by Linda Gerber
Mr. Watts shook his head emphatically. “No. I . . . need . . . to—”
“You need to rest,” Darlene said with finality.
I promised to pass along his message to Dad, and Darlene and Frank helped Mr. Watts outside. Once they were gone, I closed out the registration screen as fast as I could. Even having the man’s name staring at me gave me the creeps. I didn’t know what he wanted with my dad, but whatever it was, I had a sick feeling it wouldn’t be good.
Dad showed up around nine that morning with a file folder tucked under his arm. When I asked him where he’d been, he didn’t directly answer, but he did ask if Mr. Watts had made it in.
“He’s all taken care of. When did we get the reservation? It wasn’t on the calendar.”
“Late call-in.” Dad thumbed the edge of the folder and looked beyond me to the conference room. “Please hold my calls until we’re done.”
I frowned. “Until who’s done?”
“Mr. Watts and I.” He paused. “You did show him into the conference room, didn’t you?”
“No, he’s in his villa. He got sick on the flight. Who is he, anyway? What’s this meeting about?”
“Insurance,” Dad said too quickly. “It’s time to update our policy.”
Insurance? Did he think I was a complete idiot? I knew full well our policy was current. Besides, there was no way Watts was an insurance salesman.
“Well, he was looking pretty rough, but I’m sure he’ll call when he’s conscious.”
Dad nodded without saying a word and stepped into his office, taking the file folder with him. I stared after him. Who was Watts, really? And what kind of business could my dad have with a person like that? I watched as he slid the file folder into his desk drawer. One thing was certain: I was going to find out.
Lunchtime came and went. My stomach growled, but I wasn’t going to leave the office until I had a look at that file.
Darlene called around one and asked to speak to my dad. I’m not sure what she had to say, but whatever it was, he hung up frowning. “Aphra, I need you to keep an eye on the office for a moment. If Mr. Watts comes in, tell him I will be right back.”
I nodded nonchalantly, watching, hoping, praying that he wouldn’t take the file folder with him. He didn’t. I waited, blood drumming in my ears, until he cleared the lobby, and then I rushed into his office.
Slowly, quietly, I inched open his desk drawer. The file lay on top of a pile of papers. The label on the tab said simply, SMITH. My breath caught. I knew he had to have recorded the information somewhere. But why would he be sharing private guest information with Mr. Watts?
An uneasy feeling coiled in my stomach. Seth’s family had gone through a lot of trouble to disappear. Was Watts there to help them or to hunt them down?
I opened the file. Paper-clipped to the inside of the folder were a couple of Polaroid snapshots of the Mulos that had obviously been taken around our resort. Several lined sheets of paper, all filled with my dad’s neat handwriting, made up the rest of the file. On the top right-hand corner of the first page was written a notation in red ink: Watts.
I wanted to read what the handwritten notes said, but suddenly I heard voices outside the office—my dad and someone else. They seemed to be getting closer. I slapped the file closed and slipped it back where it was.
I probably should have tried to hide or something, but I couldn’t move. The walls seemed to be closing in. Outside the confines of the office, we had a murderer on the loose, an imposter family, and now perhaps a . . . what? What would Watts be? I had to find out, before my dad said the wrong thing and something happened to Seth.
Dad looked puzzled when he returned to his office to find me standing there. I managed to give him a bland hello and reminded him that Darlene had sent over some invoices for his signature. I fished them out of his in-box and handed them to him.
He looked them over. “Any word from Mr. Watts?”
“The insurance guy? No.”
He pulled open his drawer to grab a pen and began signing on the dotted lines.
I watched Dad bend over his paperwork, frustration building until I wanted to scream. How could he act like everything was normal? Why couldn’t he just talk to me? He could tell me what he knew, and I would tell him what I knew, and maybe we’d be able to make sense of it all. But I didn’t have to ask what he thought of the Mulos. That much he had made clear. If I wanted answers, I had to go out and find them myself.
