Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(65)

“We need to get outside.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

I was tempted to pick her up and carry her, but I knew she’d never allow it, and I wasn’t sure I could do it safely. As it was, I let her lean against me as we took the stairs. Every step I imagined as a trip wire, a second ticking off a clock. I said nothing. I didn’t want to make Maia upset. But the house was now a minefield.

Maia didn’t ask. She knew it was that serious.

We got to the bottom of the steps and saw Ty, Markie and Chase lugging suitcases out the front door.

“A boat’s here?” Chase’s eyes were desperate, like a death row inmate waiting for a pardon.

“No, no boat.”

Just get out of our way! I wanted to scream.

Finally we were outside. I guided Maia across the dunes, as far from the house as I could get her. Garrett’s wheelchair was stuck in the wet sand and he’d given up on it. He was sitting on an intact section of boardwalk next to the ruins of the pier. The wind swept his hair to one side. Lane sat with him, hugging him tight. Chase, Ty and Markie plopped their suitcases down and sat on them, watching me. Benjamin Lindy was there, dressed in a funeral suit, his face as gray as the clouds. He gave me a steely look.

“Jose and Imelda,” I said. “Where are they?”

Nobody answered. Nobody seemed to know.

I cursed.

“What’s going on, Tres?” Lindy asked me. “Where is Alex Huff?”

If I had been thinking more clearly, I would’ve caught the deadly resolve in his voice, like a machine that had been set to automatic. But I had other concerns.

“Stay here,” I told Maia. “Do not follow me.”

I ran for the house.

Inside: first floor. No one in the dining room except the corpses. They looked wet and they smelled terrible—doused in tequila. I didn’t have time to give their smell much thought. The kitchen was empty. The parlor and the office, nothing. I yelled for Jose and Imelda. No answer. I ran upstairs.

Third floor: Jose and Imelda’s room. The little altar had been cleared away. Some clothes had been packed and removed. The bed hadn’t been made.

The closet was open. One suitcase on the floor. Empty coat hangers. Their window had been un-barricaded. I looked outside; I wasn’t sure why. At the back end of the house, a line of battered dunes led down to the old boathouse where I’d scuttled the fishing boat the night before. And there were Jose and Imelda, just going into the boathouse. Imelda turned. She looked at the house, as if saying goodbye. She found her own window and locked eyes with me. For a brief second, she wasn’t sure who she was looking at—a ghost, perhaps. Then her eyes widened.

That’s when I heard the first noise. From the opposite side of the hotel, a rumble, like an approaching earthquake. The floor trembled.

And then a strange clicking sound nearby, like a toy being wound up.

I focused on the suitcase in the closet. The noise was coming from inside it.

I hurled myself against the window and the room erupted in flames.

I imagined Mr. Eli looking down at me, his face illuminated by fireworks. Alex’s father stood next to him. There were others there, too, but I couldn’t make out their faces.

“Alex will make me proud someday,” Mr. Eli said. “He has a good heart.”

Mr. Huff grunted. “Nothing but trouble, if you ask me. Must’ve gotten that from his mother.”

Mr. Eli didn’t answer. In the next explosion, I saw Ralph Arguello’s face illuminated. He smiled at me, like we were sharing a good joke. Peter Brazos stood next to him, his eyes red and his face haggard. He held a candy skull in his hands.

“Vato,” Ralph greeted me. “It’s loco who you choose to sacrifice yourself for, ain’t it? Just gotta hope they make the best of it, eh?”

Red and orange starbursts lit up the sky, interlocking spheres of color.

I seemed to be moving, as if I were lying in a boat, slipping out to sea. Alex was taking me fishing again—back into the channel with the sharks.

He had a good heart, unless you asked him about his dead mother. He would hide me. He’d get me away from my father.

You can’t hide on this island, runt.

I opened my eyes and saw nothing.

I was being dragged backward through the sand, Maia’s voice saying: “He’s bleeding. We need bandages.”

I hurt in so many places I was pretty sure I was dead. My left leg felt like it was broken. Something smelled like smoke, and I was afraid it was me.

I saw Ty’s face above me. I was being carried away from the hotel, or what was left of it. The windows were boiling with fire. Smoke billowed into the sky. The building had been gutted, at least three explosions, maybe more. Already I could see the walls thinning, gobbled up from the inside by heat.

I sat up and blacked out. Maia was making a fuss, but I managed to promise her I was okay. She didn’t look reassured. There was a deep gash on my arm that Jose was wrapping in his own shirt. My leg…I didn’t think it was broken anymore, but I wouldn’t be doing tai chi exercises any time soon.

I’d been very lucky, landing on the sand.

“Jesus,” Garrett said. “The hotel—”

“Did everyone make it out?” Lane asked.

Markie said, “Where’s Huff?”