laughed. “Ah, Mr. Laplace. When he doesn’t want to be found…”
The maid shrugged. The gesture reminded Sara of someone, but she could not quite place it. She filed the notion away.
“Is Laplace the reason why things are so far behind?” interjected Joe, appearing beside Sara. “Don’t be afraid to tell the truth.”
Hyacinth paused, cloth in hand, and seemed to ponder the question. Then she shrugged again.
“I know it is hard to get the construction workers to stay,” she said finally. Her expression was very serious now. “I think it might be because of superstition, you know? This was a bad place—you heard about the reef? In the old days, many ships were wrecked there. Sometimes, accidentally while in a storm. But sometimes, it was because people onshore, they lit fires, false beacons to lure in the ships. Many bones on the reef, they say.”
Joe laughed, but Sara heard no humor in the sound.
“You’re saying they’re scared of ghosts?”
“Not exactly, Sir,” Hyacinth said quietly. “It is not—not ghosts. But some people say this is not a good place. Superstition.”
Then the maid looked out of the kitchen window, just for a moment, as if something in the dense greenery behind the bungalow had caught her eye. Sensing the girl’s discomfort, Sara urged Joe to let her finish so she could be home before dark.
“It’s a long bus ride,” she pointed out, “and a pretty bumpy one I bet.”
The relief on Hyacinth’s face was palpable. After half an hour, it was obvious that there was nothing else for the maid to do and Sara offered to walk with her up the road to the bus stop. Ironically, the new bus service from the capital was the only thing that had been set up on time.
“Yes,” Hyacinth agreed, as she put cleaning gear back into a closet. “It’s a pity that all the staff it was supposed to bring are not needed yet. Lots of people here need work. Apart from tourism, there is only fishing.”
Sara felt a pang of guilt. Joe had visited the island sometime earlier and contacted the only employment agency on Sainte Isabel about cleaners, groundskeepers, handymen, and other staff. It had been a sensible move, but it had raised a lot of people’s hopes. Hopes that, if things did not get back on track, might well be dashed.
Dammit, all the building work should have been finished by now. What the hell was Laplace thinking? What was Hobart thinking, for that matter?
To change the subject, Sara managed to get the girl talking about herself and her family. She found that Hyacinth was eighteen and had another cleaning job in one of the hotels in Port Louis.
“Must be hard work,” Sara said, feeling the words to be inane as soon as they left her mouth.
“Yes, but at least it’s work,” Hyacinth replied and smiled again.
Thanks to the smile, Sara suddenly realized who the girl resembled.
“Hey, are you related to Rudy Mendoza?”
Hyacinth laughed and said she was his sister.
“Most people here are related,” she added. “Not many people come to stay, and not many people leave. It is a good place, even when times are hard. And who can be sure life would be easier somewhere else? Oh, here’s the bus!”
After the bus had left in a cloud of dust, Sara walked back through the half-finished resort, pondering the maid’s last remark. She could understand why few people would leave such a beautiful place but wondered why not many people would come to stay. Other islands in the same area had a lot of wealthy tax exiles, retirees, and various entrepreneurs.
When she and Joe had been persuaded to buy into Pirate Cove, they had accepted Hobart’s description of Sainte Isabel as a sleepy place. It had just been passed by, Hobart insisted, overlooked. This was mostly because of its lack of an airport. That, in turn, was down to a lack of suitable land for even a small runway.
That had all seemed credible enough at the time. But after Hobart had disappeared overboard from a boat one night, his sketchy background had emerged. He had not been trustworthy. Perhaps he had lied about why Sainte Isabel was so sleepy. Perhaps, the Hansens had uneasily concluded, there was some other reason for the island’s obscurity, its underdeveloped status.
