Baited

by Crystal Green

  “He set their house on fire with them in it,” Nestor said, palming the rock against the sand.

  “I screamed, flailed around for answers…that weren’t so easy to find. But I knew Chris had only done it…out of love for me. He couldn’t stand…to stay away, to be told…not to see me again. How could I punish him…for that?”

  Kat felt like she was dangling, about to lose her grip on what she knew of right and wrong. Twisted. She shouldn’t be feeling sorry for Chris.

  She hated being manipulated by this story, hated that Duke was justifying the killings. Was his judgment so bent from his disease? Or was Duke making sure that Chris could be redeemed just as he had—a man who’d messed up his own life with all the drinking and hell-raising?

  Duke’s carousing had contributed to his stomach cancer—a little reward he hadn’t banked on. Did Duke want to give Chris the chance to avoid an ultimate punishment for his sins? Even though it was too late to redeem the magnitude of Chris’s much worse crimes?

  “We never knew.” Nestor flew to his feet again, shaking the rock excitedly. “No one ever told us.”

  “Why should you know?” Duke groaned back, clutching his stomach. Slowly, he said, “You never visited us. And he had the best of therapy. Why do you think…the records of minors are sealed anyway…Nestor? So they can have a fresh start. Chris required that…and I gave it to him.”

  “Just like you gave him everything.” Nestor’s biting words abraded the air. “Like the chance to murder my family. What’s it going to take for you to stop defending him? Maybe the only thing that’ll work is when, one day, he goes ape-shit on you. Then you’ll understand, Gramps. But…hell no.” Nestor spiked his rock toward the approaching boat. “No way. Before that happens, I’m taking him to the cops so he can’t hurt anyone else.”

  It was like someone had pulled a lever in Duke. He’d fully switched to the moody stranger by now, an angry man Kat didn’t want to know. A man who seemed to be drawing strength from the dark pits of his soul.

  “And don’t cry therapy again,” Nestor grated out. “It didn’t work before, and I’ll be damned if that’s all the punishment Chris gets now.”

  “He’s a good boy…deep down—”

  Nestor’s eyes bulged. “How deep? There’s no avoiding this. There’s no covering it up. Nothing’s going to bring back my family! You felt the same way after Ephram and Christina died. Losing your loved ones messed you up, Gramps. You hid from it, pretending none of it happened, but look at us now. Just look at what happened because you ignored what was really going on. If Grandma hadn’t gotten sick and died, she’d—”

  Duke covered his ears, writhing on the ground. Kat just watched him, crumbling. This was a man who’d lied to her, who’d known about Chris’s violent tendencies.

  Out of the corner of her eye she found Will watching her with stunned sympathy.

  I was wrong, she thought. A bad judge of character, especially when it came to trusting Duke over you. Even if Will had trained her to mistrust him and she hadn’t been strong enough to overcome those doubts.

  Drained by the hatred, Kat sank back on her haunches. “Chris isn’t going to stop. That’s the bottom line.”

  Slowly, the old, beaten man raised his head, fuzzy eyes locking in on her like the sights on a gun.

  She stared right back, refusing to be bullied.

  Somehow, he’d thought she would understand, just like Chris had. Why? Because Kat needed his money so badly? Because he believed her affection, her silence, could be bought?

  Her rage returned, burning out of control.

  At the power of her returned glare, Duke’s eyes went misty. There he was again. The man she thought had been her friend. But he was dead to her now. Unforgivably dead.

  “You know Chris…suffered greatly for his…parents’ deaths,” Duke said, making one last obvious effort. “You know he…couldn’t sleep…that even as a ten-year-old…he was suicidal.” He grabbed his head and shook it. “All he wanted to do…was keep me safe. Can’t you grasp that?”

  “You,” Kat said, rising to a stand, her breath coming harsh and fast, “are the last person to be making any damned judgments.”

  “How do you—” With a grunt of pain, Duke pressed his palms to his head again.

  Caught between compassion and disgust, Kat turned to the group, told them what Chris had said about Duke’s brain tumor, his lost medication and what effect that might be having on his mind.