I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Dad? I’m not feeling very well. Do you need me any more this morning? I think I’d like to lie down.”
“No, no. That’s fine.” He didn’t even look up from his papers. “Go rest.”
I murmured my thanks and trudged up the stairs, sighing and moaning all the way. In my room, I flopped onto my bed and waited.
Sure enough, Dad showed up at the door within just a few minutes. “Are you sick? Should I get Darlene?” His face was pinched with concern. Made me feel the slightest bit guilty for what I was about to do. But what’s fair is fair. If he was lying to me, why should I be honest with him?
“No. It’s just . . . you know . . . that time of the month. I get really bad cramps.”
His ears turned brick red, and he looked down the hall. I could tell he wanted to escape.
“I think I just need to rest. Is it okay if I skip the office today?”
“Yes. Sure. Fine. I’ll, uh . . .” He’d grasped the knob and was already pulling the door shut. “I’ll check in on you later.”
“Thanks,” I called weakly.
I waited until I could hear his footsteps fade away down the stairs and then crossed stealthily to the door. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and depressed the lock.
CHAPTER 6
The trellis looked sturdy enough. A tangle of Kuhio vine clung to the little slats of wood, hot pink flow-ers long gone in the summer heat. I had no idea if it would hold my weight—I’d never done this sort of thing before.
I threw my uniform clothes on the bed and pulled a pair of worn jeans shorts and a faded OP T-shirt over my swimsuit. Into the pocket of my shorts I tucked the vial of pepper spray my dad kept around for emergencies—just in case I needed protection. Fingers shaking, I tied the laces of my beat-up Pumas and tiptoed back to the window.
My room overlooks the courtyard. It’s a great location—it gives me a front-row seat for watching people come and go—but it does make sneaking out a dicey proposition. I watched and waited until I was certain the courtyard was deserted before swinging my leg over the windowsill.
I found a foothold in the latticework and tested my weight against the thin wood. It held. I stepped down with my other foot. So far, so good. I let go of the casement. Not a bright idea. The wood splintered beneath my feet with a sharp crack. In a panic, I grasped at the vines to break my fall, but they pulled away in my hands. I landed smack on my butt, vines snaking down around me.
Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Couldn’t breathe for a moment there, but I’d suffered no broken bones. No serious injuries—except to the trellis. I untangled myself from the pile of vines, hoping the rest of the plant was full enough to cover the damage I’d done. Shoving the fallen tendrils behind the trellis, I tried to fluff up the foliage I had crushed at the base. It looked pretty sad but would have to do.
As I turned around, brushing the dirt off my shorts, I noticed Hisako standing near the edge of the courtyard, black eyes alight with amusement. She smiled and bowed to me. My face went hot, and I bowed in return, trying to come up with the Japanese words to explain what the heck I was doing. She placed one finger to her lips and continued on the path as if she had seen nothing out of the ordinary. See, I knew there was a reason I liked her.
I slipped off in the other direction. I had to find out who Watts was and what he was up to before he had that meeting with Dad.
I skirted the main courtyard and headed straight for the maintenance shed. Our grounds crew was working on the
other side of the resort that day, but Watts wouldn’t know that. I found a uniform shirt hanging on a peg in the shed and slipped it on. It smelled vaguely of old sweat and stale cigarettes, but a dirty shirt was a small price to pay for the truth.
To be clear, I had no idea who the Mulos were running from—or even whether they were running. I didn’t know if they were the good guys or if I should be taking Watts straight to them. I didn’t know if Seth’s dad had anything to do with Bianca’s death. All I knew was that I had to get to the bottom of whatever was going on before someone else got hurt.
I grabbed a rake and a pair of canvas gloves and headed to villa ten.
I started raking just up the path from the villa, working my way closer with each stroke. You wouldn’t even know anyone had checked into the place, it was that still. No movement in the windows, no lights, nothing. I got bold and worked my way close to the front-room window. I couldn’t see a thing for the glare on the glass, though.
