Model Suspect 3 (5 page)

“Yeah, we figured that one out right away,” George said. “Couldn’t you just have said no to that whole plan? It’s not your fault Pandora went all wacky—well, wacki
er
—and got herself arrested.”

“I suppose.” Sydney bit her lip. “But Vic thought it’d be helpful to the production if we went along with it, and it’s only for the first week….”

“Never mind,” I said, shooting George a look. The last thing we needed at the moment was to get Sydney even more upset! “It’s done now. So what happened?”

“I thought Vic and I would at least get some privacy on the flight down,” Sydney tapped her fingers nervously on the rubber pontoon beside her. “But the producers insisted on switching us onto the private plane they’d chartered for the crew so they could film on the way down. Then we couldn’t even enjoy arriving here in this gorgeous place, since Madge made us disembark from the plane, like, forty times trying to get that right shot. And then did the same thing with getting out of the limo when we got here….”

“Bummer,” George said succinctly.

“Anyway, Vic managed to talk them out of filming some kind of carrying-me-over-the-threshold scene after that, since they’d already done that back home at the hotel after the wedding. So we actually got to head over to the bungalow on our own.” Sydney drew in a long, shuddering sigh. “But when we got there, we found that mess I sent you in the picture!”

“Don’t worry,” I said, seeing that her blue eyes were filling with tears once again. “We’ll get to the bottom of it. But listen—were Akinyi and Jamal and Bo on that chartered flight too?”

“Bo was,” Sydney said. “But not the other two. They ended up taking our original first-class seats on the regular flight—just one more way for us to apologize, you know?” She shrugged. “Anyway, they were lucky. They got here a few hours before we did, so they actually had a chance to enjoy it before the crew arrived.”

She shot another sour look toward the cameramen back on shore, giving me a chance to take in what she’d just said. So Akinyi and Jamal had been at the resort for several hours before Sydney, Vic, and the others had arrived. Interesting.

I opened my mouth to ask another question, but I never got the chance. A loud, sharp retort rang out from somewhere in the direction of the shore, echoing
off the water and the trees. A second later came the
thunk
of something hitting one of our boat’s pontoons.

“Duck!” George cried, diving for the floor. “I think someone’s shooting at us!“

DANGER IN THE WATER

There was a moment of panic. We all hit the floor and covered our heads as another shot rang out. With my face pressed against the glass bottom of the boat, I had an excellent view of several brightly colored angelfish drifting by beneath us, their gently waving fins showing their complete lack of concern for the predicament of the humans up top. I could feel Bess shaking beside me and hear the sound of Sydney sobbing.

Now what?
I thought desperately, casting my mind around for something to do.
Should we dive into the water and try to swim away? Or
—

“Hey,” George said. “Is that it?”

I lifted my head, realizing that at least ten or fifteen seconds had passed and no additional shots had followed those first two.
Was
that it? Had the shots been some kind of accident or something?

“Oh, no!” Sydney sat up. “Look—they hit both our pontoons!”

I gasped, realizing she was right. No, those shots had been no accident.

“Come on.” I hoisted myself out over the rapidly shrinking pontoon and kicked off my shoes. The lagoon was fairly shallow, but still a bit too deep to stand up in where we were. “Guess we’d better swim for shore before the shooter decides to come back for more target practice.”

Soon all four of us were doggy-paddling toward shore. The water was calm and it was pretty easy going even dressed in the clothes we’d worn on the flight down. “Don’t let your feet touch any of the coral,” Bess warned us. “Some of it might be poisonous.”

“Good point,” George said.

I didn’t respond. It was difficult to tell which direction the shots had come from—sound carried differently over water than it did over land, especially since the lagoon was basically a big bowl surrounded on three sides by tree-lined slopes leading up to the mountains at the center of the island. But based on where the holes had appeared in those pontoons, I
was pretty sure the shooter had been somewhere in the thick jungle off beyond the beach to the north.

As I swam, I scanned the shoreline in that direction. Unfortunately the sun had started to sink toward the horizon and we were swimming almost directly into it, making it tough to see much in the shadowy trees along the shore. I squinted toward a jumble of large boulders. Had something moved behind there, or was it my imagination? Even if it wasn’t, how was I supposed to tell from here if it had been a bird, a monkey, an innocent hiker … or the wedding saboteur?

Just then I felt my toe scrape against something. Luckily it was just a rock and not coral, but I decided I’d better pay more attention to what I was doing, especially since the water was now shallow enough for us to walk upright. I wasn’t likely to see anything useful on shore anyway—anybody could be hiding anywhere in that jungle.

“Hey!” a shout came from the beach.

Looking up from picking my way among the coral formations, I saw that a small crowd had gathered there while we were swimming. Vic was at the front, standing calf-deep in the water, staring our way.

“We’re okay, Vic!” Sydney called breathlessly, waving to him.

“Yeah,” George added. “We—ow!”

I glanced over to see her dancing on one foot in the water, which was about waist-high by now. “You okay?”

“I’ll live.” She peered down at her foot. “I hope there are no sharks around here, though. I think I’m bleeding a little.”

We pushed forward through the shallows. Vic rushed in to grab Sydney and sweep her into his arms. She hugged him around the neck.

“What happened, babe?” he asked, hugging her back and then gently pushing her bedraggled red hair out of her face with one hand. “Trouble with the boat?”

