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BEACHY KEEN

Model Suspect

Nancy Drew Girl Detective: Volume Thirty-Eight

Carolyn Keene

Dare to read: Нэнси Дрю и Братья Харди

Dare to read: Нэнси Дрю и Братья Харди

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Copyright, 2009, by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

I'm beginning to think Sydney and Vic's marriage was doomed from the start. First Sydney's best friend, Candy, tried to sabotage the wedding. Then Vic's onscreen beau brought a knife to the ceremony — and it wasn't just for cutting the cake. Luckily, we caught her before any damage was done.... But is she the real culprit? Or does someone else have it in for these two newlyweds?

Strange things kept happening on the happiest day of Sydney and Vic's lives —and now trouble has followed them on their honeymoon! Some things just don't add up, and I need to get to the bottom of it before Sydney — or Vic — is seriously hurt.

“So this is what it feels like to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous,” Bess Marvin said, peering out the airplane window.

Leaning over from my seat next to her, I glanced out and saw a tiny, lush island ringed with white sand beaches. The midday sunlight sparkled off the azure waters of the Caribbean, making me squint.

On my other side, George Fayne let out a snort. “Yeah, right,” she muttered, twisting and wriggling in her seat in an attempt to find a comfortable position for her long, jeans-clad legs. “I’m sure the rich and famous don’t have to travel in coach.”

Bess rolled her eyes, and I laughed. Bess and George are cousins and my lifelong best friends. But any possible resemblance ends there. Bess is what you might call a glass-half-full kind of girl. She has a sunny nature to match her sunny blond hair, and prefers to see the best in people until they force her to do otherwise. George, on the other hand, can be a little too quick to see the dark side of any situation.

“Don’t complain,” Bess told her cousin. “We’re just lucky Sydney wants all three of us to come down and investigate this latest trouble instead of only Nancy. After all, she’s the real sleuth in this bunch and everyone knows it.”

I smiled at the disgruntled look on George’s face. “Don’t be silly,” I told both of them. “The Nancy Drew Detective Agency would be nothing without the little people who’ve supported me all these years.”

I was just kidding around and they both knew it. I don’t really have a detective agency. However, I am pretty well-known around our hometown of River Heights for solving crimes now and then. And it’s true that I probably couldn’t have figured out most of them without help from Bess and George.

And it was a good thing I had their help now. Because the mystery we were facing looked like a seriously tricky one.

It all started when Bess and George’s other cousin, Sydney Marvin, had gotten engaged. Sydney was a few years older than us and had a successful career as a fashion model in New York City. Her fiancé — now husband of a few days — was Vic Valdez, the star of a previous season of the hit reality TV show Daredevils. The two of them were blissfully in love and had been eager to get married.

However, things went wrong almost from the moment they’d announced their engagement. First Sydney received a series of threatening e-mails. The police in New York investigated but didn’t come up with anything. And things had only gotten worse from there.

“I still can’t help wondering,” I mused now, speaking more to myself than to my friends, “why would anyone want to keep a happy couple from getting married and starting a life together?”

“Who knows?” George retorted. “Why do murderers kill people? Why do arsonists start fires? People are weird.”

Bess shot her cousin a look. “Very helpful,” she said. “There are lots of reasons someone might want to mess up Syd and Vic’s wedding — and now their honeymoon, too. That’s practically all we’ve been talking about for the past couple of weeks, remember?”

“True enough,” I agreed, glancing down at my lap as the seat belt sign pinged on overhead. “And we came up with tons of motives and suspects. But that was when we were back home in River Heights with the entire wedding party to work with, not to mention the TV crew…”

Oh, right. That was another thing. When Sydney and Vic became engaged, the two of them had struck a compromise regarding their wedding plans. Sydney got to hold the wedding in her hometown of River Heights, just as she’d always dreamed, instead of in New York City where they both lived. In exchange, Daredevils got to film the whole thing. The producers wanted to create a special about the wedding to include as a DVD extra and on their website, and Vic was pretty sure the extra exposure would help him launch his career in show biz. So when the happy couple had arrived in River Heights, they’d been accompanied by an entire entourage consisting of the film crew, several other Daredevils cast members, and assorted others.

That was pretty much where my friends and I had come in. Sydney asked all three of us to be bridesmaids. That meant we had a front-row seat for everything that came next. Like watching Vic almost take a sip of jet-fuel–laced punch. And seeing threatening e-mails and texts come in to Sydney’s phone on an almost daily basis. And all kinds of other trouble, from mixed-up deliveries to a swarm of biting ants.

