Her eyes widened. Huge and dark and terrified, they moved from Haskell's face to her husband's.
What she saw there brought her hand to her throat.
"/"•'i»
Chase…
Chase lifted his head, listened to the drum of rain against the windows. "Right now we're all right. And the storm may veer inland into Florida. This may be all the storm we'll have, but…"
The rest of us understood.
Hurricane Derek-the last we heard, the last we knew-was heading for a landfall between Miami
and Savannah. If it struck Savannah-a full-force hurricane-this island would be just like Dead Man's Island so many years ago.
Except this time the lifeless bodies hanging in the trees would be ours.
10
Chase worked like a man
possessed. His intensity galvanized us. There was much to do. The upstairs central portion of the house was chosen as the likeliest to survive the battering waters-if they came. Of that area Chase chose the music salon, an interior room, as our headquarters.
We all helped, bringing food, water, bedding, an extra supply of life jackets Enrique found in the storage building, flashlights, some medical supplies-and anything we thought would float. I carried my mobile telephone with me, dialing and redialing, one time after another, alternating 911 with the number of the Savannah Coast Guard air and rescue station. I didn't have much hope, but there was a chance, even though the line crackled with incessant static. The call might be received and enough of it understood even if I believed there was no response. And there
was the hope, certainly my strongest hope, that the message would be overheard by a ham-radio operator monitoring the air for Mayday calls from vessels in distress. I kept it up until I was hoarse, intoning over and over: "Mayday. Mayday. 3250.5 north, 8055.1 we^t. Party of twelve marooned on «*ea inland. Boat destroyed."
When my throat was dry and scratchy, I handed the phone to Valerie. I wrote out the numbers and the message, and she took over, sitting cross-legged on a rose velvet sofa in the corner of the room, her platinum hair spilling down around her pale face, her crimson-nailed fingers punching the buttons with savage determination.
At one point Chase looked around, his face haggard. "Where the hell's Haskell? Why isn't he help-
• o"
mg?
Rain slapped against the poncho. My tennis shoes squished through an inch or more of water on the path. The rain splashed down with no letup, saturating the ground. The runoff flooded the path. My feet were damn cold.
I heard the steady crack of the hammer as soon as I pushed open the main door to the storage building.
Haskell knelt beside a pile of two-by-fours. A life jacket lay on the floor next to a plastic thermos. He didn't even notice the spray of rain as the door opened behind him. He worked at a furious pace, grabbing the boards, slamming them in place, pounding in the nails swiftly. Makeshift, yes, but already recognizable as a raft.
I hurried across the cement floor. "Haskell, no."
He looked up-such a young face, so handsome and appealing. No trace lingered of the languid, sulky youth I'd met at tea that first afternoon. His eyes were scared, but he managed a grin. "Hell, I lost my surfboard. Gotta make a new one."
I knelt beside him. "I've got a mobile phone. We're sending out a call for help every few minutes. Someone will hear and alert the Coast Guard. This" - I pointed at the platform of shiny new wood gashed by hurried hammer strokes -"is foolish. You wouldn't stand a chance."
He reached for another board, maneuvered it into place, began to pound. As the steel head struck home, Haskell spoke jerkily. "Yeah. A chance. Maybe the only chance. I've got to try. That phone's a joke in this kind of weather. And the connections never have been any good out here."
I reached out, gripped that warm, muscular arm. "Haskell, dammit, you'll drown."
"Maybe. But nobody's going to answer that phone, Henrie O. Not even E.T." The weak grin touched his face, then was gone. "The deal is, I'll damn sure drown if I stay here-and so will everyone else." He used the back of his hand to wipe sweat from his glistening forehead. "Listen, you'd be surprised what people hang on to in a hurricane and live to tell about it. Mattresses. Parts of roofs. Tree limbs. Logs. My raft 11 be okay. And I'm going to use some rope, make some handholds. The only thing is"-he looked at me steadily, acknowledging the risk, knowing what he was about to do-"it depends upon the currents. If I get a current into shore, hey, then I've
got a chance. And if I can get to land, reach help…"
"Haskell, that storm may turn inland well south of here. Your chances of surviving are better if you stay here." Dear God, I wanted him to stay.