Someone had turned off the boom box by now. But I realized its loud music must have masked the sound of those shots.

“Not exactly,” I said carefully, glancing toward the cameras. There were two cameramen there filming the scene from different angles, though I couldn’t help noticing that Butch wasn’t one of them. In fact, aside from the two camera operators and an older woman from the makeup team, nobody from the TV crew was in view at the moment.

“Wow, that looks painful,” Bess was saying to George, bending over to peer at the cut on her foot. “You might want to get it looked at.”

A uniformed resort employee pushed forward. “Yes, please come with me, miss,” he said in a polite but firm voice. “I’ll take you to the medical hut straightaway.”

“Don’t be silly,” George protested. “It’s just a little scrape. All I need is a Band-Aid.”

But the employee wouldn’t take no for an answer, explaining that coral cuts could be very dangerous if left untreated. George insisted it had been a sharp rock she’d stepped on rather than coral, but evidently the resort wanted to take no chances. Soon the young man and another employee were hustling her off down the beach.

Meanwhile I sidled toward another uniformed employee, an intelligent-looking middle-aged woman. “Listen,” I whispered to her. “I don’t want this to be on camera, but you should know—someone shot at us.”

The woman blinked and turned to stare at me. “I beg your pardon?”

I repeated the information, adding that I was pretty sure the shots had come from the direction of the jungle. By the time I finished, the employee was already shaking her head.

“I’m sure this was a very frightening experience, miss,” she said in a smooth, sympathetic voice. “But as the person who gave you that boat should have explained, there are a few spots with very sharp coral
that can tear the rubber pontoons if one isn’t careful. I’m sorry you weren’t properly warned about this.”

“No, you don’t understand.” I cast another quick look around to make sure neither of the cameras was too close. “It wasn’t the coral. Someone shot out those pontoons! You’ll see when you bring the boat in.”

“All right, we’ll take that under advisement.” The woman’s tone indicated quite plainly that she was humoring me, though her polite smile never wavered. “I’ll send someone out to get it first thing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I exclaimed. “No, you need to bring it in now! If someone looks at the punctures, maybe …”

My voice trailed off as I realized one of the cameramen had stepped closer and was filming me. The other camera was still aimed at Sydney and Vic.

“I’m very sorry your visit with us started out with this sort of unfortunate occurrence,” the employee said in that same smooth, professional voice. “We at the Oro Beach Resort would like to make it up to you with a complimentary massage at our world-class spa.”

With that, she turned away. I stared at the back of her head, feeling frustrated. Chief McGinnis of the River Heights Police Department might not be the
sharpest tack on the bulletin board, but at least he usually took me seriously! It was clear this woman didn’t. She wasn’t even planning to drag that pontoon boat out of the lagoon until the next day, let alone warn people that there might be a gun-toting maniac on the loose. So what was I supposed to do now?

I glanced around. Vic was still holding Sydney. She was crying, and he was trying to shield her from the camera with his body. Nearby, Bo and Jamal were just standing there, shifting their weight from foot to foot and looking uncertain.

“Please!” Sydney wailed as the cameraman stepped around for a better angle. “Can’t you just leave us alone for a second?”

Vic glared at the cameraman. “Yeah, have a heart, dude,” he said. “Give us a sec, okay?”

“Sorry, Vic. Just doing my job,” the cameraman responded calmly, taking a step closer and focusing on Sydney.

Vic scowled and gently lowered his new wife to the sand. “Listen,” he blustered, clenching his fists. “You know I’m usually cool with the whole all-access thing. But I asked you nicely, and now I’m telling you. Back off. Or I’ll have to make you do it.”

Uh-oh. He sounded pretty steamed. And it looked like the cameraman wasn’t planning to back down—he
was a big guy, almost as broad and burly as Butch or Bo. I glanced around, wishing Madge or Donald was around to break this up, but neither of them was anywhere in sight.

“Listen, both of you,” Bess said in her most soothing tone. “Let’s just take a deep breath….”

“Yes, please,” added the female employee I’d spoken to. “I’m sure we can work things out, gentlemen.”

Vic just glared at her. Before he could respond, there was a loud buzz from the direction of some beach chairs nearby.

“Dude, it’s your phone,” Bo said, grabbing something off one of the chairs and tossing it to Vic.

Vic caught the cell phone and glanced at it, seeming distracted. Then he blinked and brought the phone closer to his face, peering at the tiny screen with an expression of confusion and dismay.

“What is it, Vic?” Sydney asked, stepping closer for a look. When she saw whatever was on the phone, she let out a loud gasp. “Oh, no!” she cried.

“Hey!” Madge’s loud, abrasive voice broke into the scene. She came barreling onto the beach. “What’s going on? Heard there was some kind of trouble.”

“What is it, man?” Jamal asked, staring at Vic with concern.

Vic glanced at him, then over at Bo. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing. Just that guy we met in Seattle.”

Bo nodded. Then he glanced out toward the lagoon. His eyes widened, and he jumped forward, pointing out that way.

“Hey, check it out!” he shouted. “Shark!”

FINNY BUSINESS

Bo’s sudden outburst caused another flurry of exclamations and shouts of alarm. “Are you serious? There’s a shark out there?” Madge cried. She turned and jabbed a finger at the cameramen. “This is golden. Get it on film!”

Both cameramen were way ahead of her. Their lenses were already turned out toward the waters of the lagoon, searching for the shark.