Between Joe and Sara, there was a related, unspoken issue. Joe had visited Sainte Isabel mere days before Hobart had been officially lost at sea. It had been a short visit, admittedly, but he had talked to Hobart and other key players in the development. They had assured him that everything was running according to plan and that, despite how it looked, everything would be ready in time. He had come back satisfied that things were going more or less according to plan. Sara, meanwhile, had been winding up her real estate business and putting their apartment on sale.
Hobart’s death had dismayed and confused them both. Sara had never reproached Joe for misjudging the situation. But the fact that she had not said anything did not mean he had not beaten himself up over it. In the perverse way of such things, she felt that her refusal to blame him made him feel worse about his supposed failure.
Sara became suddenly aware of the crunch of her footsteps on the dusty gravel road. They seemed very loud, as if the world around her had grown silent. She thought of the furtive glance Hyacinth had given toward the jungle, close by on her right. A screeching cry pierced the air, startling her, then she heard a crashing sound as of a bird flapping its way through leafy branches. She picked up her pace, feeling very aware that she was in unfamiliar territory and her only friends were out of sight. She resisted the temptation to look behind her, to peer into the shadows under the trees.
I am not being watched, she told herself. There’s nothing there but birds, insects, maybe rats. Yuck.
***
Back at the bungalow, Keri had commandeered the kitchen, promising to make something ‘healthy and delicious.’ Ryan said the terms were mutually exclusive and seemed very proud of the remark. Keri threatened him with a wooden spoon. The girl was involved in a process that seemed to involve every utensil, pot, and pan available, along with heaps of ingredients. Sara had her doubts about Keri’s abilities but offered to help.
“Two chicks in a kitchen?” Ryan protested, holding up his hands in mock horror. “A recipe for disaster! It’s okay, I’ll help out—I’m used to being Keri’s gofer, ain’t that right, sugar?”
Ryan slapped Keri’s shorts-cla
d rump. Sara felt her usual upswelling of disapproval. Then Keri startled her by giving Ryan a shove that almost sent him flying. The redhead jabbed a spatula at her boyfriend as she told him off.
“Don’t. Be. A. Sleaze,” she stormed, looking genuinely angry for the first time since Sara had met her. “I’ve told you before, I’m not a piece of meat.”
It was not Keri’s reaction that most surprised Sara. It was the expression on Ryan’s face. It was a look that she suddenly recalled seeing before, once or twice, but she hadn’t found it significant until now. It was the expression of a little boy being humiliated, a very lonely little boy who found the world puzzling and scary. Of course, Sara knew, Ryan was immature. But the momentary glimpse of how sad and emotionally needy he seemed to be still shocked her. She found herself resenting him for making himself harder to dislike.
“I’ll leave you guys to it,” she muttered, taking a couple of beer bottles from the fridge, and rejoining Joe in the dining room. “Any luck contacting Laplace?”
Joe put down his phone.
“It always goes straight to voicemail,” he said. “I’m beginning to wonder if Laplace is actually on the island at all. He’s definitely acting like a guy who doesn’t want to be found. Not good, given that Hobart—well, now that he’s out of the picture, we’re technically in charge. Or at least, all the scary legal stuff is on our plate. Along with the huge mound of debt.”
Sara suggested that they not talk about the business for the rest of the evening. Joe agreed. But as they sipped their beers and listened to the entertaining racket emerging from the kitchen, she could see he was worried and felt the need to distract him. The living room looked onto the sea, and she glimpsed a white shape somewhere off the reef.
“Is that some kind of big yacht? Isn’t he kind of close in, honey? I think I saw it before.”
They got up and looked out of the picture window. The white-hulled ship was moving slowly along the outer edge of Wreckers Reef. For a moment, Sara feared it might be about to run aground. She had another intense vision of carnage, panic, death. Again, though, what she was visualizing was not a modern ship being wrecked. Instead, she pictured an old-style vessel, with three masts and square, billowing sails.
Devil Ship: Supernatural Suspense with Scary & Horrifying Monsters (Devil Ship Series Book 1) Page 3
