Immortal Billionaire, page 19
Sylvester dressed quickly. When they reached the foot of the stairs, Matt was standing exactly where Connie had left him, with one hand still on the door handle. His eyes went to Sylvester’s face and he seemed momentarily incapable of speech.
“I...”
Sylvester placed his hand over Matt’s. “Let me look.” He spoke over his shoulder. “Wait here, Connie.”
The two men went into the den together. There was a horrible fraught silence that seemed to last forever, then Matt lurched out of the room again. Doubling over, he didn’t quite make it outside before his stomach surrendered its contents. Sliding down the wall, he sat on the floor with his knees drawn up and his head bent between them.
When Sylvester appeared in the doorway, his face was a pale mask of grief and pain.
“Please tell me it’s not Vega.” Connie knew before she said them that the words were futile.
He drew her into his arms and, cradling her head against his chest, slid his hand down the length of her hair. “I’m sorry.”
They stood locked together for long, anguished minutes and, when she finally raised her head, Connie wasn’t sure whether the tears that dampened her face were hers or Sylvester’s.
“Why?” She knew the same question could have applied to any of these senseless acts. The answer was always the same. Because a madman is out to get his revenge on me for something that happened five hundred years ago. But this time the question had more poignancy. Why Vega? Out of everyone on this island, she was the one who should have been the safest. What possible threat could she pose? What sense of power or enjoyment could anyone have gained from harming the sweet, kindly little housekeeper?
“It looks like she disturbed him while he was burning books about the Calusa.”
Connie’s brow wrinkled. “So he stabbed her?”
“No, he beat her to death.” As Sylvester spoke, she started to understand Matt’s reaction. “With the poker.”
She raised a hand to cover her mouth, staring at him in horror. “No, Sylvester! How could anyone do that? The other things he’s done were evil...but this...”
He nodded. “This takes it to a whole new level.”
Matt made a strangled sound. “Don’t. Please stop. It’s bad enough I had to see it. I’m not ready to analyze it. Not yet.”
* * *
Breakfast didn’t happen. Not surprisingly, no one felt like eating. Reactions to the news of Vega’s murder varied from Juan’s deep sorrow, and spitting rage from Guthrie, to Lucinda’s increased hysteria.
“This is all your fault!” She turned on Connie, her eyes wild, her lips white and flecked with spittle. Connie took a step back, fearful for a moment that Lucinda might be about to physically attack her. “It’s you he wants, not us. Why don’t you give yourself up so he’ll leave the rest of us in peace?”
Jonathan had managed to drag himself down the stairs and was stretched out on one of the sofas. He spoke up sharply before anyone else could intervene. “You’re talking crap, Lucinda. He didn’t kill Vega to get to Connie. He killed her because she caught him burning those books. He killed Roberto because he interrupted him as he was trying to kill Sylvester. And how is Connie meant to give herself up to a coward who doesn’t show himself? Even if she did—and why the hell should any of us make this easy for him?—there’s no guarantee he’d leave the rest of us alone.”
Lucinda stared at him for a second, her facial muscles working, her fists clenching and unclenching at her sides. Then she hurled herself facedown onto another sofa, giving way to tears.
“Thank you.” Connie bit back her tears as she turned to Jonathan. “But she’s not thinking straight. She’s frightened.”
“We all are, but we have to stick together. If we start turning on each other, this bastard will get even more sadistic pleasure from it.”
Guthrie had been pacing the length of the salon, but he paused now, swinging around to face Sylvester. “You have to agree to another search of the island.”
Sylvester regarded him calmly. “Very well. You, Matt and I will undertake the search.”
The words deflated Guthrie’s rage slightly. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get going.”
“I need to talk to Juan and Connie in my study before I go anywhere.”
“Why?” Guthrie’s expression was a combination of belligerence and suspicion.
“It’s personal.” No one could pull off haughty quite like Sylvester. Even in these circumstances his manner was enough to put a halt to any further questions. Connie bit back a smile. That note in his voice, that proud expression, the set to his shoulders all harked back to his conquistador heritage. He had led men across oceans and into foreign lands. He could silence Guthrie’s blustering protests with a look.
Once inside the study, Sylvester spoke quietly but urgently. “I lied when I told Guthrie there are no guns on Corazón.” He unlocked the top drawer of his desk, revealing a revolver. “I loaded it myself last night. It was in the drawer next to my bed—” he cast Connie an apologetic glance “—but I didn’t have time to reach for it when I realized there was an intruder in the room. It was too dark and he came at me too fast.”
Connie felt her face pale. “I’ve never fired a gun.” She had thought about buying a weapon after the attack, but the constant moving around and lack of cash meant she never got around to doing anything about it. And she had never been sure she could pull the trigger, even if she came face-to-face with the stalker.
“That’s why Juan is here. You know how to use this, right?”
Juan nodded, his usually pleasant face grim. “After what happened to Vega and Roberto, it will be my pleasure.”
