Emilio Bruno was the last person to see my sister alive, and I’m determined to find out what really happened the night she died. That’s the reason I’m at Saint Parras, that’s the reason I’m still moving forward. One step and another step, getting closer and closer to the truth.
Without this plan, I would’ve curled up and wasted away after losing the only person that ever gave a damn about me.
I turn back to the ferry and watch it pull away from the dock, chugging back toward the mainland, my final lifeline to the real world receding into the distance.
But right now, my mind’s elsewhere.
Obsessing about Emilio.
I’m trapped on this island with that animal, and if I’m not careful then I might be the next dead girl to wash up on the sand.
Chapter2
Emilio
Bottles in a large gray case rattle together as big, hulking Terrence hefts first one, then a second onto his shoulders. “Careful with those,” I say as I glance back and up the LED-torch-lit tunnel toward the cave entrance. “That’s all we have until the next shipment.”
“I still don’t know why we don’t do more runs,” Jayson says with a dramatic sigh as he lugs another case after Terrence, heading up the path that leads from the water below toward the cliffs beyond the cave entrance.
“Do you want to take the risk?” I stare after him, eyes narrowed. “You can take that on if you want. It’s not just the administration, remember. It’s the fucking Coast Guard, the cops, the goddamn crime families that run the beaches, and a dozen other jealous dickheads that want to steal our secrets. You down for that?”
He laughs and winks at me. “No thanks, boss. That’s all you.”
“Enough bullshit,” Paola says, coming up from below. Terrence and Jayson continue on, laughing with each other. She’s got dark hair and big eyes and dresses like a hippie mystic. “We’ve got a lot of crap to lug back to campus.” She’s carrying her own case, though struggling.
Nathan and Dom come up next, both laden with cartons. I peek inside the lid of Dom’s box and smirk at the pile of cigars, condoms, and porno magazines. Who the hell still looks at porn mags? It must be for one of the teachers or the staff.
“How often do you guys do this?” Nathan asks, sounding half-awed and half-exhausted from lugging shit up from the boat tied off further down in the cave. This place is a perfect cove, likely used by smugglers for hundreds of years running everything from rum to guns. The water from the natural stone dock out to the open ocean is pitch black and dangerous as hell, and it took me months to figure out how to traverse it without sinking.
“Twice a week, just like the official shipments, except what I bring back is more fun.” I nod at him and he heads off, his footsteps echoing in the cave. Dom hesitates, lingering behind, and frowns as more of the Calico Club members lug boxes up along the path and toward the waiting Jeeps above.
“This is all pretty out in the open,” he comments, looking at me sideways. “I thought you were an illegal smuggler. How are you staying under the radar?”
“I’m very much an illegal smuggler, unless suddenly it’s fine for underage college kids to drink booze.”
“I mean, how hasn’t the administration shut you down yet?”
My smile slips. Heike’s lurking nearby, a pale, skinny guy with a shaved head and narrowed eyes. He’s clever but quiet and I think he hears too much, but he doesn’t linger around to listen. Although I trust the members of my Calico Club, I know better than to assume they won’t capitalize on any information they happen to overhear.
I run a smuggling operation filled with some of the most intelligent, selfish, aggressive, and cut-throat students at Saint Parras, which means I need to be worse than all of them to stay on top.
“I have my methods. Get your ass in gear, I don’t want to be down here all night.”
He grunts at me and shakes his head, muttering to himself as he walks past. It’s been a week since my little brother and my younger cousin both set foot on Saint Parras Island and began to matriculate at my school, but they’re already starting to act like they know how things run around here. I’ll have to remind them who’s in charge, but not yet. I’ll give them time to adjust their attitudes before I come down hard.
For now, the shipment is all that matters.
I spend the next couple hours lugging boxes up from the boat with everyone else. When we’re finally finished, three big Jeeps are entirely laden and packed jigsaw-style with liquor bottles, snacks, condoms, pills, weed, and worse. We drive back slowly, careful to stay along the hidden paths, making sure we avoid getting stuck in mud or stranded in a rut. All told, it’s around midnight by the time we finally reach campus and its blinding white lights holding the blackness of the rest of the island at bay. While the college pretends like it civilized this place, the island is still wild and danger still lurks out past the edges of the brightness.
Saint Parras College is a collection of buildings set around a central avenue. Side streets and walking paths twist around manicured grass, bushes, palm trees, and white-washed Spanish colonial buildings with those lovely red roofs and big red doors. It looks like a Caribbean Ivy League complete with creeping vines growing up along the walls and around the windows of some of the older structures, like the ancient church and the main administration building.
We skirt around the edges of campus, doing our best not to draw attention, though students are already hanging around outside. They know what the Jeeps mean. There aren’t many vehicles on the island, and it took absurd amounts of money and effort to bring them here, but so far they’ve been worth every penny.
Excitement peppers the air as the first real shipment of the year appears, and everyone knows what that means: parties, parties, and more parties.
All of them centered around Calico House.
We slow to a stop outside of a large building on the far edge of campus, set back away from the main paths. When I first came to Saint Parras, Calico House was a rundown former plantation building with crumbling columns and more snakes than floorboards, but over the last three years and with the help of my society members, not to mention copious materials smuggled in from the mainland, we’ve entirely renovated the structure and restored it to its former natural beauty. It helps that Dirk’s father is a world-renowned architect and Terrence can do the manual labor of ten men combined.