New Year Island

by Paul Draker

  Heather’s tooth lay on the floor, right in front of everyone. It seemed impossible that no one had noticed it. She had to get it back, save it for the police.

  She had only half listened while Mason was searched, and now Mason and Veronica were searching Brent.

  “Got a prescription for these?” Grinning, Mason held a bundle of pills and several syringes in the air, displaying them to the other contestants like a courtroom lawyer grandstanding with exhibits. Brent looked disgusted.

  Mason read the labels. “Fentanyl, Demerol, and propofol…And what about this? Modafinil? Hey, I’ve heard of this stuff. Silicon Valley startup execs use it to work nonstop twenty-hour days.” He laughed. “Wow, that’s quite a cocktail, Doc. You might want to ease up—none of us can be much help if you OD.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Brent said. “I know my own tolerances. Let’s not get distracted here.” He pointed at the pills and syringes. “Check my phone, and give those back.”

  “We have power,” Mason said, manipulating the phone. “Wait for it… wait for it… but no. I was going to call the AMA on you, Doc, but there’s no signal.”

  Mason pulled his own iPhone from his pocket. “Do yourself a favor and buy one of these. That big Microsoft clunker of yours is an old-man phone.”

  Brent’s face was dark. Breathing heavily, he snatched the pills and syringes from Mason. Stuffing them back into the pockets of his vest, he walked away.

  “Don’t forget your old-man phone,” Mason said, holding it out to him and laughing.

  Veronica turned abruptly and walked across the room, away from the arched doorway. Camilla looked through the arch, where JT now stood.

  He laid a hand on the frame and surveyed the room. A thick gauze bandage and tape covered one of his eyes. His nose looked the way Camilla’s felt.

  “Big waste of time,” he said through split, swollen lips. “Easy to modify a phone so you need a code to activate the signal.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Camilla asked.

  JT’s eye swept past Veronica, and his knuckles tightened on the doorway, but his fierce glare settled on Juan.

  “Maybe I don’t need one,” he said. “Maybe I already know who we’re looking for.”

  Jordan’s grip tightened on Juan’s arm.

  “Then you won’t mind if they check you,” Juan said.

  “Hell, why not? I’ve got nothing to hide.” JT stepped fully into the room and raised both arms above his head. His eye flicked toward Veronica. “Anyone but her.”

  JT’s phone was dead. Mason and Brent found nothing else on him.

  “Now you,” he said, fixing Juan with a stare.

  “I’ll go.” Jordan detached herself from him and walked to the front of the room.

  Veronica waved Natalie forward and curled a finger at Camilla, but kept her distance from JT. The air thrummed with tension.

  At the front of the room once more, Camilla tried not to look down at Heather’s tooth while she searched Jordan. Jordan’s phone had a little bit of battery life left, but no signal. Camilla handed it back with an apologetic shrug, but Jordan’s cold expression gave her nothing.

  “We might as well search you now, too, Natalie.” Camilla looked at the younger woman with sympathy, remembering what Veronica had said about her history.

  Natalie nodded, looking down at the floor. She pulled her hands from her hoodie pockets, holding an iPhone and the stun gun.

  Camilla was as gentle as possible, but Natalie shrank from her touch and Jordan’s. Her phone was dead. Head down, Natalie retreated to a corner, and Jordan returned to Juan’s side.

  “Your turn, compadre.” JT’s voice was deadly calm. “I’ve seen you at night. Down by the dock.”

  “You’re wrong,” Juan said, backing toward the doorway. “But I won’t be searched. I’m leaving now.”

  Camilla’s breath caught. Not him. Please not him. And Jordan, too? But here was her chance, while all eyes were on Juan. She knelt rapidly as if tying her shoelace, pinched Heather’s tooth between her fingers, and slipped it inside her shoe.

  “What are you doing now?” Veronica’s voice froze Camilla before she could stand.

  “Back up.” Juan’s command sliced across the room, and they both turned to stare.

  He had a gun in his hand. Black and blocky, it was held low in front of him.

