Baited (10 page)

“Are you saying my son was murdered?” Eloise asked. She now officially resembled a ghost, her blond hair disheveled, her white clothes tattered and torn.

Suddenly Louis rushed Larry, pushing the crew member. But when Larry held his ground, Kat thought she detected a perverse pleasure in him.

“You, with your mean streak,” the Delacroix patriarch said. “Is this because of the chips? Are you bent on getting some warped revenge for your lot in life by lying to us?”

In the real world, it would’ve sounded ridiculous. But this wasn’t real. It was a nightmare.

“Dammit, do I have to stop another fight!” Kat went to the center of the shelter to stand between the men. “Maybe we’re wrong about Duffy’s wounds, but they’re sure as hell out of the ordinary.”

Eloise’s hand flew to her neck as she sank to her knees. “Do you think there are…
natives
…on this island?”

Natives. Primitives. Anyone with darker skin color, right? Kat tried not to take offense at the very offensive question. Eloise wasn’t in her right mind.

None of them were anymore.

“Maybe it was a wild animal,” Alexandra said. Her calm voice would’ve been the perfect example of rationality—if her brother hadn’t just been cut up.

“There could be a thousand explanations,” Kat said. “But one thing’s for sure—we’ve all got to be on guard.”

“That’s right.” Louis leveled a glare on Larry. “Stick together. Shouldn’t we do that? Safety in numbers? Well, let me inform you that I don’t plan on turning my back on half of you in here, lest I get stabbed.”

Panic was not on the agenda. “Okay, we—”

But he was already across the shelter, grabbing his life jacket, a bag of chips, a plastic cup and an apple.

Duke watched him. “Where are you going?” he rasped.

Louis gestured for Eloise and Alexandra to gather up their belongings, too. “Anywhere. Didn’t Tinkerbell say that there’s another overhang to the right of our shelter?”

“Yeah,” the crew woman said. She was sitting out of the way with a silent Dr. Hopkins. “Back about fifty yards. It connects to the caves, too.”

“You’re separating yourselves?” Kat said, floored. “That’s more than dangerous. It’s…well,
stupid
.”

Unless there really
was
a killer among them and the killer wasn’t a Delacroix.

Kat glanced at Larry, an obvious suspect. Then, unable to stop herself, her eyes focused on Will. It occurred to her that he hadn’t shown up until late morning, and that would’ve given him the chance to…

No, she told herself. What are you thinking? That’s Will, the man you made love with a couple of hours ago.

The man she couldn’t stop doubting.

Louis was already at the shelter’s edge, ready to leave. “Chris? Grandfather? Are you coming?”

Kat’s nerves screeched. Even with everything that had gone on these past few days, she wanted them here; they’d be mincemeat with the Delacroixs one way or another.

“No, Duke,” Kat said. “Stay with me.”

She couldn’t have chosen better words. He lit up like fireworks and broke Kat’s heart all in the same second.

“I prefer to stay with Kat,” Duke said.

His son-in-law bristled. Determined, he darted over to Chris, who was curled up and facing the wall.

“Let’s go. Now.”

The boy shook his head.

“No arguments, Chris.” Louis put his hand on his nephew’s shoulder to turn him around.

Startled, the teen whipped Louis’s hand away, eyes wide and full of terror.

“I won’t go with you!”

Kat stepped back, struck by the level of fear. And why not? Chris had already been a near-victim, too, and who better to suspect than the people who’d benefit the most from his death?

Breathing hard, Chris resumed his cowering position.

As the other man slunk out of the shelter, Eloise followed him into the rain, but Alexandra loitered on her way past Will.

Softly, Kat heard her say, “Want to come?”

A million heartbeats kicked at Kat’s ribs.

Will shook his head, watching the ground as Alexandra shrugged and went on her way. Slowly, he raised his gaze to meet Kat’s, forehead furrowed.

Was he thinking of the day she’d accused him of cozying up to the rich girl? What had Alexandra’s invitation been about anyway? Jealousy rocked through her.

As everyone else began chattering about the latest turn of events, Kat saw Duke in the corner, comforting Chris and glancing at her with sympathy, reminding her that she really didn’t know everything about Will. Reminding her of Duke’s love confession, too.

As if reading her discomfort, Will drew Kat into the opening of the back cave with a gentle hand on her arm. The contact tingled with a buzz that robbed her of all sense. Semidarkness filtered over them, and a cool wind, like the breath of something hidden, fluttered the drying blankets and clothing, chilling her.

“It wasn’t what it looked like,” he said, referring to Alexandra.

Was it ever? “Okay.”

“No, Kat, don’t say ‘okay.’ We’ve got a lot to talk about, and Alexandra is just one of those things. Here, ask me anything you want and I’ll answer it. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

A torrent of questions assaulted her. Where should she start? With Alexandra? The shark cage? His whereabouts when Duffy had been killed?

