Devin made it to the turnoff in twenty, barely noticing the lush green fields of island grass on either side of the road or the volcano getting bigger in the windshield with every mile.
“So, are you going to explain what happened back there?” Ryder’s face remained relaxed, but a hard edge sharpened her tone.
He shifted in his seat and slid his gaze away from her. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t give me that shit.” She slapped her hand against the dashboard. “We’re stuck together until we get Sarah back, and I need to know what that Nigel guy was talking about.”
Everyone always wanted to know about that night. His father. The police. His so-called friends. The lawyers. Even George had asked him about it one night after the old man had had three too many. Even after a decade, Devin could recite the whole horrific episode by rote with cold, clinical detachment—on the outside. Inside, he heard the screech of tires, the girl’s scream, and the squelch of his brother fighting to fill his lungs. It never went away.
The steering wheel bit into his palms. “Why didn’t you just try to look it up yourself? You’re the investigator.”
“I did.” She tu
rned in her seat toward him, slipped off her heels, and yanked on a pair of tennis shoes she’d tossed in the Jeep earlier that morning. “Your file is so clean it’s like you’re a ghost. You don’t even have a record of a traffic ticket.”
No doubt he had his father to thank for that little gift. If you couldn’t use the connections being a billionaire offered to hush up your son’s transgressions—even the loser son who’d always disappointed you—what was the point of having all that money?
“Well, then.” Bitterness lay thick in his words. “Guess that should tell you something.”
“Such as?”
“That it’s none of your damn business.” Turning off the main road, he pulled in behind a small copse of trees and shifted the Jeep into park. He focused on the single-story house in the distance even as Ryder’s nearness called out to him. “We have a job to do. Let’s just do it and get the hell off this island.”
Chapter Ten
“Never in the history of fashion has so little material been raised so high to reveal so much that needs to be covered so badly.”
— Cecil Beaton
Pineapple plants dotted the flat ground between Ryder and the Molina farm house. Each pineapple sat in the middle of a four-foot high spiky bush with longer versions of the hard leaves on the top of the pineapple jutting out from all sides. The house itself was a simple, one-story structure on two-foot high stilts. A white tent, large enough for a fifty-person reception, was staked to the ground in front of the house. The sun glinted off of wine bottles and champagne glasses scattered around the wraparound porch.
“Looks like the cleaning crew hasn’t arrived yet,” she muttered.
Birds swooped across the sky in large looping arcs, their wide wings a dark shadow in the clear blue sky. A breeze with only a hint of salty ocean brushed against the damp nape of Ryder’s neck as she squatted beside Devin behind a three-feet-high rock wall.
Her sixth sense promised they weren’t alone with the pineapples, yet not a soul moved in the yard. “Where is everyone?”
“Still sleeping it off from the party?” Devin handed her back the small binoculars she’d stuffed in her purse before they left the hotel that morning.
“No way. This is a working farm. Look at the pineapples. They’re lined up perfectly and there’s not a stray bit of green anywhere.” She scanned the perimeter. There wasn’t so much as a curtain flutter in the window. “The question becomes, is Sarah home and waiting to spring a trap, or are we five minutes behind her yet again?”
“How do you propose we figure out which one it is?”
“Easy.” Ryder shrugged. “I’ll get a closer look.”
His fingers wrapped around her wrist, holding her in position. “We’ll get a closer look.”
Her skin burned under his touch and her heartbeat ticked a faster beat, sending a flush of warmth up her chest. “Really? Do we have to do this right now?”
“Yes.”
Yanking her hand away, she rubbed her wrist, the tingles dancing across her skin having nothing to do with pain or annoyance, which pissed her off even more. It was a wholly unwelcome reaction to being anywhere near Devin. She hated admitting he was right about anything, but he was on the money about one thing. They had to get off this island. If they didn’t, they’d just end up fighting or fucking again and, dammit all, she wasn’t sure which one of the two would be worse.
But sitting on her ass watching the pineapples grow sure as hell wasn’t helping her figure that last bit out.
“Fine, let’s go.” She vaulted over the wall and hustled down the hill, sticking close to the trees for coverage.
They cleared the pineapple field in under a minute, coming to a stop behind a whitewashed shed. She pressed her back against an outbuilding, her shirt snagging on the dried out and cracking wood. There was barely enough room for her and Devin to stand with their shoulders touching, but without any limbs peeking out from the building’s sides. Blood rushing in her ears, she craned her neck to take a quick look around the corner. Two hundred feet of dirt crisscrossed with tire tracks from at least five vehicles stood between her and the house, but no vehicles were there.