3
The problem with hiding in a seat at the front of the ferry was being one of the last people to disembark.
The rowdy teenage boys had tried to talk to her a couple of times, but Rachel pretended she didn’t hear them, even when one of them called her a stuck-up bitch.
They were apprentice abusers—or just immature boys.
Either way, she couldn’t afford to engage with them, even to defend herself in some way.
There was always a chance one of them had a mother or an aunt who read her books, and he had seen—and might remember—her photo on the back cover.
Of course, she hadn’t been so thin the last time she’d had an author photo taken.
She followed the boys out, relieved that there were a couple of middle-aged women between her and them. The women’s chatter made it clear that they had come for a little taste of the strange—and an excellent lunch at the hotel.
She noticed the man at the end of the dock, eyeing each person as they passed him. The boys received a hard stare, but they were allowed to continue on their way. The two women received a nod that acknowledged them but didn’t encourage any chat, not even to ask for directions.
On the other hand, the hotel was in plain view, positioned on a rise that overlooked a sandy beach. She couldn’t see the pavilion the women had talked about.
The tall black-haired man who stood at the end of the dock was an alpha male—and a predator. He was the kind of man who made Alistair edgy, because Alistair’s form of predator couldn’t intimidate someone who was beyond dangerous.
Rachel ducked her head as she reached the end of the dock, hoping he’d dismiss her as uninteresting.
“Rachel Nightingale?”
A person can’t be afraid all the time. She wanted to believe that, but she knew it wasn’t true.
She’d been afraid every waking moment for months now.
Alistair didn’t have any legal right to have her committed to an institution of some kind, but he implied he could pull the right strings and get her committed for being emotionally unstable, could force her into giving him power of attorney over her assets.
Then he could leave her locked up somewhere while he spent her money and looked for his next victim.
A person could be afraid all the time, but right here, right now, she was going to pretend she was still the strong, successful woman she had been before she met Alistair Hampton.
She lifted her head and looked the man in the eyes. “Yes.”
So much for bravery. Her throat closed up, choking her. One word was all she’d managed.
He took her overnight bag. “I’m Lucas Frost. Come with me.” It was a command, not a request.
She followed him up the boardwalk and continued to follow him when he turned onto a dirt path toward the hotel. He had the bag with her clothes and all the worldly goods she couldn’t stuff into her purse. “Are you some kind of security?”
“Why do you think that?”
“You knew who I was. Did Alistair send you?” If she reached the hotel and screamed for help, would anyone help her? Or would they all turn to this man, bending to his will?
“No one sends me,” Lucas replied. “The Ladies Three saw that you were coming here and asked me to meet you when you disembarked. You’ll meet them in the morning.”
Was she supposed to know who the Ladies Three were? The librarian who had visited Wyrd hadn’t mentioned them.
“Do you have a phone or other electronic device?” Lucas asked.
She couldn’t see any point in lying. She’d been caught by someone who could turn Alistair into a smear under his shoe. “I have an e-reader and a cell phone. The phone is turned off. The e-reader can’t be traced as long as I don’t connect with Wi-Fi. Maybe not even then. I’m not sure.”
“Give me the phone.” Lucas held out a hand.
She wanted to refuse to give up her only way to communicate with anyone beyond this place, but she felt herself bend to his will. She opened her purse, then stopped walking because she couldn’t walk and fumble through her purse at the same time.
He stopped and waited.
She found the phone and gave it to him.
“Does it have a password or a code to unlock it?” he asked.
“Yes.” She told him her PIN.
“Is there anything on here that would be a danger to anyone else? Pictures? Phone numbers?”
Rachel shook her head. “I deleted all those things months ago. The only numbers are Alistair’s cell phone, his office phone number, and the phone number for the central branch of the King’s Hill public library. I do—did—research for…It doesn’t matter. Nothing else.”
“So if this phone is found in a location and given to Alistair, it won’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know?”
“No.”
He started walking again. Rachel followed.
“There are a few rooms in the hotel that are very private,” Lucas said.
“You’ll stay in that wing tonight, maybe longer.
Stay in the room. Read your books. Order from the room service menu so that you’re not seen by too many visitors.
Make sure you order enough food. And get some sleep.
Tomorrow you’ll meet the Ladies Three, and you need to be strong, rested, and clear minded to understand your choices.
My brother, Jack, will be staying in a room near yours to keep watch. You’ll be safe.”
“I’m not sure I have enough money to pay for a room at the hotel, and I can’t use a credit card,” Rachel said.
“We’ll discuss the fees tomorrow once you decide what you want to do and understand what it will cost.”
They reached the hotel. Lucas opened one of the glass doors.
“Why would you help me?” she asked.
“Sometimes we assist people who come here to meet their fate—or try to change it.”
He took care of getting the room and escorted her to a solid wall that had been painted with a kind of forest-fantasy mural.
Then he pushed one part of the wall, and Rachel heard a click as a door opened—a door so well camouflaged she wouldn’t have found it on her own, since it just looked like the hallway ended there.
