New Year Island

by Paul Draker

  “Heather’s a woman,” he said. “There might be another explanation for that.”

  “No.” Camilla shook her head. “If it were in the middle maybe, but not here on the edge.”

  He stepped closer to see. Something tiny skittered away from his shoe across the concrete floor. He glanced down at it, and his face changed.

  “Tell me if this is what I think it is,” he said.

  Shouts erupted from the darkness beyond the doorway: Travis’s drawling profanity, a sharp command from Juan, followed by Brent’s angry rumble. They had found him.

  She looked down at the small white fragment lying in a patch of sunlight near Mason’s shoe. The surface of its unbroken side was smooth, and there was a dot of red in the center where it had fractured.

  It was a tooth.

  The skin on Camilla’s arms tightened. She was looking at a piece of Heather. Sickened, she turned away. “What did he do to her?”

  Mason glanced toward the doorway. “Here comes Veronica.”

  “Oh, no.” Alarm raced through Camilla’s body. “Mason, she’s going to kill him if she sees this.”

  Veronica burst through the doorway, bouncing on the balls of her feet, energized. “We got him.”

  Camilla took a deep breath and stepped forward, covering the tooth with her foot. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mason straighten up. Thank god, he got it. He understood what she was doing, and for a change, it didn’t look as if he was going to try to make things worse.

  Veronica glared at them. “We got that animal, no thanks to you two. But we still don’t…” She trailed off, her pale eyes igniting with suspicion as she looked back and forth between them. Her voice slowed, turning liquid, insinuating.

  “What are you two up to in here?” Her gaze speared Camilla.

  “We were thinking—” Mason started.

  Without turning her head, Veronica held up a palm, silencing him.

  “Young lady, I believe I asked you a question.”

  Camilla could feel Heather’s tooth poking into the bottom of her shoe. Her legs started to tremble.

  “Why did you leave last night?” Camilla blurted. “If anything happened to her, it’s our fault, too. Yours and mine. We could have warned them.”

  Veronica blinked like an owl. “I thought you—”

  “No you didn’t. You didn’t care. And I was scared. I was so scared he’d hurt me again.”

  Veronica’s shoulders slumped. “Dear God.”

  She turned on her heel and ran back into the darkness. Male voices rose in shouts and threats from the direction she had gone.

  The breath Camilla was holding whistled out of her. She collapsed into one of the chairs, grinding the heels of her palms into her eyes. She hadn’t wanted another death on her conscience—not even Travis’s. She felt bad enough about Heather as it was.

  “You have a real talent for deception,” Mason said.

  “Oh god, shut up.” She pointed at the tooth, gleaming from the floor. “We need to save that for the police. Do you think there are cameras in here?”

  “Probably,” he said. “Even if there aren’t any, they can do some of that CSI magic to nail him. Lauren was an accident, Camilla. But this is murder.”

  “You’re so sure she’s dead.”

  “We didn’t find her, did we? And it wouldn’t be hard to dispose of a body here.”

  She winced, thinking of Lauren. “No, it wouldn’t. Come on.”

  She got up, picked up a notebook, and tore several blank pages from it. Squatting, she slid them under the tooth, not liking the way it rolled across the paper toward her fingers, as if it had a life of its own. She folded the corners over and picked it up, folding it again, making a little package.

  Ugh. She didn’t want it in her hands any longer. “Here, hang on to this—”

  Mason stepped away, holding his hands up. “No thanks, I’m good.”

  The shouting was getting louder now. Veronica’s voice, harsh and strident, rose above the others.

  “Oh god.” Camilla tucked the folded papers with the tooth into the pocket of her jeans, grimacing. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 115

  “You got no right.” Travis twisted, but Juan and Brent held him tight. “I already told you ten times, I ain’t seen no fucking Heather.”

  Heather’s cot was a few feet away, a mute reminder of what had happened here. Camilla had mussed the covers to hide the blood spot before the others herded Travis in. She stared at his face now, probing his expression. Travis’s features twisted into a snarl.