It wasn’t until the day of Sydney’s bridal shower that I’d finally figured out who was behind most of the trouble — it was Sydney’s friend and fellow model, Candy Kaine, who was also a bridesmaid. It turned out that Candy, who had introduced Sydney to Vic, had been jealous of their relationship from the get-go. She admitted to pulling most of the pranks in a last-ditch attempt to break them up so she could grab Vic for herself. However, she’d sworn up and down that she hadn’t had anything to do with that dangerous jet fuel incident — or with the original spate of threatening e-mails, either.

With the wedding only a week away at that point, I jumped right back into investigative mode. If Candy was telling the truth, that meant there was still someone out there who thought it was a good idea to try to poison people with jet fuel. And I definitely wanted to find out who it was!

As it turned out, she was telling the truth. The trouble had continued, ranging from more threatening messages to dangerous stunts like hiding shards of glass in Vic’s cake at the rehearsal dinner. But it wasn’t until the day of the wedding ceremony itself that I’d cracked the case — or so I’d thought. Circumstantial evidence had pointed to the mischief being the work of Akinyi, Sydney’s best friend, roommate, and fellow model, and Jamal Washburn, Vic’s best buddy since childhood. Akinyi and Jamal had been a couple for a while about a year earlier. I’d realized that they were on the verge of getting back together, and a timely story about an old fight between Jamal and Vic and some additional factors had led me to accuse them of being the saboteurs. The police had taken them away, causing them to miss the wedding.

But then, during the ceremony, something else had happened. Pandora Peace, another bridesmaid and former Daredevils contestant, had pulled a knife out of her bouquet and advanced toward the happy couple up on the altar. She claimed she was just planning to perform a Native American blessing, but the police hadn’t thought much of that excuse — especially after they searched her hotel room and found tons of circumstantial evidence implying that she’d been behind most of the other recent pranks as well. They dragged her off to jail, though she protested all the while that she was innocent.

And so the case had seemed — finally! — to be closed. Seemed being the operative word. Because the next thing we knew, a mysterious message had arrived from London. It included a copy of the Daredevils contract, with one particular clause highlighted. That clause specified that contestants couldn’t have any current or prior connection to anyone involved in the production of the show. At the top was a note: HERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW. THE WRONG PERSON IS IN JAIL. THE CROOK IS STILL OUT THERE! YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING. SINCERELY, A CONCERNED CITIZEN

Pretty mysterious, right? Well, not really. See, I’d already figured out that Pandora was involved in a secret romance with Dragon, a current Daredevils contestant who was a groomsman in the wedding. There was no return name on the envelope, but I was pretty sure Dragon had sent it, trying to clear his girlfriend’s name without destroying his chances on the show.

Given everything that had happened, that might not have convinced me on its own. But then I got an urgent e-mail from Sydney. At that point she was already on her honeymoon on the tiny, idyllic island of Cayo de Oro, where Daredevils had arranged a private, superluxe honeymoon for her and Vic. The message had included a photo of a trashed hotel room with a threatening message written on the wall in blood red — ENJOY BEING NEWLYWEDS. YOU WON’T BOTH BE ALIVE FOR LONG! There had also been an attachment with e-tickets for me, Bess, and George, and a plea from Sydney to come down and solve this latest mystery.

So here we were, beginning our descent into the Cayo de Oro airport. “So do you think this new vandalism is connected with everything that happened back in River Heights?” Bess asked.

“I don’t know. But either way, we’re sort of starting fresh with our suspect list,” I pointed out. “Without the TV crew or the wedding party around, who’s left?”

“Vic?” George suggested. “I mean, other than Syd herself, that’s pretty much who we’ve got, right?”

Like I said, George is pretty quick to jump to the most cynical conclusion. Still, I was surprised to hear that she continued to harbor suspicions about Sydney’s new husband. I’d thought by then we were all convinced that he and Sydney were truly in love. Not to mention that George is a huge fan of Daredevils in general and Vic in particular.

But I had to admit she had a point. “I guess he’s got to be on the list,” I said reluctantly. “It’s true that he had the access, and that he could’ve faked that jet fuel thing to throw people off….”

Bess smoothed out the skirt of her pretty floral sundress. “At least this time we won’t have all those TV cameras around complicating things. That should make it a little easier to figure it out.” She smiled. “We’ll just have to do our best to play the parts of relaxed tourists enjoying some fun in the sun.”

“Sounds good to me.” George strained against her lap belt to get a look out the window as the plane banked. “I wonder if they have parasailing here. I’ve always wanted to try that.”

