Page 58

The warmth of the sun was a relief after the frigid temperature of the police station, but I cringed in its glare, squinting at the screen of my phone as I stopped at the top of the stairs to read Laurent’s text:

You finished yet?

I took a breath. I wasn’t totally alone. Someone, at least, believed my side of the story. I shot him a message telling him I was done, and he immediately replied that he was on his way.

I descended the handful of steps to the sidewalk and took a seat on a bench in the shade of a palm tree, formulating a plan while I waited.

I couldn’t go to Cody. He’d already saved my hide once by going to jail for the crime I’d committed, and though I’d done nothing wrong this time, I had a feeling he’d be more interested in saving himself—and perhaps his girlfriend—than doing me any more favors.

And if Jennifer had planted that DNA test in my luggage and pushed me off the boat last night, who knew what else she would do to make sure I remained the prime suspect?

Confronting her could be dangerous and should be a last resort.

What I needed was to find incriminating evidence against her.

Something concrete, that the police would have to take more seriously than my word.

What that might be, I wasn’t sure. But Le Rêve would be a good place to start.

The Land Rover pulled up to the curb, and I got in. Laurent’s eyes were covered by sunglasses, but I could see the concern etched in his face. “How’d it go?” he asked as we roared away from the police station.

“Not great,” I said with a sigh. “Someone planted the DNA test in my luggage, and they seem to think I killed Tyson.”

He glanced over at me. “Jennifer?”

“That’s my guess.”

As he drove up the hill, I told him what I’d realized about her on the boat.

Unlike the police, he didn’t doubt my judgment or question whether I was sure of her identity, accepting my conclusions at face value. “Did Tyson have anything to do with her boyfriend’s death?” he asked when I’d finished.

I bit my lip. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I also couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t turn on me if he knew the whole truth. Regardless, if I was asking him to help me now, I owed him some kind of explanation. I had to take that chance. “This has to stay between us,” I said finally.

“Of course,” he said, turning off the main road onto a winding, narrow street.

“I don’t know whether it was an accident or intentional—I wasn’t there—but Tyson and Cody were involved. There had been a fight. Ian was asking for money. It’s probably best if you don’t know any more than that.”

He nodded, stoic, and I felt a modicum of relief that at least he hadn’t pulled the car over and kicked me out.

“Is this your house?” I asked as he parked in front of a well-kept bungalow with a wide porch overlooking the sea. Two surfboards leaned against the railing in front of a pair of rocking chairs.

He nodded, turning off the engine. “Want to come in?”

“I do,” I said. “But I need to go to Le Rêve to try to find something to prove my innocence.”

He furrowed his brow. “If Jennifer killed Tyson, she is dangerous.”

“It’s a risk I have to take.”

He nodded, accepting my competence without question. A rare man indeed. “How can I help?”

“Can you get me into the house without anyone knowing?” I asked.

“The gates have motion-activated cameras that ring the house.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking. “The wall goes past the gate, down the hill, but the front of the property has no fence, and that side of the house is never locked. It’s steep and overgrown, though.”

“The hill on the side that faces the sea?” I asked.

He nodded. “The view side. I can come—”

I shook my head. “You’ll be more useful to me watching the cameras somewhere nearby.”

“I don’t have access—”

“I do. I can log you in,” I said.

He unlocked his phone and handed it to me.

“Will you drive me there now?” I asked, navigating to the site where the camera feed was hosted. “The police aren’t gonna be happy that I left without answering all their questions. I get the feeling I’m on borrowed time until they issue a warrant for my arrest.”

He started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

“Thanks for not trying to stop me,” I said as I logged in with the credentials Tyson had given me.

“I trust you know what you’re doing,” he said, glancing at me. “And also, you do not seem like a person who can be told no.”

I laughed. “No.”

He made a sharp turn onto a street that plunged at a death-defying angle toward the beach, and my stomach dropped in anticipation of what I was about to attempt.

I appreciated that he trusted I knew what I was doing—but truthfully, I didn’t.

