by Victoria Fox
It was a woman. Stevie halted, sharpened her hearing. A girl. The person was young.
Following the sound, trying to trace it, she pressed her ear against each cabin door in turn. The acoustics, all those pockets of space, played tricks, like chasing a feather on the wind.
Eventually, she came to it. Curious, she knocked. The crying stopped and she listened for a response. When none came, she pushed open the door.
At first she didn’t recognise the figure. The white-blonde hair was dishevelled, the dress crumpled and torn and a thin line of blood ran from the girl’s hand and trickled down her wrist.
But the instant she looked up, frantic and bleary-eyed, Stevie knew who it was.
‘Aurora,’ she exclaimed. ‘What’s happened?’
60
Margaret picked a path through the dark. The ground was prickly, her shoes impractical. She kept off the lit trails, for people were fickle in their memories. When they were questioned later tomorrow, next week, they would be desperate to find a detail they could cling to.
Fortunately Margaret knew this island better than anyone.
The weight of material was reassuring under her arm: Enrique Marquez’s replacement uniform. Now she understood how men like van der Meyde and Moreau could become addicted to wielding power. She’d had access to everything that made tonight’s stunt possible, from the schedules to what the staff were wearing. Mr V underestimated her. He always had.
At last the east shoreline came into view. Waves crashed in, white froth pummelling the rocks. She hoped Enrique had been right when he’d said he was a strong swimmer.
Wedging the uniform in its designated place, Margaret inhaled the night air. Calm.
She turned and headed back to the mansion, humming softly to herself.
The library was like something from the valiant ships of old. Battered, bruised books and maps crowded the walls. A giant compass, suspended above an arc of glass, pointed out to sea. An impressive antique globe sat alongside a gently flickering fireplace. A clock ticked delicately, matching Xander’s heart, two beats to every second.
JB stood facing out of the window. He held his hands behind his back.
‘You must do something,’ said Xander. ‘You owe me that much.’
The other man neither moved nor spoke. It struck Xander that JB might, in another life, have been the captain of such a ship. Always he’d had that way about him: timeless, his waters unperturbed by the passing sands of ages.
‘Reuben fights his own wars,’ he said. ‘I cannot help you.’
Xander had laid it all on the line: Bibi’s abuse, Linus’s murder, the subsequent threats. ‘You must,’ he said. ‘It’s not too late to put things right.’
JB laughed softly. He turned round. ‘Things?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t. You’ll have to explain.’
Xander slammed his fist on the table between them. ‘Don’t fuck with me, JB. Have Reuben rein Dirk in and do it now, or I swear to God I’ll tell the world what I know.’
‘About Cacatra? Go ahead. I’m sure they’d be happy to hear about your involvement.’
‘It’s not the same.’
‘No? You made a great deal of money from it, as I recall.’
‘And every cent of that’s gone to charity.’
‘You always were a paragon of virtue.’
‘Compared with you, I’m not about to argue.’ Xander pulled his trump card with a flourish. ‘Let’s cut to the chase, JB. This isn’t about Cacatra. It’s about you and me. It’s about what happened the last time we were at sea.’ There was a loaded pause. ‘If you want to take this up to the wire, believe me, I’m right there with you.’
Maximo Diaz put down his glass and struggled to find his feet. Was he seasick?
‘What’s the matter?’
Lori’s face was blurry in his vision. ‘Nothing,’ he managed thickly, thinking he’d never been seasick before, ‘I’m fine.’
He felt weak. His stomach was in knots like he had to do a crap.
‘I need to lie down.’ He swayed, biting back nausea. ‘Now.’
‘Max—’
Abruptly the floor rose up to meet him. The last things he saw were the flinty eyes of that kid who’d been trailing them all night. The last thing he heard was smashing, shattering glass.
‘We’ll get him to the guest beds.’ Rebecca Stuttgart kept her voice down as she and Lori shouldered Maximo between them. A handful of guests turned to observe the minor disruption.
‘I’m OK, I’m OK.’ Maximo was slurring. A trail of drool seeped out the side of his mouth and spooled to the floor.