“Focus, guys,” I said. “George, do you really think Vic could have done all this stuff?”

Bess frowned, finally seeming to tune in on what her cousin had said. “No way,” she said. “Vic loves Sydney — he’d never do anything to hurt her. I can’t believe he had anything to do with any of this.”

“Then who did?” George argued. “What, do you think Sydney has a secret split personality and her evil half is trying to sabotage her good half?”

Bess rolled her eyes. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “Anyway, how do we know this new incident has anything to do with what happened before? It could be totally unrelated.”

“After that envelope from Dragon?” George shook her head grimly. “Seems pretty unlikely.”

“I have to agree with that,” I admitted. “But we should keep an open mind, I guess.”

The plane banked more steeply, and the captain came on the loudspeaker to say that we’d be on the ground in ten minutes. Another glance out the window showed Cayo de Oro glittering up out of the Caribbean Sea, looming larger and larger. Exactly what were we going to find down there?

* * *

“Welcome to Cayo de Oro!” cried a large man with a beaming smile on his broad face. “The island where all your dreams come true!”

“Thanks, dude.” George shot the guy a sloppy salute as we hurried past toward the luggage carousel. The tiny island airport was charming, from the friendly greeter to the wicker chairs in the waiting room to the soft calypso music playing over the sound system. But we weren’t here for that stuff. I was already turning over motives and suspects in my head. Not that I had much to go on in either category. With any luck, maybe things would look more promising once we reached the resort where Sydney and Vic were staying.

Luckily, our luggage turned up quickly. We grabbed it and headed for the exit.

“Syd said she’d send a car,” Bess reminded us.

George was looking around. “Yep, and it looks like that’s our ride over there,” she said, pointing to a short, middle-aged man dressed in navy linen shorts, a white shirt, and sandals. He was holding a hand-lettered sign with our names on it.

We followed the driver through the airport’s glass doors. Outside, the tropical heat hit us like a wet paper towel in the face. It was mid-afternoon, and the whole island had a sleepy feel to it. People were lounging at the bus stop across the way, not seeming in much of a hurry; the fronds of the palm trees lining the parking lot swayed gently in a light breeze. A gleaming black stretch limo was parked at the curb. The driver led us toward it and then started busily packing our luggage into the trunk.

“Now, this is more like it,” George said approvingly as we climbed into the car’s air-conditioned interior. “Looks like maybe we’ll finally get to enjoy some of that celebrity lifestyle after all.”

The limo was awfully nice. The seats were cushy leather, and there were several cold bottles of water and soda resting in a silver ice bucket beside one of the seats. George grabbed a cola right away, while Bess couldn’t stop oohing and aahing over the fancy entertainment system.

But I didn’t have much interest in any of that. My mind was still clicking along, turning over the facts and questions of the case. Could the vandalism in Sydney’s room really be a whole new culprit at work? There didn’t seem to be any other likely answer. Not unless we wanted to go with George’s new top suspect: Vic.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be someone else we don’t know about,” I murmured, trying hard to come up with any theory that didn’t involve Sydney’s beloved new husband as the bad guy.

George glanced up from the mini fridge she’d just discovered under the seat. “What was that, Nance?”

I blinked, realizing I was thinking aloud again. “Oh, nothing,” I said. “I was just thinking — what if someone from back home followed Vic and Syd here to Cayo de Oro without them knowing about it?”

Bess’s blue eyes widened with alarm. “You mean like that MrSilhouette guy?”

That was exactly what I’d been thinking. About a year earlier, Sydney had had some trouble with an Internet stalker who went by the handle MrSilhouette. My friends and I hadn’t known anything about it until Sydney had received a cameo necklace — a pendant with a silhouetted head on it — at her bridal shower. As it turned out, Candy had slipped it into the pile of gifts, hoping to make Sydney freak out enough to cancel the wedding. But now I wondered — what if the real MrSilhouette was still out there stalking Sydney?

“It seems possible, right?” I settled back in my seat as the driver jumped in up front and started the car. There was a soundproof barrier between the front seat and the rear compartment, so I felt safe continuing our discussion. “What if MrSilhouette has been hanging around this whole time, maybe spying on Sydney and adding to the trouble whenever he gets a chance?”

“Creepy!” Bess commented with a shiver.

George looked skeptical as she unwrapped a package of cashews. “Sounds more like the plot of a movie or something than real life,” she said. “Besides, how would someone like that get close enough to plant that jet fuel, or whatever? Security was crazy tight during all the prewedding stuff.”

