Model Suspect 3 (6 page)

“Hang on, I’m on it!” Bo hollered, ripping off his T-shirt. “Yo, I’ve always wanted to wrestle a shark.
Banzai!
”

He raced down toward the water’s edge and flung himself in, causing a huge splash. I just stared along
with everyone else, startled and a little confused by this turn of events.

“Where is it?” Bess stepped over next to me, shading her eyes with one hand. “I don’t see any shark.”

“Me either.” I was already starting to recover from my surprise.

Madge was standing at the water’s edge, not seeming to notice that tiny, gentle waves were lapping over the toes of her expensive-looking leather pumps. One of the cameramen was in up to his knees, while the other had scooted down the beach to catch another angle.

Bo was a pretty strong swimmer and was already a good distance out. He stopped and came up for air.

“There it is!” he yelled, waving one hand vaguely ahead of him. Then he let out an excited whoop. “Yeah, you
better
swim away from me, Jaws, if you know what’s good for you!”

He flung himself forward again, swimming hard. “Whoa,” Madge muttered. She shot a look at the cameramen. “This could be huge! Keep on him, guys.”

“You go, Bo!” Jamal shouted, dancing around at the edge of the water pumping both fists in the air. “You’ll show that shark who’s boss, boy!”

I was surprised anew by that. It was never a surprise
to see Bo or Vic hamming it up for the cameras. But Jamal hadn’t really seemed like the type.

I glanced over to see how Sydney was taking all this. She was already on edge, and I was afraid a random shark appearance might be all that was needed to send her over it.

But to my further surprise, she was nowhere in sight. Neither was Vic. The two of them had disappeared during all the commotion!

Just then Bess nudged me. “Come on,” she whispered. “This way.”

Feeling a little confused, I followed as she tiptoed away, staying out of Madge’s sight line. We both ducked behind a neatly clipped hedge at the edge of the beach and hurried along until we were well hidden behind an equipment shed. We rounded the corner and saw Sydney and Vic there waiting for us.

Now I realized what was happening. “You mean the shark thing is a ruse?” I asked Vic, feeling slightly sheepish for taking so long to catch on.

He shrugged. “It’s a code Bo and I invented,” he explained, glancing out around the edge of the shed to check that Bess and I hadn’t been followed. “We use it back in NYC all the time. Whenever one of us mentions a guy from Seattle, the other one’s supposed to kick up a scene as a distraction.”

“Oh.” I glanced at Bess, realizing there was one
mystery remaining about all this. “But wait, how did you know where they went?”

“As soon as we got out of the way, we tried to text you, Nancy,” Sydney spoke up. “But I guess your phone’s not working or something, because you didn’t answer.”

I touched the pocket of my shorts. “Oh. I guess I forgot to get it out of my bag after we left the airport. Just as well, since it would’ve gotten soaked when we ended up in the lagoon.”

“Luckily mine’s got a water-resistant case,” Bess said. “They tried me next.”

I nodded, glancing at the couple. Vic looked grim and pale, and Sydney had stopped crying but still appeared to be pretty worked up.

“Okay,” I said briskly. “So does this mean we finally get to talk about that mess you guys found in your room when you got here? Or did you guys have any ideas about what happened with the pontoon boat?”

“Sure, we can talk about that stuff if you want. But first …” Vic pulled out his cell phone and held it out to me. “This just came.”

Once again, I felt a little slow as I remembered that a message had come in for him right before the shark thing—a message that had made Sydney gasp in alarm and get even more upset than she’d already been.

“Oh, right,” I said, reaching for the phone. “What’s it say?”

Glancing down, I saw an e-mail blinking on the screen. The text consisted of a single line:
TELL YOUR BRIDE SHE CAN’T ESCAPE FROM HER SHADOW
.

But that wasn’t all. Below that message was a photo. It showed the lagoon right there at the resort under the moonlight—with the back view of a shiny bald head sticking up from the dark water!

“Whoa,” I murmured, realizing what this meant.

MrSilhouette was back. And he was right here at the resort.