  “Dementia,” Dr. Hopkins murmured from her quiet spot next to Nestor. “Altered perception and judgment. Maybe it was enough to turn Duke’s defense of Chris into a more active shield of the kid’s crimes.”

  Kat leveled a glance at Duke, who seemed ashamed to know that she’d been privy to the truth of his weakness. Had he withheld this information because he’d wanted her to think that he was in control, still strong?

  Just as she was about to ask him, she stopped. The answer was obvious. Duke had wanted her to think that he’d be around long enough for them to be together—even for just a few more weeks than he really had. He’d wanted to know that she felt something for him before his time was up.

  Damn him, he’d just wanted to know. Like he’d wanted to know that his family loved him, too.

  Manipulator. Puppet-master.

  “I am sorry to hear about what’s happening to you, Duke.” Kat blew out a harsh breath. “But it went too far. You actively helped Chris with the murders, didn’t you? Look at me, damn you! When you stabbed yourself, you knew that he had already killed Duffy.”

  Nursing his wound, Will staggered nearer, so wan he looked like he might collapse. Still, he raised his club and watched Kat for his cue to attack. The doctor stared at Duke in sheer horror. Nestor picked up a bigger rock.

  Temper stoked, Kat hovered over the mentor she’d been so fond of. The mentor who’d used her.

  “Chris would’ve needed help,” she barked, “especially when it came to covering where he was. I don’t know exactly what you did, but I know he would’ve had a hard time convincing everyone he was in the cave during Eloise’s murder. Did you lie to everyone, telling them that he was there the whole time? What did you do?”

  Duke’s eyes went darker, as if a blurriness overtook them, an out-of-focus dimness like black smoke. “Yeah. I arranged…Chris’s blankets so it…looked like there was a…body in them. And when Kat…started yelling and…everyone went outside…I put them back to normal. I distracted…the doctor, Larry and Louis when…everyone ran out there. Things were…jumbled, no one was paying…attention to anything but Kat’s…screams. All Chris had to do was…slide to the back of the group…as wet as the rest of us…were getting.”

  Kat fisted her hands, her whisper ragged with a disappointment so profound that it drained out something deep inside her. “You really did help him?”

  Eyes watery, Duke nodded. Kat’s skin drew back over her bones in cold terror.

  “Actually…I was watching Chris,” he said softly.

  “Jesus,” Will said, cocking the club.

  God, Duke, she thought numbly. Good God.

  A rock missed Duke’s head by inches. “You deserve to die!” screeched Nestor, reduced to sobs.

  Kat’s hand whipped out to catch Duke by the withered throat. “Did you instruct him? Tell me, you bastard.”

  “Yes.”

  Reflexively, she squeezed. Duke gagged.

  “You were the one who realized that Will would take the heat for stabbing you. You’re the one who demanded apologies from the victims. You gave him details about The Twilight Zone.”

  “But he was…the one who thought of that.” The flames from their signal fire were spearing, reflected through the darkness of Duke’s eyes as he rasped out an answer. “He’s the one…who saw the faces. Back on the boat…Chris told me what he’d heard…about the plotting. At that time…I knew things needed to be…set to rights, but…it was this island that gave us…the chance to do it. I wanted to…die knowing that the
y’d been punished. I explained…everything to Chris, and the solution…calmed him, because we both knew that this way…the family could never plot against him…once I was gone—he’d be protected. Then we carried…it out—ensuring our safety.”

  In tearing flashes, she imagined it all: Duke finding Duffy with Chris and demanding apologies, then guiding Chris through the kill, the artistic slicing. Chris watching Duke as the old man signaled for quiet, then stabbed his thigh. Duke standing over Chris as his pupil murdered and desecrated Alexandra.

  Something evil had given him the strength to shadow Chris…something beyond mere sickness.

  Kat pushed Duke away, and he coughed, holding his throat.

  “And why didn’t you go with Chris for Eloise?”

  “My own daughter.” Tears fell onto Duke’s pale cheeks. “That…I couldn’t bear to watch. But…he took care of what needed…to be accomplished. She would’ve done…the same to me, you know. She…most of all, was punished…for treating me so badly.”

