Baited

by Crystal Green

  She knew what he had in mind and couldn’t agree more. Tie the fool up, she thought. He’s a definite candidate with perfect opportunities for murder. And no matter how “out there” this happy reunion made it seem, Nestor even had a motive: clearing away most of his competitors, family or not, to be the sole heir to Duke’s fortunes.

  And that possibility meant Kat had to watch her back more than ever.

  As Kat readied herself to help Will, Chris snuggled next to her, maybe sensing what was about to go down.

  “Kat,” he whispered.

  Even though her hands were raw, Kat held Chris tightly. She couldn’t let him out of her sight because, like her, Chris could be the next to find his face cut up. And so could Duke, who was resting again after a brain-crunching headache.

  “I’ll take care of you guys,” Kat said in the boy’s ear.

  “Gramps needs you the most,” Chris said. “I’m so afraid he’s going to die.”

  Me too, Kat thought.

  Neither of them said anything about the fact that, murderer or no, Duke was on the road to dying anyway, thanks to his lack of meds. Or that even if they should miraculously be rescued in an hour, he would soon die back home.

  As the old man struggled for breath and comfort on his makeshift bed, she could only imagine his pain. No pills. His family destroyed.

  She just wished she could do more. And, really, she could, right?

  You know he wants to hear that you love him, she told herself. So why can’t you say it? Why can’t you tell a little white lie to give him even an hour of hope?

  Embattled, she pushed back the pain, looking to Will. Even with a limp, he was sauntering toward Nestor with the rope in hand.

  “Bad news, Nestor,” he said.

  Kat patted Chris’s hand and got up.

  Nestor was watching the rope. Dr. Hopkins wagged her bandaged finger at Will.

  “We don’t know if he’s—”

  “Guilty?” Will asked. “That didn’t keep me from wearing hemp bracelets.”

  “You’re entertaining the notion that I killed my siblings and my mother?” Nestor looked astounded, eyes red and swollen. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”

  Kat came to stand next to Will. “We all need to start talking, Nestor. Pronto. And we’re going to hear from you first. Then I’d like to hear from Dr. Hopkins.”

  “Why?” the woman asked.

  One gesture to her hands was enough to make the doctor’s face flush. “They’re healing, bit by bit. I’ve been helping around here though, so don’t you say that I’ve been lazy.”

  “Your lack of hard labor isn’t what I’m talking about, Janelle.” Kat took her knife in hand, then gripped it. “If you can hold a club or squeeze my arms in welcome, you can do this, too.”

  Kat’s meaning permeated the cave’s atmosphere just as effectively as the cold of the rain had. She sheathed her knife.

  “I’m not the one,” Dr. Hopkins said.

  Will held up his hands, the rope dangling from them. “Then who is? Nestor?”

  “No! All I did was…”

  “What?” Kat asked, taking a step toward him.

  Nearby, Larry leaned his arms on his knees, sniffling and giving in to a cough. It jarred Kat to a cough, too. Then it became a chain reaction, encouraging a round of coughs to spark around the room.

  They were all wearing down.

  “Go ahead,” Kat said. Her own coughs had brought a headache, a piercing throb throughout her own body. Great.

  Nestor was watching Duke, regret etched into the lines bracketing his eyes. Lines that hadn’t been there a few days ago.

  “Gramps,” he said, “after you threatened to disinherit us, we were angry, of course. You know that.”

  Duke stayed silent, staring at the ceiling, bled of color and listless.

  Trying again, Nestor spread his arms out in a plea for understanding. “After you brought up the new will we were out of our minds. Then when you went to bed, and to let off some steam afterward, Duffy made some kind of crack about maybe securing our inheritances by getting rid of you before you could change things. Really, Duffy wasn’t serious, and everyone laughed because it was so ridiculous. As we calmed down, we started to make our own jokes about ways to kill a billionaire. It was harmless, you know? Harmless.” Nestor sighed and lowered his hands. “But my anger didn’t go away. I was controlled by my emotions even after you threatened to disinherit us, and…”

  “And what?” Kat prodded.

