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No sound escaped her throat. She heard nothing except for her own pounding heart, fear wrapping itself around her like a vise.
Then, darkness.
Chapter One
“Very few of us are what we seem.”
—Agatha Christie,The Man in the Mist
I never leave home without a book.
The idea that I might be trapped somewhere without something to read gives me nightmares. Lunch break? That’s a good chapter—ten if I’m reading James Patterson. Commute on the subway?Easytwo chapters, each way. Doctor’s office? Dentist? Waiting for my grandma to stop flirting with her doorman? A couple pages to pass the time.
I’m not antisocial, butrealpeople—at least the ones I’ve met—are not as interesting, smart, or funny as the fictional characters my favorite writers create. I can solve a murder, climb the Himalayas, fall in love—all in four hundred pages or less. Much more exciting than my life.
Andthisbook practically jumped into my hands at the Newark airport kiosk. The cover with the silhouette of a man and woman running from a raging fire and the titleSlow Burnhad my heart racing. The packaging didn’t lie. The book was so engrossing, by the time I made the layover in Miami to change planes, only half the story remained. The suspense was pitch-perfect, drawing me into the tightening web of lies and deception as the title suggested. The sexual tension between Christina and John was intoxicating, leading to a satisfying love scene that was worth the wait, leaving me a bit overheated.
I could practically hear Grams. “It’s fiction, Mia. This is why you expect too much from your boyfriends.”
It wasn’t just fiction, not to me. It wasn’t that the men in romance novels were perfect—they weren’t—but they had a spark with the heroine. Together, the characters found love. Sometimes, they worked together to solve a crime. Sometimes, they lusted for each other and discovered more than physical attraction. Sometimes they thought they hated each other... until the coin flipped and they fell in love.
Mostly, they weren’t alone anymore. My career was right on track, but my love life had barely left the station. Every man who seemed interested in me, every man I gave a chance, failed in a fundamental way. Not just in bed, but in life.
Was I destined to either live alone with two cats for the rest of my life or settle for a man who didn’t know how to cook or get me off?
There were still three chapters left by the time the plane landed at the small St. John airport. I’m a fast reader... but when a book is especially good, I replay every snippet of dialogue in my mind, every detail I consider might be a clue to the mystery, and then I savor the emotional connection between the characters as the ending draws near.
One of my favorite children’s books is thisSesame Streetstory about Grover, who doesn’t want to turn the page because of the monster at the end of the book. For me, it’s not a monster I fear, but that the book will be over, that even if I reread it, the discovery is gone because I know what happens. So, the better the book, the slower I read, and I intended to draw out these last three chapters for as long as it took to reach St. Claire.
As I boarded the ferry, the quiet pulse of the engine and fresh salt air eased my tension. I watched couples board and realized I was one of the few singles heading to the resort. I figured there would be other single people on the island, but now that it was almost in sight, I wondered how I was going to actually find a vacation boyfriend, a guy I could have fun with... and sexwith... no strings attached. When I was home, the fantasy of a week in paradise with a hunky man had been exciting; now that I was here, I was terrified that I’d be alone the entire trip.
I was just going to have to channel Grams and talk to every single man until one of them appealed to me.
I couldn’t help feeling, again, that this trip was a waste of time and a ridiculous amount of money. I’d been with McMann & Cohn Financial Planners for five years, and this adventure was my nonnegotiable anniversary bonus—a trip to a private island in the Caribbean. As an accountant, I thought it was fiscally irresponsible toforcean employee to spend a bonus frivolously, and the money would have done so much more for my portfolio if my boss had let me add it to my 401(k), but that wasn’t an option. Believe me, I’d asked.
“Go, have fun, enjoy yourself! And remember—when you return, you have a promotion waiting for you. You’ve earned it, Mia. All we need is your signed contract.”
The promotion was everything I’d wanted, everything I had asked for, everything I had been working so hard toward. They’d offered me a new contract complete with more money, more clients, and my name on the door.
But I also knew more money plus more clients would equal less time for the personal life I still meant to have one day. And my name on the door?McMann, Cohn, & Crawford Financial Planners?That honor meant more responsibility. And permanency. That engraved plaque was starting to feel more like an anchor.
The private St. Claire ferry was a sleek, sixty-foot-long yacht, so large that the group of ten men and women on board, plus crew, didn’t feel crowded, and there were private nooks and crannies just begging for a reader. The other passengers ignored me, and I gladly reciprocated; I felt wholly out of place taking a vacation on a ritzy private island with the type of people I usually worked for, not socialized with.
And not one of the passengers was an unattached man.
Thank God for the champagne the server offered. The guy was cute in his crisp white uniform, but way too young. He probably couldn’t even legally drink what he was serving.
I took a sip while avoiding eye contact and gawking just a little (okay, maybe a lot) at the couple who were making out in the corner and who also had made an exceptional PDA scene in the Miami airport. They were practically begging to star in a viral TikTok video, “The Couple Who Ate Each Other’s Faces Off.” Honeymooners, probably. Or maybe they were adulterers, stealing away for a week while their unsuspecting spouses watched the kids, fed the dog, and went to work.
A redheaded woman came in from the rear deck, her wide-brimmed hat hitting my forehead. “Excuse me,” I muttered.
She didn’t acknowledge me but gazed around the cabin as if looking for someone. She hadn’t had a companion when I saw her at St. John. She’d been reading the local newspaper, which was now partly sticking out of her oversized yellow Kate Spade purse that matched her oversized yellow sun hat.
And she was gorgeous. My hopes for a vacation boyfriend fell to the bottom of the sea. If there was a single hunky guy on St. Claire, he would be all over her. What were the chances there were two attractive single men under forty?
The young server approached with a tray of champagne. “Ms. Jones, Ms. Crawford, it is a pleasure to serve you this afternoon. May I offer appetizers?” With a sweep of his free hand, he gestured to one of several food stations set up—far more food than ten people could eat on a thirty-minute cruise.
“Thank you,” I said with a smile, too nervous to eat.