by Marx, J. A.
“Why?” Isaac pitched the bamboo spear piece. “The guy’s sick. Infection and the gangrenous foot will bring him down.”
Gangrene? Akiko feared contracting some disease.
“Let’s patrol the tree line. You okay splitting up?”
“You betcha.” Akiko still longed to make up for his meanness toward the birthday girl.
When the safetyman headed south, Akiko strode north, knife in hand. He knew God had forgiven him, but he wasn’t sure about his reputation on earth. This was his chance to prove himself.
Noises behind him fired adrenaline through his veins. Oh man. He spun around and thrust his weapon.
“Whoa.” Chiara immobilized his hand. “Watch out with that thing.”
Akiko choked down shock. “Why were you sneaking up on me? I could’ve hurt you.”
“You’d need a more lethal weapon than a pocketknife, silly.” Nearly impaled, she smiled serenely and gave back his wrist. “Did your P.E. tutor water down your training?”
P.E. tutor? He didn’t follow her line of thinking. “Isaac and I were investigating.” He closed the blade with trembling hands.
She motioned southward with her head. “Let’s go check out the cave.”
Accompanying her through the trees, Akiko tinkered with his inferior knife. He was supposed to be warrior-like. Next to GI Jane, he felt like bland white bean curd.
“Yo!” Isaac called from up in a tree.
Speaking of warriors. Akiko resumed guard duty elsewhere, but within earshot.
Isaac climbed a tree to watch for party crashers, but all he could think about was Chiara’s spirited character. He chuckled over how she had smeared his shirt with jelly the other night. And her long legs put her in the running for the track team. How did girls with alpine curves run that fast?
Forget the physical. It was her thrashing innocence toward life that raided his affection. Made him tingle all over. He knew the effects of grieving and recovering from shock distorted a valid perception of her, but something had clearly changed in her after last night. She owned hope. Isaac was convinced that her graceless, defensive behavior would decrease if they kept pouring on Etiquette Academy.
The sound of talking disrupted his daydream and admonished him for straying from guard duty. He didn’t even realize Chiara had left the beach. “Yo, birthday girl! What’s up?” He saluted her from ten feet above.
Her gaze climbed to meet his. “Hey, monkey man.” She peeled off her damp T-shirt and shook off sprinkles of sand. “I’m thinking about scaling the cliff. What about you?”
No scaling on my watch. He hung onto the branch with one hand and scratched his ribs like a chimp. “I’m just monkeying around. Oooh, oooh oooh, aaah aaah.”
She cracked up, intoxicating him with her breathy giggles.
“Oooh—Whoa!” Losing his grip, Isaac dropped straight down and landed hard.
Eyes closed, he took inventory of his stunned body. Nothing felt broken, only bruised. Lungs winded.
“Wild Man?”
Say it again. Smiling at the sweet sound, he opened his eyes.
Beauty hovered over him,
Wet ebony hair smoothed back over her head.
Olive cheeks tinted pink from the sun.
Enchanting eyes. Exquisitely plump lips,
Beckoning for undefiled companionship.
“Are you hurt?” Words dripped from her mouth like morning dew from a mountain flower.
Lost in a poetic paradise, Isaac forgot his pain … until Akiko’s face spoiled the vision.
Don’t look below her chin. Warmth streamed up Isaac’s neck to his temples. “Where’s your T-shirt?”
“I was just putting it on.” She sat back and wedged her way into the clammy cover-up.
Grinning, Akiko extended a hand. “Time to head back?”
“Uh-huh.” Pulled to his feet, Isaac stumbled over exposed roots.
Akiko snickered. “Need a blind cane?”
I’ll cane you in a minute.
After getting Jase to race Chiara to the bungalow, Isaac drew the Ivy Leaguer aside for a Latin lesson.
Sabio emptied sand from his dry mask. “Translation. ‘What fools these mortals be.’”
“Take me there.” Isaac collected his and Chiara’s snorkel gear.
“Why? It’s a rancid lair.”
