Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(17)

“Ralph wouldn’t want you to quit,” Maia told me. “That wouldn’t make him feel better.”

“Nothing can happen to you or the baby.”

“Tres, you can’t control everything. You can’t stop things from happening.”

The storm roared. There was a draft somewhere. The candles flickered and guttered.

Maia propped herself up on one elbow. “Did you hear that?”

“What, the wind?”

She listened, looking around the room until her eyes fixed on the door. “Someone’s outside.”

I didn’t ask how she knew. I got out of bed.

“Tres.” Maia pointed to her luggage.

I retrieved the .357 from her suitcase and I went to the door.

I threw it open, but there was no one there. The hallway was dark and silent. I realized I was making a great silhouette if anybody wanted to take aim at me. The candlelight behind me was the only illumination.

As I stepped back inside, paper crumpled under my foot.

“What is it?” Maia asked.

I picked up the envelope. Hotel stationery, cream with brown lettering: REBEL ISLAND HOTEL. It was unsealed with the flap folded in, the contents too thick for a single letter.

I should’ve been more careful. It might’ve been a letter bomb for all I knew.

But I opened it and looked inside. Newspaper clippings. I unfolded them—articles from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the San Antonio Express-News, a few pieces printed from the national wire services. I scanned the headlines. Among the articles was a white card with a note handwritten in pencil, carefully anonymous block letters.

“Well?” Maia asked.

I showed her the note. Two simple words:

FIND HIM

“A warning,” I said. “About our killer.”

10

Alex crouched in the attic. He hammered the last support beam in place, but he had no illusions that it would help. The ribs of the building were trembling. Leaks were sprouting in so many places he felt like he was in the hull of the Titanic.

The attic was crammed with Mr. Eli’s old leather suitcases. They smelled of lilacs. The old man had once been a traveler. He’d crossed Europe on trains and sailed a steamer to China. He’d visited Istanbul and Cairo. And then for reasons he never explained, Mr. Eli settled on Rebel Island, stowed his luggage, his clothes and his mementos in the attic. He threw away all his shoes except his slippers and vowed never to leave.

Above Alex’s head, there was a ripping sound, more of the mansard roof getting scoured away. Soon Mr. Eli’s things would be exposed to the wind, swept off to Refugio County.

Let them get ruined, the old man would’ve said. A man’s better off without his baggage.

Alex climbed down the ladder and closed the trapdoor. He stood in the hallway, his wet clothes dripping on the carpet. He should’ve run away from this place months ago. What the hell was he still doing here, pretending he could make things right?

He stared at the doorway of Jose and Imelda’s room. It had always been the servants’ room, probably as far back as Colonel Bray’s time. Once, Alex’s parents had lived there. His mother had been bedridden during her final years. Alex would leave the window open so she could hear the sea. The room would be filled with light, the sounds of gulls and the smell of salt. On days when his father took out the fishing boat, she would close her eyes and listen to the sound of his engine as it receded into the Gulf.

Years later, when Alex had finally gotten up the courage to leave the island, his father hadn’t understood. Why join the army? Why leave the coast? Even Mr. Eli had told him it was a mistake.

There’s nothing out there for you, Alex.

But they’d let him go, and it didn’t take him long to realize they were right. Eventually he had come straggling home. He’d reconnected with his old friends. He’d tried to help them, the way Mr. Eli would’ve wanted him to.

And in exchange, he’d been deceived, betrayed, used. His fists tightened.

Alex had to stop trusting people. He’d thought Tres could help, but who was he kidding? He should have left this island when he first suspected the truth. Yet here he was, paralyzed. All he could do was go on fixing leaks, hoping the hotel didn’t collapse around him.

He wanted to tell the Navarres the truth, at least. He owed them that much. Yet whenever he tried, the words stuck in his throat.

From the attic came an ominous creaking—wood being strained to the breaking point. But instead of going up again, Alex went downstairs.

There was one thing left he could do: one more leak he needed to fix.

11

I’d heard of Calavera and his big mistake.

No single article told the whole story. Journalistic etiquette, such as it was, prevented reporters from telling the most grisly details. But I pieced them together, inferring some things, remembering others that I’d heard from various cops.

Six months ago, Corpus Christi District Attorney Peter Brazos had been in the middle of a career-making case. He was prosecuting five members of a South Texas drug cartel for trafficking, kidnapping, accessory to murder. He had everything he needed for a conviction. If things went his way, Brazos would gain national attention. He could write his own ticket—a job with the state attorney’s office. Maybe even a federal appointment.

On New Year’s Eve, two weeks before the trial, Brazos sequestered himself at his weekend house in Port Aransas to prepare his case and collect his thoughts. This was his habit. He was well known for going on such retreats. The fact that it was New Year’s Eve meant nothing to Brazos. He did not celebrate such things. He had no time for anything except his work and—as time allowed—his family.