"But if the storm comes here" -his voice was remarkably calm - "nobody will make it. Unless I get help before then."
I looked into dark brown eyes filled with courage and fear. He knew and I knew what would happen if the hurricane struck here-horizontal winds with the force of freight trains, winds and rains no man could stand up against. Waves twenty stories high. A wall of lethal water sweeping the island. But the raft was a wild man's gamble.
A brave man's gamble.
He lifted the hammer, attacked another nail. "I can do it." He struggled to his feet, favoring his right knee. "I've got to find rope."
"No. I'm going back to the house to get Chase. You mustn't do this, Haskell."
He was pulling down a coil of rope from a hook, talking to himself. "Shears, where the hell did I see those shears?"
I ran all the way to the house and up the stairs and, breathless, called to Chase. It took a moment to make it clear, then he raced down the steps and out into the rain, thudding and splashing down the path to the storage building. I followed.
Chase stood in the open doorway. I came up beside him.
The hammer lay near the pile of unused boards. Pieces of rope were scattered around.
202 • CAROLYN G. HART
The raft was gone. And so was Haskell.
Toward dawn the rain slacked off. But purplish-black clouds bunched over the sky like mailed fists, somber auguries of what was to come.
When I saw that I could not be of much help - most of the provisions were now in place, the lower and upper walls in the central section braced with more hastily hammered two-by-fours, the windows covered with plywood sheets, the phone manned, this time by a hollow-eyed Trevor - I set out in search of Betty.
I found her in the kitchen, helping Rosalia fix breakfast.
Breakfast.
It seemed insanely normal after the night we'd spent.
"Rosalia, we need Betty upstairs for a few minutes. Can you spare her?" I helped myself to coffee, poured in milk, even added sugar.
Rosalia turned from the oven. "Certainly, Mrs. Collins. And please tell Mr. P
rescott that breakfast will be ready at seven."
I looked up at the kitchen clock. A few minutes before six.
Rosalia opened the oven door and the delicious scent of baking muffins-blueberry? -wafted toward me.
I gulped the wonderfully warming brew and realized I was ravenous. "Yes, of course. It -will be good for all of us." I tried not to think of Haskell plunging
up and down on that uncontrollable raft in churning, unforgiving water.
I finished the coffee and opened the kitchen door. I waited for Betty to precede me, but as soon as we were out in the hall, the door closed behind us, I pointed toward the dining room. "Let's duck in there for a moment. No one will disturb us."
Betty stopped dead. She would have darted right back into the kitchen, but I barred the way.
"It's all right, Betty." I flashed her an approving smile. "I know that you are very careful, very thorough with your duties. I want to ask for your help. Now you unpacked my clothes when I arrived Thursday." I made it a nonthreatening statement.
Hesitantly, Betty nodded. I wondered if she realized how her hands were twisting as she watched me.
"Wonderful. Come, then, let's go relax for a moment in the dining room." We passed the huge ebony-framed hall mirror. Once again I saw our faces, mine intense and determined, hers mute with expectant misery.
She wanted desperately to escape from me. But she could see no way to do so. Her feet dragging, she walked with me into the dining room. I flicked on the lights.
I wondered absently how long we would have that luxury. The beautiful chandelier glittered. All the gold appointments-the gold-threaded drapes, the gilt-framed mirrors, a pier table with gold-plated caryatid legs and dolphin feet-glistened as brightly as the day they were created. They would be as anomalous awash in seawater as the luxurious cabins of the Titanic had been.
I gestured for her to sit on the white upholstered sofa. But she shook her head and stood nervously beside it. Her hands twisted and twisted.
I leaned casually against the sofa, trying a little body language to relax her. "Betty, I just want you to think back a little bit. Since you unpack for the guests, naturally you're generally aware of what is in their luggage. Now, were there any wrapped parcels about this long?" I spread my hands a foot apart. "Like a package of candles."
"Candles, ma'am?" Almost immediately, understanding flickered in her eyes, confirming my judgment that Betty was both intelligent and observant. Her hands stilled. "Is that how dynamite is shaped, Mrs. Collins? Like candles?"