He persuaded Sabio to go. On the way, they dropped off the gear at the bungalow and grabbed tennis shoes. Isaac gave Akiko orders to help guard Chiara before heading out with one of the two-ways.
Sabio jogged down the trail. “I told her she could come to Ohio with us.”
Absorbed in her past, Isaac hadn’t considered her future. Pleasure added a bounce to his jog. “I can’t picture her in the big city.”
“I’m partly to blame for any delusions. Jase and I couldn’t resist feeding her appetite for the real world.” The scholar stopped to retie a lace. “Her utopian perceptions could hinder her adjustment.”
Brainwashed crossed Isaac’s mind. The effects of her isolation continually astounded him. He bounced off a boulder. “Did you challenge her false perceptions?”
“Experience will do the job.” Sabio leaped up, hung on a low branch, and dropped. “Part of me still wonders if she’s bluffing. Playing a game.”
Isaac aimed to convince the world of her innocence. “Ignore the doubts. Follow your heart.”
“I do, except when her bizarre personality defies my perception of normal.”
No argument against that.
Uneasiness pestered Isaac as they skirted the banyan tree, the infamous landmark where Darkness had tried to strangle Chiara.
Sabio yanked on an elephant leaf. “She told us more about life aboard the Nave.”
I missed it! “Fill me in.”
“Picture a seven-year-old girl forced to wear lingerie.”
Isaac ended up with a nauseating image of Akiko’s ten-year-old sister modeling for Victoria’s Secret.
“Now insert a hairy old dude bribing her with a lollypop so he could fondle her.”
Not on my watch. Riled by the appalling scenario, Isaac punted a hairy coconut off the path.
“Her casual, graphic language gave me the impression her involvement with rich scum is so entrenched that her mind perceived it all as normal.” Sabio shook his head. “I don’t understand why she’s not flirtatious after growing up in that environment.”
Isaac didn’t dwell on the temptations that could’ve ruined the week had Chiara’s past made her promiscuous. Contemplating her overall tragedy rekindled a few tears. “My upbringing was deluxe compared to her stolen childhood. She’s made me grateful for everything I have.”
An orphan. He slowed as they exited the trail. “My upbringing was deluxe compared to her stolen childhood. She’s made me grateful for everything I have.”
The scholar paused at the boathouse and jiggled the door. “I probably shouldn’t admit this, but part of me wants to experience Omeàla’s diabolical, lawless culture so I can identify with her.”
“That is pretty demented, Sabio.”
“The prospect of encountering human trash like the late Lord Vétis discourages me from further considering the idea.”
Past the boathouse and helipad, Sabio led him into the vegetation.
Isaac hopped over what must’ve been Akiko’s deposit of vomit and plodded through several yards of dense foliage. They stopped at the threshold of a small open area, and an intensifying, rotten stench wrinkled his nose. Straight across was the hammock and mosquito netting from the boathouse stretched between two trees. A few feet over, stood a fire pit.
He approached the stone altar that made up the camp’s nucleus. Blotched with blood and ashes, it measured a good three times larger than the satellite altars scattered around the island. Scads of flies swarmed the animal carcasses and the poisoned dishtowel.
“Chiara’s sandal.” Isaac resisted rescuing the footwear that was once intimately attached to her body.
“See
n enough?” Sabio stayed on the outskirts of the gruesome campsite.
Gagging, Isaac covered his nose and retreated across the perimeter.
“What if she does know Dr. Caedis?” The gravity in Sabio’s voice fired up Isaac’s defenses.
Given last night’s confession and the demonic message on the bathroom mirror, it was a dreadful possibility. “No. She would have told us about him.”
Chapter 52
Jase dried off after showering and wrapped the towel around his waist. Using his forearm, he squeegeed the condensation off the mirror.
“Such a hunk.” His reflection agreed. A glob of gel fixed his hair into nifty spikes. “Ready to party on.”
He hustled into the bunkroom and closed the door. A bright blue tie-dye top and Levi shorts made the cut for his afternoon attire. Zipping up his shorts, Jase noticed a piece of paper sticking out of his guitar case.
He unfolded it to find the U.S. flag Chiara had drawn Monday morning. On the flipside, a handwritten note.