“The only thing Syd knows about MrSilhouette is that he’s got this shiny bald head, right?” Bess said thoughtfully. “So he’d stand out in a crowd, at least if he’s young.”

“We don’t know that he’s young,” I pointed out. “But you’re right — one of us probably would have noticed if there was some random bald guy hanging around.”

See, that was all Sydney really knew about MrSilhouette. He’d once sent her a single photo of himself taken from behind. It showed nothing other than the back of his bald head.

“What about that bald cameraman, Butch?” Bess said. “He’s the only bald person I can think of who was around for most of the mischief — well, at least if you don’t count Syd’s dad’s bald spot.”

I nodded thoughtfully. Butch was part of the Daredevils camera crew. He was brusque and rude and seemed to have a bad attitude toward most of the people he was filming, including Vic.

“Yeah, except he never seemed to pay any particular attention to Syd one way or the other. Plus he was the one who saved Vic that time his hair caught on fire, remember?” I shrugged. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to call the Daredevils production office and confirm that Butch has been safely over in London shooting the next season of the show since before Syd and Vic left for the honeymoon.”

George didn’t seem to be paying attention anymore. She’d rolled down the window on her side and was staring out and ahead.

“Check it out,” she said, sounding excited. “I think we’re here!”

I glanced out the window just in time to see a beautifully landscaped sign slide past proclaiming that we were entering the Oro Beach Resort. The limo slowed to negotiate the twisting drive leading to a large cluster of thatched buildings surrounded by palms. Manicured garden beds overflowed with riotously blooming tropical shrubs and flowers, and off to one side I could see part of a rolling, grassy golf course.

“Wow, it looks nice,” Bess said. “Check out the waterfall!”

“I can’t wait to see the beach,” George added.

The window between the front and back seats slid open. “Here you are, ladies,” the driver announced politely as he guided the car to a smooth halt at the curb in front of the largest thatched building. “Please enjoy your stay on Cayo de Oro.”

“Thanks,” we chorused.

The driver was already climbing out, probably intending to hurry back and let us out of the car. But I was perfectly capable of opening a car door myself, and was feeling far too impatient to wait. So I reached over, pushed open the door, and hopped out.

“Look this way, Miss Drew,” a gruff voice called out.

I blinked, almost stumbling back against the car as a huge TV camera was shoved in my face.

It felt like déjà vu. But it was all too real.

“Huh?” George blurted out as she emerged onto the curb beside me. By now two or three other cameras were pointed our way along with assorted boom mics and such. “What, did we step into the middle of a shoot for the Travel Channel or something? I thought we were done with this kind of thing!”

“I thought so too,” I said, staring at the camera operator. The very familiar camera operator. “Er, it’s Butch, isn’t it?” I said to him. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Slow learners, eh? Don’t talk to the camera,” the bald cameraman retorted in his usual curt manner.

“Hello, hello!” a new voice broke in breathlessly before I could respond. Turning, I saw another familiar face. It was Donald Hibbard, the efficient but often frantic young man who was the head production assistant from the wedding film crew. He was rushing toward us from the direction of the nearest building, clutching a handful of papers. His skinny, pale legs stuck out from his billowy Bermuda shorts, and a pair of oversize sunglasses were jammed onto his head, almost lost in his mop of sandy hair.

“What’s going on?” Bess asked. She’d joined us on the walkway by now. Her hand strayed to her own hair, obviously checking to see if it was camera ready. As usual it looked flawless, just like the rest of her.

“I guess you guys didn’t hear,” Donald said with an apologetic shrug. “Mr. Eberhart decided we needed to get a bit more footage. After all, we probably won’t be able to feature Pandora as much as he was planning, what with her being in jail and all. So Vic and Sydney have graciously agreed to allow us to join them here on the island for the first week of their honeymoon.”

“Really?” I traded a glance with my friends. My first thought was that Sydney couldn’t be too happy about this. She’d really been looking forward to having the filming finished so she and Vic could relax and enjoy their honeymoon in private.

But my second thought was that this was a very interesting turn of events. It seemed quite a few of our previous suspects might not be out of the picture after all! The possibilities flooded my mind: Hans Eberhart, the director who might be trying to pump up his career. Madge, the foul-tempered assistant director who seemed to have it in for everyone she encountered. Butch, the bald, surly cameraman my friends and I had just finished discussing…

Donald quickly explained that we needed to sign a new set of releases for this stage of the filming. We did so as several resort employees appeared to help the limo driver unload our bags from the car.