  “The fuck you looking at me all googly-eyed for, bitch?”

  Veronica stepped in front of her. “Because she’s never seen a piece of shit talk before. For the last time, what did you do with Heather?”

  “Y’all must be real stupid. Or deaf.” He jerked again, trying to shake loose.

  Juan’s fingers tightened on Travis’s shoulder, and he dropped to his knees in front of them, gasping.

  “Watch him,” Juan said to Brent. Then he and Jordan left together.

  A moment later, Jordan passed the window outside, heading toward the blockhouse. She was alone.

  Travis tried to stand, but Brent wrapped a big hand around his shoulder and pushed him down again.

  “I advise you not to move,” he said. “Your rotator cuff is torn. It’d be very easy to exacerbate your injury—or dislocate the shoulder again.”

  “…kill you,” Travis gasped.

  Veronica turned away, her expression bleak. “He did it, all right. She didn’t just wander off and drown.”

  Camilla glanced at Mason out of the corner of her eye. He was inspecting Travis the way an entomologist might study a strange bug. But at least he wasn’t grinning or saying anything inappropriate.

  Veronica took a step toward Travis. “I know this animal is responsible. We may not be able to prove anything…”

  Brent leaned forward, looming over the kneeling man. “That’s not our job, Veronica.”

  “I know,” she snapped. “But until he’s in custody, he’s a danger to every woman on the island. And frankly, I don’t trust you to sedate him again.”

  “Now, wait a minute—”

  “Please,” Camilla said. “Let’s not argue. Isn’t it more important to get Julian to send help?”

  “I’m all ears,” Veronica said.

  Camilla had been thinking about this.

  “I think you’re wrong about them panicking, Veronica,” she said. “Yesterday, Julian wiped Lauren off the scoreboard. That was very deliberate. I think he was saying something to us. He was telling us that the competition would go on without her.”

  She looked around the room. She had everyone’s attention now.

  “But Julian needs our cooperation for that,” she said. “And we’re not going to give it to him.”

  She pointed in the direction of the houses. “We have food left. I’ve still got a tiny bit of water. Even if you’ve finished yours, Mason’s got five more jugs hidden. That’s a half gallon each.

  “We can wait him out if we have to. He’s not going to get what he wants, so he has no reason not to send help.”

  Camilla took a deep breath. They were all listening to her. Good.

  “I know one of us is a spy. One of us is working with Julian. But it actually doesn’t matter who it is. Not anymore. Because…” She paused to look up into the corners of the ceiling. Were those dark spots the cameras? She chose one, stared into it, and raised her voice. “… as of right now, the rest of us—”

  “—refuse to play,” Juan finished from the doorway.

  He shoved something shiny off his shoulder, and it cascaded onto the concrete floor in a trill of loud clinking. Wet chain, coils and coils of it—no doubt the chain that had destroyed the scientists’ boat.

  Jordan appeared behind him. She held out a slender hand, fingers hooked through a half-dozen heavy padlocks, and dropped them onto the pile of chain.

  Travis tried
to scramble to his feet. “Not locking me up like a fucking animal again.” Brent’s fingertips whitened on his shoulder, and he sank to his knees, groaning.

  Juan glanced at Dmitry. “How long until someone comes?”

  Jacob pulled at his beard. “From San Diego, it takes—”

  Juan silenced him with a chopping gesture of his hand through the air. “Dmitry, how long?”

  Dmitry was staring at Jacob, his face perplexed, but he pointed out the window, in the direction of the mainland. “Day after New Year’s, park on shore opens to public again. Visitors, rangers walking there, they see us from shore. January two.”

  Juan looked at them all. “Seven days.”

  “I’ve got bad news,” Mason said. “We only have three.”

  CHAPTER 116

  “You’re a liar.” Veronica pointed a chipped fingernail at Mason. “You dumped the water yourself, just like you dumped the gasoline.”