Jase. I have vital information to tell YOU ALONE. Shhh.
The sooner the better. Nod at me twice then leave.
I’ll follow in five minutes and meet you at the cave. Chiara
The assignment didn’t trouble Jase, but the potential content of her confession did. No more nightmarish news, please. He stuffed the note back inside the case.
Leaving the bunkroom, he saw Chiara cleaning her old clothes at the large washbasin. He stopped outside the bathroom and nodded twice as the note instructed.
She winked. “Got Swedish Fish for the birthday girl?”
Sugar to dull possible sorrow? “Out of stock ’til Ohio.”
Starved, Jase almost asked her to wait until after lunch, but he didn’t want to discourage her openness. He waved good-bye to Akiko and then jogged the green mile toward Snorkel Bay. Ducking under the vine that drooped across the end of the trail, he straightened up on the other side.
An iron branch struck his head.
Acute pain. He dropped to his knees … and blacked out.
Where am I? Jase opened his eyes and spit dirt from his mouth. His wrists were bound at his back. A hand clenched his hair and lifted his head. Neck bent, skull throbbing, he yelped.
A blade nuzzled his temple. “Unless you fancy being scalped, I suggest you oblige us.”
He guessed his assailant’s identity, though he’d never seen him. The us part freaked him out. “Okay.”
The knife withdrew, and a strip of duct tape slapped over Jase’s mouth. He sucked in air, nostrils flaring.
“Get up.” Dr. Caedis wrenched his bound arms.
Jase rose, lightheaded.
Getting his first look at the half-naked psycho, he wished he hadn’t—at least not the predator-like eyes. Scrapes and bug bites on the guy’s torso showed through the shredded shirt. He stunk worse than ten dumpsters.
No one else in view.
They’re behind me. Too afraid to turn and look, Jase didn’t want to know how many us were, especially if they resembled Caedis.
A butcher knife that looked exactly like the one from the bungalow prodded him forward. He crossed the stony shore toward the mouth of the cave.
Chiara. He halted, knees wobbling. Desperate not to let Caedis capture her, too, he prayed she’d see what was happening and go back for help.
A nip of the blade drove him inside.
The cave, at least three grand pianos wide, extended twice that in depth into an eternal midnight. Jase stooped under the sloping ceiling where the gravel thinned into a solid floor. He stepped cautiously into the darkness.
A shaft of light stabbed the floor. The bungalow’s flashlight. Hanging from Caedis’s shoulder was the bungalow’s canvas satchel.
Thief.
“Sit there.” The light beam specified the spot.
Jase sank onto the cool ground against a stalagmite.
The man’s eerily illumined face upped his creepiness. “Unlike Kiko, your princess knows who to obey. She’s had you fooled from the start.”
Chiara? Jase’s gut knotted.
The doctor pressed a section of duct tape on his ribs below the bruise then looped it around him and the stalagmite several times.
Bonded with the rock, Jase labored for a full breath. Pain wracked his chest.
“Exceptionally clever, your princess.” A criminal smirk cracked the man’s face.
You lie. Jase’s bare arms, wedged behind him, scraped against the rough rock.
“Duct tape. Good for so many things.” Caedis kissed the roll of tape before laying it aside. “Wish I’d invented it.”
Opening the satchel, he pulled out a string. On the end dangled a black scorpion.
Straining for air, Jase kicked his legs, fighting his bonds.
“Their sting is fatal.” A sneer matched the threat.
What have I done to deserve this?
“Hope. Or Chiara, if you prefer, said to cut off your fingers as a protest to your music. I’m choosing another method. Either way, your playing will stop.”
Rivers of sweat streamed down Jase’s temples. Had Chiara been awake when Caedis broke in this morning? Was she watching him from the shadows?
Using duct tape, Dr. Psycho hung the tethered scorpion from the cave roof so it hovered only inches above Jase. He hung two more in front of Jase’s face and two in front of his chest. “Beautiful creatures. Beautiful death.”
I trusted her. No wonder the doctor hadn’t disturbed Chiara. She was conspiring! She was the us he’d referred to on the trail.
