Other than birds and some creepy crawlies, the dirt path up the hill appeared deserted, but the back of my neck prickled. I was being watched but, for some reason, not apprehended. Yet.
I’d been walking briskly for a few minutes, when there was a loud snuffling and crashing of dry branches to my left. I pressed back behind a tree in time to witness three wild pigs barrel past. One of them stumbled, close to where I’d been walking.
A volley of arrows shot out of a hidden hole to embed in the tree across from me. I pressed a hand to my racing heart. Another couple of steps and I would have been the one to set off that tripwire.
To badly misquote Shakespeare, “Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of a boobytrapped jungle, or wave my arms and call out the guards?”
I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled. “I demand an audience with Caligula Jones.” When nothing happened, I called out again. “Tell Paulie Peterson that he’s got a visitor.”
Three square-jawed men built like tanks melted out of the trees. Each man was armed with a sub-machine gun slung across his chest.
“How do you know that name?” The one whose forehead was more of a twelve-head stepped forward.
“Take me to him and find out.” I tried not to stare but he also had this vast swath of unibrow and I couldn’t help mentally fitting him for a Flintstone loincloth.
“Mr. Jones doesn’t like tourists.” He unslung his gun.
“Wait! Kill me and Paul—Caligula will be very displeased. We all know what happens when he’s displeased, right, gentlemen?”
They exchanged an uneasy glance and I felt a stirring of unease. Geez, Uncle Paulie. How far off the deep end had you gone? If I’d believed his behavior was as extreme as their reactions suggested, I’d never have left Arkady on the boat. “On second thought,” I said, “I could just leave, never to return.”
Unibrow grabbed my arm and dragged me in an entirely different direction than I’d been headed. I tried dragging my feet to slow his progress but without my enhanced strength he hauled me along like I weighed nothing.
Eventually the trees thinned out to a large clearing in front of a run-down plantation-style house featuring a dilapidated veranda, weather-beaten eaves, and missing siding.
“This is where the illustrious Caligula Jones lives?” I said, hoping to shake the visions of serial killers dancing through my head. “What kind of lame-ass hedonist is he? Sheesh. Where’s the miniature replica of Versailles?”
“He burned that one down,” Unibrow said.
I’d been kidding. Yikes. I struggled in Unibrow’s hold, but he dragged me up the stairs.
Unibrow banged on the door, which was rotted through in places. “Mr. Jones?” Receiving no answer, he opened it and pushed me in ahead of him.
I gagged at the overpowering stench of stale booze and unwashed body.
The ratty curtains were drawn in the front room, but through the holes I could just make out a tanned man in a leopard print bathrobe seated on a shabby brown recliner. He was face down on a mirrored tray.
“Mr. Jones?” Unibrow gently prodded his shoulder.
Uncle Paulie started, jerking up with traces of white under his red nose. He stared at me through bleary eyes. “Who’s this? Never mind. Don’t care. Kill her.”
Unibrow smirked in triumph, still gripping me in an iron-clad hold.
No. I was not about to die on this godforsaken island at the whim of this narcissist. I planted my free hand on my hip. “Too busy with your pity party, Uncle Paulie?”
Paulie’s bathrobe fell open to reveal a pair of leopard print Speedos. “What did you call me?”
“You heard me, old man.” I averted my eyes. “Gawd. Cover up. Circumcisions shouldn’t be visible through swimwear.”
“Leave us,” he snapped at the guard, belting his robe tight.
“Told you.” I smirked twice as hard at Unibrow as he released me.
“You still have to make it off the island,” he murmured. He snapped out a salute to his boss and left.
“Ash. I…” Paulie looked around at the shambles of the room and sprung into motion, gathering up empty bottles, while I pretended to be fascinated by the clutter of vinyl albums spilling off a threadbare sofa.
I picked up one of the covers. It was a greatest hits of polka music.
“Even as a kid, I knew your taste in music was shit.” I crouched down by the record player on the ground. The album on the player was David Hasselhoff singing “Do the Limbo Dance.” That appalled me more than the coke.
“You never came to see me,” he said.
I risked a glance over my shoulder. Paulie sat in the recliner once more, the bottles shoved unceremoniously in a corner. I moved aside some of the records and took a seat, the sofa creaking. “I was busy being angry and then you were busy being whatever the hell this is.”
“A legend.”
Uncle Paulie had been at the top of his chosen profession, illegal though it was. But he’d fled to this island, throwing parties that pushed every known definition of self-indulgence. I glanced at the coke on the mirror. He’d had to fill the void in his life with constant numbing—where were his real relationships? He’d had my dad. Had that been his sole social lifeline? Could I have ended up this way if Priya hadn’t pushed me out of my comfort zone?
I twirled a finger around the room. “You’re more like a cautionary tale.”
Paulie laughed, a rusty unused sound, and my heart clenched. “Why are you here?”
“What happened to my dad? And don’t give me the same BS you told Talia. You knew his secrets.”
“And I’ve damned him every day for it.”
“Then tell me.” My words came out thick and pleading. “Did he mean to leave us or was there an accident?”
Paulie scrubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t make me do this.”
My stomach dropped into my toes. “He meant to...”
“…Yeah.”
I gave a strangled laugh. “Don’t hold out now,
