Harry turned to face them. “Looks like the station’s not as abandoned as we thought.”
“This isn’t just casual boaters crashing for the night and partying in here,” Alex said. “You see those shell casings. And that map—there are markings on it. Shipping routes or something.”
Cat and Luisa had come into the mess hall. Luisa whispered a variation on the same question. Something else had caught Gabe’s attention, though, and he walked to the back of the mess hall. Above a huge industrial metal sink, a window had been smashed in. His Birkenstocks crunched broken glass underfoot.
“Someone came in this way,” he said. “Glass in the sink, too. All over the place back here.”
“That makes no sense,” Harry said. “Someone’s been using this place, but it’s definitely not just one person. Whoever brought all that stuff in here—a fucking coffee maker—they didn’t come through that window.”
“We shouldn’t be here,” Luisa said, all of her usual mischief gone. Her voice had dropped an octave and all trace of playfulness had vanished. “Alex is right. Those bullet casings are a dead giveaway. No fucking pun intended. Whoever’s been using this place, they’re not going to like the idea of unwelcome visitors.”
“The lock,” Cat said. “It seemed … too new.”
“But if they put their own lock on, what about the broken window?” Alex asked.
Gabe had joined Harry, staring at the map.
“Drug smugglers, you think?” he said.
“Or guns,” Alex said, pointing out those shell casings again. There was something ominous about them, the boldness of the way they’d been lined up on the sill, no different from the beer cans that had been stacked into a pyramid in that bedroom. Someone didn’t see any difference between empty beer cans and empty shell casings.
“Could be pirates, for all we know,” Luisa said.
“Or care,” Cat asked. She walked over to Harry, took his face in hers, and made sure he met her gaze. “You’ve been here. Whatever this pilgrimage was about, you’ve done it. Say hello and goodbye to your dad and let’s get our asses out of here.”
Harry nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He glanced around the room again; then he turned to leave.
Alex exhaled. They were alone, but this had spooked him. Orchid Atoll might have been paradise, but he thought it was a very bad idea for the Kid Galahad to stay anchored in the bay, or lagoon, or whatever the water inside the atoll’s ring was called. They were all walking back the way they’d come, heading out of the mess, when they heard a very clear thump behind them.
“Kitchen,” Harry whispered.
Gabe raised a hand and gestured for the others to stay back. He moved back across the mess hall. Luisa stayed where she’d been, but Cat and Harry started following Gabe, padding quietly, all of them on tenterhooks now. They’d all been drinking, their thoughts softly blurred not only by alcohol but also by the beauty and serenity of the atoll. The blood had been a surprise to them. So had the bullets. They hadn’t expected a mystery, or any hint of violence. Now the thump seemed to linger in the room, the silence yawning, waiting to absorb whatever sound might come next.
The mess hall had two doors on the far wall. Alex calculated quickly. If the bullet-laden windowsill faced south and the broken window north, then they’d entered the mess from the west side of the room. There were two doors in the east wall. One had a heavy padlock that still gleamed, just like the knob and lock they’d broken to get in here. Too new, he thought now. They should have seen it right away.
The other door in the east wall—the door Gabe now crept toward, his big hands empty, his body tensed and ready for a fight—had no knob. No lock. Harry had mumbled about the kitchen, and Alex knew it had to be. Probably a swinging door for servers to pass back and forth.
Cat and Harry followed four or five steps behind Gabe. Alex blinked, realizing that he ought to be with them—that if someone familiar with blood and bullets waited on the other side of that door they were going to need help.
He took two steps across the room and nearly jumped out of his skin when Luisa clamped a hand on his shoulder. Spinning, right hand clenched into a fist, he felt his heart thunder in his chest as he stared into her eyes.
“What are you idiots doing?” she rasped.
Gabe froze. He, Harry, and Cat all turned to glare at her for breaking the silence. But Alex understood. She was right, of course. Luisa thought they should all be going the other way, getting the hell out of there, which had been their initial instinct.
“Harry,” he said.
