Baited

by Crystal Green

  Kat’s vision went blank.

  Blessed emptiness where she couldn’t think about everything she’d done wrong. Where she couldn’t dwell on every ache in her body that was being magnified by the pounding rain and wind…

  She jerked back to consciousness, her heart quivering. The fire had hushed to embers, darkening the area. Dammit! She’d fallen asleep. For how long?

  With a frenzied glance, she saw that Will was still there, a peaceful slant to his brow as he slept. Before she could get drawn into how achingly gorgeous he was, injuries or not, she glanced around. Everyone else was tucked in, too, heads and bodies buried under blankets.

  Don’t you fall asleep again, she commanded herself.

  As the rain softened, tapping on the leaves outside, Kat realized she needed to go to the bathroom. They’d all agreed that using the cave was unsanitary and might draw predators, so she had no choice but to wake Larry.

  He grumped a little, but Kat made sure he was alert enough to watch over Will and the fire. When she grabbed a flashlight and sneaked out of the cave, Eloise woke up, too.

  “I have to go,” she whispered, rolling out of her bed. “Buddy system.”

  Both women used jackets to keep the moisture off them, but it wasn’t worth it. As if playing a joke, the rain began to pound down harder as soon as they stepped out of the cave. Still, they managed to follow the markers they’d previously tagged onto the branches and took care of business soon enough.

  At least, Kat thought both of them were returning.

  Mrs. Delacroix wasn’t with her anymore.

  “Eloise?” she called, the sheets of rain absorbing her voice.

  Kat backtracked with her flashlight. What if one of those boars had gotten to Eloise? Kat probably wouldn’t have heard it in all this racket.

  As the rain took a turn for the better, it stopped sounding like Kat’s voice was bouncing around the inside of a steel box. She put on her jacket. “Eloise!”

  No answer. Just the rain, the low sound of night hiding its creatures.

  Pulse picking up nervous speed, Kat walked back toward the john. The other woman wasn’t there. “Come on, Eloise! I’m tired.”

  She spent a few minutes tripping around the area. Dammit, where was she?

  You know where, said the scaredy-Kat within.

  In the near distance, something barged through the foliage. Kat gasped, whipped out her knife.

  Run away. Now.

  Fearing for her life, Kat did start running—here, there…she wasn’t sure where.

  The flashlight’s beam bobbed over the trees and bushes, rain like white needles as she stumbled toward the shelter. She could see it looming above the swaying green leaves, but it was so far…

  Trapped in a maze, she thought, darting toward safety, confused and frustrated, going around and around to nowhere. Minutes, hours, how long was this taking?

  Her breath got wheezy, and she coughed. Her chest squeezed together, cold and phlegmy. Still, Kat forged ahead, blood freezing, the foliage alive around her.

  Get back…hurry…

  Putting on the power, she tripped over something. Hands outstretched in front of her, she hit the mud with a smack, her palms skidding over an exposed root. Her knife and flashlight spiraled over the undergrowth, the light zigzagging over the trees until it disappeared beneath them.

  Jarred, she couldn’t move for a second, the oxygen knocked out of her. The tang of copper…blood?…leaked from her lip. It pounded with pain from where she’d bitten it. The heels of her palms were flaring because they’d lost skin when she’d broken her fall.

  Get it together, Kat. Right freakin’ now.

  Forcing herself to crawl for her possessions, she fumbled, spying the light peeping out beneath a bush, her knife nearby, grabbing them just in time to see a thick snake slithering through the foliage only three feet away.

  A cry strangled her.

  Freaked, Kat shone the light all about, behind her, near her feet, finally catching a sight that made her suck in a horrified breath.

  Empty eyes stared back at her.

  It was Eloise—blood and water running over and through her sliced face.

  Hours seemed to pass as rain cleaned Eloise’s features, revealing a fresh, simple, red-etched pattern.

  A clown, Kat thought in a shocked haze. She looks like a sad clown with those slices making her mouth turn down and cuts that look like giant tears.

  Unbidden, Duffy’s and Alexandra’s faces ripped through Kat’s awareness.