Lori glanced up. She looked once, then again. A classic double take.
It couldn’t be.
There, across the saloon, plain as day, she could have sworn she saw.
She would know those dark eyes anywhere, even after all this time.
Rico Marquez.
Reuben checked the situation with security. Lori Garcia’s boyfriend, a model-slash-actor he’d scarcely heard of, had taken on too much drink. They had medics on board but he was loath to use them for bums. What were they at, a school disco?
‘I told you these potions were lethal,’ breathed Christina Michaels, licking her lips. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to have your wicked way with us.’
Reuben shuddered. Christina had indulged in so much surgery she had the complexion of a bowl of jelly.
He took security to one side.
‘Find Aurora Nash,’ he murmured, ‘and take her to my cabin. Do it now. When it’s done, you and you alone notify me. Are we clear?’
‘Yes, boss.’ The man disappeared.
Reuben felt the same sense of satisfaction as when he caught a fish and gutted it. If Maximo Diaz getting wasted was the extent of tonight’s damage, he could well live with it. In the end, kids like Aurora were the same: frightened, needy, wanting reassurance. He’d talk to her, spin her a story. He’d tell her whatever she wanted to hear. It was what he was good at.
His party was going to go without a hitch, after all.
Reuben sucked a salty anchovy from his finger. For the first time in twenty-four hours, his appetite had returned.
‘Should we get a doctor?’ asked Lori as Maximo’s bulk swung into her.
‘Let him sleep it off,’ answered Rebecca. ‘No point getting everyone in a panic.’
With difficulty, the trio descended the stairs. Rebecca opened the first cabin they came to and the women dragged him inside. Maximo collapsed on to the bed and promptly passed out.
Rico Marquez …
Lori shook off the memory. There was no way it could have been him; the concept was preposterous. And anyway, wasn’t he still in prison? It had been so long since she’d even thought about him. She was nervy, that was all. That creepy kid waiter had put her on edge, made her think she was seeing things that weren’t there.
She returned her thoughts to Maximo. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ she told Rebecca. ‘He really hasn’t had that much to drink.’
‘Have you been with him all night?’
‘No, but …’
‘He’ll be fine in an hour.’ They removed his shoes and socks, revealing the long pale feet that Lori found repellent but she couldn’t say why. Seeing Lori’s fretful expression, Rebecca added kindly, ‘Honestly, he’ll be OK.’
Lori pressed a hand to Maximo’s forehead. It felt sticky and hot, his breath ragged. She wanted to see him properly. ‘Can we put the light on?’
‘Let’s leave him to sleep,’ advised Rebecca, pulling her away. ‘He’ll thank you for it.’
Enrique Marquez had been hit by a train. At high speed.
Right now he was thrown on the tracks, the wind knocked out of him, stars dancing in front of his eyes and a buzz like fury echoing through his brain.
Lori had seen him. He had looked her dead in the eye. It had only been a split-second but a split-second was enough.
/>
Fuck!
The spark of old had passed between them. He hadn’t counted on it—he’d counted against it. His feelings for her hadn’t changed. She was beautiful, more beautiful than she had ever been, more beautiful than he remembered.
Enrique went to the bathroom, splashed his face with cold water. His hands were shaking.
It had been straightforward so far: the plotting, the stalking. The hate mail. But somehow the simplest thing, laying eyes on her, having her return his gaze, had pushed him over the edge.
Black-hearted hatred was easier to pursue than shades of grey.
He twisted the silver ring on his finger.
What had he seen in her? Recognition, yes. Affection? Did she still love him? Might she? Maybe she did. Maybe she had known all along it was he—her old Rico, her first love—who had sent those letters. Maybe she was waiting for him so they could be together again. Maybe she was wracked with guilt over her betrayal and wanted nothing more than a second chance…
An image crashed in of her beauty strewn across the ocean, pieces of her he had kissed and touched when they were young … Like a boy dared to take the wings from a butterfly, he wondered at destroying perfection.
No!