Cat held a finger to her lips. Gabe gestured for all of them to freeze. He pushed gently on the swinging door. The hinges creaked and he let the door swing closed again. They all waited. Despite Luisa’s caution, Alex freed his arm from her grip and took two more steps. He felt flushed, muscles taut, ready for whatever came next.
Gabe put his fingers on the door again and slowly pushed it open. Harry, Cat, and Alex all moved closer, coming within just a few feet. Alex watched over Gabe’s shoulder as the kitchen revealed itself—the massive sink, the antique stove, the long metal cooking island in the middle of the room.
“What the hell—” Gabe began.
Cat passed Harry and joined Gabe in the doorway, quietly cautioning him.
Only now, as Cat and Gabe moved into the kitchen and propped the door open, could Alex see what had caught Gabe’s attention. The thump hadn’t been the wind, and it hadn’t been wildlife. A shirtless man lay on the floor, sprawled in a bloody heap in front of the stove. His clothes were caked to his body with what Alex thought must be blood and sweat and maybe salt, for he looked as if he’d been in the water at some point. He had tied his bloody T-shirt around his left thigh and cinched it tightly. Through the tatters of the trouser leg below, Alex could see a ragged wound in the meat of his thigh, crusted with dried blood but also still weeping crimson.
Alex stared at the wound as his thoughts raced. Had this guy broken the window? Had he ripped his leg open on the glass? He hadn’t gotten there without a boat, so where the hell was it?
“Gabe?” Harry said. “Is he alive?”
As Gabe glanced back at them all, frowning in frustration—of course he didn’t know if the guy was alive—the man on the floor moved. With a whisper and crackle of stiff, dried clothing and a cry of pain and anguish, the man rolled over. In a single motion, as he rolled, he whipped his right arm around, a cast-iron skillet in his hand. The skillet hit Gabe’s skull with a wet crunch. As Gabe collapsed to the floor, the man scrambled onto him, still screaming. He swung the skillet again. Alex and Cat were both in motion, but Harry reached them first. He grabbed hold of the man’s arm, trying to check his swing. The skillet glanced off Gabe’s forehead, the edge slicing skin, spraying blood, but even as Alex hurled himself at the man and ripped him off Gabe he knew that if Harry hadn’t interfered that blow would have been the end of Gabe.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Luisa kept saying, like it was a prayer that didn’t seem to be working. She’d come into the kitchen when the screaming started and now Cat took her hand.
Alex held the bleeding man down, saw his bleary eyes and the scruff of beard, and wondered how long this man had been here. At first he’d thought the guy must be old, but he was just withered.
The guy whimpered. He fought, but so weakly it was clear his attack on Gabe had used up all the strength he could muster. Alex turned to look at Harry.
“Gabe?” Alex said. “Is he…”
Harry knelt by Gabe. Blood sluiced down Gabe’s handsome face. The first mate tried to talk, but the words were halting gibberish.
“He’s in shock,” Cat said. “And that hit—it didn’t sound good, you guys.”
“Jesus,” Harry rasped, and he stood and glanced around as if it had just hit him that they were on Orchid Atoll, in the middle of the Pacific, hundreds of miles from anyone who could help them.
With one exception.
Alex ripped the skillet from th
e guy’s hand and stood up. The guy moaned, then rolled onto his side, closing his eyes as if this had all been a bad dream. Alex pulled off his T-shirt and threw it to Luisa.
“Rip this up. Tie his hands. You and Cat are going to have to take charge of him. Bring him with us. Harry and I will carry Gabe.”
“Carry him where?” Harry said, freaking out more than a little. “All our first-aid crap is on the Galahad and Gabe’s got more training than I do anyway. Fuck, man, what are we gonna do?”
Alex tossed the skillet across the room. It hit the floor with a clatter as he hustled over to Gabe, knelt, and reached under his arms. “We’re taking him back to the beach and then to the boat. More important, we’re taking him to Sami. You know, my wife? The doctor? Now get his legs.”
Cat moved toward the door, empty-handed.
“What are you doing?” Alex called.