  Duffy. The cut bags under his eyes. The distended lips. Morbid decorations that made him look like an ape.

  Alexandra. The slitted nose that enlarged her folded-back nostrils into a snout. The tweaked ears that made them point at the ends. A pig.

  Kat put her head in her hands, her mind scrambled with things she couldn’t possibly be seeing. Tremors edged through her belly, traveling upward, outward with white, jittery heat.

  With building terror, Kat glanced at Eloise again. Crash. Realization blasted through her.

  This victim’s cuts had been made quickly…just like Kat had rushed the killer by backtracking and finding Eloise so soon.

  Her mind spun, covering all angles from day one until now. Every confrontation, every conversation…

  Faces. Slices. Patterns.

  Duffy the ape, Alexandra the pig, Eloise the clown.

  The answer clenched her by the throat, shaking her with its sharp razors, blinding her, robbing her of breath.

  “Masks,” she whispered, zipping up to a crouch and clenching her knife and flashlight as weapons. “Goddammit, they’re masks.”

  And she might still be out here with the thing that had done this.

  Rain splattering around her, Kat bolted upward, feet spread apart, knife ready. Scared, so damned scared.

  It was her constant companion, fear, that possessed her to do what she did next.

  Let the killer know you have your knife out.

  “Are you ready for me, you freak?” she screeched. “’Cuz I’m all set for you. Get over here and let’s end it!”

  Her voice carried, giving her a sense that she wasn’t so vulnerable after all. After a slow moment, she started moving toward the shelter, constantly looking around her, hoping she didn’t see someone hunched in the bushes, waiting.

  But sometimes even the worst bullies backed off when you bluffed. So she did it again.

  “Hey! You afraid of my knife? Because it’s calling your name, asshole. You know I’m gonna use it, too, don’t you? You know I’m gonna get you good.”

  In the distance, a voice yelled, “Kat?”

  Relief pushed her into a stumble towards the sound. “I’m here! Over here!”

  “Kaaaaat!” It was more than one person now.

  Heart exploding, she ran for all she was worth, arms pumping as she sought the voices calling her name, leaves lashing at her face.

  When she got to the cave, everyone but Louis was outside, panting and sopping wet from the rain, panicked.

  Who was it? Which one of them had been out there with her?

  “Why were you screaming?” Dr. Hopkins asked, coming over to grip Kat’s arms.

  While Kat wheezed in answer, Larry led her into the cave. Chris followed anxiously as he helped a frazzled Duke along. All of them were touching Kat—on her shoulders, her arms—just like she was a mirage and they were convincing themselves of her solidity.

  They guided her to the fire, where the bound Will was sitting ramrod straight, tracking Kat with a concerned gaze. He and Louis were the only ones with dry clothing and hair.

  He’s innocent, Kat thought, more relief…and guilt…seeping through her. Dammit, she’d been so wrong about him.

  Hands bloodied and quaking, Kat immediately began undoing the rope that held him, even though it wasn’t easy with her scraped palms.

  “Eloise,” she choked out.

  And that was the extent of it, because Louis gave a wrecked shout that shoo
k the air. Rain running down his face like tears, Duke merely slumped to a corpse pose, moving his head back and forth and staring up at the cave’s ceiling, lips slack.

  “It’s my fault,” Larry said, slapping the cave wall. “I fell back asleep when you left, Kat. Dammit!”

  Kat wasn’t about to get all judgmental on that failure. As far as she was concerned, Larry was a suspect, too.

  “Did you notice who was missing before you ran outside?” Kat asked. Ignoring her burning hands, she massaged Will’s legs and arms, attempting to say she was sorry in every way she could.

  Not surprisingly, he took her hand, removed it from his arm. But then, as if reconsidering, he turned it over, inspecting her injury. He gently turned her face to him, running a thumb over her cut mouth.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, throat closing.

  “Later.” He took over the job of massaging the circulation back into his legs and arms, then stood up and went to a pile of bandages, then outside for a cup that had been collecting water. Even though Kat had taken care to rub his limbs every hour while he was roped up, he still walked stiffly.

