Darkness(37)

She thought that over. “I can say that.”

“In the morning you need to head back to your camp bright and early, before any of your friends have a chance to track you down.”

“Okay.” That had been her plan anyway, although he didn’t know it. Only she’d meant to tell her colleagues the whole story, alert the authorities, and come back here with them so that they could all keep collective watch over him until help arrived.

She liked his plan better. Because what he said made terrifying sense. If bad guys with guns were after him, she definitely did not want them after her and her group, too.

He said, “Once you get back, I need you to do something for me.”

Her reply was cautious. “What?”

“How does your group communicate with the outside world? E-mail? Phone?”

“Not e-mail. There’s no connection. We have a satellite phone.”

“Ah.” It was a sound of satisfaction. “Do you have access to it?”

“Yes.”

“Can you make a call without anyone knowing?”

This time her answer was more uncertain. “I suppose I could.”

“I need you to make a call for me. As soon as possible after you get back to camp. No one else can know.”

“Who would I be calling and what would I say?”

“I’ll give you the number before you leave. All you have to do is dial it and key in another set of numbers I’ll give you. That will bring somebody here to pick me up and give me a ride home.”

Her silence must have conveyed some of the doubt she was feeling, because he added persuasively, “One call, and I’ll be gone within a matter of hours. Out of your life forever. You can pretend like you never laid eyes on me.”

That sounded promising, but—

“The other people on the plane—their deaths have to be reported to the authorities,” she said. “So does the crash.”

“Will you trust me to take care of that?”

He must have taken her silence to mean precisely what it did—she didn’t trust him—because he added, “Believe me, you don’t want this to come back on you. I’ll make sure all the right people are notified. And you and your friends stay safe.”

It was the “stay safe” part that did it. “All right.”

“So you’ll make the call.” From his tone, she could tell it wasn’t really a question.

Still she hesitated. “Will I be aiding in the commission of a crime? Or committing treason or something equally hideous?”

“No.” From the sound of his voice, it seemed that made him smile.

“Would you tell me if I was?” Suspicion dripped from every word.

“Probably not.” He was smiling. She could tell.

“Then I don’t think—”

“The alternative is, I can go to your camp tomorrow and commandeer your phone and place my own call, but then I’d be putting every single one of you in danger.” He no longer sounded like he was smiling.

Persuasive argument. She made a face into the dark. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

Gina snorted by way of a you’re welcome.

He didn’t say anything after that, and she didn’t, either. After a few minutes, she turned over and tried to fall asleep.

She couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t. She didn’t know why she was even surprised. The backpack felt like a stone beneath her head. Even through the pad, the ground felt almost as hard and bumpy. She was so tired she felt boneless, but her mind raced.

It was the mind-racing part that kept her awake.

It would be tricky to place the call without anyone taking notice. And she still had no real proof she wouldn’t be abetting a crime by doing so. But all things considered, taking the chance to get away from him and then doing what she could to get him off the island as quickly and quietly as possible seemed like the lesser of a number of evils. Just as pretending that she’d never seen him or his plane seemed like the smartest thing she could do.

Having made the decision, she tried to empty her mind, tried to go to sleep.

He was asleep.

She could tell from the way he was breathing.

Slow and deep. Rhythmic.

Close.

Too close.

The wind screamed. The tent rattled and shook. Some combination of sleet and snow clattered relentlessly down on the ground outside. In the distance she could hear the boom of the surf, the roll of thunder, the occasional crack of what she thought must be lightning.

But what bothered her was his breathing. The more she listened to it, the more it made her tense up. Made her own breathing quicken. Made her heart beat faster.

Finally she figured out why.

It wasn’t just that he was so near. It wasn’t just that she didn’t trust him, or that she was, in fact, slightly afraid of him.

It was that his breathing sounded so very—male.

She hadn’t slept this close to a man since David’s death.

The last night of his life they’d cuddled together on a single cot in a tent in the Yucatán. They’d made love. Afterward, he’d fallen asleep and she’d lain there in the dark listening to him breathe. She’d thought, I’m happy.

David’s breathing had sounded slow and deep. Rhythmic. Unmistakably male.