Paradise Island: Complete Edition (21 page)

There wasn’t much we were going to get done today so we returned to the living room. I thought about what kind of life we were living in that moment. Not so much Jack, because he could always go back to his acting, but what about me? What would I do with my life once all of this was over, whatever this was? Going back to waitressing at the diner seemed like an impossibility now. These thoughts entered my mind as I flipped through Josie’s journals, though none of the words on the pages made it to my brain. I was lost in my own thoughts, and there was no room for Josie’s at the moment.

To his credit, Jack was sitting quietly reading one of the biographies I often saw him read. I was curious as to why he was so fascinated with them.

“Are you studying for a role?” I asked, hoping that I wasn’t crossing any lines.

Jack put his book down and looked straight at me. “I certainly hope not. I hope I never have to go back to that work again, unless something really interesting comes up. But now that you mention it, this is usually how I prepare for a role.” He took a good look at the cover of the book. “I usually try to immerse myself in the subject’s life, if it’s a real person I’m portraying. Sometimes I choose bios and memoirs by people that have similarities to my fictional characters. I think it’s not too dissimilar to what you’ve done with Josie’s journals, if I’m not mistaken.”

I thought about what he was saying and in a way he was right. I immersed myself so deeply in Josie’s story that it was hard to let her go. I had to find out how her story ended, no matter what, which was the main reason I was still here.

T
he next day as the sun rose in the horizon and the first light hit the earth, I stared out the window in wonder and horror at what nature had done.

When I got to the living room Jack was there, waiting for me. “I thought we should do this together,” he said and I nodded, not uttering a word. This was a precious moment, and words were not going to shatter it.

We got something quick to eat and drink and once we were dressed for the chill, we made our way outside and inspected the combination of our and nature’s handiwork. At first it was difficult to discern what was what, our boots getting muddier by the minute, but pretty soon we found a good rhythm to our work. Jack worked on one side of the yard and I on the other, presumably our paths would meet eventually, whether empty handed or full, I wasn’t sure.

Digging through the dirt and mud and the rain water was more fun than I’d anticipated. I lost myself in the work, shoveling water out with a bucket occasionally, and then digging deeper in the soft, wet earth.

It seemed like we spent a lifetime digging in the dirt and mud in silence, but finally something happened.

It was Jack who broke the silence.

“I think I got something,” he said as he plunged his shovel deep under muddy water, into depths I could not see. But I could hear something peculiar: every time he plunged the shovel downwards, a sound could be heard. He had hit something hard down there. Stone or rocks, perhaps? Or something a bt more sinister?

I stood by his side, awaiting with bated breath for the discovery to reveal itself. “Maybe you should do the honors?” He said, though I could see in his eyes that he wanted to be the one to see what it was.

“No, but I’ll help you get some of the water out.” I went and got my bucket and carefully lowered myself in the ditch. Bucket by bucket the water level was descending. It took awhile but eventually I managed to get most of it out.

“Go ahead,” I said, sick with anticipation.

It was Jack’s turn to go down and down he did, almost sliding on the mud in his big boots. I was glad he had found the boots both of us were wearing, apparently leftover from the people that worked on his property.

He carefully dug around the hard surface until a sight revealed itself to the both of us: it was the top of a skull. “Shit, it’s actually here! You were right, Sophie!” Jack yelled out in excitement. I never saw him so alive, so full of energy, which was pretty ironic since we were digging up a skeleton. I joined him in the ditch and helped him dig up the rest of it, which took more time than I had patience for, but I preserved.

Once we were done, the whole of the scene was more grisly than I wanted to admit. Yes, there was a skeleton, which I expected, but what I did not expect was the smaller, baby sized skeleton that came along with it. I had to look away for a minute before uttering a word.

“It’s definitely her,” I said. “She was pregnant when she went missing.”

“We have to call the cops. Not the local ones, maybe the sea patrol or whatever those guys are called.”

As much as I wanted to say no, that we should bury the bones again, because I definitely didn’t want to be in the limelight, I could not do that to Josie. She deserved better.