His comment about “getting what they deserved”?

“What, Kat? What’re you thinking?”

She sighed. “I don’t know what to make of anything anymore.”

“What are you saying?” In the dim light, realization transformed him. “Don’t tell me—”

“Will.” She held on to him. “Someone might’ve killed Duffy.”

“Right…and you think that someone might’ve been me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Will shrugged away from her hand. “You don’t have to. Kat, I don’t know what’s gotten into you or how you came to think the worst of me.”

Alexandra. Captain Macintosh. The temper he’d shown on the boat with Louis. Ambition. And worst of all, the pregnancy scare. Weren’t those enough?

His shoulders lifted. Pride had taken him over now. “You think I’m capable of cutting into a face like someone did with Duffy. You think I could leave a kid stranded in a shark cage.”

“I don’t
want
to think it.”

“But you do, goddammit.”

Limping, he stormed back into the shelter. She was on his tail.

Paranoia. It’d gotten to her. But it had always kept her safe on the mean streets after school, the act of always looking over her shoulder and trusting no one. “Will…”

“I’m going to ask Larry to help me bury Duffy somewhere dry,” Will said over her. “And then I’m going back to my shelter. Alone.”

And before she could convince him to stay, he’d collected most of the items he’d brought with him, recruited Larry and was gone. Just like that.

Hit hard by her confusion, she couldn’t do anything but watch the rain for a while. Larry came back, unusually quiet after he explained that they’d found another cave near the beach to bury Duffy. The weather grew angrier as the sky grew darker, and she wondered how Will was doing on his own.

What if an animal attacked him? What if he got killed by the person who’d gotten to Duffy?

She calmed herself down. Maybe there wasn’t a murderer on the loose. Maybe they were all overreacting, edgy from exhaustion.

As she went to the middle of the shelter, standing between Duke and Chris and the “other” group—the blue collars—she didn’t know where to go. Where she belonged.

But then Chris looked up with those saucer eyes. Duke held his head and hunched over like his stomach hurt.

She knew where she was needed.

They settled down to sleep, wracked by cold, the air blackening around them.

K
at hadn’t slept well.

She’d been on alert for trouble, her mind snapping with scenarios about Duffy’s death and suspects who would want to see him gone. And she’d been hoping Will would come back, too.

But, at the first crack of light, gray from storm, someone had indeed returned—Alexandra.

“I feel safer here,” she said quietly to Kat. Then, finding a spot nearby, she sank to the ground to sleep.

Soon, Louis and Eloise returned, huddling next to each other without another word. Their eyes held a sadness so deep that Kat couldn’t even begin to grasp. Not only had they lost one son, the other was still missing, maybe even dead.

In memory of the baby she’d almost had herself, Kat’s hand rested on her own belly, then fell away.

“Kat,” Louis said softly as Eloise closed her eyes, her mouth twisting as she cried, “we’ve been talking. We’re all going to work harder with you to find Nestor and to get us home.”

Awakened, Alexandra watched them, her eyes narrow.

“We don’t want to be alone anymore,” Eloise whispered. “We want to find our other boy.”

Kat suspected that the Delacroixs’ lack of light had also played a big part in their return. Without flashlights, every little sound would be magnified: every clap of thunder, every slap of rain, every cry of the wind.

But she never did answer them, because they all fell back asleep, exhausted before Kat could think of the right words. The family must’ve been scared out of their noggins to slink back to the group like this. But how long would their willing attitudes last?

Minutes later, Chris and Duke were awake and aware of the Delacroixs.

“They just came back to get your help?” Duke asked sadly.

The family hadn’t said that they had come back to be with Duke, Kat thought. They weren’t here for him.

“Can’t we just go to the other shelter?” Chris whispered, staring at the Delacroixs. “The one the captain went to?”

The edges of Duke’s mouth turned down. Kat wondered if he was reacting to the mention of Will.
Or did he want to stay and make amends with the family? Maybe
Kat’s
anxiety about making amends with Will showed. Or maybe they could tell that she didn’t necessarily believe that things were a hundred percent safer with him.

Anyway, she hesitated, weighing their options, since she didn’t trust the Delacroixs anymore than Chris did.

“We’ve got to get away from them,” the boy said. “Please, Kat?”

Duke closed his eyes. A tear slipped down his weathered face. “Chris is right. Now that we have the option of another decent shelter, we should go there…separate ourselves.”

But before she could acknowledge that might not be a bad idea if it made them feel safer—after all, she’d be there to watch over them—Duke was talking again.

“How can I convince you, Kat? How much would it take? When we get home, I can see to it that you get that five percent. You’ll have everything you ever wanted.”

She tilted her head, absorbing his meaning. “Are you bribing me to guard you or something?”

Duke didn’t say anything.