  As he used the rain to clean her hands and then bandaged them, Kat told the group about what had gone on out there, taking care to watch their faces. Larry was covering his in remorse. Louis was hunched over. Chris had dead-walked over to a still-stunned Duke. And Dr. Hopkins hugged her wrapped hands to her chest.

  Kat glanced down at her own hands, being swaddled in the cloth. Hands.

  Larry pushed away from the wall. “I’ve got to get Mrs. Delacroix’s body.”

  “Wait until it’s light,” Will said. He finished with Kat’s bandages, flashing a heart-wrenching glance at her. She could tell he was carrying the scars of her betrayal under his skin, and all she could do right now was vow to heal them and never to lose faith in him again.

  As Larry ignored Will’s advice and went outside to find Eloise’s body with just a flashlight and kitchen knife, the fool, Kat tugged Will out of the cave and into the front shelter, away from everyone.

  “You’re the only person I can trust right now,” she whispered, touching his face with her fingertips, needing to feel him so badly. “It’s obvious that you couldn’t have killed Eloise—”

  She paused, then erupted. One big sob. Delayed reaction.

  Will skimmed his fingers over her arm. “We’ll get through this.”

  Kat batted back her emotions. No time for them. No use for them. Still, she couldn’t help it. The tears needed to come. It was a physical release her body was relying on.

  Steadfast, Will kept stroking her arm, even as she struggled to collect herself. Finally, after what seemed like years, she was able to talk.

  “I think I know what’s happening with those cuts.” She sniffed, shivering and ill from the faces, the blood. It all washed over her, terror screaming through her veins, deafening her own thudding heartbeat.

  “What is it, Kat?”

  Blades…slashes…blood…

  “Remember that night on the boat?” Her voice had risen, rushed and desperate. “The seasick night when we were playing trivia in the salon? You’re gonna think I’ve lost it, but…” Kat swallowed, closing her eyes against the ghosts and the fear that was rushing around her. “Those cuts on the faces remind me way too much of The Twilight Zone. That one episode Nestor talked about. ‘The Masks.’ The one where—”

  Will’s eyes went wide, and he paled. “The old dying man makes his heirs wear masks that transform their faces into their true natures. I know. I was there.”

  “Why would somebody do that?”

  He shook his head, mouth drawing into a frown. “Because they had the time and the psychosis.”

  “They had the time,” she repeated.

  Slash…blood…death…

  She armored herself against the terror. “Duffy wasn’t found for a while. And I heard Alexandra screaming before I found Tink and the boar. That gave the murderer a lot of opportunity to cut, even though they were taking a big chance on getting caught.”

  “They probably thought the boar would keep everyone away for a while. Maybe they could hear you fighting from the echoes in the tunnels.”

  When Will took Kat’s hands in his, she melted, holding his hands up to her cheeks, laying herself to rest against him. They were back to their old selves, connected, the people who’d talked until dawn on the first night they’d met. The couple who had possessed such great potential.

  But then it came: a sting of memory she couldn’t ignore. Kat’s possible five-percent inheritance…Will making love to her in his shelter…

  Was that why he was being so forgiving? Because he still thought he had a chance for millions, especially with the Delacroixs all but gone?

  You’re wrong, she thought. So, so wrong even to think it.

  Refocusing, she grasped his hands and held on to her own sanity at the same time. “It makes weird sense. The faces reflect what’s really inside, you know? Duffy was an overgrown bully, an ape who couldn’t control himself. Alexandra could’ve been interpreted as vain, greedy…”

  “She was a lawyer. You know, people usually think of them as swine.” Will looked away, focusing on running his thumbs over the back of Kat’s bandaged hands. “That’s what she said on the boat, anyway.”

  The comment had all the force of a slap. She wanted to ask what exactly he and Alexandra had talked about. If it had gone further. If he’d—

  No. Will was one of the good guys. She had proof now.

  Kat continued, her heart still a little bruised. “And Eloise, a clown?”

  “A sad one, you said. I don’t know…maybe because she kept whining in that ridiculous way on the boat…?”

