by Lynsay Sands
"Am I right in guessing the house is just around that cliff?" Domitian asked in a hushed voice as he paused beside her to tread water.
Sarita glanced to the outcropping he was talking about and nodded her head. "I think so."
"Then I think we should go ashore here and move through the trees instead of approaching by water."
Sarita glanced along the beach. There might be someone in the trees inside the jungle, but it was easy to see that the beach at least was empty. The same couldn't be said for the water around them. There could be a dozen gilled creatures hovering nearby under the surface, watching them, and they wouldn't know it until they were attacked. She nodded.
"I will follow you," Domitian said, glancing around the calm surface of the ocean.
Turning, Sarita struck out for shore, actually relieved to be able to do so. She stayed fit for her job, but while she hadn't had to swim the entire way like Domitian had tonight, it was obvious to her that she wouldn't have been able to. By her guess, she'd only been swimming for an hour or a little more since they'd left the mattress, and not quickly, yet was trembling from the effort. Those nanos obviously made Domitian and others of his kind superhuman.
The thought made her worry about how he was doing on that count. Were his nanos using up blood like crazy to keep up his speed and stamina? Was he now in need of blood? She had no idea what they would do if that was the case. They'd left the blood supply back on the island. Although, she knew there was a large refrigerator full of it in Dressler's lab. The problem was getting to it.
The first scrape of sand against her fingertips as she performed her next stroke made Sarita push those worries from her mind and lift her head from the water to look around. They were still quite a distance from where the water lapped at the beach, but it seemed it was shallow here, she realized as her feet drifted down to touch the sand her fingers just had.
Sarita stood up in the water and staggered to the side before catching herself. Sighing, she stood still for a minute, surveying the trees as she gave her legs a moment of rest before forcing them to move.
"Are you all right?" Domitian asked in a voice that was almost a whisper as he waded up beside her.
Sarita nodded. "Just checking to be sure there's no one in the trees," she said softly.
Nodding, Domitian surveyed them himself. When he let out a little breath and relaxed a moment later, she knew that he hadn't seen anything. Since his eyes were undoubtedly better than hers thanks to those nanos, Sarita gave up looking as well and started forward. With every step she took she was sure her legs were going to give out, but they held her up and carried her to shore.
"Let us move up by the trees and sit down," Domitian suggested, taking her arm to urge her forward. "I think we should rest for a minute before we continue on. I want you able to run if there is trouble when we get to the house."
"What kind of trouble are you thinking there might be?" Sarita asked with a frown, briefly forgetting her shaky legs.
Domitian shook his head. "Could be anything--guards on the house, guards inside the house. Or your grandmother might not even be here. Dressler might have given the house to his head of security as part of his income."
Sarita considered the possibility, but shook her head. "That can't be. My grandmother and Mrs. Dressler have to live somewhere here on the island. And other than this house and the big house, all there is are the labs."
"I am sure you are right," Domitian said mildly. "I just want to be sure you can move fast if you have to. Now sit down and rest your muscles."
Sarita glanced around to see that they'd walked all the way to the edge of the jungle while she was distracted. Relieved, she dropped to sit in the sand facing the water and drew her knees up to rest her arms on top of them. Resting her chin on her crossed arms, she peered out toward the horizon, noting that it was lightening. Dawn wasn't that far away. They couldn't rest long and should be inside before the sun brightened the sky and made them easily visible. There might be guards here.
"I will be right back."
Sarita glanced up with a start, but before she could ask where he was going, Domitian had slipped into the trees and disappeared.
"Probably going to the bathroom," she told herself in a mutter and glanced nervously along the shore, watching for anything moving. There was nothing that she could see.
Sighing, Sarita turned to scan the spot where Domitian had disappeared. Not seeing anything, she shifted her gaze back along the shore again to give it another quick once-over and then repeated the two actions, looking for Domitian, then checking the silent beach. Sarita had just done that for about the twentieth time and was looking along the shore when a crackling sound brought her head sharply around toward the trees behind her.