  “And Louis?”

  Duke reached up, touched a tear, seemed to take more sadness from it. “I was there, too.”

  Pale chills down her spine, a zing of violation.

  She remembered that moment: Chris peering at the bushes—she’d thought he was just thinking about Duke and had been calmed.

  Chris really had been calmed by Duke’s presence because…

  He had been there.

  God…God…

  “Duke, you baited everyone on this trip.” She darted to him, grabbed the frayed collar of his tiki shirt, shaking him. “The Delacroixs, to try and see how much they loved you. Will, with the temptation of money. Even me. Why me?”

  His gaze softened. “Because I wanted you.”

  Flames in Duke’s eyes. A man who’d been taken over.

  Disillusioned and broken, she walked away from Duke and, seeing the mirror she’d used to build the fire, she picked it up and heaved it against a rock. It shattered. In the shards, she imagined all her idiotic hopes, her naiveté. Her faith.

  As if reminded of the mirror, Janelle scrambled over to it, picked up two pieces, then flashed them toward the distant boat. But she kept them in her sights.

  “Gramps,” Nestor said, crawling over, looking lost, confused, even after the explanations of all the ugliness. “Tell me it’s just your head. Please? God, tell me you wouldn’t have encouraged Chris this time if you weren’t so sick.”

  Duke looked at the sky again, searching for an answer. But Janelle had already said it: He’d hidden Chris’s crimes before, but it’d taken this extra perception-mangling push to make him do more than just damage control.

  Still, the seeds had been planted long ago. Dementia or not, he was just as guilty as Chris.

  Kat let out a primal yell and punched the sand, wishing it was Duke instead. Her hands throbbed, her head pounded.

  “Guys.” It was Dr. Hopkins. Frenzied, she was pointing toward a cliff, mirrors still in her hands.

  Chris was there, watching them. As he held the knife by his side, the sun glinted off the blade.

  Kat’s stomach tumbled.

  “We’ve got to kill him before he kills us, especially because he’ll want Duke back,” Nestor screeched.

  With a choke of rage, Duke shifted violently. Will weakly stretched the club out, holding it in front of Duke’s face. Nestor took up the slack, holding his grandfather down.

  Kat’s pulse picked up speed. Kill Chris. A boy. A misfit, just like her, who’d gone more than wrong.

  Her heart resigned to what needed to be done, she glanced at Duke.

  She’d tried so hard to be close to Duke. It hurt to admit that she’d been fooled, deluded.

  “Nestor’s right,” Will said, slumping on the sand, hand to his shoulder wound. “If we leave Chris alive, we’ll regret it.”

  Dr. Hopkins shook her head. “Just look at our fire, would you? There’s black smoke going up and a ship coming our way. A plane should be here soon and they’ll see our signs. If we’ve got the materials, I say we restrain him. It worked for the other supposed killers.”

  At the reminder, Will shot a lowered glance at Kat, and she knew she was still going to answer for her misjudgment of him later. And she wouldn’t care, because “later” would mean they were both alive.

  I’ll kill Chris if I have to, she thought, the decision bitter, foreign…disturbingly necessary.

  Will held her stare, then nodded. There was something in his eyes…respect because he saw that she was ready to face the danger?

  “Kat!”

  She glanced at Dr. Hopkins, who was staring at the cliff where Chris had been standing.

  He was gone.

  Kat pushed away all emotion, all the rage that was still dragging her down. She had to.

  “Doctor, we need to find some restraints right away if you want to use them, or else we’ll have no choice but to do the worst,” she declared, ice-cold and frosted for a fight.

  They rapidly prepared with stoic determination: After restraining Duke, Dr. Hopkins and Nestor cut strips of canvas from a couple of handy jackets in anticipation of binding Chris. In the meantime, Kat positioned all their debris around the older man, half hoping to block the immediate sight of him from Chris, just in case the boy got close enough to see his grandfather a captive. Even though Chris had most likely spied them violently arguing here on the beach, the sight of a restrained Duke would probably act as a trigger to the teen’s ire and that would only compound their problems.

