CHAPTER TEN
“I’m going out,” I said to Luke the moment he arrived looking sunburnt and exhausted.
I slid past him. “Be back soon.”
“You have stitches in your foot,” he yelled as I strode down the hallway, swallowing the pain that lingered inside and out. I’d had over an hour to stew. Now, I was pissed and on the warpath. Rook never looked for her. Rook never looked for her. He is such a liar. I’m going to kill him. I’m an idiot for hoping. I’m going to kill—
“Stephanie?” Luke called out. “Are you okay? Where are you going?”
“To the library.”
“Library?”
“Absolutely.” I jerked open the stairwell door and went up, not hearing whatever it was he yelled. Didn’t care. If I was right, Rook had already heard what I’d just said. Or he’ll be getting a call from his boy, Luke.
Fifteen minutes later, I stood behind a large tree trunk only a few yards from Rook’s cabin. Like clockwork, Rook showed. The best part was that he believed I’d already figured out how to get inside, because he didn’t hesitate to push the door three times. It sprang open, and he rushed in to look for me.
That’s it. Three pushes. It was some sort of programmed pressure lock.
I wanted to stay there and smack the hell out of him when he came out, but the key now was keeping my cool. I’d made a lot of progress these past few days. I had to give myself that.
Carefully, I walked through the dense trees and grabbed the cart I’d left on the path. I headed back to my apartment, where I found Luke pacing nervously in the living room when I entered.
“What are you doing here?” Luke asked the moment he saw me.
Wow, your behavior is not at all suspicious, I thought sarcastically.
“What do you mean?” I replied innocently.
“You said you were going to the library.”
I plunked down on the couch. “Yeah, well, apparently there isn’t one. I thought the room next to the gym had books.”
“You mean the timekeeping room?”
“Oh. Is that what it is? Go figure.” I drew a long breath. “Well, my foot hurts, and now I have nothing to read. Guess I’ll watch TV in my room. Night!”
Luke eyed me suspiciously. “Wait. We forgot to put a lock on your door. I can call maintenance now and ask what they have.”
I thought about it for a moment—I really couldn’t be allowed to get up and wander in my sleep. But now he seemed a little too eager to lock me up. Nuh-uh.
I turned and headed into Luke’s bedroom.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m sleeping in your bed tonight. Put a chair or something bulky against the door when you come in, would you? That way you’ll hear me if I try to get out.”
He stared with a bit of panic in his eyes. I guessed what he was thinking. He’d asked me to move out so that he wouldn’t get in the middle of me and Rook.
You’re already in the middle. He worked for Rook. He helped Rook keep me in the dark.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “There’s nothing going on with our boss. Nothing at all. I’m a free woman, I promise.”
Luke bobbed his head slowly, apparently unconvinced.
“Look, I’ll ask to be moved to another apartment tomorrow if that’s what you really want. But tonight, I need a place to sleep—somewhere safe.”
“If I say yes, it’s asking for trouble,” he said.
“Then don’t say yes. Just come to bed.” I turned, went into his room, and removed my shorts, not bothering to turn on the lights. “I sleep in just my tank top. Hope you don’t mind.” If Rook was watching, let him. Let him imagine what I looked like lying in my panties in another man’s bed.
I heard a sour grumble from the other room.
Don’t care. I settled into Luke’s queen-sized bed. The sheets were soft and cool, just like mine. His room, though, had a big bookshelf and a reading chair in the corner. A blue rug on the floor gave the space a much homier feel, as did the old black-and-white photos on the wall.
I turned over on my side and stared at the clock on his nightstand. Rook would be gone in the morning, and I would head straight to his lair. If lucky, I’d find everything I needed and be gone in a week.
At five a.m. sharp the sound of Luke’s snoring pulled me from my sleep. I hopped from bed, where he’d erected a wall of pillows between us.
Interesting. On the outside, Luke seemed like this adventurous, ex-military guy who dedicated himself to scuba diving and casual sex. But now I was beginning to see that he cared more about his boss than anything else. At the very least, he didn’t want to displease him.
I suddenly wondered what would happen to Luke if Rook lost the island. Would he be forced to leave? Where would he go?
