Chapter 84
I SLEPT RESTLESSLY, waking just about every hour on the hour. There was no piano to go pound out on the porch. No Jannie and Damon to go wake. Only the murderer peacefully sleeping at my side.
Only the plan I was there to execute.
When the sun finally rose, the hotel kitchen staff fixed us a fancy box lunch to go. They packed a wicker basket with fine wines, French bottled water, expensive gourmet goodies. There were also snorkeling gear, fluffy towels, a striped yellow-and-white beach umbrella.
Everything was already loaded onto a speedboat when we arrived on the dock, at just past eight. It took the boat about thirty minutes to get to our island—a beautiful, secluded spot. Paradise regained.
We would be out there alone all day. Other couples from the hotel had their own private islands to visit. A coral reef encircled our beach, stretching out about seventy to a hundred yards from shore.
The water was the clearest bottle green. When I looked straight down, I could see the texture of the sand on the bottom. I could have counted grains of sand. Angel and warrior fish darted around my legs in small spirited schools. A smiling pair of five-foot-long barracuda had followed our boat almost to the shoreline, then lost interest.
“What time would you like me to come back?” the boat driver asked. “It’s your choice.”
He was a muscular fisherman—a sailor in his forties. A happy-go-lucky type, he had shared big-fish and other colorful island stories on the way out. He seemed to think nothing of Jezzie and my being together.
“Oh, I think two or three o’clock?” I looked for some help from Jezzie. “What time should Mr. Richards come back for us?”
She was busy laying out beach towels and the rest of our exotic gear. “I think three is good. That sounds great, Mr. Richards.”
“All right, then, have fun, you two.” He smiled. “You’re all alone. I can see my services are no longer required.”
Mr. Richards saluted us, then hopped back into the boat. He started the engine, and soon had vanished from sight.
We were all alone on our private island. Don’t worry, be happy.
There is something so strange and unreal about lying on a beach towel next to a kidnapper and murderer. I went over and over all of my feelings, plans, the things I knew I had to do.
I tried to get control of my confusion and rage. I had loved this woman who was now such a stranger. I closed my eyes and let the sun relax my muscles. I needed to untense, or this wouldn’t work.
How could you have murdered the little girl, Jezzie? How could you do that? How could you tell so many lies to everybody?
Gary Soneji flew out of nowhere! He came suddenly, and with no warning.
He had a foot-long hunting knife like the one he’d used in the D.C. ghetto killings. He was arched high overhead, his shadow covering me completely.
There was no way he could have gotten onto the island. No way.
“Alex. Alex, you were dreaming,” Jezzie said. She put a cool hand on my shoulder. She gently touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers.
The long, mostly sleepless night… the warm sun and the cooling sea breeze… I had fallen asleep on the beach.
I looked up at Jezzie. She had been the shadow over my body, not Soneji. My heart was pounding loudly. Dreams are as powerful as the real world to our nervous systems.
“How long was I out?” I asked. “Whew.”
“Just a couple of minutes, baby,” she said. “Alex, let me hold you.”
Jezzie moved against me on the beach towel. Her breasts brushed my chest. She had taken off her bathing-suit top while I slept. Her smooth skin glowed with tanning oil. A thin line of moisture beaded on her upper lip. She couldn’t help looking good.
I sat up and moved away from Jezzie on the towel. I pointed to where a garden of bougainvillea grew, almost to the seawater.
“Let’s walk down along the beach. Okay? Let’s take a walk. I want to talk to you about a few things.”
“What kind of things?” Jezzie asked me. She was clearly disappointed that I was putting her off, even for a moment. She’d wanted to make love on the beach. I didn’t.
“C’mon. Let’s walk and talk a little,” I said. “This sun feels so good.”
I pulled Jezzie up and she came along with me somewhat reluctantly. She didn’t bother to put her top back on.
We walked along the shoreline with our feet in the clear, calm water. We weren’t touching now, but we were only inches apart. It was so strange and unreal. It was one of the worst moments of my life, if not the worst.
“You’re being so serious, Alex. We were going to have fun, remember? Are we having fun yet?”
“I know what you did, Jezzie. It’s taken a while, but I finally pulled it together,” I told her. “I know that you took Maggie Rose Dunne from Soneji. I know that you killed her.”