New Year Island (42 page)

“There’s
got
to be something.” Brent scratched the side of his head. “You told me about your fiancé passing away. Maybe Julian chose you because you’re a survivor of emotional trauma.”

“But I wouldn’t say I was traumatized by it. He wasn’t my fiancé anymore, and we were long over by then. I was seeing someone else. Sure, I was a little sad for him when I heard—anybody would be. But I can’t really see what that has to do with being a survivor type.”

“How did your fiancé die?” Brent asked.

“
Ex-
fiancé. He killed himself, actually. Like I said, it was pretty sad. He was smart and had a bright future ahead of him, but he obviously had some problems and couldn’t deal with them.”

“Frankly, that sounds kind of cold, Jordan. But I suppose it’s not surprising given what else we’ve seen from you here. Think about what that says about you.”

“About
me
?” Anger hardened her voice. She detached herself from Juan and sat up straight. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion, but let’s pursue this a little, shall we? My ex kills himself and I don’t let it ruin my life, so I’m callous; I’m a bad person. On the other hand, you get high, chase off your family, and kill somebody’s kid. Then you lie to us all. But because you feel all sorry and regretful, that makes you a good person? That gives
you
the right to judge
me,
you fucking junkie?”

“That’s enough, Jordan.” Camilla raised her voice, hearing Brent’s breathing coming heavy and fast.

“I’m not finished yet.” Jordan shook off Juan’s hand, too, and stood up.

“For your information, Brent, my ex, Jonathan, was a fucking drug addict, too, so I’m getting pretty tired of listening to
your
sanctimonious bullshit. The only difference I see between you and him right now is one overdose, but who knows? The night is still young.”

Camilla stood up, too. “Both of you. Let’s stay focused on why we’re here, instead of attacking each other.”

Juan reached up and took Jordan’s hand and pulled her down to sit beside him again.

“That’s better.” Camilla spread her hands, looking at them all.

“So why would Julian specifically seek out survivor types as contestants? Who is Vita Brevis Entertainment, and what are they
really
trying to do here?”

T
he hiss of pouring rain rose out of the gray fog, drumming on the awning that covered the distant huddle of black-clad mourners. The chaplain’s eulogy, delivered in Spanish, drifted across the wet grass and shining headstones. It floated up the hill to where JT stood alone under a leafless tree.

The dying tree provided him no shelter. Rain pelted the hood of his poncho. Water streamed down his arms as he watched the honor guard fold the flag into a neat bicorn triangle and present it to Mrs. Sanchez. Her expression was invisible behind the heavy black veil, but JT could see, even from fifty yards away, how the two younger women at her side struggled to hold her upright and quell her shaking.

The Marines of the honor guard—JT’s former platoon mates—saluted Mrs. Sanchez. Sobbing, she shuddered before them, head bowed, her body hunched in spite of the relatives supporting her arms at each side. The Marines held the salute, and JT felt the urge to salute, too, to honor the kid’s memory. But he couldn’t; the gesture would have been unwelcome. He knew that the honor guard was aware of his solitary presence on the hill, even though they refused to acknowledge him.

He watched, silent and impassive, as the bugler raised his instrument. The mournful, lonely notes of “Taps” reached his ears. They gave him no solace, no sense of release as they faded away. Their finality only made the weight that sat in his chest grow heavier. He closed his eyes against the comfortless gray as the hiss of the rain also faded to silence.

Someone moved close by, stealthy in the darkness.

JT came awake with a jolt of adrenaline. Tingling sensations rippled down his arms and legs. Where was he? Unimportant. Focus on the threat.

Semiconscious, he strained to clear his head but couldn’t shake the muzziness that fogged his thinking. The comforting black cloud of slumber would be easy to slide back into, and that scared him. He was drugged, anesthetized, lying on his back. The dull pain in his face throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Sharp spikes stabbed behind his left eye, into his head. He could feel scratchy gauze on his cheek and brow, tape pulling taut on his forehead and cheekbone.

JT stared with his right eye, desperately trying to see. The room floated in the deep gloom, its blurry outlines visible, but he could make out no details. Something or someone had awakened him. He could sense a presence nearby.