Tears humiliated Jase. His nostrils bubbled like a snotty baby’s nose.
Using a dishtowel, Caedis picked up a sixth scorpion and brought it toward Jase’s sandaled feet.
He jerked his feet back but then lowered his knees away from the hovering stingers.
“If this first sting doesn’t kill you, I’ll have to repeat the procedure when I return.” Caedis laid the scorpion against Jase’s foot.
The stinger pierced, and nails of fire ripped up his leg. He screamed behind the tape.
“Once more would expedite the process. Yes?”
No! A second sting set off unrivaled pain. “Mmmm—!” He lurched toward the scorpion death squad, barely saved by the tape restraints.
What if they fell off the strings? Onto his lap? Jase’s throat tightened.
“We’ll be back.” Dr. Caedis left with the flashlight.
Why did I trust her? Abandoned in the dark, Jase shook, sweat, burned. He couldn’t see how close he was to the stingers. He may never see again.
Akiko swung the door back and forth, fanning out the bathroom after his shower. He picked Jase’s damp trunks off the floor and hung them to dry. Not seeing the musician anywhere, Akiko figured he was off playing his guitar.
Hearing a familiar package crackle open, he hurried to the kitchen. A snack would hold him over until Sabio and Isaac returned for lunch, which Akiko had prepared before showering.
A one-pound bag of nuts sat open on the counter. Chiara was crouched on the floor, searching the cabinet below.
“Love cashews.” Akiko sneaked two nuts as GI Jane rose … and rose. Dude, you’ve gotta be almost six-feet.
She filled a plastic bag with nuts then started toward the deck.
Uh-oh. “Where are you going?”
One hand on the door grip, she looked over her shoulder. “To the beach.”
Keep your cool, Kiko. “Birthday girls aren’t allowed to be alone.”
A scowl puckered her face. “I need to be alone. I’ve got a lot of outer foundation to strip off.”
The over-sheltering obviously annoyed her.
Akiko doubted Caedis would risk the limelight since they all knew about him, especially if the guy was evading the authorities. But that didn’t guarantee Chiara’s safety outside alone.
And Isaac would kill him if Akiko let her go anywhere by herself. “I’ve got some reading to do. Mind if I come along for the solitude.” Brilliant. Multiparty soli
tude.
She sighed and smiled. “Can’t resist that line of reasoning, can I?”
Snagging a bird book off the shelf and the nut package off the counter, Akiko followed her out the door.
Chapter 53
Isaac backtracked from the lair to the shore where a refreshing breeze rinsed him of hideous odors. If it weren’t for the psycho, he’d be lazing on the beach, rejuvenating himself before having to return to the world of accident victims.
“If gangrene doesn’t flush Caedis out of hiding soon, we’ve gotta hunt him down.” Isaac decided he’d bind the guy first and then care for his wounds. Out of duty, not compassion.
He took the lead, engaging the footpath with a militant gait.
“I detect another Isaac-operation underway.” Sabio steered him toward the boathouse. “Let’s make sure he didn’t steal the raft or other equipment.”
Blades raised, they swept the building from corner to corner. All Cay property was present.
On the way out, Isaac latched the boathouse door. “Let’s check in at the bungalow then recon the cave.”
“How about checking in at the kitchen.” Sabio’s rumbling stomach supported his suggestion.
Finding the bungalow vacant, Isaac browsed the meal schedule to see who had prep duty. He opened the fridge and raked his eyes over plates of foodstuff ready to go.
Good job, Kiko. Isaac grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds before shutting the appliance. “Where is everyone?”
“I think Chiara likes to be on the move as much as you do.”
She does like adventure. That thought carried pleasure.
Sabio opened his Swiss Army knife and looked it over. “Dull. Exactly how I feel with low blood sugar. I need a quick snack.”
Isaac pocketed a matchbook from the drawer then circled the peninsula. “Since we’re alone …”
“Open the skylight.”
“Matches work better.” He grabbed a book on sharks on his way to the bathroom. The noticeable food shortage required another fishing trip.