Because of the high temperatures Sylvester had been forced into an unpleasant decision. He had decided they would have to store the bodies in empty meat lockers in the basement where they had already placed Ellie. Although moving them meant valuable evidence might be lost once the police did get involved, the alternative was unthinkable. Juan had helped to transport the bodies of his friends that morning. It was no wonder he was angry and eager for revenge.
“This is important.” Sylvester looked from Connie to Juan, holding their attention. “No matter who comes to you and what message they bring you, you two are to stay together and keep this gun with you at all times. Is that clear?”
Connie swallowed hard. There was a deeper message behind those words. It was hidden in the endless blue depths of his eyes. She tried to read them. No matter who comes to you? Was he expecting something to happen while he was out searching? Was this about Guthrie again?
“Must you go?” She had to swallow the obstruction in her throat to get the words out.
He drew her to him, pressing a kiss onto her forehead. Even during this, the culmination of the darkest time of her life, his touch exerted a magical force over her. When Sylvester’s arms were around her, she felt as though nothing could harm her. It was as though he managed to instill some of his own immortality into her. “It’s time to force a confrontation. Make sure you, and the others, stay inside the house.”
He was gone before she could begin to unpack his meaning. How was he going to force a confrontation? The words implied he really did have an idea of who the stalker was. So would the showdown come during the search? Would Sylvester, Matt and Guthrie find the stranger’s hiding place and finally hold him to account for what he had done? Or was Connie’s horrible premonition correct, and was Sylvester planning to trick Guthrie into exposing himself as the stalker? Neither idea was comforting.
One thing was certain: Sylvester believed she could trust Juan. “We should go back to Jonathan and Lucinda,” she said. “It’s best if we stick together.”
Juan nodded. Removing the gun from the drawer, he did something to it that Connie assumed made it safe. Tucking it his waistband, he pulled his shirt so it hung outside his pants. “I’m ready.”
The words made her feel queasy. He was ready to blow someone’s brains out. Was Lucinda right? Should I try to find the stalker? If he killed me, would this nightmare finally end for all of us? Would he leave the others alone? It had crossed her mind even before Lucinda had uttered those spiteful words. But Connie knew that, even though the stalker’s goal was to kill her, he wanted to torture her by harming the people around her along the way. She had been given enough glimpses into his twisted mind to know she would be the last one left. He intended to keep her alive until the end.
* * *
“You know the island best, Sylvester. Where should we start?” Guthrie asked.
The three men had climbed to the point that was roughly the center of the island. It was a raised mound, one of the artificial sites created centuries earlier by the Calusa out of discarded shells and fish bones that was now covered with vegetation. From this point, they could see most of the island.
To the far west, there was the lighthouse, standing tall, proud and slightly sinister on its rocky promontory. Beyond that point there was nothing except the Gulf of Mexico. On the opposite side of the island, the house nestled into the encircling arms of its protective golden bay. Nearby, the staff quarters clung to the shores of another, smaller bay.
Dotted around the edges of the island were several other tiny inlets, each offering a glimpse of a perfect, white-sand and palm-fringed beach. Despite the trees and brush that decorated the island’s interior, the heart-shaped coastline was obvious from this angle. On a clear day such as this, it was just possible to glimpse the distant, shimmering outline of Siguiente, the nearest island in the de Perlas chain, once the home of Marco Alvarez, sworn enemy of the de León family.
Even though this island was his home, and he knew it like the back of his own hand, searching it wasn’t going to be easy. Last time there had been six of them. They had split into pairs with Sylvester, Roberto and Juan—as the people who knew the island best—each leading a partner on the search. Even then, it had been a cursory hunt, time-wasting and unproductive. It had been more to satisfy everyone else’s fears than with any real expectation on Sylvester’s part of finding a hidden fugitive. There were just too many hiding places. It might be a small island, but it was still big enough for a man to remain concealed if he chose. Now, with Roberto dead, Jonathan incapacitated and Juan needed to guard Connie, it would be just the three of them searching. Even someone with no idea of the geography of the island could easily stay several steps ahead of them.
Sylvester did his best to keep these thoughts hidden from his companions. He didn’t believe there was a stranger on the island. He still believed the search was futile, but he had his own reasons for agreeing to Guthrie’s suggestion.
“We should do this systematically, starting from here and taking a path toward each of the bays in turn, returning to this point each time.”
“Won’t we keep doubling back on ourselves if we come back here each time?” Matt asked with a frown.
“Yes, but from this vantage point we should be able to see if there is any movement. I told the others to stay in the house. If there is someone else on this island, and our searching disturbs him, then coming back to this point each time should give us an idea of his location.”
There followed a frustrating and tiring few hours of trekking back and forth down to each of the little bays and back up to the mound in the brutal heat. Even though they had brought plenty of water with them, they were soon feeling the effects. Sylvester was more accustomed to Florida’s punishing heat and humidity, but before long Guthrie and Matt were sweat-soaked and struggling.
Red-faced and panting, Guthrie looked like he had just emerged from a steam room. “There has to be a better way. How much of the island can be seen from the lighthouse?”