Then I heard a voice—no, more like a groan—coming from the veranda. I clutched the rake and snuck around the side of the building.
Watts sat hunched over in a chair, holding a cloth to his forehead. On the table next to him sat a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin. He had removed his tie and undone the top buttons of his shirt, which hung open so that the white scoop of his undershirt showed. When he moved, I caught a glimpse of a brown leather strap cutting into the flesh near his shoulder. My stomach curdled. He was no insurance salesman. The man was wearing a holster.
I retreated backward until I reached the corner of the villa, then spun around and ran all the way back to the maintenance shed.
My hands shook as I undid the buttons of the borrowed shirt. He had a gun. A gun! How had he gotten that past airport security? How had he gotten it past Frank?
I tossed the shirt at the hook and missed. I had just bent to retrieve it when I heard footsteps outside. I froze, my pulse beating in my throat. Had Watts seen me? Followed me here? My eyes darted about the shed. There was no place to hide.
“What are you doing out here?” The voice did not belong to Watts. I’d recognize that fake midwestern accent anywhere. It was Mr. Mulo.
I was about to turn and explain myself when Seth’s voice replied, “Nothing. Just walking.”
“You can’t keep doing this! You know we need to be careful.”
“Careful? Dad, there’s hardly anyone here! Who’s going to see me? I thought we came here so we didn’t have to hide.”
“No,” Victor Mulo said. “We came here to hide. You can’t be gallivanting around out in the open. We can’t risk standing out.”
“Then this was a stupid place to come. At least in a big city we could blend in.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“And then what?”
“And then we—” He stopped. “Wait. Did you hear something?”
The voices fell silent.
I held my breath.
“Come. We should get back to the house.”
I waited until their footsteps faded away before I dared peek outside the shed. By then Mr. Mulo was at the far end of the path, just starting to turn toward their villa. Seth lagged behind, shoulders hunched, hands dug deep into his pockets. Suddenly he stopped. He turned and looked directly at me. He did not look happy.
My breath caught, and my face flamed hot. I’d been caught spying. Not knowing what else to do, I ducked behind the shed and slipped into the hillside jungle. It’s actually a rain forest, if you want to get technical; but with bamboo, banyan, mango, and palms shooting up from the mossy ground, it feels like a jungle. Whatever you call it, it provided a chance to escape while I tried to come up with an explanation to give Seth about why I’d been watching him and his dad.
One of the distinct disadvantages of hanging around in there, though, is that it harbors island mosquitoes. They’re about the size of small birds, have tiny needles for noses, and they attack in swarms. Usually I’m careful about dousing myself with repellant before hiking, but in this particular instance I hadn’t had the opportunity. By the time I reached the first ridge, I was covered with itchy, red welts.
Mosquitoes aside, I felt some peace among the ferns and palms. I’d been exploring the hills since the day I arrived on the island, and they had become a refuge to me, just like my beach. Better yet, a few years before I had found a cove tucked back in a little crack of a valley about a mile or so from the property. I liked to think of it as my own private hideaway, which was exactly what I needed at the moment. I didn’t know what I would do up there, but at least I had a destination.
In all the time we’d been on the island, I had never seen anyone else at the cove, which isn’t much of a surprise because it’s easy to miss through the trees, even from the air. I know, because I looked for it last time we flew into the city. I probably wouldn’t have seen it at all if I hadn’t known it was there. Besides, I doubted any of our guests would expend the effort to climb up that far. You have to hike up to the third ridge, cross a fallen log over a twenty-foot ravine, and slog through an abandoned taro patch. But, oh! Is it ever worth it! A little sliver of paradise, all my own.
On either side of the cove, rocky walls covered in velvet green stretch up to the sky. In the center of the valley, a long, narrow waterfall hangs like a bride’s veil and empties into a sapphire pool. The coolest thing of all, though, is the secret cave hidden behind the falls. And no one knew about it but me.
My mom would have appreciated it. We used to go hiking together before Dad and I left for the island, and she was always on the lookout for “little pockets of tranquillity, ” as she called them.
