CHAPTER TEN
That night, I went back to tossing and turning in bed. Rook had every cell in my body sparking with need and every spark in my brain churning out questions. Tomorrow, I would start pushing him for information—about the island, how he kept it a secret, who he knew. I would ask about his personal life and be pushy as hell.
“Stephanie…”
“What the—” I sat up in my bed, my body flooding with adrenaline.
“Stephanie…” the soft voice called out again.
Ohshit. Ohshit. It sounded like…like…Cici? I covered my mouth. Am I dreaming again? Because I didn’t feel like it. I felt awake and clearheaded and—
I heard her voice again.
“Hello?” I scrambled from bed and went into the living room. There was no one there. Jesus Christ. What is this? A sick joke? Someone had to be messing with me, because there were no rational explanations for this.
I spun in a circle, holding my breath and listening. After a long moment of complete silence and me trying not to freak the hell out, I went to the window and peeked outside. There, standing between the trees, was the same man holding his lantern.
“Oh shit!” I jumped in my skin. The hood blocked his face save for his scruffy chin. The brown robe he wore looked old and tattered, like it had been sewn from a potato sack.
I was about to go back to the bedroom and retrieve my cell, but then the man waved, gesturing for me to follow. He turned and headed into the woods.
“Stephanie…” the voice called out again, like a faint whisper seeping through a gap in the window.
“Ohmygod.” That is Cici. I went to the door, jerked it open, and ran outside. “Cici!” I yelled.
“Stephanie.” Her voice came from the direction where I’d seen the hooded man disappear. I paused for a split second, my head spinning, my heart thrashing. I knew none of this made sense. I knew only crazy people ran off into the jungle in the middle of the night, chasing voices. But I loved my sister. Nothing mattered except getting her back.
Then I spotted the faint pale figure of a petite woman slipping into the jungle. Her height and size were the same as my sister’s.
“Cici?” I called out and ran barefoot after her. I grunted as branches lashed at my face and my toes slammed into rocks hidden beneath a thick layer of vegetation. Suddenly, I burst from the jungle out onto a small sandy beach surrounding a lagoon, the full moon above reflected in the rippling water.
I spun on my heels. “Cici!” I yelled. But the only sounds came from a few random birds and a gust of wind blowing through the trees surrounding the water.
I doubled over, resting my hands on my knees, to catch my breath. The side cramps burned through me like a wildfire. Fuck. Fuck. What is happening?
A small splash in the lagoon, like a fish jumping, suddenly caught my attention. Slowly, I stood and noticed a pale naked figure standing waist deep in the lagoon.
My eyes took a moment to focus. “Cici…” I whispered underneath my heaving breaths. The moonlight only illuminated her shoulders and forehead, but I knew it was her. “Cici!”
She turned with her back to me and waved slowly, like she wanted me to follow her into the water.
“Wait!” I yelled, watching her wade deeper. “Cici!”
Her head went under, and I lunged for the water, hitting a hard wall.
“Stephanie!” a deep voice roared and someone gripped me by the shoulders. “Stephanie!” Rook’s voice flooded my ears. “Wake the fuck up!”
I blinked. It was early morning, and I stood at the edge of a lagoon. The same lagoon I’d seen Cici disappear into.
Ohmygod. What is this? “Where am I?” I whispered.
“We’ve been looking for you all morning. One of the maids saw you wandering over the bridge before dawn.” Rook frowned. “What are you doing out here?”
“Cici.” I pointed to the dark water. “She was here. She was right here.”
Rook jerked back his head. “Cici?”
“My sister, Cici. She was right there!”
Rook’s frown turned into flat lips and hard eyes. “Your sister is Cici?”
“Yes,” I muttered.
Ohgod. I’m going crazy. I felt my knees give out. Whatever this place was doing to me, I was not in control.
Rook scooped me into his arms. “Well, that explains everything.”
I don’t recall much of anything after that, but when I mentally returned, I was sitting in a living room with an antique grandfather clock in the corner, oil paintings of old whaling ships, and woven tapestries covering the dark stained floor. The wooden ceiling fan above clicked away, slowly pushing the aromas of cinnamon and some exotic floral scent around the room.
The couch, made of burgundy velveteen, reminded me of the type one might see in an old Victorian parlor.
Everything looked old, but in perfect condition. Whose house is this? Because it smelled like Rook.
“Hello?” I called out, but no one replied.
Feeling light-headed and still in my black PJ shirt from the night before, I eased myself up onto my sore feet and stepped in to the hallway. Rook’s hypnotic, deep voice rumbled away somewhere close by.