  Nestor closed his eyes. “I did something I regret.”

  Harmless? Kat thought. Bull. “Harmless” jokes could be so funny and cutting exactly because they had a sharp grain of truth to them. She imagined that the Delacroixs had probably been half-serious about planning ways to get to Duke. They’d felt betrayed and angry enough to take satisfaction out of an imaginary demise for the old man.

  She also imagined that the jokes might’ve been a way of testing each other out to see if anyone would be open to killing the man who could ruin their lives.

  Money had the power to drive people to murder, Kat thought. Money…and love.

  “The shark cage?” Kat asked through clenched teeth. “Was that one of the crazy ways you guys came up with to secure your fortune, either by offing Chris or Duke?”

  Nestor hung his head. “When Chris came out to tell us that Gramps was going diving instead of him, I stayed behind for a second when everyone left to talk Gramps out of it.”

  Oh, no. He wasn’t going to say…

  “I wasn’t thinking straight,” Nestor said, shamefaced, opening his eyes. “I’ve got a lot of debts to pay off and I was desperate. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “What did you do?” Kat asked, dreading the answer.

  “It was just one moment, a second of warped logic. I used a diving knife to start cutting the rope, thinking Gramps would have a little scare if the cage started acting up.” He drew in a rough breath before continuing. “I wanted to be the one to point out the cut, to win Gramps’s respect back once he was saved. Dumb, I know. And I realized that. I changed my mind and stopped slicing right away. That’s why the cut was so tiny. But what happened after that—the rope dragging through the chum, the shark biting the rope…I didn’t mean any of it.”

  Duke moaned, facing away from Nestor, who reached out to him, then pulled back. Chris’s body balled up, once again, trembling as he put his head down.

  Will heaved the rope at Nestor. The jerk dodged out of the way.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell us before Chris went in the cage?” Will said.

  “I started to, but then I figured I hadn’t cut the rope enough for it to matter! I mean, good God, what were the chances of it happening like that?”

  It wasn’t a good enough excuse. Kat stalked over to the rope, intending to use it.

  “Wait, wait,” Nestor said desperately, “I told you the truth. Why would I admit it unless I was innocent of all these killings, right? The cage had nothing to do with what’s happening on this island. If I was going around murdering people, I’d have kept my mouth shut about the cage, too. You’ve got to believe me. I’m telling the truth.”

  His story made sense in a dopey way, but Kat was beyond trusting him. Besides, a smart killer would lie to them in order to gain their faith, just like Nestor had done.

  Beyond forgiveness, she darted forward and pinned Nestor down with a knee, making him wince. When Nestor started to resist, Will and Larry came to Kat’s aid, Kat doing the honors of tying the suspect up while Larry restrained Louis.

  Duke, in the meantime, went back to staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes in the aftermath of Nestor’s confession. A final knife in the heart. The ultimate betrayal of his family.

  Chris was crying, shaking his head like he was denying everything that had happened.

  “Who else knew about the shark cage, Nestor?” Kat asked, tying off the knots. “Your family?”

  “No.” He struggled one last time, coming
out the loser again. “It was just me.”

  Kat pushed off from him. “You’re disgusting. Every single one of you, dead or alive. All of you treat Duke like crap. And Nestor didn’t even try to stop Chris from getting into that cage.”

  “It was a small cut,” Nestor maintained.

  Dr. Hopkins wobbled to a stand. “Kat, maybe he’s telling—”

  “Oh, hell, no. Are you going to take his side?”

  Slowly, the doctor shook her head, dark eyes melting. “Right.” She gave up and went to the fire, flexing her hands as if to exercise them.

  “I guess we’re back to guard shifts,” Will said.

  His gaze snagged Larry’s and the two traded an odd look. Was it because, this time, they were guarding the right suspect, or because Will wasn’t the one tied up?

  With Will’s announcement, a sense of gray calm fell over the group. They isolated themselves in corners, cowering from the killer in their midst.