  Then they armed themselves, even though Kat knew she’d have to be the one to confront Chris first.

  All the while, she kept checking the boat. It was getting closer. Closer. But still much too far.

  Skin prickling the back of her neck, she turned away from the water, fixing a glance on the cliff where Chris had disappeared. Next to her, Will grunted from his prone position on the sand. She looked down to find him struggling up as he went for his wooden club.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

  Pale and obviously drained, he fell forward before he got to the weapon, his arms trembling as he tried to hold himself up. God knew how much blood he’d lost.

  “Listen,” Kat said as she guided him back to a seated position. “This isn’t your time to fight. You’ve got to stay here with Duke and take care of the fire. You’ve got to keep flashing those mirrors at the boat.”

  By this time, Janelle and Nestor had come over.

  “I’m not—” Will started.

  “Oh, yeah, you will, because we don’t have time to argue.” Kat glanced at the other two. “This is how it’s happening—I’m intercepting Chris first. If anyone’s gonna talk him down for restraining, it’s me.” She remembered his wounded expression when she’d gone for the knife back at that clearing and hoped he’d listen to her. “Maybe when he sees we’re near to being rescued, he’ll come to his senses.”

  Will opened his mouth but Kat interrupted.

  “Not now, Will. I’m prepared if he doesn’t listen.” She touched the kitchen knife in her back pocket. “Nestor, you need to make yourself almost invisible—maybe go back by Duke. Chris will be headed here anyway to protect his granddad. If Chris gives me any trouble…” Kat blew out a breath. “That’s when you guys freakin’ know he’s not ever going to be restrained and you get your asses near me to help. Got it?”

  Nestor was already shaking his head. “You’re sacrificing yourself—”

  Janelle cut him off. “Just do it, Nes! We agreed restraint will work.”

  “You agreed to that, not me.” Nestor’s skin was rage-red.

  No time for this! “Nestor, if Chris sees you and maybe even your girlfriend up close at first, he’ll go ballistic. Game over. This way, at least we have a chance of keeping him calm. And Will’s in no position to fight, so he stays here—”

  She didn’t have time to finish, because that’s when they saw Chris.

  He was a couple hundred yards away, sliding
down an embankment, back to them.

  “Make yourselves scarce before he turns around!” Kat whispered harshly to Janelle and Nestor.

  Weapons in hand, they took off to a spot near Duke, barely making it before Chris landed and slowly swiveled around to face them. His arms curved by his sides, the knife flashing.

  Kat’s thundering blood canceled out everything else: a sudden cough, the rush of her movements as she grabbed some binding and stuffed it into her shorts at the waistband, Duke’s gagged yells before Nestor and Janelle shut him up.

  She picked up a small but heavy piece of wood. Good enough for some head knocking, if needed.

  With one final glance back at the devastated Will, Kat nodded. “Wish me luck.” And she turned back around, striding forward as Chris began slinking toward her.

  Chapter 16

  Chris stalked toward Kat, slashing the knife through the air with each jerky step. Heart rate picking up, Kat prayed they could get him under control.

  One hundred yards away.

  “We were worried about you,” she yelled.

  Chris didn’t answer, just kept advancing, eyes blank as he fixed on the camp behind her.

  Fifty yards away.

  Restraints? Were restraints going to work on this boy, who’d turned into a thing?

  “Chris, you see the rescue boat?” She was trying hard to keep her voice level. “This could be all over—all the pain—if you’d just stop right now.”

  Forty yards away.

  On edge, Kat reached behind her and laid her fingers on the kitchen knife in her back pocket. Her other hand tightened around the knob of heavy wood.

  “Stop, Chris.”

  Jerking his empty gaze back to her, he faltered to a halt.

  It’d been a warning shot. There’d been so many times in her life when she’d needed to fend off bullies with mere words that she was good at it. It didn’t always work—you had to be ready to put up or shut up—but sometimes a miracle happened. Even when things looked bad, really bad.