Sarita peered into the dark mass of trees, straining to see and thought she saw branches moving in a tree behind and to the left of her. And then a sound behind her on the right had her turning her head sharply to look that way. She sagged with relief when she saw it was Domitian slipping back out of the woods.
"Come," he whispered, holding a hand down to her.
Sarita took his hand and allowed him to haul her to her feet. Her legs were no longer trembling, but her muscles protested at being forced to move again so soon. Ignoring that, she followed Domitian into the jungle, asking, "Shouldn't we use the beach?"
"It is shorter this way," he replied quietly.
Sarita nodded to herself as she forced her legs to follow him up a winding path. He hadn't gone to relieve himself in the woods then, but had been checking out the house to be sure it was safe to approach. The man seemed to forget she was a police officer and could take care of herself. They'd have to talk about that some time, she thought, and then glanced up and leaned to the side, trying to see how much farther they had to walk. Her calf muscles were burning like crazy.
Unable to see around Domitian's wide chest and shoulders, Sarita simply put her head down and continued forward, reciting song lyrics in her head as she went as a way to distract herself. It worked so well that she was completely unprepared when Domitian suddenly stopped. She plowed right into his back, nearly knocking him over.
"Woah," he whispered, reaching back to steady her as he regained his own balance.
"Sorry," Sarita muttered and clasped his arm to lean out and try to peer around him again. This time she managed the feat, and her eyes widened as she saw that they were there. A small English-style cottage sat not ten feet in front of them. Two stories, it was cross-gabled with steeply pitched roofs and tall, narrow, lattice windows. Her gaze slid over the chimney and gabled entry and she nodded solemnly. "Oh yeah, Mrs. Dressler lives here."
"What makes you say that?" Domitian asked in a whisper.
"She was missing England in her letter, and this is definitely a little bit of England in the middle of the tropics," Sarita pointed out. "It looks like it could have been scooped up out of the Cotswolds and dropped here or something."
He nodded agreement. "Yes, I suppose it does."
"Come on . . ." Sarita started to move around him, but he caught her arm.
"Wait," Domitian rasped, pulling her close to his side. "What is the plan?"
"We knock on the door and ask to see my grandmother," she said simply.
"Just like that?" he asked with disbelief. "What if Dressler has some of his security detail in there?"
Sarita glanced at the cottage again and shook her head. "It's too small for that. My guess is there are three tiny bedrooms upstairs, a living room, bathroom, kitchen, and dining room downstairs. There can't be much more than that," she said with certainty.
"I did not say his men had to be living there," Domitian said grimly. "What if they are posted at the doors?"
Sarita sighed with exasperation, but supposed it wasn't impossible. "Okay, we'll look in the windows first and then knock on the door if there's no sign of Dressler's goons."
"And if there are goons in there?" Domitian asked.
"Then we co
me back here and make another plan," she said patiently. "Come on."
He didn't stop her this time when she started toward the house, but did mutter, "You are entirely too used to being a police officer."
Sarita scowled at him over her shoulder. "What does that mean?"
"It means you seem to think you can just walk up to the door and knock and no one will take a shot at you or anything."
"I agreed to check the windows, didn't I?" Sarita pointed out. "Besides, I suspect Dressler needs us alive for whatever nasty little experiment he has in mind for us, so we aren't likely to be shot. Now hush or we'll wake someone up before we want to," she warned, slowing as they approached the front window on this side of the house.
"Too late for that, children. Do come in. We're all awake."
Sarita stiffened and peered at the window as the voice of what she thought was an old woman drifted out to them. Only then did she see that the window was open. Mouth tightening, she peered in at the dark shapes inside.
"The door is unlocked," the voice said now and Sarita thought it was coming from a chair across the room where she could just make out what looked like a seated figure. The voice was definitely an old woman's and it had an English accent to it.
"Mrs. Dressler?" she asked.