Enrique saw Lori not as she had been the past three years, but as the girl he had adored, the feel of her arms around his waist when they rode the freeway on his bike, the sight of her in her scuffed sneakers and string vest as she came down to the San Pedro harbour after a long day’s work, how he would shield his eyes from the lowering sun to see her face more clearly.
The smell of her skin. Enrique had thought he’d buried it, stifled beneath the layers of betrayal but there it was, bright as a spring flower pushing through earth.
Why hadn’t he thought of it before? It was obvious. Tonight wasn’t about destroying Lori—it was about reclaiming her. She had always belonged with him. She just didn’t know it yet.
Lori was certain she heard voices coming from next door. As she and Rebecca quietly exited Maximo’s room, she put a finger to her lips.
‘Someone’s down here,’ she said.
Intrigued, they followed the sound. The voices were female, animated: one of them hysterical, the other one soothing. Lori recognised the second as Stevie Speller’s.
She frowned at JB’s wife. ‘What’s going on?’
Rebecca put her hand on the door and pushed.
The worst part was Ralph’s expectant face at the upstairs window. The boy was gazing at the distant yacht as if it was the most exquisite thing on earth.
Margaret peeled him away. ‘Time for bed, my darling.’ She lifted him and tucked him in, pulling the sheets up tight around him, making him into a caterpillar, the way he liked it. She kissed his forehead. It was important everything ran as normal.
‘When will they be back?’ he whispered. ‘When will JB be back?’
She smoothed his hair. ‘Not for a long time.’
61
Aurora’s mouth was dry, her throat fit to burst. She felt like she had been talking for hours. The past had come tumbling out, everything that had happened with Tom, with Sherilyn, with JB and Reuben and the island, with Rita and Casey and Farrah, with Pascale Devereux and her family. Everything she knew—and everything she still didn’t know and wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Stevie Speller had one arm across her shoulders. Aurora was amazed when, even as Cacatra’s sordid revelation came, she did not move away.
The room was plunged into silence. Stevie was the one to break it.
‘I want to know who the hell they think they are, playing with people’s lives like this.’
Aurora turned on Rebecca. ‘You’re his wife!’ she sobbed. ‘You knew. You knew everything!’ Her face crumpled. ‘How could you? ’
Rebecca accepted the accusation. The girl deserved honesty, even if it was too late.
‘I’m sorry you found out this way,’ she said. ‘From day one I feared it would emerge. Secrets as big as this don’t stay hidden.’
‘No shit,’ cut in Stevie.
‘Arnaud Devereux told me everything he knew.’ Aurora’s lip trembled. ‘Except he didn’t—’ a tear plopped out of her eye ‘—he didn’t know who my real parents were. Are.’ She shook her head, chasing despair. ‘See? I don’t even know if they’re still alive, dead, what!’
Rebecca moved closer. ‘I don’t know, darling. That’s the truth. Reuben’s the only one—’
‘How can you be so matter-of-fact?’ Aurora lashed. ‘Don’t you care?’
‘Of course I care. I did from the start, I hated it, but what difference did that make?’ The shiver in Rebecca’s voice betrayed the long years of misery. ‘I’m leaving JB. I’m leaving the island. It’s over for me.’
‘And the others?’ Aurora wiped her nose with her wrist. ‘The other kids and the other families? Me? It’s not over for me. It can’t ever be! How dare you say it’s over when there are all these people whose lives you’ve ruined that can’t ever be free?.’
‘I never wanted a part of it. I swear on all that I am. Never.’
‘It came with the territory of a happy marriage, though, right?’
‘No. JB’s and my relationship has never been happy.’
Aurora choked on a laugh. ‘Do you think I give a shit about your marital problems?’
Stevie squeezed her shoulder. ‘Come on. It’s not Rebecca’s fault.’
‘Isn’t it? She let it happen—she was too much of a coward to make it stop!’ Aurora leapt from the bed, ready to claw Rebecca’s eyes out. She would have had Stevie not pulled her back.
‘Let’s not fight each other,’ she counselled. ‘We’ve got a common enemy here.’
Rebecca shot Lori a glance that spoke volumes.
‘Oh, I was forgetting that.’ Aurora landed on Lori’s dark gaze. ‘When I met you on Cacatra you couldn’t keep your hands off him. So much for a common enemy!’