  They were reaching, but who could really explain?

  Just the killer, Kat thought. Just the person who might have more plans for more faces.

  “I don’t know,” Kat said, shaking her head in frustration. “Why would anyone want to do this, anyway? Why would they get Duffy, Alexandra and Eloise and make an attempt or two on Duke’s life?”

  For a lightning-blast moment, Kat thought she saw an answer in Will’s eyes, but when she looked again, she told herself she was wrong.

  “Who knows,” Will said. “Maybe they’ve somehow connected themselves to a possible heir and are thinking they can somehow get hold of Duke’s money after he and his family die…?”

  She hadn’t wanted to hear him say that, not what her heart hoped he was too good to even consider.

  Kat fixed her gaze over his shoulder to avoid his eyes, unwilling to find her worst nightmares there. But in that pause, something else saturated her thoughts, making her skin feel as if it were being peeled back.

  “We’re forgetting something,” she whispered.

  She dragged her gaze back to Will, finding his expression inscrutable. It didn’t give her any comfort.

  “In that Twilight Zone episode,” she continued, “there were four heirs.”

  She made a low noise of pain as his hands tightened around hers, then let up when he realized what he’d done. Neither of them had to say it out loud.

  That meant one more victim to go.

  If the killer was keeping count according to the episode.

  “But will they stop there?” he asked.

  “I don’t…The killer’s just been inspired by ‘The Masks,’ they’re not following the script. There could be just three victims, or maybe five, or…”

  Her blood iced.

  Or maybe everyone on this island would end up butchered.

  She didn’t have time to voice her fears. A screech filled the cave next door. Both she and Will flinched as the undecipherable yips and words mingled with each other in complicated knots.

  Kat bolted over to the entrance only to be stopped in her tracks.

  Because Dr. Hopkins was hugging one of the missing.

  Chapter 13

  As Larry told it, after having buried Eloise and braving the rain to secure more coconuts, he
’d found Nestor ducking into some bushes nearby, “hiding from predators.” The island had been rough on him as well. His clothes were falling apart, his pretty-boy skin bruised and scarred.

  Now, they all sat around the fire, Nestor resting next to Duke, Dr. Hopkins and Louis. He was giving them his story, and it sounded a little like theirs, detailed with debris on the beach, constant rainwater and terrifying nights. The only difference was that Nestor had washed up on the other side of the island, which he confirmed was rather small, before making his way to them.

  “When I first swam ashore, I saw a couple of bodies,” a withdrawn Nestor said. “Crew members.”

  Nobody but Kat seemed to notice Will’s subtle reaction: a self-hating tightening of the mouth. They’d been his to watch over, Kat thought, and he’d failed them.

  She wiped at her runny nose as she sent a soft, encouraging smile to Will.

  “Then,” Nestor continued, “I happened upon those arrows and followed them here. And when I heard this guy—” he pointed to Larry “—I took cover, just in case it was something bigger than the stick I was carrying.”

  Dr. Hopkins, delirious to see her one-night stand, hugged Nestor and attended to his every need. He’d been crushed by the news of all the deaths and the additional attempt on Duke’s life, and she was trying to make him feel better.

  Funny, Kat thought. The doc’s hands seemed good to go with Nestor around—they were functional when needed. Obviously Kat would have to comment on this at the next possible opening, after Nestor filled them in. She wished she’d had the chance to confide in Will, but there’d been too much to talk about as it was.

  Meanwhile, Kat continued observing Dr. Hopkins. Was the woman feeling the same way Kat had when Will was missing? Was she over-romanticizing even a slim connection with Nestor so it would convince her that she was still vital, that she could survive anything, too?

  As Kat mulled it all over, she focused on Louis, who was lingering near his newly “found” son, reaching out to touch his hair every few minutes, a grin on his face.

  But, in spite of Nestor’s fan club, Kat obviously wasn’t the lone doubter of their group. While everyone else was engrossed in the survivor’s story, Will had stood and gathered up the rope that had held him captive, and he was staring holes into Nestor.