"Yes, dear. And you are Maria's granddaughter, Sarita. Come in, dear, she'll be down in a minute."
Sarita turned at once and moved around the corner to the front of the house. Domitian was hard on her heels. When she got to it, the front door wasn't just unlocked, it was half-open. They both slowed cautiously as they entered. Sarita half expected someone to leap out and attack them, but nothing happened and she paused a couple of steps inside to glance around. They were in a tiny entry. A door on her left led into a small kitchen cast in shadows from a light that had been turned on in the room behind it. A set of stairs were directly in front of them, leading to the second floor, a narrow hall led past the stairs to a door at the back of the house, and a door on their right led into a small sitting room.
"Come in," Mrs. Dressler said again, sounding a bit impatient now. "And close the door, dear. Ramsey has a man stationed on the beach, and if he sees the door open he might decide to investigate."
Sarita turned back, but Domitian was already closing the door.
"The guard on the beach is also the reason we can't turn on any lights yet. So we'll just have to sit in the dark and talk until the sun rises," Mrs. Dressler added now as Domitian took Sarita's arm and led her into the room. While she couldn't see a thing in the unlighted space, he seemed to have no trouble navigating the dark. But then Dressler had mentioned night vision as one of the improvements the nanos gave their hosts, she recalled.
"Your eyes are glowing, young man," Mrs. Dressler said quietly. "Are you one of the hybrids my husband created and enjoys torturing?"
"No," Domitian murmured and Sarita glanced around to see that his eyes were indeed glowing. Rather like a cat's did at night, she thought. But that didn't disturb her as much as the fact that the woman's question suggested she knew what Dressler had been up to all these years. Sarita had rather hoped that wasn't the case. She'd been hoping Mrs. Dressler and her grandmother had been both ignorant and innocent all these years, and that was why they'd never turned him in or done anything to stop him. It seemed that wasn't the case, though, and it worried her that their lack of action might make them accessories. They might even approve of his actions, she thought now and turned back toward the chair where Mrs. Dressler sat. Using her best constable's voice, Sarita asked, "So you know what your husband has been doing, ma'am?"
"Oh, yes, child. I know better than anyone what that bastard is up to."
Sarita relaxed a little. There was no way to mistake the tone in Mrs. Dressler's voice as anything but loathing. The woman hated her husband and didn't approve of what he was doing. It didn't get her, or Sarita's grandmother, off the hook for not trying to stop it. But at least they weren't accomplices.
"This way," Domitian said quietly, taking her hand now and leading her the rest of the way to what turned out to be a couch. When he sat and tugged at her hand, Sarita settled next to him and squinted toward the woman in the chair across from them, but couldn't make out much more than a silhouette.
"You said my grandmother was coming?" she asked politely.
"Yes. My son went to wake her after he got me up and about," Mrs. Dressler said softly. "That was just before you started chattering outside the window. She won't be too long. But not too quick either, I should imagine," she said wryly, and pointed out, "We're not as spry as we used to be."
"Of course," Sarita murmured and then just sat there like a bump on a log, completely at a loss as to what to say. The situation seemed somewhat surreal to her in that moment. Fortunately, Elizabeth Dressler didn't appear to have the same problem.
"My son thinks the pair of you swam here," she announced abruptly. "Is he right?"
"Yes," Sarita answered.
"Where from?" Mrs. Dressler asked at once.
"From the little island you first lived on when you moved here from England," Sarita admitted.
"All that way?" she asked with amazement.
"Yes," Sarita assured her and then admitted, "Well, really Domitian swam all that way, I spent a good deal of the night lounging around on an air mattress, watching him do all the work."
"And tackling men with gills who planned to stab me from behind," Domitian put in at once, apparently not appreciating the picture she'd just painted of herself as a useless female.
"Ah. One of Ramsey's hybrids," Elizabeth said and sounded weary now. "Most of them are victims who want nothing more than to be left alone. But some suffer a sort of syndrome--What do they call it when kidnap victims start to side with their kidnappers?" she asked, a frown evident in her voice.