He tried to reposition himself on the cot without making a sound, but his arms and legs were sluggish and failed to respond.

“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, huh?”

Travis’s voice came from the side, near his head. He tried to scramble to a sitting position, but his drugged limbs betrayed him again. He couldn’t move.

His heart hammered violently in his chest.

“I wonder who did it,” Travis said. “Funny thing is, wouldn’t really surprise me to find out it was any one of ‘em. A real prize group, ain’t they all?”

Something rustled near his head, and JT twitched. His leaden limbs wouldn’t respond.

“But I could always finish what they started, I suppose.” A sharp point touched his cheek. “How ‘bout I shiv out your other eye?”

Terrified, he strained his muscles and managed a weak flop, shifting an inch or two.

“Or I could gut you, leave you to die hard.”

A sharp point touched and trailed down his stomach, but the paralysis held him to the cot. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

“You and me, we have unfinished business together. That’s a fact.” Travis’s voice moved away. “But our business, it’ll have to wait.”

JT could see him now, silhouetted against a dim rectangle in the darkness—the doorway of the room.

“I’ve got some other business to attend to first,” Travis said. “But keep an eye out for me. Yep, keep an eye out.” He chuckled.

Then he was gone.

JT felt cold sweat trickling down his scalp, turning chilly in the night air. He tried again to move, muscles fighting against the lingering paralysis from the anesthetic, but he could manage only a few more inches. Then the fog closed over him again, washing everything away.

“I
t’s Latin, obviously,” Veronica said. “Like
‘semper fidelis.’
‘Vita Brevis’
means… ‘brave life,’ maybe?”

“No.” Jordan sounded calmer but still angry. “Think ‘brevity,’ ‘abbreviated.’ It comes from a famous quote by Hippocrates.
‘Ars longa, vita brevis.’
‘Art is long, life is short.’”

Camilla sat up straight.

Jordan noticed her surprise. “The benefits of a liberal arts education, I guess. I got my master’s at Stanford, in communications.”

“But ‘art is long, life is short,’ though?” The lead lump turned over in Camilla’s stomach again. “That sounds like a sick joke, considering what happened to Lauren. Almost makes you think there’s something to Mason’s creepy theory, like they’re throwing it in our faces.”

“Get a grip.” Veronica waved her hand, as if dispersing a bad smell. “Someone dies accidentally, and now we’re in some kind of a… I don’t know…
snuff film
? Is that what you two think?”

“I’m keeping an open mind,” Mason said.

She snorted. “Look, I’m sure those things exist, and that there’s a market for them—sickos probably buy them over the Internet. But you’re talking about shaky Handycam footage of hookers getting murdered in dirty basements—not something like this. Are you people forgetting that yacht? That’s millions and millions of dollars of boat. And the money we saw… Who would go to this level of expense to make a snuff film? The whole idea’s asinine.”

Camilla flushed. “Mason’s got quite an imagination, and I’m not saying he’s right, but I can’t explain—”

“Two possibilities.” Veronica held up her finger, looked at her hand, frowned, and scraped something from under her thumbnail. “Number one—which I think is most likely—a runaway train wreck of stupidity. Some Hollywood son of a bitch who I’d love to get my hands on, well, he thought it would be more entertaining to watch people who fit your survivor profile compete with each other, instead of average folks. We’d be tougher, less likely to quit, more resourceful, et cetera. Studio execs loved the concept, so they green-lit it, handed him a big budget. They went out and found us; then they dangled the cash in front of us like a carrot. But it didn’t work out as planned. There was violence. Someone died.”

Camilla shook her head. “But why would they keep—”

“The people in charge panicked at first, but then they decided the damage was done. A few more days wouldn’t change their liability exposure, or they could buy their way out of trouble later—pay us off or something. Idiotic, but this
is
Hollywood we’re talking about. I can see it happening.”