Stop it. I’m sure there are hundreds of resorts that will take him. Besides, he’d decided on his own to get in bed with Rook. His problem.
I removed the chair Luke had placed in front of the door, careful not to wake him. I stepped out into the living room and tiptoed over to my room to dress. If anyone saw me traipsing through the jungle, I’d say I wanted to go for a walk.
I pulled on a pair of running shorts, sat on my bed, slid on my shoes, and—
Oh shit. My foot. There were no stitches. No bandage. I’m asleep. My pulse rate shot up. Unlike the other times, now I was aware that my mind and body were in different time zones, so to speak.
The creak of the front door’s hinges caught my attention, almost calling for me. I froze for a moment, my breath coming fast. Every time I dreamed like this, it had led me somewhere important. Somewhere closer to the truth.
I stood slowly, went out into the living room, and through the open front door. If not knowing you were asleep was a trip, knowing was ten times trippier.
Using the stairwell, I went outside where the sun peeked over the tree line. I pivoted in a circle, waiting for a sign. Where was I supposed to go this time? There was no lantern or monk. Or Cici calling out to me.
I decided Rook’s cabin was still my best bet. If something important was in there, I would find it.
It didn’t take long for me to get inside and take the ladder to the hidden corridors that led to the library. I took the spiral staircase down and walked the first few floors, noting the numbers on the spines of each book. Before, I’d been too excited to notice that Rook didn’t use some Dewey decimal system. The numbers were all dates plus one. 11.15.67.126890. November fifteenth, 1967. Guest number 126890—according to the page inside one book I grabbed from the shelf.
I rushed to the bottom floor, eager to see the spines of the oldest records, but when I got there, I found the books had changed. They were thicker, their leather spines cracked with age. One in particular had a symbol of a butterfly painted in red.
That one.
I plucked it off the shelf and quickly thumbed through the pages. The language appeared to be Latin, which I couldn’t read, but the hand-drawn pictures told bits and pieces of a tragic, violent story. Monks hung from tree branches while black natives looked on, weeping and holding each other. The next chapter, white men on horses waved swords and struck down the men in robes. In the background, a group of women with feathers in their hair looked on in horror. Chapter after chapter told horrible accounts of the monks being slaughtered, the gist being that these men hadn’t been welcome anywhere. They’d been hunted like animals.
The final chapter showed the monks in several small boats, rowing to an island. Then there were pages upon pages of text. If this book truly existed, I would have to take photos and translate it. The final pages, however, needed no interpretation.
The ink was a crisp black. Fresh. And the drawing showed men slitting the monks’ throats or tossing them into a small lake. To the side, a little boy watched the men beating a black woman.
I snapped the book shut and swallowed down the bile. Rook. Rook told me he’d lost all but his aunt here on this island. He told me she’d raised him and that the men who did this terrible thing died when their ship sank a mile away. This little boy is Rook. It has to be.
I opened the text to the very last page, where there was a drawing of a ship sinking into the ocean while storm clouds raged above. Was this my mind repeating a story Rook had already told me? Or was this really what happened?
It suddenly dawned on me. That woman. The black woman who had been living in his house and caught us together that night. Rook had sworn she wasn’t a girlfriend or anything like that. Yet she had been livid.
Livid like a mother who didn’t approve. She’s his aunt.
My heart cramped. That woman had looked young, even younger than Rook.
Fuck. I started to panic. I have to wake up. I have to come here and see everything with my own eyes! Wake up. Wake up. Wake the fuck up! I yelled at the top of my lungs.
My eyes flew open, and I hurled upright. “Jesus,” I gasped, my mind quickly orienting. Still in Luke’s bed. Thank God. But there was no Luke, and his side of the bed hadn’t been slept in from what I could tell.
I got up, instantly feeling a sharp pain in my foot. Thank God. I’d never been so happy to have an injury.
I went out to the living room, finding the apartment empty and not caring one little bit. I didn’t give a shit where Luke was. I didn’t care about anything. I had to get to that library and see if the book was real. I had to see what else might be down there.
I got onto the elevator and came out into the lobby. A group of employees filed towards me, everyone worriedly chatting away.
“Hey,” said Luke, his face emerging from the crowd.
“Where’s everyone coming from, a funeral?”