  Will came over to Kat, stroking her hair back from her forehead. “I can watch him while you finally get some sleep.”

  Sleep. It sounded so nice. But…

  She coughed again. “I’ll manage?” she offered weakly, to try and be strong.

  “Listen to you. Get some rest.” He motioned to where Chris huddled into himself. “Besides, someone needs you over there. Maybe you can…?”

  “Absolutely. Will?”

  He crossed his arms in front of his chest, suddenly kind of shy and unassuming. “What?”

  Unsure of what she wanted to say, Kat just smiled, affection radiating outward. “Thank you.”

  For not hating her?

  Hesitantly, he swept his knuckles over her cheek, then backed away, taking a seat next to Nestor, where a staring contest began between captive and captor.

  It looked like everyone else in the cave was claiming the sleep they hadn’t gotten last night. Kat craved it so badly that she started to shake.

  She grabbed her blankets and sat next to Chris, spreading her material out and laying him down, too. He wouldn’t let her hold him, but that was okay. All she needed to do was let him know that she was here.

  As the storm wind whipped through the trees, Kat finally went to sleep.

  But, when she was awakened later, it wasn’t because of a noise.

  It was because there was too much silence.

  Except for a body across the cave, the place was empty.

  Blinking awake, Kat averted her gaze and automatically reached for Chris. Gone. Just like everyone else. Except for…

  Please, God, no more victims, she thought, afraid to look closer, to see who it was this time.

  But she couldn’t stop. Slowly, her sight combed the cave, making its way to the flat, still body.

  Blankets, nice and neat, undisturbed. Fire flickering over the walls, snapping over the sound of raindrops. A man dressed in a T-shirt, sandy hair…

  Will.

  With a tight gasp, she tripped her way to where Nestor should’ve been sitting. Their suspect was gone, along with his ropes, the doctor, Chris, Duke, Larry and Louis.

  All gone.

  “Don’t you be dead,” she said. “Don’t you dare.”

  When she saw his chest lift slightly, Kat laughed in joy. Alive.

  “Will? Wake up. Will!”

  She stroked his forehead, trying to soothe him awake.

  He groaned. Oh, thank God. She was never so happy to hear a groan of…was it pain?

  As she kept persuading him to come to, she darted a gaze around the cave, on watch for anyone else. What had happened? Where was everybody?

  She searched for the knife at her side, seeking its cold comfort.

  But it was gone. Nothing useful for defense was around.

  As she searched for it, Will stirred, then moaned even louder, holding the back of his skull.

  “Bang,” he slurred out.

  Kat just stared at him. “Will, talk sense to me. Are you okay?”

  “I’m breathing, if that’s what you mean.” He closed his eyes and ruefully shook his head. “That bitch.”

  “What?”

  “Dr. Hopkins. She was getting up for a drink, she said. But next thing I knew—bang! I was on the ground seeing stars. And now?” He pointed to Nestor’s empty space. “They’re not here.”

  A club to the head, she thought. For some reason, Dr. Hopkins had only meant to stun.

  “And everyone else?” she asked.

  Will finally seemed to realize that they were alone. The pupils of his eyes enlarged, then adjusted. Kat reached out a hand to steady him as he wavered.

  “They were all here,” he said.

  Kat tried not to lose the last of her sanity. With all the calm she could muster, she glanced around the cave again. There, in the corner. Louis’s screwdriver.

  The only weapon she could see.

  She went over to grab it, to cling to it like the most morbid of security blankets. In the same move she got rid of the bandages on her hands. They would only get in the way when she needed to use the screwdriver, and she could deal with scraped palms and the pain if it meant living.

  “My knife is gone,” she told him. “I had it when I went to sleep.”

  A flash of lightning left half his face in shadow.

  Thunder answered, shaking the ground.

  “I don’t like this, Will,” she added.

  The first scream cut the air.

  Faint, distant.

  “Shit,” Kat whispered.