“You don’t think I would’ve helped you anyway? Duke, even if I’d consider the extra incentive—which I won’t—you can’t just go around buying people.”

He gave her a look that clearly said, But I’ve made a living at it.

All of Kat’s fears resurfaced. Was she just one of his investments after all?

In the wake of his love confession, her relationship
with him had stretched at the seams. Now, a thread of her fondness for him popped and broke, weakening memories of the man she’d known back home.

Or was she overreacting? Was she making a tsunami out of a swell?

“I’ll take you,” she said, “because I care for you two. I want you to be safe.”

“Thank you, Kat!” Chris hugged her. From the force of his embrace, Kat realized how relatively drained she was. A lack of food and sleep was squeezing her dry.

But there was no time for excuses. They had to get fire. More food. She could do that at Will’s shelter, if she needed to.

“Let’s go,” she said, avoiding Duke’s bleary, searching gaze. She couldn’t meet it—not after he’d thrown her such a curveball.

They gathered those possessions they considered theirs, taking care not to disturb the others while she awakened Tinkerbell, who was sacked out next to Larry’s empty spot. He’d probably gone to the bathroom or something. Wanting to avoid a confrontation with the Delacroixs, even though it would come at some point, they left the shelter and covered themselves from the rain. Kat looked back only once. Alexandra was watching them go, her eyes blinking against the gray light.

Mud sucked at their feet and strange cries from the greenery paced them. Duke could barely move, so Kat made like a human crutch again and helped him walk while holding a club in her other hand.

Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she heard something behind them. A rustle of foliage? Footsteps? Or maybe it was just the rain.

When they got to Will’s shelter, he wasn’t there. Neither was the flashlight. The rest of his stuff was bundled in a corner, covering the hilt of a steak knife. For all she knew, more blades could’ve been under the small stash, but Kat guessed that Will had probably taken at least one for protection.

Kat eased Duke to the ground for some sleep while Chris set their belongings close by and busied himself with unpacking, soon relocating across the shelter. Fanged butterflies abraded the lining of Kat’s stomach as they waited for Will’s return. Had she done permanent damage to their relationship? How could she justify her lack of trust?

To distract herself, she started to undo a strand from the rope lying on the floor. With this, an anchor stone and one of those slim pieces of wood from the cave, maybe she could get a fire going, bow-and-stick style. She stuffed the strand in her shorts pocket.

Out of the gray, a crash of lightning and thunder screeched, and, in the distance, something crashed. A tree?

She barely heard what happened next: A nearby cry of horrendous pain.

Whipping around, she found Duke, mouth contorted, eyes bugged out. He was holding his thigh.

Where a knife was sticking out.

“Duke!”

Both Kat and Chris rocketed over to him. It felt like
she couldn’t get there quick enough, her feet moving in slow motion while her vision scrambled in fast forward.

Who…what…?

Blood fizzing, she wildly glanced around, seeing only the surrounding foliage moving restlessly. Mockingly.

Instantly, her attention was back on Duke, to where Chris was shielding him with his own body.

God, how would she be able to get this blade out of him without causing more pain?

Before she came up with an answer, something even more obvious hit her.

The weapon.

It was one of Will’s steak knives.

One of the possessions he’d taken with him when he’d left last night.

They were all back in the original shelter, minus Will, who was still missing. After Kat had carefully removed the knife from Duke—finding the blade had wrought minimal damage, thank God—she’d done her best to staunch the flow of blood and wrap the wound with some wet clothing she’d found. At that point, she’d thought it vital that everyone group together for safety instead of scattering.

More importantly, though, she wanted to ask some questions.

“Did anyone besides Larry leave the shelter and come back?” Kat had her hands on her hips, pissed as hell. Tink had vouched for Larry’s return soon after Kat
had left with Chris and Duke, so they were square on that point—even if Larry’s whereabouts still niggled at her. “And don’t bullshit me, now. One of you had to have seen something.”

“I went back to sleep,” Alexandra said, glancing around warily.

Was she lying to cover herself? If she wasn’t, then no one would’ve been awake to witness the attacker sneaking out to follow Kat, Chris and Duke, since Tink and Larry had supposedly fallen right back asleep, too.

But how would that person have gotten Will’s knife?

She was trying to not think about that, and they all seemed to know it.

“Not to point out the obvious,” Dr. Hopkins said from her isolated corner, “but the rest of us were here, and it was the captain’s weapon. And no one has seen him for hours.”

“Anyone could’ve gotten ahold of Will’s knife,” Kat said.

Tinkerbell, who’d torn off part of Duke’s pants and was tending to him with what was left of the first aid kit, stuffed a bloodied piece of gauze into an empty chip bag in disgust, rolling it closed. “The captain wouldn’t throw knives at people from the bushes anyway. Lay off him.”