“Rook called an emergency staff meeting before he took off.”
“Why wasn’t I invited?” I asked.
“I tried waking you up, but you were dead to the world. I told Rook, and he said to let you rest.”
I had the sneaky suspicion that Luke was lying. “I didn’t see any invite.”
He shrugged. “You should’ve seen a text on your phone last night.”
My phone. Regular cell phones didn’t work on the island, so they had their own set up. I’d been given a phone last week when I’d been a guest, but I hadn’t seen the thing since before the storm.
“I don’t have a phone,” I said, wondering why Rook or Luke hadn’t mentioned to get me one.
Easier to leave me out of staff meetings.
“Well, there you go,” said Luke. “You can see Connie in tech support down in the offices and she’ll take care of you.”
I nodded. “Will do. So Rook left?”
“That’s what the meeting was about. He wanted to go over the plan while he’s away.”
I found it surprising that his people looked so glum because of this. “When will he be back?”
“He didn’t say, but he never does. Sometimes it’s a month. Sometimes it’s just days—but don’t worry. We all know what to do. You won’t be on your own.”
I was sure he’d told everyone to keep a close eye on me, too. “I’m going for a walk. See you later.”
“On that foot?”
“I’m fine. Just need to clear my head.”
Luke gave me a disapproving look. “I’ll be at the docks all day if you need anything. And don’t forget to grab a cell from Connie.”
“Got it.” I watched him disappear inside and then I set out for Rook’s cabin. Once there, I pushed on the door three times and hurried down to the library. I quickly went for the light switch, but nothing happened.
Shit. I hadn’t come prepared with a flashlight.
I scrambled back to Rook’s bedroom and opened the top drawer of his mahogany dresser. Next to a Bible was his flogger.
“Ah!” I pulled my hand away. My immediate response was to curse the violent thing, but it dawned on me that this sadistic tool enjoyed a level of intimacy with Rook that I didn’t. It knew his darkest secrets.
Apprehensively, I sat on Rook’s bed and picked the thing up by the leather-wrapped handle, threading the soft dangling strips through the center of my fist. The thing looked worn, like it had been used for decades. It even smelled like pain—salty and musty. For a fraction of a moment, I imagined punishing him with it, making him bleed for what he’d done, but the image instantly revolted me.
God, I’m so weak. It didn’t matter what Rook did to me, I could never bring myself to feel any joy in watching him hurt like that.
I stared at the thing, my mind churning. Why was I so bothered by my lack of brutality? Maybe because I’d been told by the world my entire life to be strong and fearless. “Real girls kick ass!” But not all of us were built that way, I realized. Some of us were born with kinder souls. Some of us cried at the drop of a hat—during movies, listening to sad songs, or witnessing another human being in pain—not because we were weak, but because we loved so deeply. We cared too much.
It had always felt like a weakness to me, but sitting in this room, suddenly realizing this about myself, I didn’t feel so weak anymore.
With a sigh, I placed the thing back in the drawer and went through the rest of the room. Truly, Rook didn’t own much. A drawer of T-shirts. Another filled with boxer briefs and socks. Gliding my fingertips over his personal things made me want to see him again as just a man rather than the monster I’d built him up to be.
Finally, I got to the last drawer in the bottom of his dresser. I slid it open, my palms tingling as if my hands knew I’d find something. A giant maroon book sat on top of a stack of shirts. It was a thick photo album, the old-fashioned kind with little triangles glued inside to hold the corners of the pictures.
Once again, I sat on Rook’s bed and turned the pages. Immediately, I recognized Rook. His gorgeous face, his tall body, was among a group of people lined up like an old high school class photo.
Weird. These pictures were in black and white, and I recognized a few faces. Luke, Mrs. Day, Dr. Rosy, and even some of the faces from the senior staff meeting. Frantic, I turned the pages faster. Year after year the photos looked newer until they went to color.
I went to the last page, which looked recent.
Shit. Everyone stood by the lagoon, lined up in two rows. Rook in the middle.
I swallowed hard, got up, and put the album away.
Fucking hell. Rook might have lost his family as a boy, but he wasn’t alone. They were all part of this place, and however it was being done, none of them had aged in at least sixty years.