  The first thing she thought of was Dr. Hopkins and how she’d “saved” Nestor by freeing him and taking off with him.

  Will tried to struggle to his feet, then crashed back to the ground, cursing and holding his head.

  “Stay here,” Kat said, breath choppy. “You might have a concussion. You’re not in any shape to go anywhere.”

  “This is our chance to stop all this, Kat. We can’t sit here listening to someone die.”

  “I know.” She’d never be able to live with herself. And now that she thought more about it, Chris or Duke could be the one screaming.

  She had to go.

  A crack of thunder seemed to rattle the earth itself, but Kat took strength from it, knowing that the weather didn’t scare her as much as whatever else was out there.

  She took a step toward the storm, but the touch of Will’s hand on her belly jarred her to a stop. He spread his palm over her, tilting up a face full of desperate yearning. In his eyes, she could see the past, the future, the chance for forgiveness. Affection awakening once again, she slowly pressed her hand over his, guessing what he was thinking. When they’d made love, there hadn’t been any protection. There’d been no time, no need, no access.

  Had their impulsive affection given them another chance for a child? Was he indicating that he would take the news differently this time?

  “Be careful,” he said, resting his forehead against her hip, hiding his eyes before she could look deeper, before she could fully read what was beyond the blue-green surface.

  Kat’s heart folded into itself, but another agony-wracked scream yanked it back into a flat, pulsing plane where all her worst fears were gathering.

  “Back soon,” she said, voice shaking.

  Her promise seemed so out of place amidst the screams and chaos. So empty and full at the same time.

  She only had time to touch Will’s head before breaking away, bursting into the rain and running toward danger.

  “I’ll come when I can,” he yelled. But already, he seemed so far away.

  The screams, thunder, lightning all drowned him out.

  In spite of the tenderness of her palms, of her confused emotions, she raised the screwdriver and headed toward the mangled voices. She hurtled into the unknown, past looming trees, sharp branches, clawing leaves, into a lightning-lit clearing where she found two bodies sprawled in the undergrowth.

  Where she also found the victim tied to a tree.

  Louis Delacroix opened his mouth in a soundless
screech.

  The next few minutes were spliced together like a movie—zigs and flashes, scrambled and much too fast for eyes to make sense of:

  Walking toward Louis…

  Two bodies she couldn’t identify on her right side, but now behind her as she came near the gaping victim….

  Is Louis dangerous? Is he trying to trap me?

  Who did this to you, Louis?

  I can still save him.

  Then…

  Louis’s eyes, getting bigger as they fixed on something behind Kat. Louis, face half-designed by bloody cuts, starting to scream again.

  Mud scooped in hand, screwdriver raised, Kat turned around to fend off whatever was closing in.

  Something had risen from the foliage in the lightning.

  One of the two bodies that she’d thought was dead.

  As Kat froze, the shadowed form flew at her, one arm raised and holding a club, a predator who had successfully lured its prey with bait.

  Louis. Did it use Louis to get me here?

  Before she could even scream, it smashed the base of her skull.

  Stunned, Kat was driven to the ground, mud slapping against her face. A flash of pain shattered her sight, scrambling it.

  It’d happened so quickly, she hadn’t even processed the killer’s face…just the eyes…

  Those blazing, determined eyes.

  As dizziness breathed through her, she groaned, beaten by anguish, physical and mental. This wasn’t how a girl from her neighborhood was supposed to go down, she thought, almost humorously. This was too crazy to be real, it didn’t make sense, it couldn’t be happening.

  But it was, dammit. And she had to stop it before—

  Gathering the last of her strength, she let loose with a moan of rage, rolled to her back, raised the screwdriver.

  The face of the killer hovered over her. A blur. A…

  Just before the killer hit her with the large branch again, she sucked in a horrified breath of recognition.

  The world started going black, the swollen ink of an octopus filling her watery vision, tightening pain around her head.

  Never turn your back on the enemy, she thought as darkness crept over her. You know better than that, Kat. Never…