SAFE HOUSE

“It’s from MrSilhouette!” Sydney cried, sounding on the verge of hysteria. “I should have known it wasn’t over. He’s here! He has to be the one doing all this terrible stuff. What am I going to do?” She turned and buried her face in Vic’s chest. “I never should have agreed to marry you,” she sobbed, her words slightly muffled. “Now you’re in danger too.”

“It’s okay, love,” he said, rubbing her head soothingly. “We’ll get through this.”

Bess stepped over and patted Sydney on the back.

“Yeah, try not to let it get to you so much, Syd,” she added. “Nancy’s on the case now—she’ll track this guy down. She always gets her man.”

I barely heard her. This was an alarming new development. Of course I’d known all along that there was a pretty good chance that Sydney’s old stalker could be behind all the trouble. But this appeared to prove it. I stared at the message and photo, wishing George was there to try to track who’d sent it.

Never mind, I told myself, realizing it probably wouldn’t do any good. This guy was a pro—even the NYPD hadn’t been able to trace his first batch of e-mails. Somehow I doubted he’d gotten any sloppier since then.

Still, I punched a few buttons to forward the message to George’s phone, hoping it hadn’t been totally ruined by its saltwater bath. Just as I finished, the phone buzzed in my hand.

“Incoming message,” I said.

“Got it,” Vic said, grabbing the phone out of my hand before I could see who the message was from. He glanced at the screen, then immediately stuck the phone in his pocket. “Just my agent,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll call him back later.”

He sounded kind of jumpy. And no wonder. We were all a little jumpy at this point.

Sydney was still sobbing inconsolably against Vic’s chest, with Bess crooning into her ear to no apparent avail. Vic glanced around, still looking nervous.

“I think I’d better take her somewhere more
private to get her settled down,” he said. “When Madge and the others notice we’re gone …”

I nodded. The last thing Sydney needed right now was a camera shoved in her face. “How about our bungalow?” I suggested. “The TV people never bother to film the three of us unless we’re with one of you guys, so you should be safe there for a while.”

Bess cleared her throat. “Right,” she said. “Except we don’t really know where it is. I mean, we can follow the little map on the key, but we haven’t been there ourselves yet, and so—”

“Never mind,” Vic broke in. “Akinyi’s hut is the first one out on the walk, right out there over the sand—she made them give her that one because she said she’d get seasick trying to sleep out over the water.”

Despite the serious circumstances, I couldn’t help a brief smile. Yeah, that sounded like Akinyi.

“She wasn’t out there on the beach,” I remembered. “So maybe she’s in the bungalow.”

Or maybe not, I realized with a flash of concern. After all, I’d originally suspected Akinyi and Jamal of causing all the trouble. Now that Pandora appeared to be innocent, did I need to consider whether I might have been right about the other two after all?

There was no time to think about that at the moment. We scooted out from our hiding place, tiptoeing
across the beach toward the steps leading up to the warren of wooden walkways that stretched out over the water. Soon we were huddled on the tiny front porch of the first bungalow, with Bess keeping a lookout for roving cameramen while Vic knocked softly on the door. I stood behind him, one arm around Sydney, who leaned limply against me. In the distance we could still hear shouts and whoops, presumably from the Great Shark Hunt out in the lagoon.

“Who is it?” Akinyi’s accented voice called out from inside.

“It’s us! Let us in, okay?” Vic hissed, shooting a nervous look around at the nearby bungalows. We were hidden from the beach here, but not very well. Anyone could come down one of the walkways at any moment and spot us there.

Several long seconds passed before the door opened a crack. Akinyi peered out at us, looking wary. “Oh. It
is
you,” she said, raising one perfectly groomed eyebrow when she took in the sight of Bess and me in our damp street clothes. “What is it? I just stepped out of the shower.”

“Please let us in, Kinnie, okay?” Vic urged. “We just got some pretty wild news, and now Syd’s upset, and we’re trying to stay out of camera range….”

“Oh, I see.” Akinyi finally seemed to notice Sydney
standing there, and her face softened. “Just wait one second while I throw something on, all right?”

