Die Again (Rizzoli & Isles, #11)(51)

I look at the faces around the fire. Sylvia and Vivian huddle together, their blond hair equally tangled, faces equally tight with worry. It’s strange, what the bush does to even beautiful women. It strips them of all superficial gloss, dulls their hair, scours away makeup, erodes them down to flesh and bone. That’s what I see when I look at them now: two women slowly being eroded to their bare elements. Already it has happened to Mrs. Matsunaga, who’s been worn down to her fragile, fractured core. She is still not eating. The plate of meat I gave her sits untouched at her feet. To coax some sort of nutrition into her, I added two spoonfuls of sugar to her tea, but she immediately spat it out, and now she looks at me with distrust, as if I tried to poison her.

In fact, everyone now looks at me with distrust, because I haven’t joined their blame-Johnny team. They think I’ve gone to the dark side, and I’m Johnny’s spy, when all I’m trying to do is figure out the most likely way for us to stay alive. I know Richard’s no outdoorsman, even though he thinks he is. Clumsy, terrified Elliot hasn’t shaven in days, his eyes are bloodshot, and any minute now I expect him to start babbling like a madman. The blondes are falling apart even as I watch. The only person who still has it together, who actually knows what he’s doing out here, is Johnny. I vote for him.

Which is why the others no longer look at me. They look past me or through me, shooting furtive glances at one another in some silent eyelid-flickering Morse code. We’re living the real-life version of TV’s Survivor, and it’s clear I’ve been voted off the island.

The blondes are off to bed first, huddling together and whispering as they leave the firelight. Then Elliot and Keiko slip away to their respective tents. For a moment it’s just Richard and me sitting by the fire, too wary of each other to say a word. That I once loved this man is almost impossible to believe. These days in the bush have added a handsomely rugged edge to his good looks, but now I see the petty vanity underneath it all. The real reason he dislikes Johnny is that he can’t measure up. It’s all come down to who’s more of a man. Richard always has to be the hero of his own story.

He seems about to say something when we both realize that Johnny’s awake, his eyes gleaming in the shadows. Without a word, Richard rises to his feet. Even as I watch him stalk off and duck into our tent, I’m aware of Johnny’s gaze on me, can feel the heat of it on my face.

“Where did you meet him?” Johnny asks. He sits so still against the tree that he seems to be part of the trunk itself, his body like one long, sinuous root.

“A bookshop, of course. He came in to sign copies of his book Kill Option.”

“What was that one about?”

“Oh, the usual R. Renwick thriller. The hero finds himself trapped on a remote island with terrorists. Uses his wilderness skills to take them down one by one. Men eat up the books like candy, and we had a full house for the signing. Afterward, he and the bookshop staff went out to the pub for drinks. I thought for certain he had his eye on my colleague Sadie. But no, he went home with me.”

“You sound surprised.”

“You haven’t seen Sadie.”

“And how long ago was this?”

“Almost four years ago.” Long enough for Richard to get bored. Long enough for the various hurts and grievances to pile up and make a man wonder about better options.

“Then you should know each other pretty well,” says Johnny.

“We should.”

“You’re not certain?”

“Can one ever be?”

He looks at Richard’s tent. “Not about some people. The way you can’t ever be sure about some animals. It’s possible to tame a lion or an elephant, even learn to trust them. But you can’t ever trust a leopard.”

“What kind of animal do you think Richard is?” I ask, only half serious.

Johnny doesn’t crack a smile. “You tell me.”

His answer, spoken so quietly, forces me to consider my almost four years with Richard. Four years of a shared bed and shared meals, but always with a distance between us. He was the one who’s held back, the one who scoffed at the idea of marriage, as if it was beneath us, but I think I knew all along why he never married me; I just refused to admit it to myself. He was waiting for the one. And I’m not her.

“Do you trust him?” Johnny says softly.

“Why are you asking this?”

“Even after four years, do you really know who he is? What he’s capable of?”

“You don’t think Richard’s the one who—”

“Do you?”

“That’s what the others are saying about you. That we can’t trust you. That you deliberately stranded us here.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I think if you wanted to kill us, you’d have done it already.”

He stares back at me, and I’m keenly aware of the rifle at his side. As long as he controls the gun, he controls us. Now I wonder if I’ve made a fatal mistake. If I’ve confided in the wrong man.

“Tell me what else they’re saying,” he says. “What are they planning?”

“No one’s planning anything. It’s just that they’re scared. We’re all scared.”

“There’s no reason to be, as long as no one does anything rash. As long as you trust me. No one but me.”