Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(60)

“Did he choose the room you’d stay in?”

“I suppose. It was just an open room. Why?”

Garrett shifted in his chair. “That guy you saw in your closet? Tres thinks he was there for a reason. He found a wire, see. It might’ve been part of a bomb.”

“A bomb.”

“Yeah.” Garrett felt guilty, heaping this on Lane after all the other crap she’d been through. “My little bro, you know, he was just wondering—”

“Why a bomber would target my room.”

“Something like that.”

She closed the journal. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail, and Garrett liked the way it looked. He could see more of her face, her silver sand dollar earrings. She had a beautiful neck, smooth and white.

“Garrett, I’ve got skeletons in the closet. But Calavera isn’t one of them. I don’t know why he would bother with me.”

“I figured it was crazy.”

“But you had to ask.”

“So these skeletons in your closet…it’s not just your ex-husband, huh?”

“I don’t keep a diary, either.”

“Fair enough.” He stared at the pocket of her T-shirt—Chris’s T-shirt. It was decorated with a green crab and the words Mike’s Bar, Matamoros. He and Alex had been there once. They’d borrowed the Navarre family sedan, told Garrett’s parents they were going into Corpus Christi for the day to search for a used car for Alex. Instead, they’d driven to the border for a few drinks. The memory weighed on Garrett like a lead apron.

“I need your advice,” he told Lane.

“My advice? You hardly know me.”

But Garrett felt like he knew her as well as he needed. He didn’t know why, but he had no trouble talking to her, and he figured Lane must feel the same way. After all, she’d told him all about the murder her ex-husband had committed, that awful night they’d dragged the immigrant’s body into the woods. Maybe with a person like Lane, you didn’t need to keep a diary. She was a better place to record your thoughts.

“I want to know what to do,” he admitted. He brought out the letter Alex had left for him, and told her what it said.

35

Black plastic tarp and boards still blocked the end of the hall. I ripped them away as best I could. The door itself didn’t look particularly damaged. The knob turned, but it wouldn’t open. I kicked it, gave it shoulder treatment. Nothing. As if it was barricaded from the inside.

I tried to convince myself it didn’t matter. One blocked-off room. One more damaged area in a hotel that was falling apart. So what?

Then I noticed the number on the door: 102. I was standing in front of the same room my parents and I had always stayed in—the last room they’d ever shared as a married couple.

I remembered at age twelve limping down this hallway, the sole of my right foot burning from a jellyfish sting. I’d been exploring the northern tip of the island, imagining I was hiding from Jean Laffitte’s pirates, when I bravely charged the surf and stepped straight into a blue and red bubble of pain.

My parents weren’t anticipating me back until lunch. They expected me to take care of myself during the mornings. But I hobbled back to room 102, determined not to cry. Halfway down the corridor, I ran into Alex’s father.

I’d only seen him around the island a few times before—cutting planks for a new dock or hammering tiles on the roof. He was a burly man. He had unruly blond hair like his son’s, a scraggly beard, skin the color of saddle leather. His sun-faded clothes and unraveling straw cowboy hat always made me think of Robinson Crusoe. Up close, he smelled like whiskey, not so different from my father’s smell, but Mr. Huff had a more kindly smile. There was an odd light in his eyes—the kind of look a sailor gets from staring too long at a watery horizon, as if the glare of the sun had burned permanently into his corneas.

He took one look at the way I was walking and said, “Jellyfish, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

A muffled shout came from down the hall—from behind my parents’ door.

Mr. Huff pursed his lips. “Why don’t you come to the kitchen, son? I’ll put some baking soda on that sting.”

“I want to see my parents.” My voice quivered. My foot felt as if it were melting.

“Son, it’s better you didn’t. Sometimes things have to get worse for a long time before they can get better.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. He put his hand on my shoulder, but I jerked away and continued down the hall.

I heard the yelling. I should’ve known better, but I opened the door.

Little details: the shattered glass on the floor, liquor soaking into the carpet. The cut above my mother’s eye, a streak of blood trickling down her cheekbone. My father’s clenched fist, his gold college ring biting into the white flesh of his fingers.

“Get out!” my mother screamed. And in that heartbeat, I thought she was talking to me.

I turned and ran, the pain in my foot forgotten.

“Tres!” my father yelled.

I knew he was coming after me, but I kept running. I caught a glimpse of Mr. Huff’s face—pain and sympathy in his eyes. But he didn’t try to stop me. He didn’t intervene.

Sometimes things have to get worse for a long time.