  “Mo-ther-fucker!” JT’s voice rose in surprise. “That’s my gun.”

  Camilla stood. She had seen Juan gauging the distance yesterday, memorizing the spot where it had hit the water. She had hoped he would understand that it should stay there at the bottom, where it belonged. Bringing it back onto the island was sure to get somebody killed.

  But was he Julian’s spy? She again saw him scooping the little boy out from in front of the truck. Her heart wouldn’t let her believe he was.

  “Juan, put it down,” she said. “This is only making it worse.”

  “You’re holding it wrong,” JT said, edging toward him. “And the safety’s on.”

  “No!” Camilla shouted.

  Juan raised the gun, hard-eyed. Finger on the trigger, he aimed it at JT’s face. “There’s no safety on a Glock. Now, back up, JT. Last warning.”

  Mason laid a hand on JT’s shoulder. “You should be getting used to this by now,” he said. “Statistics do say that when gun owners get shot, it’s usually by their own guns. But let’s hear him out.”

  JT plucked Mason’s hand off his shoulder without taking his eyes off Juan. “Because of you, Lauren’s dead.”

  Juan shook his head. “It had nothing to do with me. She made her own decision.”

  Bitterness washed over Camilla. She pushed in front of him, ignoring the gun. “You could have said something.” She stared into Juan’s dark eyes, searching for the friendliness she remembered, not finding it. “You could have warned us all about the sharks.”

  “I’m not your tour guide.” Juan’s eyes never left JT, but he waved out the window with his other hand. “Besides, I can’t really explain that.”

  So a divemaster thought the shark attack was strange, too. But even if he wasn’t Julian’s spy, his indifference was equally hurtful.

  “How can you be like this?” she asked.

  “You’re a nice person, Camilla.”

  Coming from Juan, it stung. It sounded like a dismissal.

  “Stop saying that,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it. Especially from you.”

  His face didn’t change. “What I mean is, none of us are responsible for each other here.”

  Camilla saw the flicker of hurt in Jordan’s eyes.

  “You need to understand that,” Juan said. “Before you get yourself injured again. Or worse.”

  “Not my brother’s keeper, Juan?” Her disappointment in him was choking her. She nodded toward Jordan. “Why don’t you ask her how she feels about that?”

  But Juan was staring at her now, and the look of pain blooming in his eyes stopped her dead. He had let her down, and she had hurt him terribly in return—but she had no idea how.

  He made no attempt to disguise his sorrow. She wanted to look away, but his dark eyes held her, drowning her in his private pain. She knew the patterns of grief well. She could tell this was an old wound—one he had carried for so long that it had become a part of him, defined him.

  “Search me.” His voice was hoarse. He lifted his arms away from his sides, the gun still held on JT, but his eyes on her.

  Camilla stepped close. She glanced at Jordan, who was biting a thumbnail and looking away, lost in some separate worry. Camilla searched Juan’s pockets, looking down at her hands the whole time, very aware of his wounded eyes on her. When she reached her arms around his waist to check his belt he tilted his head toward her, probing her expression, and she swallowed. This close to him, she could hear his pained breathing, sharp and shallow through his nose. But she sensed no menace directed at her—only that bottomless well of unhappiness. Her own breath sped up in s
ympathy.

  Juan’s phone had a quarter battery charge left, but no signal. She found nothing else.

  She looked up at him, wishing she could take back whatever she had said that hurt him. “So it was just the gun you didn’t want us to find?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re wasting your time, girl.” JT glared. “He’s the one.”

  Taking a deep breath, Camilla stepped back. Juan’s eyes followed her.

  “Okay,” she said to the room. “That got us nowhere…”

  “I want my gun back,” JT said. “Give it to me, and maybe I don’t kill you.”

  Jordan spoke. “Juan isn’t with Julian. I know that.”

  Camilla raised her voice. “Please, JT, can you sit down before someone gets hurt? And, Juan, can you put that away?”

  “You’re making a mistake,” JT said. But to her relief, he backed up and sat down against the wall.

  Juan gestured with the gun. “Legs out in front of you.”