Stevie turned to Lori, puzzled.
‘Lori was sleeping with Moreau all along.’ Aurora’s attention swung to the man’s wife, waiting for a reaction, kamikaze-style: if she was going down she was taking them all with her.
Instead, Rebecca was calm. ‘I already know about the affair.’
‘You have to be kidding,’ Aurora spluttered. ‘You’re into trading men now as well as babies?’
Lori stepped in. ‘It’s complicated—’
Aurora rounded on her, cutting her off, spoiling for a fight. ‘How does it feel to find out the guy you’ve been fucking sells kids into Hollywood, then?’ she yelled. ‘That he’s a liar and a cheat and a fraud and a criminal? Well? How does it feel?’ She wanted to hurt them: Rebecca, Lori, anyone she could, to make them feel a sliver of the pain she had experienced.
Lori didn’t waver. ‘It’s not a shock. Rebecca told me before tonight.’
Bewildered, Aurora turned to Stevie, chaos etched across her face.
‘I’m sorry, Aurora,’ she said softly, ‘I knew, too.’ She glanced between the three women. ‘And now I think we need to talk.’
‘I must admit, I’m finding this very entertaining.’ JB made his way to the door. ‘But, if you’ll excuse me, I have more pressing matters to attend to.’
Xander grabbed his arm. ‘I’m asking you a favour because you owe it.’
‘I don’t owe you a thing.’ JB shook him off, straightened the arm of his suit jacket. ‘Paul and Emilie’s deaths have nothing to do with this.’
‘They’ve got everything to do with this.’
‘It’s in your head, Jakobson,’ JB countered, the untouchable boy he’d been at the academy, eliminating an adversary with a look or a word. ‘It’s always been in your head. If I didn’t pity you I would have silenced you a long time ago.’
‘It always comes back to threats with you, doesn’t it?’
‘And it always comes back to the same repetitions with you. I was tired of it then and I’m tired of it now. You’re fortunate I’m not a man who takes offence. What kind
of animal do you think I am? You believe I let my mother and father die?’ His eyes glinted. ‘Wake up, my friend.’
‘I know what I saw.’
‘You saw a child,’ JB stated. ‘You saw a boy in shock. That’s what you saw. ’
Images flashed across Xander’s mind. The Moreaus reaching for help, his own arms flailing over the sides of the boat while JB stood back and did nothing. Shock did not describe what Xander had seen in that empty blue stare.
‘You don’t frighten me any more,’ he said. ‘Once upon a time, you did. Not any more.’
JB made to go then changed his mind. ‘You know what? I put up with your suspicions over the years because I felt sorry for you. I did since the first day I arrived at the academy. That’s why I let you be my friend, not because I wanted you but because I felt sorry for you. Deep down you knew that. You worshipped me, you wanted to be me—maybe you still do. Honestly? It was creepy, the way you followed me around copying how I acted and what I said, behaving like some jealous fucking girlfriend. Everyone used to laugh about it behind your back, lovestruck, desperate Xander Jakobson. You never knew me, not really. You never knew what it took for me to be the way I was, what I had to give away. You still don’t. When you begged to come to France that summer, I let you. When you begged to follow me to Hollywood, I let you. When you begged to come in on Cacatra, I let you. You were nothing before me. Nothing. I made you. Everything you have now, it’s because of me. Including your beautiful wife.’
Xander took a swing. JB dodged it, in a heartbeat grabbing Xander’s lapels and pulling him up close. The men’s faces were inches from each other.
‘You were a kid with an imagination,’ JB said. ‘That’s all. And I bet it’s suited you. I bet it’s helped alleviate your conscience. Cacatra gave you a fortune. Reuben gave you a fortune. I gave you a fortune. And it was easier to reconcile yourself by imagining the man who’d opened the door was a killer, bad through and through. Sound about right?’
Xander was shaking. ‘I know the facts—’
‘The facts? Fine, let’s talk facts. You’re asking me to help conceal a homicide.’
‘I’m asking you to help me save my marriage.’