“Being the smart one,” Cat said. “Yes, get him outside. Carefully. Or at least to the door. Don’t get that wound full of sand. Otherwise sit tight and I’ll be back.”
She bolted, her footfalls echoing back to them.
“Where are you going?” Harry called after her.
Alex knew. He’d been in shock, not thinking straight. “She’s going to bring the doctor to the patient.”
Luisa started to rip Alex’s T-shirt, staring down at the scruffy, wounded man on the floor. “I’ll tie his hands, but I’m not sure there’s much point.”
She nudged Gabe’s attacker with her foot. “I think this guy is dead.”
When the man groaned, she jumped backward. Unleashing a string of profanity, she turned the whimpering man onto his stomach and began to bind his wrists behind his back.
Alex looked at Harry. They exchanged a silent nod and then hoisted Gabe off the floor. Harry’s anguish was plain on his face, but he glanced around, moving swiftly and efficiently, careful with the swinging door.
Kneeling on the floor, cinching the lunatic’s wrists, Luisa called after them, “Harry. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask you—”
Harry and Alex paused halfway through the door with Gabe heavy in their grasp, unconscious and bleeding, the wound in his skull glistening.
“What?” Harry snapped.
“If Gabe’s out of action,” she said, “can you sail the boat without him?”
Alex felt his skin go cold. Ice trickled down his back. The question hadn’t even occurred to him and now he stared at Harry.
“Not alone,” Harry said. “But I can teach one of you what you need to know. And we can call for help. We’ll get home, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He said this last with disdain, as if he wanted Luisa to know how disgustingly selfish it was to be thinking of herself when Gabe’s blood spattered the kitchen floor. But now that she’d asked the question, now that he’d seen the uncertainty in Harry’s eyes, Alex found his concern for Gabe fading. He hoped the guy would be all right, but getting away from Orchid Atoll seemed more important now.
Someone had left the crazy son of a bitch here. Someone had lined those bullets up on the windowsill in the mess hall, and pinned those maps on the walls. This place belonged to them now. Whoever had claimed this place, they weren’t the Coast Guard.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s move. Gabe’s in serious trouble.”
Harry knew that. He glared at Alex as they staggered across the mess and then down the corridor, Gabe swaying between them. It had been a stupid thing to say. Harry knew very well what kind of trouble Gabe was in. He’d only said it to speed them along.
Whatever might happen to Gabe, that chapter had already been written.
It was the rest of them that concerned Alex now.
Come on, Cat, he thought. Move your ass.
CHAPTER 10
Sami lay stretched out on her towel, sunglasses on, the last few ounces of her third Orchid Sunrise tilting in her cup as she drifted in that lovely gray space that wasn’t quite a nap but sure as hell wasn’t wakefulness. She listened to the water. Listened to the voices of the new friends around her. Dev and Alliyah had gone for a walk—the opposite direction from the Coast Guard station—to see how deep the channels ran between the fragments of the atoll’s ring. Nalani and James had come back from whatever they’d been doing during their swim, laughing together and talking about all the places in the world they hoped one day to see. They were focused completely on each other and that suited Sami just fine. Their voices were a pleasant background buzz to go along with the other buzz she was working on.
At first the shouting along the beach sounded like the cries of seagulls. Mixed with the shush of the surf, the noise melded with her expectations of the sorts of noises to be expected here. But there were no gulls here.
Her hand twitched, spilling a few ounces of Orchid Sunrise onto the sand. Her eyes opened.
“Sami!”
Now she sat up. Nalani and James had dropped their conversation, finally turning their focus to someone else. Alliyah and Dev were returning from their stroll.
“What’s going on?” Alliyah called.
By then Sami had started to rise, blinking sleepily behind her sunglasses. Her cup lay forgotten beside her towel. She stared at the lone figure running along the beach toward them. Cat Skolis shouted her name again—not anyone else’s, just hers. Sand flew up behind her as she ran, legs pumping. Sami looked past her in confusion, wondering where the others were, wondering why Cat was alone.
Alex. No no no. Something had happened to Alex.
“What the hell—” James began.