"Stockholm syndrome, I think," Sarita murmured.
"Yes. That's it," Mrs. Dressler said at once. "Well, some of his hybrids suffer from a version of that and simply live to serve him. They are extremely dangerous," she warned. "Like Charles Manson's followers, they would do anything for him, even kill. Bear that in mind."
Sarita opened her mouth to say she would, only to close it and glance around as she heard a creak from upstairs.
"That is your grandmother leaving her room. She will be down here soon," Elizabeth commented and then added, "I feel I should warn you . . . she will not be pleased that you are here."
"What?" Sarita asked sharply, her head jerking back toward her. "Why not?"
"Because you have stumbled right into the heart of hell here, child," Mrs. Dressler said unhappily. "People that come to this island rarely leave. At least not alive. My husband sees to that."
"And you allow it?" Domitian asked, his voice deep in the darkness.
"Allow?" Mrs. Dressler asked with dry amusement. "I have nothing to do with it. I am as much a victim and prisoner as those poor hybrids he's created. So is Maria."
Sarita's eyes were beginning to adjust, or perhaps it was just growing lighter in the room as the sun crept closer to the horizon, but she was quite sure she saw Mrs. Dressler's head turn her way as she added, "Did you really believe your grandmother wanted to abandon the husband and young son she loved more than life itself? Or that she wouldn't have done anything to meet her only grandchild? No," she said firmly. "She had no choice. Her one joy all these years has been the letters first from your mother and then from you. These last fifteen years, she has consoled herself with the knowledge that you were at least safe in Canada, far away from this horror. So," she added grimly, "no, she will definitely not be pleased that you are here. Neither am I, for that matter."
"You?" Sarita asked with surprise. "Why would you care?"
"Your grandmother was kind enough to share her letters with me, Sarita. First your mother's, and then yours when your mother died. She'd read them to me and then write you back, speaking her response aloud as she wrote and I would often suggest she mention this or that. It made me feel a par
t of it," she admitted. "Those letters have been the only bright spot in a very dark world for both of us over these many years. I've come to feel I know you as well as your grandmother does. I've grown to care for you. And it breaks my heart to see you sitting here on this island within Ramsey's reach."
"Elizabeth?"
Sarita glanced behind her at that call and heard someone shuffling down the stairs.
"In the sitting room, dear," Mrs. Dressler called softly.
"Thorne said there was someone here to see me. Who could--Why are you sitting in the dark?" The question was accompanied by a click and light suddenly burst from overhead.
Blinking, Sarita stood and turned to look at her grandmother for the first time in her life. What she saw was an elderly woman in a cotton nightgown and a fluffy white robe that she was clutching to her throat. She had silver-white hair, startled dark brown eyes, and a kind, wrinkled face that was presently filled with confusion.
"Who are you?" she asked uncertainly, her hand tightening on the bit of robe she clutched at her throat as she glanced to Mrs. Dressler. "She looks like--"
"Yes, Maria. It's Sarita," Mrs. Dressler said, sounding sad.
"What?" the woman said with bewilderment and turned back to Sarita, who nodded.
"Si, abuela. It's me," she said almost apologetically.
"Sarita?" she asked, her voice high. She took a couple of unsteady steps into the room and then just collapsed.
Twelve
Sarita rushed around the couch toward her grandmother, but Domitian was faster. He even managed to get there and catch her grandmother before she hit the floor, saving her what would undoubtedly have been a good knock to the head. The moment he scooped the fragile old lady up into his arms, her eyes fluttered open.
Grandmother peered around with confusion, but her gaze sharpened as it landed on the face of the man in whose arms she lay, and she demanded, "Who are you?"
Sarita moved closer, drawing her attention and offered a reassuring smile. "It's okay, abuela. He's my . . ." She hesitated and then finished with "friend," frowning even as she said the weak word. It should fit, but Domitian had already become more than that to her. The problem was she wasn't sure what that more was.