Halfway down the secret hallway, he opened the door to a room that was simple and luxurious at the same time. Restful to the eyes and mind.
Lucas opened the curtains. “There is a small balcony and a chair. You can sit out there if you’d like some air.”
“Won’t I be seen?”
He looked amused. “Yes, but not by visitors. This part of the park belongs to the Arcana and is private.” The amused look faded into something feral. “But draw the curtains and don’t look out after the sun goes down.”
“In stories, telling the heroine not to look out would guarantee she would be overcome with curiosity and look in order to find out the secret.”
“Your people’s stories usually have the heroine seeing something that terrifies her but managing to escape and emerge victorious.
In our versions of those stories, most of the time the heroine sees the truth and then goes insane or dies.
Don’t let curiosity waste your courage, Rachel Nightingale.
Close the curtains after dark. Stay inside away from too many eyes.
Tomorrow you will need all that you are in order to choose your future. ”
He set her room key on the dresser and left.
The room had a mini refrigerator and something that looked like an old-fashioned bread box to store non-refrigerated food. There were plates, silverware, and glasses, and a microwave to reheat food. No coffeemaker.
Her hands shook as she read the room service menu and called the hotel’s restaurant to place an order—a sandwich and salad with a bowl of seasonal fruit. Foods that she could store in the fridge.
While she waited, she hung up tops and slacks, put the underclothes in a drawer in the dresser. She put her e-reader on the table next to the bed and tucked away her purse on the table’s bottom shelf.
She prowled the room and bathroom. It had most of the amenities of a five-star hotel, but she wondered—and worried—about why a hotel would have a secret wing of rooms.
A knock on the door. Rachel stood frozen for a moment before she hurried to answer the second knock.
No security chain on the door. No peephole to see who was out there.
Swallowing against a suddenly queasy stomach, she opened the door.
The man who stood on the other side looked enough like Lucas Frost to be a close relative.
“I’m Jack.” He held out a tray of food. “I’ll be in the next room, keeping an eye on things. If you need help for any reason—need help faster than you would get by calling the front desk—just shout or pound on the wall. I’ll hear you.”
“Are you hotel security?” she asked, taking the tray.
“You could say that.” Something about his smile made her think that his kind of security often ended with burying a body.
“Do I pay you?”
Jack shook his head. “The food has been added to your account.” He looked at her. “Don’t skimp. No matter what you decide, you’ll need a strong body for what is ahead.”
Rachel backed into the room. Jack closed the door, leaving her alone.
She was going to face some kind of ordeal. That much was clear. But not today. Today, in this room, she was safe.
4
Ted Ocampo followed Darren Palmer down another path in Destiny Park and wished he hadn’t been chosen to be Dare’s buddy today.
He hadn’t wanted to come to the island, and he didn’t want to wander around this park looking for one of the moon gates Dare and his pack of bullyboys at school thought were so freaking cool.
But none of Dare’s Doggs had been willing to cut class and take the ferry to Wyrd, so Dare had recruited Ted, who was one of Dare’s favorite victims because he didn’t have the guts to refuse to do anything Dare wanted him to do.
The place was seriously strange. It looked just like a gardeny park that his mom would jazz about, but…
That statue they passed a few minutes ago.
It looked like a deer, except it had a man’s torso and arms rising from the deer’s body.
The head was a stag’s head with a rack of antlers.
Ted had thought it was some freaking-ass statue that someone had created while on some serious drugs.
Then it turned its head and stared at him as he walked past.
He tried to tell himself it was some kind of animatronic creature like movie studios built for special effects, but he knew that wasn’t true. That thing was living and real—and watching them.
“Keep up, Tedious,” Dare said. “If you get lost, I won’t come looking for you.”
“That woman on the ferry. Did you think she was hot?” Ted asked. The woman Dare had hassled, trying to get her to respond to sex talk, hadn’t been old, but she’d been a lot older than them.
Dare gave him the “Are you kidding me?” face. “The stuck-up bitch who looked like she’d spent a few weeks at Camp Starvation? I wouldn’t poke her with your dick, let alone mine.”
Ted felt bad about bringing up the woman as a way to deflect Dare’s attention away from him, but he thought Dare wasn’t too far off with the Camp Starvation remark.
Ted had a cousin who had some kind of big food issues and had looked like that woman.
The adults in the family and their friends kept complimenting Molly on losing weight and didn’t want to see that she was in trouble—like, mental trouble as well as looking like bones in a bag—until her body just gave up one day.
Nothing he could do about the woman. She was a grown-up and should be smart enough to look after herself.
Pushing thoughts of the woman aside, Ted focused on his own problem, which was how the freaking hell he could get off this island.
The paths meandered here and wandered there.
Where were the freaking signs to tell you where you were going?
Like, would it be too much trouble for the people running this place to put up a sign with an arrow to show you the way back to the pavilion?
If there had been a sign, he would have slipped away from Dare and run back to the one place on this freaking island that was only a bit strange instead of seriously weird.