Sami left him there, left them all there. She started running to meet Cat, listing badly to first one side and then the other. She stumbled in the sand and nearly fell. Her thoughts were muddled and she understood now that somewhere between the second and third drinks she’d entered the strange twilight zone of drunkenness. Sami wasn’t shit-faced, not so intoxicated that she wouldn’t remember this moment or that she’d slur her words or vomit or pass out, but this was more than buzzed.
And something had happened to Alex. They had their little girl at home and she needed her dad.
The two women closed the distance between each other so quickly that Sami nearly collided with her. They caught each other by the arms, leaning together, Cat breathing hard from the run and Sami unsteady with drink.
“What is it?” Sami asked. “Is Alex okay? What happened?”
Catching her breath, Cat waved the words away, a deep frown on her face. “It’s not Alex … it’s Gabe. This guy jumped him … bashed him … in the head—”
“Guy? What guy? Alex is okay? What guy? How badly is Gabe—”
Cat took her arm, started her moving back the way she’d come. “It’s bad, I think, but you’re the doctor. All I can tell you is that we need to move fast.”
The others called to them, asking questions. Cat did her best to answer on the run, but Sami had tuned them all out. She and Cat reached the dinghy. James and Nalani were there helping, pushing the little motorboat off the beach. Cat climbed in and then reached down for Sami’s hand, eyes imploring.
“I’m…,” Sami began. “Oh, shit, Cat, I’m drunk.”
Cat only frowned deeply and narrowed her eyes. “Sober the fuck up, honey, or I think this guy’s as good as dead.”
This is a nightmare, Sami thought as she let Cat help her into the dinghy. I’m having a bad dream. But she knew it wasn’t true. As Cat fired up the engine, Sami lost her balance and fell on her ass in the boat, sprawled across a bench with her legs in the air, feeling like a fool. By the time she hauled herself into a sitting position, the dinghy was roaring through the water, skipping across waves, with the Coast Guard station growing larger ahead of them. Something moved in her peripheral vision and she glanced to the right and spotted a fin in the water. It blurred and she rubbed at her eyes, realizing there were two of them, one about thirty feet away from the first, sharks cruising in the bay inside the encircling arms of the atoll. When Sami blinked again, one of them
had vanished under the water.
Tracking the progress of the other fin, she shuddered, but then she heard more shouting and turned to see the others running along the beach, unable to keep up with the boat. The sharks were forgotten.
Cat cut the engine fifteen feet from the sand but kept it aimed for the station. The dinghy skidded onto the beach, tipped to one side, and Cat was already jumping out. She turned and reached up for Sami.
Reality crystallized for her. She stood, empty-handed. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I’ve got nothing.”
Harry ran down to meet them. He had to have anticipated this moment. “First-aid kit under the pilot’s seat!” he barked. “Let’s go!”
Blinking hard, breathing deeply, Sami forced herself to focus. The alcohol made her throat dry and her head ache and her ability to think clearly seemed to ebb and flow like the surf, but she grabbed the first-aid kit, unclipped it, and then scrambled off the dinghy without crashing, limbs splayed, onto the sand.
“Come on,” she said, hurrying unsteadily toward the Coast Guard station.
“She’s drunk,” Harry said.
“Obviously,” Cat replied.
To his credit, whatever Harry thought about Sami’s condition, he said nothing more. Alarm bells were screaming inside her head and she felt like throwing up not from booze but from the weight of this crisis that had just fallen on her. Instead, she ran, weaving a bit, to the door of the station and stepped inside.
Alex knelt beside Gabe, who lay on the floor with half of Alex’s T-shirt under his head. Farther into the building, Luisa held what looked like a broken chair leg and kept guard over a bearded, blood-caked, filthy man who sat propped against the wall, hands tied behind his back, eyes slitted, mumbling and barely conscious.
Sami dragged the back of her hand over her lips, as if wiping away the taste of the alcohol could erase its effects. She took a breath and dropped to her knees beside Gabe, across from her husband. Alex watched her quietly. He knew her, must have seen that she wasn’t entirely herself, but he also knew that she worked best when she could tune out the rest of the world.
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