I followed the sound down the hallway. All of the doors were closed save the one at the end. I tiptoed closer to listen in.
“I don’t give a fuck how this mess happened, Mrs. Day,” growled Rook. “You did not do your job. You did not screen her properly. You are fired and will receive nothing as a severance. And if you break our nondisclosure agreement and go blabbing to the world, you will find yourself living out your days in a cardboard box. Is that clear?”
He paused, but I didn’t hear anyone speak.
“Good,” Rook said. “Now start packing. You’ll be on the Sunday plane. Goodbye.” Something slammed down—a phone, I presumed—and I heard him sigh-slash-grumble.
I stood frozen for a moment, wondering if I should turn back around or just walk in.
“I can hear you out there, Stephanie,” said Rook.
I guess I’m going in. I gently pushed on the door.
Rook sat behind an antique-looking desk, a wall of old books behind him. A brown leather sofa and reading lamp were opposite him, and the window directly in front of me gazed out into a dazzling garden filled with bright flowers.
Rook stood, giving me a full view of his jeans and those magnificent shoulders draped in an untucked, black, button-down shirt.
“Glad to see you’re awake. How are you feeling?” His tone was sharp.
“I’ve felt better.”
“As have I.” His handsome face looked worn, like he hadn’t slept for days. Even his hair seemed a little duller with more sprinkles of salt in the pepper.
Huh. Perhaps he colored his hair and it was fading; although, he didn’t seem the type to get a dye job. Everything about him said he didn’t give the tiniest crap of craps what anyone thought.
“Please, take a seat.” He glanced across the room at the brown leather loveseat.
“Thanks.” My feet were throbbing, evidence that not everything from last night had been a dream. Not that I had a clue what had really happened.
My head fucking hurts. My heart hurt even more. It felt like the day I’d realized Cici hadn’t come home from her vacation.
Rook walked around his desk and leaned his imposing frame against it, his pale, sharp eyes drilling into me. I suddenly had the impression I was in trouble. Big trouble. Those broad shoulders looked stiff and those full, sensual lips appeared ready to unleash some angry fucking words.
“Why didn’t you tell me who you really are, Miss Fitzgerald?” He crossed his thick arms over his chest, and with his sleeves rolled up, I noticed the ropes of muscles on his forearms straining.
Wait. “Don’t you think you should start the conversation with something a little more important? Like…where’s my fucking sister?” I snarled.
He glowered.
Wait. He’s angry at me? But why? Because I’d tricked him or gotten past Mrs. Day? Fuck. Him!
“Well?” I pushed. “Did you fucking kill her?”
He turned his head and gazed out the window. “No.”
No. That’s it, asshole? Just no?
“Then where is she? And before you answer with some bullshit; I know she never left. I know something happened to her.”
He let out a little growl and met my furious gaze with his own pissy look. “You could’ve simply come out and asked. You could’ve told me why you were here. Why the charades?”
I jerked to my feet, ready to…to…well, I didn’t know what. “Who cares about that? Where is she?”
He drew a slow breath and released it. “Your sister is dead.”
His words punched a hole right through me.
My knees gave out and my body dropped to the couch. I couldn’t breathe.
“How?” I muttered.
“We don’t know what happened exactly. She had been drinking with the other guests after dinner and then she told everyone she was going for a swim. They all assumed she’d meant the pool, which is quite safe with our twenty-four-hour security; however, the next morning, she did not show up for her fantasy. We began a search immediately and found her sandals on the beach.”
The bile crept up my throat. I didn’t want to hear this. She couldn’t be dead. I still felt her with me, in my heart, in my soul. She can’t be gone.
He ran his hands through his thick dark hair. “We searched for over a week, hoping she might have been carried off to one of the other islands, but there was no sign of her. We even went as far as calling in the Bahaman Coast Guard.” Rook walked across the room and sat next to me. “Stephanie, you must know that we did everything possible to find her. I pulled every string, looked at every beach, and had pilots search thousands of miles of ocean.”
I nodded, feeling his words seep into my skin like a deadly poison.
He placed his warm hand on my back, his voice low and consoling, “I am very sorry, Stephanie. You have no understanding of how accountable I feel for every person who steps foot on this island.”
“Accountable?” I snapped my head in his direction. “Then why didn’t you contact us? Why didn’t you go to the embassy or something? Why hide this?”
He looked down at his hands. “I am willing to explain, but I promise you will not like the answer. And the last thing I wish to do in this moment is to aggravate your torment.”
