Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
CHRIS
Staring at Grace, Chris cringed inwardly.
She was quiet, but she looked insane. Like she was losing it. Pacing in front of the stove, arms crossed tight across her chest, lost in her own strange, chaotic world. Her face, thin and hollow due to the weight loss, was sallow and pale.
Chris didn’t like the effects of the weight loss. He would never admit that to Grace. In fact, he’d championed her efforts to lose the pounds, telling her she looked great as she slimmed down. But as the numbers on the scale dropped, so did Grace’s attractiveness and appeal. The truth was, Grace needed the weight. The plumpness gave her a vigor and vitality that she missed now. Some girls were prettier when they were fatter, he’d always thought. When they were at college, Chris had sought Grace out because she wasn’t stick thin, with skeletal features, like a recovering crack addict. Far from repulsed, he found the fat comforting.
Chris had never demanded that Grace lose weight, or even keep her weight down.
She’d calmed down somewhat and was no longer shouting gloom and doom, like some homeless bum on a street corner screaming about aliens or the end of the world. And Alex being dead would be the end of the world. But it couldn’t possibly be true.
Chris wasn’t sure what his wife had seen out there on that path in the jungle, but it wasn’t Alex’s decapitated head being devoured by vultures. That was too ridiculous to be true. Too horrific to be real. Because it didn’t make sense. How could Alex be dead? Who would have killed him, so violently and savagely? Who out of all of them would have the stomach to kill him and cut his head off? Chris shuddered, secretly glancing around the kitchen, his gaze flitting from Jason to Mia to Sarah, and finally to Grace. None of them had the guts to do something so vile. The thought of it made Chris want to hurl.
Chris was worried and embarrassed about Grace’s behavior.
Grace wasn’t the hysterical type. She was pragmatic and sly, a subtle strategist who had mastered the art of machination. She wasn’t really persuasive, but she knew how to manipulate events and situations so that she could achieve the desired outcome.
Exhaling, Chris walked over to Grace. “Honey … how about you go upstairs and lie down? ”
Shaking her head, Grace said, “I want to go home.”
Chris frowned. “What?”
“I want to get off this island,” Grace said.
“We can’t leave,” Chris said, worried Alex might think he had left when he shouldn’t have. Alex expected Chris to be loyal. What would Alex think if Chris left? As a founder and senior partner in the firm, it was Chris’s responsibility to help Alex and Jason deal with the issues and problems the firm was facing. And he wanted to wait for Alex to return so he could find out more about the situation with Phil. He didn’t doubt that Alex was able to persuade Phil to back off and back down. If anyone could convince Phil that he shouldn’t ruin their lives, Alex could.
“We have to leave,” Grace said, voice lowered, mania in her eyes as she clutched his forearms. “We need to get off this island before we end up dead like Alex …”