The tropical hammock was a showcase of the superabundance of life, nature’s insane fecundity. Things grew everywhere here, even on other things. A palette of varicolored lichens smeared the bark of mastics, gumbo-limbos, and banyans, paint splotches dabbed on by some frenetic, freewheeling artist. Orchids, wild pine, and resurrection fern ornamented other trees, bright as Christmas bows. A tall mahogany tottered, its trunk wrapped in the twisted roots of a strangler fig, slowly smothering in that octopus embrace.
Jack walked on, blinking at the steadily growing brightness of the day. A rabbit flitted through the underbrush and vanished beneath the yellow blossoms of a Jerusalem thorn. Something splashed in an unseen pond. The recesses of the forest seemed impossibly remote, lost in shadows and mist, partitioned by screens of foliage and ropy webs of medicine vine.
The end of the trail was just ahead. He could smell the fresh salt breeze.
The brush thinned. Dark loam gave way to white coral sand. Past a scrim of ferns and waving sawgrass in red bloom, he saw the crimson thread of the horizon. The sky blushed. The sea flamed.
On the fringe of the forest, he halted abruptly. He shaded his eyes, blinked, then leaned against the rough bole of a date palm and stared out into the blinding light.
“Oh,” he said simply.
For just one moment Jack Dance forgot who he was and what he did for fun. He forgot the syringe and his victims’ convulsions and his sweaty exercise afterward with their undressed bodies.
In that moment he was not a killer. He was only a man gazing transfixed at the woman on the beach.
She wore sandals and shorts and a yellow tank top. Her hair was golden, her skin sun-bronzed. Her slender body was limned in fire against the red dazzle of the sun.
She ambled lazily along the irregular line of seaweed that marked high tide, her head thrown back, arms loose at her sides. Plovers scattered before her, comical in their helter-skelter distress.
An enchanting picture. So perfect it might have been posed. The woman belonged on a postcard or a calendar. Anyone looking at her would smile, just as Jack was smiling now, not in lust but in simple aesthetic appreciation.
She knelt to examine something on the beach. A shell. It gleamed in her hand. She put it back, reached for another, and then her gaze lifted and, across a span of thirty feet, she met his eyes.
Slowly she stood. She watched him.
Jack saw the sudden tightness in her mouth, the unnatural stiffness of her body. He saw fear. And seeing it, he remembered himself.
His interlude of rapt contemplation ended instantly, as if a switch had been thrown. No more time for that. There was a job to do.
He stepped out of the brush into the loose pebbly sand and started toward her, still smiling, but his smile held a different meaning now.
From this distance he could not distinguish the color of her eyes. He hoped they were blue.
Even if they were not, he would enjoy watching her face when he took out his pocketknife and buried the spear blade in her throat.
12
Rigid, breath stopped, Kirstie stared at the man as he emerged from the shadows of the trees.
He was tall-taller than Steve-and about the same age. He wore a denim shirt, blue jeans, black shoes. His careless posture and casual way of walking implied an ample fund of confidence, frequently tapped, instantly replenished.
The man moved toward her, crossing the bleached moonscape of coral sand, his long, sinuous shadow sliding at his heels.
She was abruptly conscious of how alone she was. This walk on the beach was her morning ritual; sometimes Steve joined her, but most often not. Today he’d mumbled something about catching up with her as she slipped out of bed. Most likely he had just rolled over and gone back to sleep.
She looked toward the house. Beyond the trees, at the southern tip of the island, the red-tiled roof glowed like a carpet of embers. The dock stood on the reflected image of itself, a many-legged insect balanced on the surface tension of a pond.
Would Steve hear her if she screamed for help? She didn’t think so. The distance was too great, and the breeze, blowing out of the south, would throw her shouts back in her face.
As calmly as possible she faced the man, her head lifted, shoulders squared.
“This is private property,” she said as he came nearer.
He smiled, a clean white smile full of friendliness but empty of affection. “I’m aware of that.”
He closed to within six feet of her and stopped. For a beat of time they watched each other without speaking.
Overhead soared a brown pelican, a young bird showing a white belly and brown wings. It wheeled toward the sea in search of food, dipped and rose, then dipped again, dark against the blaze of sun.
Hunter and prey, Kirstie thought. The words touched her with their chill.
“If you know it,” she said slowly, “what are you doing here?”
“Visiting.”
“It’s not allowed.”
“I’m not bothering anyone.”
“You’re bothering me.”
“I would think you’d be lonely. You are alone, aren’t you?”
The question pulled her stomach into a tight, acid knot.
She forced herself to keep her eyes focused on his face. A handsome face, in its way. Sharp-featured, faintly cruel. Stubble dusted his cheeks. The breeze flicked listlessly at his unkempt brown hair.
He stared back without blinking, a cool, flinty gaze that raised prickles of gooseflesh on her arms. His hazel eyes sparkled, but not with merriment.
“No,” she answered. “I’m not alone. My husband is with me. And… some friends.”
“How many friends?”
“You have to go.”
“There are no friends, are there?”
“I want you to leave. Right now.”
“No husband, either, I’ll bet. You really are all alone.”
“If you don’t go-”
He took a step nearer. She wanted to retreat, but if she gave ground, the man would only be emboldened.
“You have pretty eyes,” he said suddenly. “Blue eyes. Deep blue. They match the water.”
Her pulse beat in the veins of her wrists. There was a greasy coldness in her belly. Her mouth was very dry.
“I want you off this island.” Her words came slowly, paste squeezed from a tube. “Now. Immediately. Or my husband and I will radio the police.”
He moved forward again, and this time she did step back, unwilling to let him invade her personal space. A cool splash of tidal water lapped her ankles.
“The police?” He frowned. “That’s not very nice. I have a feeling you and I aren’t hitting it off too well.”
“How perceptive.”
“I’m a surprisingly sensitive fellow.”
“If you’re so goddamn sensitive, you ought to know when you aren’t wanted.”
“I have gotten that message, actually.”
“Then you’re going?”
“In a minute. First there’s just one little thing I have to do
…”