“Do it,” I said. “Just keep my name out of it. There’s someone out there who wants to find me, and I don’t want to make it easy for him.”

Jack immediately came to my side and held me in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll protect you.”

I hugged him back. “I know, Jack,” I said. “I know.”

“Step away from the bones,” I heard an old man’s voice speak above me.

Both Jack and I looked up out of the ditch we’d built, which was now several feet below ground level. We stepped away a bit, but there wasn’t much room to move.

I looked up into the old man’s face and recognized him. It was Mr. Bottoms! And he had a pistol in his hand, pointed straight down at us.

“Mr. Bottoms? Why are you doing this?” And then it dawned on me. “You’re Greyson Milton, aren’t you? You killed Josie Browning all those years ago.” I looked down at the bones. “And her unborn child.”

Mr. Bottoms, or Mr. Milton shall I say, looked down into the ditch and saw the small baby bones. He looked absolutely shocked. “I am sorry for the child, but not for that whore.” His words were at once gentle and cruel. There was something evil lurking behind those eyes, and I chastised myself for never noticing it before.

“Now get out of that ditch,” he said.

But another figure stepped up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. She had short, shoulder-length red hair. Lucy. At first I was happy to see her but pretty soon it was clear she wasn’t here to help us. “No, father, they know too much,” she said as she looked down on me and Jack huddled together, disgust clearly visible in her eyes.

“But, Lucy, I can’t.” The old man mumbled his words, confusion on his face. Suddenly, as Lucy took the pistol from his hands, I knew we were in trouble.

“But I can,” she said, and gleefully pointed the pistol in our direction.

“Wait, before you kill us, I just want to know one thing,” I said, trying to buy us some time. Jack was awfully quiet, though I saw him slowly edge his way to the shovel not too far away. If he needed time, I was going to buy him some, otherwise we’d be dead anyway.

“What is it, Sophie? Be quick about it,” Lucy sounded more bored than anything. She just wanted to kill us and get this thing over with. The pure hatred in her eyes was unsettling.

“I want nothing from you, Lucy, I was talking to Greyson,” I said, feeling suddenly bold. If she was going to kill me anyway, I wasn’t going to glower at her feet. The bitch deserved a lot worse. “I want to know if you killed Annie as well, or was it really a suicide?”

Greyson looked shocked by my question. “Goodness no, I’m not a monster. She did indeed take her own life. After I...got rid of Josie...I thought my father would see the light, but he continued in his sinful ways. I never wanted to hurt anyone, and Josie was my first and last kill.”

“But she isn’t, Mr. Milton, is she? Didn’t you come here to kill us, in order to cover up your crime?” I was feeling awfully confident for having a gun in my face.

“No, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I came here for the diaries and the bones, and then you’ll have nothing on me.” He looked sideways at his daughter. “Lucy, please don’t do anything you’ll regret later. God knows I’ve paid for my crime over and over, and for what? A father who didn’t even care? He drank himself to death without even trying to see his son and daughter ever again. Please don’t do this, my sweet Lucy. Nothing is worth committing such a grave sin.”

Lucy hesitated but the gun was still squarely pointed at us.

“They know too much, father,” she said. “They must die.”

“No, Lucy, this is not the answer,” Greyson took the gun from her hands. “We’ll follow our original plan. No murder, just blackmail, remember,” he looked down on the bones of Josie and her unborn child. “There’s been too much death already.”

Lucy nodded, though I could see by the look on her face that she was not happy about it at all.

Jack was ready to use the shovel and overpower the old man, but I stopped him with a touch of my hand on his arm from behind, so they couldn’t see what was going on.

“Wait, how do you plan on blackmailing us?” I asked both of them, truly curious what their plan was.

Lucy looked down at me with hatred in her eyes. “Henry. I know you killed him. I went to his cottage in the woods and saw the body myself. You really should have covered your tracks better. You’re dumber than I thought you were.”

“But how did you know where his cottage was?” As the words left my mouth it finally dawned on me on how she miraculously escaped that bomb in the boathouse. “You! You were working with him!”