“Gather peace whenever you find it,” she told me once. “Bask in it. Store it up. You never know when you might need it.”
Peace was exactly what I needed. Peace and answers. I hoped if I could find the first, I’d be able to figure out the second.
When I reached the pond, I peeled away my shorts and T-shirt and climbed down to the ledge, where I kicked off my Pumas. The rock was warm beneath my feet as I padded to the edge and dived into the chilly water.
Swimming downward, I counted slowly. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand . . . I could hold my breath for about 239 seconds—pretty good, I think. I once read that pearl divers can stay underwater for three and a half minutes, and I’ve got them beat. It took just over two minutes to wriggle through the little underwater crevice into the hidden cave, so I had plenty of time to spare.
I popped up to the surface on the other side, gasping for breath. On the rocky bank, I rolled onto my back, staring at the shadowed front wall of the cavern. A long fissure high above me allowed a small amount of light to penetrate the blackness. Crashing down on the other side of the fissure was the waterfall, through which the filtered sunlight cast a jumping, greenish glow across the low ceiling. When I closed my eyes, the light still danced in negative patterns behind my eyelids.
From the upper chamber of the cave came a rustling sound. I went stiff. Bats. I’d always known they lived somewhere deep in the caves, but I had fortunately never run into them. Hearing them from time to time was enough to keep me from exploring beyond the front cavern. I inhaled slow, deep breaths and tried to close my mind to their presence. I couldn’t find a tranquil place, though; the events of the past couple of days crowded tranquillity right out of the picture. Bianca was dead, my dad was acting weird, Seth was lying to me, and now we’d added a man with a gun to the mix.
I swatted the water, the splash echoing in a hollow ploink throughout the cave. I felt out of control and helpless. More than ever, I needed my mom. She’d always been able to help me talk through my problems until I saw a solution. Who could I talk to now? Darlene? She’d freak out and probably cause more trouble than we were in already. My dad? Not likely. Seth? I didn’t know if I could trust him.
My dad sure didn’t. Trust him, that is. I thought back on the night the Mulos had arrived—Dad all grins and handshakes until Mr. Mulo’s whisper put
an end to the party. I wished I knew what he’d said.
Guilt panged at the thought of Dad, despite the fact that I wasn’t happy with him. How long before he discovered I was gone? He’d be worried if he saw I wasn’t in my room. I should get back. With Watts on the island, time was crucial. If he wanted to talk to Dad about the Mulos, I would just have to beat him to it.
I slid back into the water, took a deep breath, and dived under again. Before going to my dad, I should probably talk to Seth. If I could get him to tell me what was going on, I could go to my dad with crucial information. Maybe then I could convince him to stay clear of Watts.
Wriggling through the tunnel, I mapped out a plan: How I would sneak over to Seth’s villa. How I would get his attention. How I would get answers no matter what it took.
Back on the pool side, I glided up to the surface, so fixated on the next piece of the puzzle that I didn’t see it standing right in front of me.
“Where did you come from?” Seth stood on the rocks, mouth hanging open, holding my T-shirt in one hand and my shorts in the other. How did he find me? I treaded water, gawking at him.
He returned the gawk. “How did you do that?”
I just shook my head. “Hold on. I’m coming up.” I swam to the shore and pulled myself out of the water, all the while trying to come up with a way to ask Seth about the newspaper article. It was a whole lot easier in the cave deciding what had to be done than it was standing in front of Seth and trying to do it. I forced my wet feet into my shoes and climbed the rocks slowly to where he stood.
“No, really,” he said. “Where were you? I’ve been searching around here for probably ten minutes. I thought maybe you’d drowned or something.”
I forced a laugh. “Hey, you should know better than that, after our ocean adventure the other night. I’m indestructible.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“How did you get up here anyway? What’d you do, follow me?”
“Well, yeah. I wanted to talk to you. Why did you run away?”
I hesitated. “I was . . . afraid.”