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Beth was a superb player, in excellent physical condition. She wasn’t just shapely, she was sleek. Perfectly toned. She played not so much to win as simply to play hard. There was a vibrance about her, a love of life, of activity, a passion that seemed to come through in everything she did and said, in the way her eyes seemed to burn like a crystal fire when they met his across the net. She clearly loved a challenge.
He had the feeling she would always meet one headon.
At last Beth’s team took the final point, and they all collapsed, laughing.
“What’s up next?” Hank asked, lying flat on the sand in exhaustion.
Lee was up and staring at Keith. “Fishing?” he suggested.
“Yeah, fishing,” Keith replied.
They were fishing, all right.
“Not me, boys. I’m for lazing in the sun now,” Amanda said, rolling sinuously to her feet.
Ben nodded toward Lee’s yacht. “You asking us out on that?”
“Would you like to see her?” Lee offered.
Keith looked at Lee and knew just what he was thinking. Keep the current denizens of the island with them, occupied. Keep an eye on them. Know what they’re up to at all times.
Keep them fishing, not diving.
He stayed silent. In the end, there wasn’t anything they could do about people diving these waters. Still, if discoveries here had been easy…well, they wouldn’t be here now.
“You bet,” Ben said enthusiastically. “Looks as if she’s got every new electronic device known to man.”
“I like my toys,” Lee said with a shrug.
“I’m with you,” Ben said.
“Hell, I’d like to see her, too,” Hank said, grinning.
“Me, too,” Gerald agreed.
“Little boys, little toys, big boys, big toys,” Amanda teased.
“Me, I’d like to see the hammock again,” Roger said.
“I think Sandy and I are going to take a walk, explore…” Brad said. “But thanks for the offer.”
“Beth?” Lee inquired. “Girls?”
“I’d love to see the boat,” Amber said.
“Yacht,” Beth murmured beneath her breath.
“But actually,” Amber admitted a little sheepishly, “I hate fishing.”
“That’s cool,” Lee told her.
“Beth?”
“I’ll stay with the girls,” she said. “But I do appreciate the offer.”
“You don’t care if I go?” Ben asked his sister.
“Not at all!”
But she did. She cared like hell.
“Maybe I will join you men,” Amanda said with something like a purr. “The sun is actually much better on the water. And I can always escape below if all the testosterone proves to be a bit too much. I’ll just get my things.” She started to walk away, then turned back. “I am not, however, cleaning any fish.”
Keith watched her sashay toward her tent.
When he turned to study Beth again, she was studying him. The way she was looking at him caused a little pang to creep into his heart.
She was so suspicious of him.
Well, she had every right to be.
But this was a game he played often. And he knew how to play it.
And he knew damn well that he couldn’t let her get in his way.
Her eyes swept over him. Cool. Still assessing him.
Then she turned.
He had been dismissed.
BETH WAS DEFINITELY ANGRY with Ben, although she wasn’t sure he knew it. And she wasn’t about to lash out at him in public—certainly not with the public that was surrounding them.
He was so big about protecting his family, but show the guy a new yacht with all kinds of cool toys, and he was gone in a flash.
To be fair, he thought she was being paranoid and there was nothing to protect his family from. Maybe she couldn’t blame him. There had been nothing in the inland clearing, and last night she had awakened the entire island by screaming because she had run into him.
At this point she wasn’t even sure herself just what she had seen. Maybe it had been a conch shell, and what she had imagined, in a stomach-churning moment, to be human tissue only sea grass and debris.
It was so easy to question oneself, especially in the bright light of day. Except that the afternoon was waning.
Sitting on the beach with the girls, she looked out to sea. The dinghies were long gone, bearing the fishermen—and woman—out to sea. Roger was sleeping in the hammock. Brad and Sandy were laughing, and running in and out of the waves, being romantic, being a couple.
Good for them. It seemed odd that they were the only couple among the groups. That Amanda had come on a family outing seemed amazing to Beth, but then, she disliked the woman. Roger and Hank were always decent enough, and though she really didn’t know Gerald well, he seemed okay, as well. Was she jealous of Amanda? She probed her own psyche in a moment of introspection.
No. She really, truly simply disliked her. And she really, truly liked most people.