“Kinnie, wait!” Vic began. But it was too late. The door slammed in our faces.

“She’d better hurry up,” Bess whispered from her vantage point at the edge of the porch. “It sounds like the fun’s over out there.”

Sure enough, the shouts had finally died down. I guessed there was only so long that Bo could pretend he was chasing a shark before it became obvious he wasn’t actually going to catch anything.

“She should know she doesn’t have to get all dressed up for us,” I muttered, casting a look at Akinyi’s door as several thumping noises came from inside. “What’s taking her so long?”

Finally, after another few endless moments, the door opened again. This time Akinyi let it swing wide, revealing that she was wrapped in a plush terrycloth robe with the resort’s logo printed on it.

Weird,
I thought as we all rushed in. If she wasn’t getting dressed, what was all the thumping about?

“Finally!” Vic blurted out. “I thought you’d never—whoa!”

He caught himself just in time as he stumbled and almost went flying. Glancing down, I saw that he’d tripped over a pair of muddy sandals that had been sitting just inside the door.

Akinyi glanced at them too. “Oh, sorry about that,” she said, kicking the sandals out of the way under a nearby dresser. “I went for a walk in the rain forest to get away from the cameras for a while. That’s why I was in the shower, actually.” She shrugged. “It’s a bit muddy out there.”

Vic didn’t seem too interested in any of that. “Listen, can we hide out here for a while?” he asked, already guiding Sydney toward the nearest chair. “It’s been kind of a tough afternoon. See, first Sydney was out on the water with the girls when someone took a shot at them….”

He went on to explain what had happened, from the pontoon incident to the message from MrSilhouette. Akinyi seemed alarmed by the former and positively horrified by the latter.

“No!” she blurted out, covering her mouth as Vic showed her the photo on his phone. “But I thought all that was over. Oh, Syd, this is terrible! You poor baby!” She rushed over and wrapped her long, slim arms around her friend.

“Come on,” I murmured to Bess. “Let’s leave them to it. We should go get George and then find our bungalow.” A lot had happened since we’d arrived on the island just a couple of hours earlier, and my head was spinning. It was way past time to sit down, catch my breath, huddle with my friends, and discuss it all privately.

* * *

An hour later my friends and I were sitting on the deck of our swank private bungalow. It consisted of a small but luxurious sitting room flanked by two bedrooms, one with a double bed and the other with two singles. George had immediately claimed the private room on the basis that she was injured and needed her rest.

“Oh, please.” Bess had let out a snort. “It looks like they just stuck on a Band-Aid, like you wanted in the first place.”

George had merely smirked and kicked her duffel bag away from the pile of luggage the resort staff had left in the center of the main room, aiming it in the direction of the bedroom door. “You should be nicer to me, cousin dearest. Coral cuts can be deadly, you know. In fact, the guys at the med hut were telling me there’s all kinds of ways to get injured or killed around this part of the Caribbean. Coral, sharks, snakes, jellyfish, scorpions, puffer fish, lionfish, eels, even some kind of weird dangerous algae …”

I managed to get them back on track, and we quickly stowed our stuff in our respective rooms, changed into dry clothes, and then went out to the bungalow’s small front porch to discuss things. There were three deck chairs out there that offered a great view of the lagoon. They also offered a pretty close-up
view of the bungalows on either side of ours. Only about ten yards of water separated each of their porches from ours.

“Are you sure it’s safe to talk out here?” Bess asked, casting an anxious glance at one of the neighboring bungalows.

George shrugged and followed her gaze. “They’re not that close. We’ll just keep our voices down. Besides, it doesn’t look like anybody’s home.”

“I hope not.” Bess still looked worried. “Sound carries over water, remember.”

“Well, it’s not like we’ll be much safer inside,” I pointed out. “The hut’s walls seem pretty thin.” I shrugged. “Anyway, George is probably right. The show rented out this entire resort, remember? The crew is probably all out doing their thing, and we know where Syd and Vic and their friends are.”