“Oh, please. Henry was just as dumb as you are, maybe even dumber if that was possible. Yeah, I put him up to the whole thing after I found out about the diaries. He was only supposed to scare you and keep you locked up to give me enough time to get the diaries from
his
place,” she looked down on Jack. “But of course he had to have a top notch security system with unbreakable windows.”

I thought back on everything that had happened in the past few days. I thought back to that terrible day when Henry took me, and when I had to kill him to get away. “But the pictures. At the cabin. I thought he was a serial killer. A rapist. Was any of that true?”

Lucy laughed and her laughter made me sick to my stomach. “Wow! Of course not. He was just some creepy photographer dude with a crush on you. Yeah, he was probably going to rape you, I promised him that much, but the other stuff? All my idea to scare the shit out of you. And I knew you wouldn’t be going to the cops because of your terrible past. God, you’re so fucking predictable, Sophie, you know that?”

Her words hit me like razorblades. My heart ached, my mind was reeling. “But we were friends, weren’t we? Or was that all a lie as well?”

“Of course we were friends, silly. Very good friends. But you had to stumble on those damn diaries before I did. Yes, that’s right, I planned to seduce Jack as soon as I heard he made his appearance in town, but then he had to fall in love with you. You both make me sick.”

“You’re the sick one,” Jack said, his first words since the whole morbid affair had started.

Lucy looked down on him and sneered. “I can still shoot your ass dead, Hollywood boy, so keep your mouth shut. The only time you should be speaking is when somebody gives you a fucking script, and you’re getting one pretty soon.”

Jack was enraged, he stepped forward but I held him back.

“That’s right, listen to your little girlfriend.”

“We’re not...” I started to say.

“Why does that not surprise me? A hot guy like that, though obviously not too bright but what hot guy is, and you still don’t shag him? You’re a bigger fool than I thought you were, Sophie.”

“Lucy, I’ve had enough of your belligerent behavior. Let’s just get to business,” surprisingly, it was her father that said those words.

“Fine, daddy, but you promised I could have some fun first.”

“From the sounds of it, you’ve had more than enough.”

“Not nearly, but if you say so. Fine, let’s get to the blackmail thingy. You killed an innocent man, his name was Henry. Shall I continue or is that enough?”

“What proof do you have?” I said, really wondering.

“Proof,” Lucy said, pursing her lips in a mocking way. “The dead body for one, still rotting in that burnt out cabin. How did you even manage that? Did your not-boyfriend here help you?” She laughed at the very thought of that.

I thought about what she’d said, how Henry wasn’t actually a serial killer. Now I actually started to feel some guilt for what I had done, but at the end of the day, that’s how he presented himself to me. And he kidnapped and attacked me. And he kept me locked up, planning to do God knows what to me. No, I did not feel too much remorse for his death. He might not have been a complete monster, but he was no gentleman either.

“No one needed to help me, you sick bitch,” I was surprised at the words that were coming out of my mouth, but they were true enough. I would have never thought about using such language only a few days ago, especially not against my “best friend” Lucy. But a lot had changed in just a couple of days, and if she was going to act like a crazy bitch, I was going to call her out on it.

Lucy laughed.

“Laugh all you want, but all the evidence that I killed him, or was even with him, is gone Lucy. What’s your plan now?”

Lucy smiled and took out a tape recorder from her back pocket. She rewound it and I listened to my own words coming back to haunt me. “Is that enough proof for you?”

I didn’t say anything. She had won. She had played me yet again, and that rage I felt as I stabbed Henry was beginning to come back. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to control the coming storm.

“So what’s your plan? Let’s get this over with,” I said after I calmed down a bit.

“Okay, glad you asked. You and Prince Charming give me pa and me all the journals and we take the bones as well, and we don’t tell on you for Henry’s murder. Everyone leaves happy, no fuss no muss. We got a deal? Oh, and maybe some money wouldn’t hurt, either. I hear Jack here is loaded.”

“Lucy, that wasn’t our plan,” her father said, worry showing on his face. He looked like a very confused old man. He didn’t seem to know what kind of heartless harpy he had for a daughter. But then again, he was a heartless murderer himself, so what could be expected.