Maybe he was faking his compassion, maybe he wasn’t, but it aggravated me to hear him so calm and caring. Why couldn’t he act like a giant dick so I could feel justified in my rage toward him? Because in this moment, I needed someone to blame, and it wouldn’t be Cici.
“Fucking try me, Rook.” My hands began to shake. My broken heart thrashed against my ribs.
“Very well.” He made a shallow nod and drew a short breath. “I am responsible for this island and everything on it.”
“I got that.”
“No. You don’t,” he replied. “Because sometimes I must make difficult choices and put the island first.”
“So what are you trying to say? That your precious resort is more important than telling me what happened to Cici? Or that my father, who’s just as broken as me, doesn’t deserve the truth?” My father had completely retreated emotionally after Cici disappeared and threw himself further into his work, taking the riskiest assignments he could—frontline Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. I would call his sat phone every few days to check on him and give updates on my search for Cici, but he would only say things like “Oh, thanks for letting me know. See you soon.” A complete emotional void. When he’d come home between jobs, I tried to get him to talk and open up, but that only pushed him further away. The only thing I could do to console him was to keep him company and make him a warm meal.
Rook cleared his throat. “Cici was a grown woman, Stephanie. She made her own choices and that includes the decision to swim drunk that evening. So as much as it pained me and much as I did not want her to die, I had to be practical.”
“Which means?”
“Which means that telling you or the world about a tourist’s untimely death would only draw attention to this island. Negative attention, at that.”
“So it was a business choice to protect your precious little paradise.” I couldn’t believe this guy. He hadn’t even had the decency to contact me and give me closure.
“Yes. Absolutely. But I must also protect the people who live here, their jobs, and my home.”
“Who fucking cares if the world knows about this place?” I got to my feet and pointed at him. “You’re only concerned about charging obscene amounts of money for your fucking secret resort. Well, fuck that!”
Rook stood and gently grabbed my shoulders. “You have every right to be upset, Stephanie. But had I believed for one second that exposing my island to the public would have saved your sister, then I would’ve done it without question. Other than that, I did what I felt was best for the other people, the living ones, I am responsible for.”
I wanted to believe him and part of me did; however, “That doesn’t excuse what you did to me and my father—the pain you’ve caused by not telling us what happened to her.”
“I won’t argue with you, Stephanie. I made my choices for my own reasons. And I would do it again. Because at the end of the day, this place serves a bigger purpose.”
“Fucking sex?” I yelled. “Sex with cowboys is a bigger purpose?” I slapped his face.
His head whipped to the side, and he cupped his cheek. I could see his jaw tense and his teeth gnash together. I hoped to fuck that hurt, because it wasn’t even a fraction of the pain he’d caused me.
Slowly, he dropped his hand. “I was wrong when I told you that you didn’t need what those women, my VIPs as you like to call them, are getting. They are here, Stephanie, to say goodbye to someone they’ve lost. Someone they loved dearly and cannot let go of. That is why they’ve come.”
“I don’t understand.” What did that have to do with anything?
“That is their fantasy. They want peace, and we provide it.”
“You raise the dead?” He was mad. Completely mad.
“As much as I’d love for such things to be possible, our techniques rely on other, non-metaphysical means.”
“Like what?”
“I cannot tell you more. But know, Stephanie, I am offering you the chance to see your sister one last time. I’m offering you closure.”
I simply didn’t understand him. I’d just lost the most important person in my life, and he wanted to talk about fucking fantasies?
“I think I’ve had enough of your piece-of-shit paradise. I’d like to go home.” I can’t stay here a moment longer. I needed to see my father, and I sure as hell needed to cry. My best friend, my sister, and a piece of my soul had died.
Without batting an eyelash, he dipped his head. “Of course. Anything you need. The plane leaves on Sunday.”
Today was Wednesday. “I’m not staying four more days!”
“I am very sorry. Our jet happens to be in for maintenance; however, let me see what we can do about arranging for a flight from a nearby island.”
I nodded with flaring nostrils and balled fists.
“But I do wish you’d stay, Stephanie. I feel that I owe you more than a simple ride home.”
I wanted to slap him again. I wanted to punch him. All these months, we were missing Cici, wondering if she was being tortured or raped or—I didn’t know, but every horrible scenario had run through my mind. And now I had to deal with the image of my sweet, sweet sister being swept into a dark ocean, fighting for her life until she couldn’t swim any longer.
This can’t be. This can’t be. It didn’t feel real.
“Cici’s dead?” The tears began flowing down my face, a sliver of the truth working its way under my skin.
“Yes.” He pulled me into his chest and held me while my world turned dark. Oddly, being his arms felt like exactly what I needed.