I never went into dangerous situations without a blueprint, and here I was, walking straight into the lion’s den with no plan beyond seeing what I could find.

I knew I should have a better strategy, but I didn’t have time to come up with one.

I scanned through the feed of the cameras at Le Rêve, watching Jennifer and Cody arrive and enter the house.

I needed to get into Jennifer and Cody’s suite, which meant waiting for them to emerge. “This may take a while,” I said, handing Laurent his phone.

“Okay,” he said as he brought the Land Rover to a halt in front of a row of green-roofed bungalows that hugged the street. He pointed to the hillside beyond. “The house is on top of the hill, five down. It has big concrete pillars. You can go in through Tyson’s patio.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

“I’ll park just past the gate and watch the cameras. How will I know if you need help?”

“The feed has sound, so you’ll be able to hear me,” I said. “And I can text you. But if I’m in a situation where I can’t, and I throw up a peace sign, call the police.”

“I’ll text you if I see anything. That’s the best place to cut through, ” he said, pointing between two houses. “Please”—he caught my hand, forcing me to look at him—“be careful.”

Impulsively, I leaned in and kissed him. He cupped the back of my head and I savored the sensation of his lips lingering against mine. “I’ll see you soon,” I promised, pulling away before desire could override my intention.

Casting a glance around to make sure no one was watching, I jumped down from the car and slipped behind a truck parked on the concrete pad between two of the houses.

As Laurent drove away, I peered over the waist-high cinderblock wall beyond, wishing I had better footwear than the borrowed too-big flip-flops.

The drop from the top of the wall to the ground was perhaps seven feet, but at least the landing would be in soft dirt that had slid down the hill to rest against the wall.

I pulled off the Havaianas and tossed them over, then jumped up on top of the wall and held on to the edge, lowering my feet until I dangled a foot off the ground.

My fingers scraped over the rough surface as I released my grip and landed harder than I’d expected, immediately falling backward in the uneven soil.

I surveyed the hill, plotting my path through the tangled underbrush as I slipped the flip-flops back onto my feet and brushed myself off.

Sticking close to the thick row of bushes atop the retaining walls of the houses that backed up to the mountain, I scrambled over rocks in my flimsy footwear, picking through spiny branches that grasped at my hair and clothes.

It was slow going, my ankles buckling as loose stones slid beneath my weight, my exposed forearms stinging with the scratches of coarse-leaved shrubs.

From below, it was nearly impossible to tell the difference between the mansions that towered above me, anchored by massive concrete pillars that plunged into the earth, and I had to stop to count the houses more than once.

As I scrabbled upward, grabbing roots and trunks to hoist myself, I lost a sandal. I kicked the other one off and kept going, fighting my way through the underbrush to the rocky dirt beneath the house, my bare feet slipping in the loose topsoil as I climbed.

But when I finally reached the top of the hill, exhausted and covered in dust, my head wound smarting, I saw that the railing of the outdoor hallway was a good eight feet above me, out of my reach.

My only option was to continue up the hill toward the patio off Tyson’s room and hope his door was unlocked.

Outside the shadow of the house, the dry brush was so thick that it was easy to haul myself up, but the trade-off was the abrasion of the prickly branches.

I groaned as a long bougainvillea thorn lodged itself in my heel, and when I released my hold on the bush I was grasping, one of its limbs snapped back, swatting me in the face.

My skin smarted and my eye stung, watering so profusely that I could hardly see to pull the thorn out of my foot. As I removed the barb from my throbbing heel and surveyed the hill ahead of me, a rooster crowed close by, and I startled, almost tumbling back down the slope.

When at long last I reached the waist-high wall that surrounded Tyson’s patio, I scrambled over, into an entirely different world.

Soft green grass grew through the spaces between the large square paving stones and tropical plants bloomed in the well-tended beds that surrounded the pristine white couches.

I had to stop myself from shedding my clothes and diving into the gurgling fountain, instead plunging only my feet and hands into the water.

