Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(9)

“How was I supposed to know?”

“We’ve got to get out of here.” Ty’s face was pasty. He seemed to be having trouble swallowing.

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Chase told him.

“Listen to the storm, man,” Ty insisted. “There’s no way we can do this.”

“We will,” Chase said. “We’ve got no choice.”

Markie and Ty said nothing. They knew damn well he was right.

Chase had done his best to pretend the murder didn’t bother him. It was critical that the other guests believe the three of them were just stupid college guys. But he couldn’t shake the image of the bullet hole in the marshal’s chest. He couldn’t help thinking it was a warning. If this weekend didn’t go right, he could end up just like that.

He studied Markie’s face, trying to gauge his loyalty. They’d been friends, if you could call it that, for almost three years now. But what they would have to do this weekend…things like that could strain loyalties, make business relationships unravel. Chase would have to watch his back. And Ty—shit, the guy was a basket case. Chase shouldn’t have brought him along, but he didn’t trust Ty to stay quiet otherwise. He wanted the bastard where he could keep an eye on him.

Chase had worked his way up from nothing. He’d gotten himself into college. He supported his whole f**king family back home. He’d learned how to make a lot of money and deal with hard people. He wasn’t going to let anyone mess up his plans.

“All right, look,” he said, trying to sound calm. “It’s got to happen tonight. I don’t give a crap about the storm. We’ve got no choice.”

Markie looked like he wanted to say something, but then changed his mind. He nodded.

“Come on, Chase,” Ty pleaded. “You know I can’t—I can’t stand this much longer. You know how I get.”

“You’re gonna stand it.” Chase pointed a finger at Ty’s face like the barrel of a gun. “You’re gonna help us. Or you’re gonna end up like the cop in there.”

Ty shuddered. “All right, I’m just saying—”

The old man, Benjamin Lindy, appeared at the end of the corridor. “You gentlemen coming or not?”

The old man gave Chase the creeps, but he tried for a light tone. “Yeah…uh, sir. We’re on the way.”

Mr. Lindy scowled, but he started down the hall.

“We’ve got to play along,” Chase said. “And for Christ’s sake, Ty, stop looking like you’re going to throw up.”

“I feel like that.”

“Well, don’t. Nobody else here knows shit about what’s going on. I want to keep it that way.”

“What about the dead cop?” Markie asked. “And Chris Stowall?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Chase said. “Believe me. Stowall is not going to f**k with me again.”

He led his friends to the parlor. Anger made red spots dance in front of his eyes. He’d been played for a fool. This whole setup sucked. But he was going to make the best of it. He would come out of this weekend in one piece, even if he was the only one who did.

7

Even when I was a child, the hotel’s parlor was decorated in dead fish. A five-foot-long marlin curved over the fireplace. Redfish and bass lined the walls. Their frozen eyes and gasping mouths used to scare the hell out of me—almost as much as the hotel’s owner.

Every time we arrived at the hotel, my parents would make me sit with them in the parlor while they “caught up” with Mr. Eli. Garrett was excused from this ritual, theoretically because he was helping Alex Huff with the luggage, which I resented to no end.

Mr. Eli had bought the hotel at public auction after federal agents seized it from its previous owner, a Thirties bootlegger who had been South Texas’s answer to Al Capone.

Eli was eccentric in a different way. He was an old bachelor who never wore anything but pajamas and a Turkish bathrobe and slippers. He smelled faintly of lilacs. His skin was milky, his hair as black as an oil slick, and he had a strange mustache shaped like a seagull’s wings on his upper lip. Years later, I realized that he must’ve been g*y—one of those men who choose, for whatever reason, to live in a climate as hospitable to them as the Arctic is to a tropical plant. That wasn’t what scared me. It was the fact that he seemed able to read minds. He would look at me with his watery green eyes and say “I believe young Tres is thirsty for lemonade,” or “I see you had a hard year at school,” or “Don’t worry about Alex. He means well.” Whatever happened to be troubling me at the moment.

In all, Mr. Eli seemed like the sort of man my father would detest, but my father always showed him the greatest deference.

On our last visit to Rebel Island as a family, Mr. Eli greeted my father in his usual manner. “Sheriff Navarre, shot anyone lately?”

“Not lately, sir,” my father replied. Whether it was true or not, I didn’t know.

We sat in the parlor with all the glassy-eyed fish staring down at us. My mother told Mr. Eli he was looking well. In truth the old man looked paler and thinner every summer, but he accepted the compliment with a nod. My father and Mr. Eli talked about the weather and fishing conditions. Mr. Eli seemed to know everything about the sea, though as far as I could tell he never set foot outside the hotel.