“No,” Camilla said. “I work in the film industry. No studio would ever—”

Veronica raised a second finger, cutting her off. “Possibility number two, if we’re thinking out of the box. It’s personal. Revenge. One of us pissed off somebody very rich and powerful, and this whole thing is some kind of elaborate setup. Maybe getting revenge any other way would be traceable back to that person, I don’t know. Maybe the rest of us were meant to be witnesses to an “accidental” death in one of these games that wasn’t really going to be accidental. But no one could have anticipated Lauren’s
real
accident, and it’s thrown everything off.”

Mason looked at Brent. “Doc, the kid you killed—was her dad by any chance a rich Hollywood entertainment mogul?”

“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.” Brent’s eyes glittered oddly in the lamplight as he stood. “I’m going to go check on my patients. But, Mason, maybe your dead senior partner Dorer had a relative who didn’t like how you managed to duck any responsibility for what your firm and your whole bloodsucking industry did to us all.” He trudged out of the room with heavy steps.

“Jordan’s right, you know.” Veronica’s voice held a harsh edge. “Brent’s using again. Look closely at his eyes when he gets back. His pupils should be dilated in this low light, and instead they’re pinpricks.”

Camilla’s hands tightened into helpless fists. “The first-aid kit.”

“Another cute little present from our hidden hosts.” Even in the dim light, Veronica’s expression looked bitter. “Knowing Brent’s history, they loaded it with class-A restricted pharmaceuticals. I saw fentanyl, propofol in there, OxyContin—the kind of scheduled drugs you normally keep under lock and key, even in a hospital.”

“I did notice something different in the way he’s been acting,” Camilla said. “How do we stop him from taking them?”

“This isn’t an episode of
Intervention,
” Mason said. “So long as he isn’t a danger to us, I don’t see that it’s a priority.”

“No, that’s not fair.” She thought about the injured people upstairs, the toll it must be taking on Brent. “We all need to try to help him.”

“He’ll be fine.” Jordan stood up, pulling Juan to his feet also, and headed toward the door. The sarcasm in her voice cut through the room. “Like he said, he’s a
survivor,
remember?”

I
nside Shark Station Zebra’s old buildings, Jacob sat on a cot with his head in his hands. Heather watched him out of the corner of her eye as she gathered stacks of their notes and documents. She could hear him mumbling, and occasionally he shook his head. But he never looked up.

On a nearby cot, Dmitry lay with his arms crossed behind his head. He seemed to be thinking. The light of the battery lantern was dim, but they had been able to collect most of what they needed.

The TV people had scattered their notes and reports. Pages were folded, dog-eared, torn. Even though there were bigger problems to worry about, this still bothered Heather a lot—a little respect for others went a long way in this world. The nice woman, Camilla, had at least had the decency to give them some prepackaged meals and a quarter jug of water. She looked sad about it, and Heather wondered why until she realized that the food and water probably belonged to the woman who died.

“I’m putting in for a transfer to San Diego,” Jacob said into the silence. “You guys should, too.”

Dmitry sat up. “Okay, is very nice idea. But what should we do
right now
? Some of these people, they are not safe to be around.”

Heather agreed. “There’s something off about all of them. Like we’re dealing with a group of sociopaths. And none of them trust each other—did you notice that?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow first thing,” Jacob said. “Beyond that, I can’t think. Karen shouldn’t get away with this. The press will be all over the shark attack. It’ll be 1994, the kayak guy all over again, but ten times worse because this was a fatality.”

She stopped sorting papers and turned to look at him. “Worrying about that is not really important right now.” Was he confused?

Dmitry was squinting at Jacob with a puzzled expression on his face.

“How exactly are we leaving?” Heather asked. “There’s no boat. No Coast Guard drive-bys, because you told them last year it interrupts the animals’ natural behavior and disrupts our studies. No working radios or cell phones. So what’s the plan?”

“Fuck.” Jacob shook his head without lifting it from his hands. “I just don’t know.”

Dmitry settled back and crossed his arms behind his head again.

“Looks like we stucking here.”

“T
ravis is gone.”

Camilla glanced up sharply to see Brent in the doorway again, his hands in his vest pockets. She could see the unnatural glitter in his eyes, the tiny pupils. Veronica and Jordan were right.

Veronica made a wordless sound of disgust. “I thought you sedated him.”