“Well, someone did it.” Louis’s eyes went glossy with sorrow. “And I know a lot of you might believe that my family is responsible for making an attempt on Duke’s or Chris’s life, but what about Duffy? You could not possibly believe we would hurt
him
. We are not the culprits, here.”

The whisking sound of blade over wood cut through the silence. Kat turned to find Larry fashioning a pointed stick with the knife that had been lodged in Duke.

Kat’s suspicions boiled again.

“What’re you saying, Mr. Delacroix?” Larry shot a contained glare at Louis.

The man’s face went red. “I am saying that there is a person here who needs to be brought to justice. The same person who sabotaged the shark cage, the one who threw a knife at my father-in-law.” A sob escaped him, though he battled to hold it back. “The animal who killed Duffy and maybe even Nestor, too.”

It was as if a dam had broken inside Alexandra. Without warning, she sputtered into tears, covering her face and bowing her head, her body convulsing.

Out of pure instinct, Kat went to her. The other woman didn’t draw away as she might have done back on the boat—back in that other world. Instead, Alexandra looked up at Kat, anguish spearing through her blue irises like white streaks of melting snow.

Kat tried not to dwell on all the theories swirling around her head. Tried not to picture Will and Alexandra conspiring together. Or him making plans to win over Kat, Duke’s suggested five-percent heir, with every ounce of charm he had. She tried not to think of him making love to her with an agenda—the possible assurance of a fortune that would set him back up in society. She tried not to imagine him hiding among the foliage and winging that knife at Duke, missing the killing blow and then dodging away, furious at his failure.

Was this forced isolation causing her to go nuts? Was it warping all her judgment?

While Alexandra looked at Kat, her mouth trembled as a smile emerged. A real smile, Kat thought.

Then she dissolved into tears again, the former ice queen crumbling to chipped pieces.

Finally, Kat thought. She’s human.

Unless she was just putting on some kind of show.

Repelled by her unchecked skepticism, Kat stayed at the woman’s side, proving that she was bigger than fear.

Duke, prone and pale, turned on his side and began to retch into an empty container. Chris scooted over to his grandfather, his hand on the older man’s back until Duke stopped.

“There’s just one thing I keep asking myself,” Dr. Hopkins said, drawing everyone’s attention from the scene. “Where
is
the captain?”

And they were off again, speculations, accusations. As Kat’s nerves frayed to dust, she listened, weighed the comments while Will stayed ahead in the race for best suspect. The evidence got to the point where even Larry looked a little anxious.

Tinkerbell might’ve been the last vocal Captain Will Ashton supporter in the room. She cursed at everyone and got to her feet, starting back to her seat next to Dr. Hopkins.

“I swear,” the redhead said, “you’ve been drinking jungle juice if you think the captain has it in him.”

As she walked past the opening of the back cave, something caught Kat’s attention.

Faint, almost dimmed by the darkness.

Red eyes.

Deliberately, Kat got to her feet, but not before the eyes got closer. A sort of inhuman snort bounced off the rock of their shelter, vibrating over the splatter of rain outside.

“Tink,” Kat said, “don’t move.”

Too late. It crept closer, nearing the cave opening. Kat pointed there, and everyone looked. Slowly, they each tore their gazes away, eyes seeking Kat once again.

Hushed terror strung them all together in motionless agreement. No one flinched. Kat could barely make out a creature with bristly dark fur and a straight tail. Its ears stood alert.

A wild boar?

It wasn’t really big—probably a youngster—but that didn’t matter. In general, Kat had heard they were perilous and fast. And if this was a baby, Mom might be close by. And she’d be one ticked-off, protective, hefty lady.

Kat scanned the outer shelter, taking stock of the group. They were all weaponless. But three feet away, there was a long screwdriver. It was near Louis, who was directly in the beast’s path.

Kat’s knife seemed to weigh down her left side.

In spite of the act she’d put on for everyone else, did she actually have the guts to use it?

No chance to think anymore because, before Kat’s next strained breath, the boar had bounded into the shelter.

Kat dove for the screwdriver, skidding in the dirt, pushing it at Louis.

“Use it!” she yelled.

He picked it up and scuttled away from the boar.

Almost everyone scrambled, clearing the shelter area, except for the wounded Duke and Chris, in the corner. The young teen brandished a wooden club to keep the boar away from his grandfather. Even Dr. Hopkins and her useless hands had managed to scoot away to the far ledge.

But it was happening too fast. In the confusion, Kat bounded away from the animal while it circled the shelter and locked onto Tinkerbell.

Who still had blood from Duke’s wound on her hands.

A flash of lightning escorted Kat to the only place the boar wasn’t—the deep, dark cave from which the beast had come. There were other survivors running into the opening, then the network of tunnels spreading out in all directions.

Mindlessly searching for safety, their bodies pressing against Kat’s in the yawning blackness, screaming for their lives.