  JT stretched his legs across the floor, and Juan relaxed, letting the gun drop to his side. He kept his finger on the trigger, though.

  “So what next?” he asked her.

  She had no idea. Her plan was a bust. But wait—they hadn’t searched everyone yet.

  “Veronica,” she said. “It seems we missed you somehow—”

  Veronica cut her off. “There’s a problem.”

  CHAPTER 118

  “I swear to God I had no idea,” Veronica said.

  The silence in the room was overwhelming. Camilla stared at her in shock, seeing fear in those pale eyes. Veronica was Julian’s spy?

  Brent raised a hand to scratch the side of his head, but she found nothing cute about the gesture anymore. “What are you talking about?” he rumbled.

  “If I had known what was going to happen to Lauren… to Heather… I’d never have done it.” Veronica’s hands were shaking. “I swear to God.”

  “What did you do?” Camilla asked her.

  “Sit down, JT.” Behind her, Juan’s voice held a note of warning, but Camilla couldn’t look away.

  “I have a communications device,” Veronica said. “It’s been used to send me instructions.”

  Camilla was surprised at how betrayed she felt. Veronica had hugged her when her nose was broken. She had intervened when JT was manhandling her. Veronica frightened her, but Camilla had looked up to her, too—admired her for her fearlessness and directness.

  That she had been lying this whole time made Camilla very, very angry. “What instructions?” she asked.

  “I can see what this looks like, but I’m not the spy. I’m not working with Julian.”

  “What instructions?”

  Veronica reached into a pocket and pulled out a clunky, old-fashioned text pager. She held it out with a shaking hand. “I found this during the scavenger hunt.”

  Camilla took it from her, and read the first message: “STAND BY FOR INSTRUCTIONS.” She hit the button that scrolled to the next message, read it, and something coiled in her gut. She stared at Veronica.

  “What does it say?” JT’s voice held an edge like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “Sit down, JT.” Juan spoke louder this time.

  “Why?” Camilla asked Veronica. “Why would you do this to us? People are dying now.”

  “I was losing. I was in last place. I need that money.” Veronica’s eyes hardened. “Safe Harbor is bankrupt. If I don’t win, I have to shut down the shelter.” She looked at Mason. “The bank is taking the property out from under me, you grinning vulture. Leaving those women no place to go—”

  “That’s not good enough.” Camilla locked eyes with her. “Ask Lauren. Ask Heather.”

  “There is no money now, Veronica.” Brent’s large hand closed over Camilla’s, and he gently took the pager from her. “You can be sure of that.” He leaned forward, squinting to read the message on its screen, and stiffened.

  “Doc.” JT’s voice cut through the room. “Tell us all what it says. Right now.”

  “‘DESTROY EMERGENCY BEACON ASAP.’” Brent dropped the pager to the floor. “That’s what it says.” He put his hands in his vest pockets and stared at Veronica with contempt. “I hope you realize what you’ve done. Two women are dead because of it.”

  “It’s not like that.” Veronica’s mouth tightened. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “JT. Sit. Down.” Juan’s voice—calm, but with cold finality. “Last warning.”Camilla sensed the room about to explode behind her, but she didn’t look away from Veronica’s eyes. “What you did to JT, setting him up like that—it’s disgusting enough if you are the spy,” she said. “If you aren’t, it’s even worse.”

  “I… oh, shit. Forget it.” Veronica spun and stormed off, disappearing through the doorway to the other house.

  Natalie half-stood, staring after her.

  Mason grinned. “Not the best role model, Natalie. But hey, she sure can teach you to look out for number one.”

  “You’re just going to let her go?” JT said. “She fucking blinded me. Doc says I’m never going to see out of this eye again. Did it occur to any of you to ask how she happened to have my court-martial transcript?” He sat against the wall, staring at Camilla with his one remaining eye, restrained by the gun in Juan’s hand. He had saved her life when Travis tried to stab her. He didn’t deserve this.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But no more violence. Nobody else dies here.”

