Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(10)

After a while, Mr. Eli asked what we would like to drink, and my father requested whiskey.

“Jack,” my mother chided. “Remember?”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but apparently my father did. His face flushed. He could be a scary man, my father. His huge girth was intimidating enough, and when he got angry his eyes were as bright as a hawk’s.

“I’ll have a drink with our host,” he told my mother.

“Jack, you promised.”

My father rose from his chair. The air in the room was as sharp as broken glass. He turned to Mr. Eli and said, “If you’ll excuse me, sir.”

Once he left, my mother muttered a quick apology to Mr. Eli. “I’d better go, ah, talk to him. Tres, stay here, will you?”

That was the last thing I wanted—but my mother left me alone with Mr. Eli.

The old man smiled so his seagull mustache seemed to spread its wings. “Let’s get you a soda.”

He called for the maid, an elderly African American woman named Delilah. She brought me a Coke over ice with a maraschino cherry. Delilah had scars on the inside of her wrists, crisscrossed swollen pink lines like Chinese words. I’d asked my father about those scars once, and he’d told me that Mr. Eli had saved Delilah’s life. He wouldn’t explain how.

I sat on the sofa, drinking my soda and trying not to look at Mr. Eli. I wanted to leave, but my mother had ordered me to stay here. For once, I hoped Mr. Eli would read my mind: take pity on me and tell me to go away.

“Alex fixed the fishing boat,” he said. “Perhaps he can take you out.”

“Maybe,” I said halfheartedly.

“You don’t like Alex,” Mr. Eli said. “But you must be patient with him.”

“Why?”

Mr. Eli nodded. “Fair question. Alex and his father have had a hard life, Tres. A lot of tragedy. But they’re good people. Loyal and compassionate.”

I couldn’t believe Mr. Eli was talking about the same kid who stuck bottle rockets in my shorts.

Mr. Eli smoothed a fold in his bathrobe. “Tres, I take in all kinds—all sorts of wounded souls. Enough time on this island can heal most scars eventually. Alex, as far as I know, is the only person who’s ever been born here. That makes him special, in my opinion. I have a feeling someday Alex is going to pay me back many times over.”

“Pay you back for what?” I asked.

Mr. Eli smiled benignly. “I think it’s safe to go to your room now, Tres. 102, as usual, but I’d knock first.”

And so I left Mr. Eli in the parlor. Years afterward, I wondered if he’d been including the Navarre family among the wounded souls he’d invited to Rebel Island. I decided he probably had.

Now, so many years later, the same marlin hung over the mantel. The trophies were a little dustier, but they had the same glassy eyes and surprised expressions, not too different from the half-dozen guests who were milling around the room.

I looked at Alex. “Where’s Chris?”

He chewed his thumbnail. “I’m not sure. Jose, the cook, said he was helping move the body—”

“They moved the body?”

Alex blinked. “Hey, I didn’t—they just—”

“Whose brilliant idea was that?”

Next to me, Garrett tugged on my sleeve. “Yo, little bro. Come here a sec. Alex, man, go get yourself a drink or something.”

Garrett wheeled himself into the hallway and waited for me to follow. “Back off Alex, okay? He’s having a tough time.”

“He’s being evasive,” I said. “And he’s being stupid. His staff just ruined a crime scene.”

“You never liked him, did you?”

“Garrett, that is not the point.”

He wheeled his chair back and forth, digging tracks in the carpet. “Little bro, Alex is having some trouble. I mean, even before tonight. I didn’t ask you down here just for the honeymoon.”

“My brother had a selfish ulterior motive? What a surprise.”

“Yeah, well. The truth is—”

Maia came up behind him and placed her hands on Garrett’s shoulders. She looked better after lying down. The color had returned to her face.

“I hate to interrupt,” she said, glancing inside the parlor, “but it looks like your audience is ready.”

If they were my audience, I needed a warm-up act.

The upset blond lady sat in an armchair. She was wearing pink silk pajamas and hugging a pillow like she was afraid I’d hit her. The three college kids stood at the wet bar, browsing the labels on liquor bottles. There was the redheaded guy, a big bald dude and a skinny Latino kid with nervous eyes and shaggy black hair. Two staff members—the cook and the maid—were casting me worried glances from the steps by the pool table. The only person who seemed at ease was the old man, Benjamin Lindy, immaculate in his charcoal suit, sitting cross-legged on the sofa next to Alex, and even Lindy was looking at me warily, as if I might try to sell him something.

Then there was the storm, which was an audience member as much as any of the people. It resonated in the timbers of the house, making the walls creak and the floor vibrate. There were no outside windows in the room, but I could feel the storm grinding, like a surgeon’s saw cutting into bone.