“So where is Mr. Eberhart?” I asked Donald as I capped my pen and handed back the release. “I’d like to talk to him about something if he’s around.”

“Oh, Mr. Eberhart didn’t come down here himself.” Donald tucked the releases under his arm and tossed his bangs out of his eyes, almost dislodging his sunglasses. “He’s in London with the rest of the crew — they’re shooting the beginning of the new season over there. He sent Madge down here with just a small crew to take care of things.”

Just then a neatly dressed woman approached and pressed something into my hand. “Your things will be waiting for you in your bungalow when you’re ready, ladies,” she said in a lilting island accent. “In the meantime, please enjoy the resort.”

Before any of us could respond, she turned and glided off back into the lobby building. I glanced down and saw that I was now holding a trio of plastic key cards. Handing one each to Bess and George, I pocketed the last one.

Glancing back toward the drive, I saw a uniformed porter in a golf cart whisking our bags off down one of the walkways between the buildings. “Oh,” I said. “I guess we should probably go figure out where we’re staying.”

“I don’t think it’ll be much of a mystery,” Bess said, peering down at her key card. “There’s a number printed right on here, and a little map showing where our place is among the others.”

We said good-bye to Donald and headed down the walk after the golf cart. I was half expecting the cameraman to follow us, but to my relief he didn’t. Instead he shouldered his camera and strolled off in the direction of what appeared to be some kind of open-air restaurant nearby. I guessed my friends and I weren’t famous enough to be worth filming more than our entrance.

“Wow,” Bess said as we passed between two large thatched buildings, which appeared to make up the lobby area and a lounge. “This really changes things, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does,” George agreed. “I guess maybe we haven’t lost all our suspects after all — there’s Madge, for one. I always thought she was up to no good.” She shot me a look. “Plus since Hans Eberhart isn’t here, it means Nancy can’t start suspecting him again.”

“Hmm? Oh, right,” I said, feeling a little distracted. Eberhart had directed a couple of arty films early in his career, and George was a big fan. She’d been dismayed when I’d put him on my suspect list in the beginning. But it looked like she wouldn’t have to worry this time.

“All right, with Eberhart out of the picture, who else have we got?” Bess asked. “There’s Madge, like you said.”

“Yeah,” George agreed. “And what about that Butch guy? Weren’t we just saying he could be MrSilhouette?”

“Ssh,” I warned them as we emerged into an open area with a gorgeous free-form pool at the center of it. But I didn’t have to worry. There was nobody in sight except a resort employee skimming leaves off the surface at the far end of the pool.

The golf cart and our luggage had long since disappeared, but Bess seemed to know where she was going. She strode briskly across the pool area and entered a shaded cobblestone arcade. Small, expensive-looking boutiques lined both sides of the walkway, and wrought-iron benches and potted palms decorated the middle.

“I think it’s this way,” Bess said. “All the bungalows are right on the water, so if we just head in the direction of the beach, we should be able to find it.”

“Why bother?” George pointed out. “They already took our bags there for us. So maybe we should just look for Sydney.”

Bess frowned. “We just got off a plane, remember?” she said. “I want to help Syd as much as you do, but I think that can wait for five minutes while we all freshen up.”

“Oh, please.” George rolled her eyes. “The TV people rented out this whole place for Syd and Vic. It’s not like you need to primp in case you meet some cute guy.”

Bess frowned. “Maybe you don’t mind looking like a ghoul on camera, but I happen to think it’s worth taking two seconds to try to look human….”

The two of them continued bickering as we drifted along, but I wasn’t paying much attention. Halfway down the shopping arcade, George glanced over at me.

“Earth to Nancy,” she said, waving a hand in front of my face. “What’s the matter?”

I blinked. “Sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking about what Donald said.”

“Yeah, so why are you looking so glum all of a sudden?” George said. “This is good news, right? Having the film crew here means we’re not starting from scratch after all.”

“Oh, I know — it’s not that.” I sighed, feeling uneasy. “It’s just that hearing Donald mention Pandora just reminded me again that the wrong person might be in jail — and that I’m at least partially responsible for her being there.”

Bess dragged her attention away from the stylish bathing suits on the mannequins outside the nearest shop, which she’d just stopped to admire. She turned to peer into my face as George and I drifted to a halt too.

“Don’t you dare beat yourself up about that, Nancy,” she told me. “You were just trying to help Syd. Besides, Pandora pulled a big honking knife in the middle of the wedding, remember?”