So that, she decided with a wry grin, really, truly made Amanda a bitch.
“Aunt Beth, what are you smirking at?”
“I am not smirking,” she protested, turning to her niece. “I’m just…smiling at the day.”
“It really is a cool weekend, huh?” Kim said, looking up from her star-studded magazine. “I was afraid of being bored, but…well, those guys are cool.”
“Those guys are way too old for you two,” Beth said sharply.
“Aunt Beth,” Amber groaned. “We know that. Can’t they just be nice guys?”
“We really don’t know them,” Beth reminded them.
“You sound like a schoolteacher.”
“Right, well, schoolteachers teach you things you need to know.”
Beth stood up, stretching, eyeing the water again. Lee’s yacht was almost out of sight. Brad and Sandy were still happily cavorting. Roger was sleeping.
She hesitated, looking at Amber and Kim, and then she headed for her tent. Returning, she dropped the little black pepper-spray container on the towel next to Amber. “If anyone comes near you, you know what to do.”
Amber looked at the pepper spray, then up at her. “Really, Aunt Beth. Are you expecting a giant grouper to leap out of the sea and accost us?”
“Don’t be a wiseass. Wiseacre,” she quickly amended. But not quickly enough. Both the girls were laughing at her.
“Amber, Kim, I’m serious.”
Amber forced herself to look somber. “We’re taking you very seriously.”
Beth really didn’t think there could be any trouble, not with the yacht out at sea. She offered a dry smile and started to walk away.
“Hey,” Amber called. “Where are you going?”
“For a walk.”
“You’re going back to look for the skull, right?” Amber pressed.
“No.” She stepped back toward them. “And don’t go talking about the fact that we might have seen a skull, do you understand?”
Amber let out a great sigh. “No, Aunt Beth. I mean, yes. We won’t mention it again, okay?”
“Good. And scream like hell if anything happens.”
“Like you did last night?” Amber teased.
“Behave or I’ll tell your dad that every young guy in the theater department isn’t gay!”
“Hey, have a great walk, Beth. We’ll be little angels, sitting here. Ready with the pepper spray,” Kim vowed seriously.
Shaking her head, Beth started off.
The island was such a strange paradise, she thought, heading toward the path through the pines and scrub brush just behind the area they had chosen to stake out their tents. The beach was pristine, the water clear and beautiful. Of course, just beyond there were dangerous, even deadly, reefs. But those who knew the area and could navigate those reefs knew how to reach a real Eden. But behind the beach, the island became a very different place, the dense foliage creating little nooks and crannies, shadows and an eerie green darkness.
She had always loved it.
Until now.
Today it seemed the island itself was working against her. She lost the trail and almost emerged at the other end of the beach. Retracing her steps, she swore softly.
A large mosquito decided to take a good chunk out of her arm, and she slapped it furiously, taking inordinate pleasure out of the fact that she managed to kill it.
At last she wound her way back to the clearing where she had stood the day before with the girls.
She looked around, trying to assess the area. Fallen palm fronds seemed to be everywhere.
Had there been that many yesterday? She tried to remember exactly where they had been standing.
And then where Keith Henson had emerged from the trees.
In the end, because there were so many palm fronds down on the ground, she decided to examine them one by one.
She tried to make sure she didn’t miss an area. She had gotten to her fourth frond when she heard footsteps.
Someone else was heading for the clearing.
She forced herself to pause and listen. After determining the direction from which the sounds were coming, she headed across the clearing. As soon as she reached the shelter of the trees, she spun around, afraid that whoever it was had already burst into the clearing and seen her.
Through the trees, she could see something glinting.
She narrowed her eyes and swallowed hard. Whoever was coming was carrying a knife. A big knife.
A machete.
Staring intently at that deadly glint, she backed farther into the trees.
Suddenly she felt an arm reach around her middle, pulling her deeper into the foliage.
A scream rose to her throat.
But a second hand clamped tightly over her mouth, and no sound escaped.
4
STRETCHED OUT ON THE SAND, Amber watched her aunt disappear into the foliage, then rolled again to face Kimberly with a sigh.
“We’ve got to do something!”
“About what?”
“Beth, of course.”