  Neck tense, Camilla watched Veronica pace in front of the dark monitor screen, like an angry, caged tiger. The look on her face was scary. The air crackled like dry static, waiting for a wrong movement or word to set off a spark that would explode into violence again.

  Mason slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “Blaming the messenger doesn’t help, I’m afraid.”

  “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Camilla asked.

  The contestants had gathered once again in the great room of the Victorian house. Travis was chained up back at the station, where he would stay, with the two scientists watching him, until help arrived. It was better than leaving a contestant to guard him, Camilla had reasoned. Veronica was a poor choice for obvious reasons, and so was Natalie, and so was Mason. But none of them could be trusted with him, really. If they accidentally left Julian’s spy in charge of Travis, that person might set him free.

  “I was going to find who took the water, and cut a deal with them,” Mason said. “But after Lauren and everything else happened, it didn’t matter anymore.”Veronica stopped pacing, and her eyes widened. She turned to stare at him. “So you’ve known it was gone since yesterday?”

  “I had it hidden,” he said. “I buried it. No one could have known where it was, except Julian’s spy.”

  “Right,” Veronica said. “You.”

  “Mason isn’t the spy,” Camilla said. “He couldn’t have chained the boat.”

  Veronica’s eyes snapped toward her. “And you’re always defending him. The way you two pal around, it wouldn’t surprise me if you were both in on it.”

  Camilla glanced at Juan and Jordan, leaning against the back wall, only half participating. There was no help there. It was as if Jordan had inherited Juan’s laconic personality, his silent watchfulness. She turned back to Veronica.

  “Without water, we can only last three days,” Camilla said. “I think that works both ways. Unless Julian’s willing to let us die of thirst, then he’s only got three days, too.”

  “What if Julian is willing to let us die?” Mason asked. “Sorry, but I think you’re being naive here. One of us got killed yesterday. Another woman got murdered last night…”—he paused—”…probably murdered, I mean…”

  Camilla’s eyes flicked toward Veronica, who was watching Mason with her mouth pursed.

  He swept a hand at the monitor screen. “…and they haven’t done anything about it. Try and explain that to me.”

  “I can’t,” Camilla said. “But I think it means we need more leverage.”

  What Mason said before had given her another idea. Someone in the room wasn’t going to like what she had to say next, but she didn’t know who—not just yet, anyway. She took a deep breath.

  “I was wrong earlier,” she said. “We do have to unmask Julian’s spy. Right now. Then Julian has no way of influencing events here, and it’s over.”

  She pointed at Mason. “Everyone, think about what he said. Only Julian’s spy could have known where the water was…”

  Veronica shook her head impatiently. “Enough with the stupid word games.”

  “The spy didn’t see where the water was hidden,” Camilla said. “The cameras did. Julian did. That means they can communicate with each other.”

  She let that sink in, watching their faces.

  “A working phone,” Mason said. “It makes sense.”

  “It wouldn’t even have to be two-way,” she said. “The cameras let them see and hear everything that’s going on here. They would only need to be able to send instructions.”

  He nodded. “Text messages.”

  “I’ll go first.” Camilla walked to the front of the room.

  Standing in front of the monitor reminded her too much of yesterday, when she had done the same thing during the gifting game, and what that had led to. The fight. The knife. Was this a mistake?

  No, they had to do this. She took off her jacket and laid it on the ground.

  “Somebody search me,” she said.

  Mason’s eyes widened behind his glasses. Why was he surprised?

  Oh god—Heather’s tooth!

  Her stomach contracted. She could feel the awful lump in her pocket, pressing into her thigh. How could she have forgotten?

  Mason started forward. “I’ll do it—”

  “Not you.” Veronica’s luminous eyes cut from him to Camilla, paralyzing her, like a mouse frozen in the gaze of a snake.

  She had to explain herself—before they found it—but she knew that Veronica wouldn’t believe her. No one would. Camilla’s breath caught. With everyone so angry and keyed up now, the true danger she had so blindly placed herself in dawned on her.

  They might even think she had killed Heather.