“Yeah,” George put in. “We all thought she was guilty, including the cops. Her being in jail isn’t anything like the stuff with Akinyi and Jamal….”

Her voice trailed off. I guess she’d seen me wince.

“Smooth move,” Bess chided her. “You just had to remind her of that when she was already feeling guilty, right?”

“It’s okay,” I said as George started to apologize. “You’re right. It’s not the same as that at all.” I sighed as I thought about that whole mess. “It’s probably a good thing the only place I’m likely to see Akinyi again is in one of Bess’s fashion magazines,” I added ruefully as the three of us started walking again. “She was pretty gracious when I apologized at the reception, but still — she doesn’t seem like the forgive-and-forget type.”

“Yeah,” George agreed.

Bess didn’t answer. We’d just reached a spot where the shopping arcade opened up into an open-air seating area. Several coffee shops and food stands stood at each end, and directly ahead we had a stunning view of the large teardrop-shaped lagoon some fifty yards away down a slight hill. As distracted as I was, I had to admit the view was gorgeous. The crystal water sparkled beneath the late-afternoon sunlight, and even from this distance I could make out the shapes of fish swimming around out there. Off to the left stood a cluster of quaint thatched-roof huts on walkways out over the water, and farther down that way was a broad white beach backed up by a tangle of tropical jungle. Out in the ocean beyond the reef that protected the lagoon, several sailboats were taking advantage of the perfect weather.

“Wow,” George said. “I take back my complaints about flying in coach. It was worth it to get here!”

I nodded and glanced over at Bess. To my surprise, I saw that she was staring off to one side of the seating area, ignoring the picture-postcard view. At first I thought she must have been distracted by spotting another fashionable outfit or something. But that wasn’t it.

“Hey,” she said, pointing. “Isn’t that Akinyi over there?”

“Huh?” George turned to look. “What, you mean a picture of her or — oh! Yeah, that’s her all right!”

I nodded slowly. There was no mistaking the model’s impossibly tall figure, her flawless features, or her gorgeous ebony skin. At the moment Akinyi was draped in a gauzy cover-up over a tiny bikini. She was posing on a wrought-iron bench in front of a colorful blooming shrub while a photographer snapped away. A Daredevils cameraman was filming the photo session while Madge, the assistant director, looked on.

“What’s she doing here?” George wondered aloud.

I shook my head. At that moment Akinyi turned her head and spotted us. The serene expression on her face soured into one of mild distaste.

“Come on,” Bess said. “We might as well go over and say hello.”

“Oh, right,” Akinyi said as we hurried up to her and the others. “Syd said you three were coming.”

Madge shot us an irritated look. “Do you mind?” she snapped. “We’re in the middle of something here.”

Akinyi tossed her a cool glance. “Actually, I could use a drink of water,” she said, sweeping past the assistant director toward one of the nearby food stands. “Let’s take five.”

For a second Madge looked ready to argue. But I guess even she didn’t want to mess with Akinyi. Or maybe being in charge instead of second in command had mellowed her a little. Either way, she just waved one skinny hand in the direction of the cameras and then stomped off with her cell phone pressed to her ear. The photographer shrugged and lowered his camera, though the TV cameraman kept right on filming Akinyi as she grabbed a bottle of water.

“Um, we weren’t expecting to see you here,” Bess said tactfully as Akinyi took a few gulps of the water.

The model finished drinking and wiped her mouth with the back of one hand. “I know,” she said in her lightly accented voice. She had been born somewhere in Africa, though the slight accent and her exotic looks were the only traces of that background. “Syd and Vic flew me and Jamal down here as a way of apologizing for what happened.”

I smiled sheepishly. Was it my imagination, or had she shot me a quick look when she’d said that?

“Yeah,” I said. “Um, listen, Akinyi, once again I’m really sorry about everything that happened. It’s just that when I heard that story about Vic making Jamal lose his job, and then we found the raincoat and stuff in your rooms …”

“Never mind.” She made a sort of sweeping motion, as if pushing away my apology. “It doesn’t matter.” She glanced over at the TV camera, which was still rolling. “We needn’t speak of it.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant she didn’t want to talk about the incident at all, or just when the camera was filming us. Either way I was happy to let the subject drop.

“So,” Bess said to Akinyi, “this resort seems really nice. Have you had a chance to —”

Whatever she was going to ask was cut off by a sudden ear-piercing, high-pitched alarm blasting out of the speakers in the seating area. Along with that came a flurry of slightly muffled yells and screams from somewhere not too far away, topped by one panicky shout that rang out over the rest:

“Fire!”

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14