“Not as much as from here,” Sylvester said. “That’s because this mound blocks the view of the east side of the island. The lighthouse wasn’t built for looking at the island. It was built to warn ships, so the viewing platform overlooks the sea and the nearby rocks.”
“Aren’t there dungeons beneath the old fortress?” Matt had been shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked across at the lighthouse. He turned back now to look at Sylvester, a gleam of excitement dawning. “That would be the perfect hiding place.”
Guthrie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You never mentioned this, Sylvester.”
“That’s because no one in their right mind would go down there. It’s too dangerous.”
Guthrie snorted. “And you think the guy we’re looking for is in his right mind?” He tipped his water bottle to his lips, emptying it. “What are we waiting for?”
Sylvester gritted his teeth. The lighthouse, with all its potential hazards, was not the place he would have chosen for a confrontation. But he had been outmaneuvered. He consoled himself with the thought that at least the lighthouse was on the opposite side of the island from Connie. “What indeed?”
He gestured for Matt and Guthrie to go ahead of him along the narrow track their feet had made over the last few hours across the vegetation. It occurred to him, as it had several times already, that he could just act on his hunch and end this now. Creep up on the person he suspected and take him down with a blow to the back of the head. But what if I’m wrong? Because hunches were all he had. That was why he’d been cryptic in his warning to Connie. If he told her what he was thinking and was proved wrong, he’d look as crazy as the person doing all of this. That was the point of this senseless search. He intended to force the stalker into the open. All he had to do now was to find the right way.
When they reached the rocks, Sylvester had to call out to Guthrie, who was in the lead. “You can’t walk across here.” He gestured to the Salto de Fe, where the spray was just visible above the cleft in the rocks. “We have to walk around the ravine.” He and Guthrie started to walk away, taking the circuitous route toward the lighthouse. “Matt?” Sylvester called to the other man to come with them.
“Sorry.” Matt roused himself and followed them. “It’s a force of nature, isn’t it?” He glanced back at the Salto de Fe, a hint of nerves and fascination mingling together on his face.
“A dangerous one. Like so many things on this island.” Grim-faced, Sylvester kept walking.
When they reached the rocky point where the lighthouse stood, Matt went over to the ruined walls of the fortress. Sylvester dredged up his long-ago memories of the old building. Although Máximo and Cariña had made their home on the other side of the island, where the modern-day house stood, when they’d first arrived there had been a need to repel invaders. When Máximo had bought the island from the Calusa king who succeeded Yargua, there were other adventurers who saw its potential and sought to take it from him by force. Several Calusa braves, unnerved by the changes taking place, had chosen to stay on the island when their chief left and stayed loyal to Máximo. They had proved to be his most valuable asset, both in building this fortified keep, in protecting his island and family from invasion and as guards when they were forced to take prisoners.
As Matt and Guthrie stood over one of the stone circles that marked the entrance to the dungeons, the sense of foreboding that had been with Sylvester all day grew stronger. It wasn’t just the sensation of someone walking over his grave; it was a black cat prowling over it while the devil watched and chuckled.
“This has been moved recently.” Matt pointed to the evidence the stone had been shifted. Sure enough, after centuries of disuse, the area around the rock was lighter and brighter with loose, chalky pieces that had been dislodged and spread over a few feet in a circle around it.
As Guthrie reached out a hand for the rusted iron ring that held the stone in place, Sylvester experienced a violent flashback to the dank darkness that lurked beneath that stone. To the catacombs that led in one direction only. Out into that final plunge from the sheer rock face to the hungry sea below.
“We can’t go down there.” Sylvester was starting feel as though he might be invisible. As though his voice, usually so authoritative, was having no impact.
“If he’s down there, we need to know.”
“If he’s down there, he’s dead.” But he’s not down there. He’s right here next to me.
With a huge effort, Guthrie hauled the stone to one side. Sylvester made a move to turn away but it was too late. The shove in the small of his back toppled him off balance and he found himself tumbling down into that gaping darkness before he even had time to comprehend what was happening.
* * *
The morning dragged endlessly on. Somehow the minutes crawled into hours. Connie dipped in and out of that strange feeling, that uniquely Corazón experience. As if competing forces were tugging at the edges of her subconscious. This island was an intricate, beautiful tapestry, woven by the delicate hand of an artist. The threads had been selected with care, each color chosen to match the tropical shades of the natural environment. From a distance, the fibers came together to form a picture so perfect it made your breath catch in your throat. It was only when you stepped up close that you could see beneath the surface layer. Underlying the glorious, shimmering threads, there was a hidden web of decay.
There was evil here, and it had allowed the curse to thrive. It had taken the sick mind of her stalker and distorted it further. It had magnified the worst character traits of each of the guests, making them into sad caricatures of their true selves. It was older than Sinapa, the Calusa wise woman who, in her hatred of Cariña, had uttered the words of the curse, as old as the magic behind Sylvester’s immortality, older than time. Yet there was another enchantment to Corazón. Something good and pure. Something that didn’t want this festering wickedness to thrive. And it was that which Connie tried so desperately to reach out to as she waited, because she felt strangely that it was being drawn to her.