  Veronica’s eyes probed hers. She struggled to keep her face calm.

  “Natalie,” Veronica said. “Check her.”

  Camilla almost sagged with relief. She wouldn’t have Veronica’s deadly hands prodding at her. She wouldn’t have those terrible, unblinking pale eyes inches from hers, dissecting her every facial twitch.

  Natalie stopped next to her, looking unsure how to begin.

  “Here,” Camilla said, reaching into the other pocket for her iPhone.

  “No,” Veronica commanded. “Let her.”

  Natalie’s shy fingers plucked her phone from her jeans. With a look of concentration, she pressed the On switch, and prickles raced across the back of Camilla’s neck.

  What if, after five days of dead air, it suddenly got a signal now?

  Natalie dialed a number. Held the phone to her ear.

  Camilla tensed.

  “No signal,” Natalie said. She picked up Camilla’s jacket and checked its pockets. Laying it back down, she looked at Veronica.

  Camilla’s pounding heart was slowing to normal. Her face tried to stretch in strange directions, to laugh, even though she knew how bad that would look.

  Somehow, Natalie had missed it.Trying to hide her relief, Camilla exhaled slowly, blowing through her mouth because her broken nose was blocked.

  “Check her other pocket,” Veronica said.

  Oh god.

  Tentative fingers probed her thigh, and Natalie pulled the folded lump of paper from her jeans.

  Camilla raised her hands. “I—”

  “I knew it. A note.” With forceful strides Veronica crossed the floor and snatched it from Natalie’s hands. “Let me see that.”

  Veronica was two feet away now. Picturing those hooked thumbs punching into JT’s spurting sockets, Camilla closed her own eyes. She squeezed her legs together, fighting an overpowering urge to cringe. If she weren’t so dehydrated, she’d probably end up peeing herself right now.

  It was absolutely the wrong thing to think of. An inappropriate urge to giggle seized her, and she bit the inside of her cheek to stifle it. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Oh god, don’t laugh at her—she’ll kill you.

  The urge worsened.

  Paper rustled. Veronica drew a sharp breath, a foot from her face.

  “It’s blank,” she
said. “What is the meaning of this, young lady?”

  Camilla opened her eyes.

  “Why are you carrying this wad of paper in your pocket?”

  Everyone was staring at her. She looked at Veronica and swallowed. Opened her mouth. Couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  Mason laughed.

  Veronica’s head swung toward him. “Maybe you can enlighten us, then.”

  “Do you really need a man to explain it to you, Veronica?”

  She stared at him, and her brows knitted. Then she snorted. “Some man you are.”

  The tension in the room seemed to be dissipating, though. Camilla stared at her in confusion. Veronica’s expression was a mix of pity and disgust.

  “For God’s sake,” she said, shaking her head at Camilla. “A woman your age should have learned by now to be prepared. It’s disgraceful.”

  Her face softened, and she laid a hand on Camilla’s forearm. “Come see me afterward. I’ve got some in my bag.”

  Her period—that was what Veronica thought the paper was for. Camilla’s face flushed.

  Now everyone—Juan, Jordan, Brent—would be wondering about her hygiene. She was mortified. But she didn’t dare correct the misunderstanding. In fact, she ought to be grateful for it. She looked down at her feet.

  Heather’s tooth lay on the floorboards in plain view, halfway between Veronica’s toes and hers. Her eyes widened, and the awful urge to giggle came back stronger than ever. Veronica would notice her staring at it for sure. Camilla jerked her head up, staring wall-eyed into Veronica’s face.

  “You don’t want to get an infection,” Veronica said. “Not here.”

  CHAPTER 117

  “What have we here? Naughty, naughty, naught-ty.”

  Camilla uncrossed her arms and looked up at the sound of Mason’s voice, giving her full attention to the front of the room. She had retreated to a corner, and the past five minutes were a blur. Her legs were still shaky, her face hot. She couldn’t tell whether she was going to laugh, cry, or throw up.