  “They threw Travis into the mix to distract us from her,” JT said. “She’s a killer, remember? Murdered her first husband. None of us is safe as long as she’s running around.”

  With a pop and crackle, the monitor on the wall behind Camilla came to life, lighting the faces in front of her with stark, artificial contrast. The room went silent. She looked over her shoulder.

  The screen showed the same room they now stood in, but empty of people. The floor was littered with small objects, instead: the gifts from the previous contest. In real life, the gifts had been shoved to the corners, their LEDs all dark, batteries dead now. But on the monitor, lights still glowed from them: a few green, but mostly red. It was a scene from yesterday, Camilla realized. She braced herself, knowing that whatever Julian wanted them to see was sure to be bad.

  On-screen, a small figure entered the room, moving with caution. She seemed to be sorting through the items on the floor, occasionally adding one to the small pile in her arms. She glanced up toward the camera for a moment. Natalie.

  She had missed her turn, Camilla remembered now. With the lowest score, she would have gone last. But then Travis had attacked them, and events had taken their awful course, and the game had been abandoned.

  But not by everyone, it seemed.

  On the monitor, Natalie moved to the center of the room, crouching to dump her armful of gifts in a clear spot on the floor. She reached down, manipulating them as a green glow spread from the pile, growing in intensity. Natalie looked up and out at them from the center of the screen, her face lit green from below. She seemed to stare directly at them, checking something.

  Mason laughed—an unrestrained bray of amusement. “You’re watching your score, aren’t you?” he said. “To see if it goes up.”

  Camilla looked at the real-life Natalie, standing beside her. She seemed paralyzed by the sight of herself up on the screen.

  On the monitor, she finished what she was doing. Staring up toward the camera again, she nodded once, as if satisfied with what she saw. Then she stood and swept her pile of gifts aside with her foot, scattering them among the other items. With a final glance at the camera, she left the room. The screen went black, and the scoreboard appeared on the monitor.

  Hunched in her hoodie, Natalie looked guilty. And scared. Her score had been in the single digits before, Camilla recalled.

  She stared at the floor. They had no leverage over Julian. They were doing this to themselves and each other while he sat back, laughing at them and recording it all. She thought
about what she had just seen Natalie do, and a surge of acid vomit gushed into her throat. Forcing it back down, Camilla spoke without looking up.

  “Tell me, Natalie, did you do that before—or after—Lauren died?”

  Natalie dropped her head and walked away fast, exiting through the same doorway as Veronica.

  “Well.” Taking a deep breath, Camilla raised her eyes to see Mason, Brent, JT, Jordan, and Juan watching her now, as if they were waiting for her to do something. She focused on Juan, who still held the gun at his side.

  “If we have any more secrets from each other,” she said, “I suggest we get them out on the table now. Before something worse happens…”

  The scoreboard faded, and the monitor lit up behind her. Camilla turned and found herself staring into Julian’s easy grin.

  CHAPTER 119

  “Good afternoon.” Julian’s voice, like his expression, was calm and friendly.

  “You son of a bitch!” Brent shouted. “How dare you smile at us!”

  Everyone surged forward, crowding in front of the monitor, their angry yells rising all around Camilla.

  “Let me talk to him,” she shouted, waving them back. “Let me talk!” The room quieted down.

  Julian gazed from the screen, his serene smile unchanged. He steepled his fingers in front of him and tapped his joined index fingers against his lips, as if trying to decide how to begin.

  Camilla wasn’t going to give him that chance. “If you say another word, I’m going to pull this monitor off the wall and destroy it. And the one in the other house, too. And then I’m going to start ripping out cameras.” Her throat tightened. “I don’t know how many of us will help, but I won’t be doing it alone.”

  Julian’s grin turned rueful. His gaze floated somewhere over her shoulder, not meeting her eyes. Ignoring her.

  “Whatever you think you can make us do to each other here,” she said, “I promise you, it isn’t going to happen. You need to listen right now.”

  He looked down at the ground, shaking his head and holding up his palms, still smiling. Why wasn’t he taking her seriously?