"Near enough. An inch or a little over in diameter. Eight to twelve inches long. Like inch-round sticks a foot in length. They're yellowish with a waxy feel. They look like a mixture of oil, sawdust, and clay. Straight dynamite has an almost sickening-sweet smell."
It didn't escape me that when she was confident the questions had nothing to do with her personally, she relaxed enough to sit on the edge of the sofa. Her hazel eyes stared off into space. When Betty's face lost its subservient cast, the thoughtful, measuring look in her eyes was clear to see.
I didn't try to hurry her.
Finally she gave a little sigh of disappointment. "No. But I didn't open three pieces of hand luggage. One was yours. Mr. Dunnaway has a briefcase. Mr. Haskell brought a gym bag." Her mouth quirked. "I smell real good. I didn't smell anything sweetlike."
"So you're pretty certain that none of the other guests could have had sticks of dynamite with them." So how the hell did it get on the island?
"I don't see how. There was nothing like that - nothing-in any of the cases I unpacked. And how else could something like that get on the island? We don't get any mail here. All our supplies are opened and put away by Enrique. Anything a guest brings goes directly to the room. You can check with Enrique and Mr. Andrews to be sure. I unpacked everything but those three things. I smelled rose petals in Miss Valerie's things and spicy soap in Mr. Dun-naway's. But nothing sweet."
I hadn't been too hopeful, but this was an avenue I had to pursue. Because someone had managed to come up with explosives somehow. "Okay, Betty. How about the storeroom here on the island. Do you know if there's ever been any dynamite around? Maybe to blow up tree stumps, something like that?"
Although if Chase had chosen this island for its solitude and quiet, as Burton Andrews indicated when I arrived, certainly it would have been more agreeable to dig out stumps than to explode them. But Chase and his entourage wouldn't have been here when construction was under way.
"Nothing's ever been blown up-not when we've been on the island." Betty was quite definite. "And I've never seen sticks like you described. But you should talk to Enrique."
Gusty winds tugged at my clothes, scudded magnolia leaves across the ground, rattled the palm fronds,
whipped the somber cypress. Wind sighed through the live oaks with the eerie sound of zithers mindlessly strummed. It was a hostile world, the dark sky lowering overhead, branches cracking, the air heavy with moisture.
I almost turned toward the maintenance building. Light streamed from the open door. But instead I ducked into the maritime forest.
I wanted to see the ocean.
I went as far as the first dune.
If the person who had detonated that dynamite, stranding us here, had taken the time to walk across the island and look at the boiling, churning, explosive surf, surely the explosion would not have occurred. Not if that person had any idea of the vulnerability of this low-lying piece of land.
If Haskell didn't reach the mainland… If our desperate calls on the mobile phone weren't answered…
I had no doubt of our fate.
The signs were too clear.
The tide surge could be measured. I estimated at least fifteen feet. „
The interval between the waves was longer than it had been yesterday. Much longer. An unmistakable portent. And the wave,s were awesome, lifting tons of water up against the purplish sky, up, up, up. Foaming crests curled over to crash with explosive thunder. The dune plants rippled as if yanked by a giant's hand. The mist from the thunderous surf drenched me in seconds.
How could anyone have been fool enough, or
desperate enough, or angry enough to subject all of us to this indifferent, unstoppable force?
Was someone willing to die to see Chase dead? Or was Chase not even the main focus anymore? Had anger so possessed some soul that all humanity was gone, replaced by the kind of vicious violence that was willing to die to deal out indiscriminate death, like the sniper in a campus bell tower or the gun-laden attacker in a shopping mall?
If that was the case, my dogged pursuit of information was pointless. Rational in
vestigation is incapable of explaining irrational acts.
But I must find out what I could.
I hurried back along the sodden path, wet tendrils of ferns slapping against me. I caught myself just in time from stepping on a black snake seeking higher ground.
I moved carefully but even faster. There would be more and more snakes if the rains started again.
As they would.
And when they did, it wouldn't be the straight, unremarkable rains of the peripheral storms. No, the next rains would streak from the sky, pummel the waterlogged earth, cascade into standing, ever deepening pools of water.
Dead Man's Island Page 20