Once I’d splashed my face and scrubbed the dirt from my feet, I could see how deep the puncture from the thorn was, a steady drip of blood oozing from the wound.

I dried my hands on my shirt and pressed my heel into my shorts, slowing the blood flow.

It needed attention, but I had nothing to wrap it with, and I needed to keep moving.

As I approached the door to Tyson’s room with my weight on the ball of my foot, I could feel the blood trickling down my instep.

The reflection in the glass showed a wild woman, leaves in my hair, my skin and clothes streaked with dirt and blood.

I raked the debris from my hair with my fingers and, saying a silent prayer, turned the door handle.

To my relief, it was unlocked.

I stepped over the threshold into the dark room and paused, allowing my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

Even with the blackout curtains closed against the afternoon sun, I could see the room had been ransacked—by the police, I supposed.

Drawers stood open, the mattress was half off the bed, clothes and personal items were strewn about.

As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I noticed a built-in glass cabinet, dimly illuminated by the light through the partially open bathroom door.

I crept over to it, confirming what I’d thought I’d seen: guns, neatly displayed behind the glass, as other people might display their china.

There were two handguns and space for two more, plus two shotguns and a rifle.

No wonder Jennifer didn’t kill Tyson here. He was armed to the teeth.

St. Barth’s was a territory of France, which had incredibly tough gun laws, and it was illegal for nonresidents to possess firearms, but I supposed that that didn’t matter to Tyson. He had ways and means.

I tried the handle of the cabinet, but it was locked, and when I tapped the glass, I could tell it was shatterproof. Dammit. I would have felt a lot better with a weapon at my side.

I pulled my phone out to find a new text message from Laurent:

Cody going downstairs

I glanced back at the door, considering bolting, but what if he came in here and locked it? I’d be stuck outside with no way in. No, I needed to hide.

As I scanned the room for a place to take cover, I heard the click of a door latch in the next room.

Light poured in from outside, spilling into the bedroom through the open double doors that led to the rest of the suite.

I dived into the triangle of space between the mattress, the bed, and the floor, peering out to see Cody enter.

I lost sight of Cody as he moved away from me toward the theater, and typed out a text to Laurent:

Where’s Jennifer?

His response came immediately:

In her room

With Cody in the theater and Jennifer upstairs in her room, this might be the best chance I had to sneak upstairs, where I could hide out in the suite that had been mine to wait for an opportunity to enter Jennifer and Cody’s room.

I knew they didn’t have access to the interior cameras of Tyson’s home; they didn’t even know they were there.

Tyson had hidden them so that he might catch his guests doing whatever it was he was sure they were doing.

A lot of good that had done him. But it was fortunate for me.

I could feel my injured heel throbbing with each beat of my heart as I carefully backed out of my hiding place, scanning the floor until I found an errant sock.

Hoping it was clean, I slipped it over my foot to stem the blood flow, then edged around the bed toward the door that led to the exterior hallway.

I held my breath as I slowly turned the handle and pulled.

I opened the door only a crack and slid through, blinking in the sudden daylight as I stole down the outdoor hallway.

I turned at the stairwell and dashed up the stairs two at a time, pain shooting through my injured foot every time it touched down.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, but I didn’t have time to stop and check it.

Cody could reemerge from the theater at any minute.

Once I reached the main level, I bolted across the open space like the wind, headed for my bedroom door. But before I could reach it, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs from the upper level and saw Jennifer’s legs. I would never make it to my room. I needed a place to hide immediately.

I darted behind the kitchen island, where I crouched low, trying to quiet my breath as my heart hammered in my chest. I heard the patter of her feet reach the bottom of the stairs, then…nothing. Where was she?

I pulled out my phone to see the text from Laurent that had come through while I was on the stairs, warning me that Jennifer was leaving her room. Another text came through.

Blood on the floor

She’s on to you

Fear shot through me as I looked down to see blood had seeped through the sock onto the pale gray floor. I’d left a trail leading right to my hiding place.