The Jumbee (36 page)

As he stepped forward, she licked her dry lips, trying not to panic. How would he kiss her through the mask? What would he do when this scene was over?

She heard an uncomfortable cough from Frederick.

Alan couldn’t play Romeo without a mask. Greg would have to do it, but . . . Reality slammed down on Esti, crushing the breath out of her.

“Where is Greg?” she whispered.

Alan backed away from her now, and Esti heard cast members stirring restlessly in the wings. No, she thought numbly, gasping for breath. She had dreamed of playing Juliet to Alan, but not like this.

“What did you do to Greg?” Her voice rose.

“Madam!” Carmen ran out onstage, trying to save the scene. “Your mother craves a word with you.” She took Esti’s arm.

“Did you kill him too?” Hot fear blazed through Esti as Alan spun away from her. She wrenched her arm free from Carmen, reaching out to grab him. He ducked, and her hand swept across his head. With a crash of plastic hitting the floor beside a rustling wig, Romeo was unmasked. Alan froze, fear and disbelief on his hideous face.

“The jumbee.” Rafe’s stunned voice rang across the silent stage.

Alan moved before anyone else could react. Grabbing Esti’s arm, he yanked her behind him into the wings. She was too shocked to struggle.

Aurora’s scream and Rafe’s enraged shout were instantly followed by Danielle’s shriek from the audience. “The jumbee killed Greg?”

Alan dragged Esti to the electrical box on the wall. With a vicious swipe, he flipped the main breaker. The theater plunged into darkness. More screams rang in the air as he pulled Esti behind him again.

“Let go of me,” she cried. “Let me
go!
” She tried to pull free, but Alan’s strong fingers tightened on her wrist. She heard a door click shut, then she swung around to look behind her at diffuse light coming through a grille-covered vent. Alan had brought her into a new passageway, one she’d never seen before.

Small video screens surrounded her, detailing every aspect of the theater. In one screen, Esti saw people running up onto the stage. A terrified jolt rocked her as she saw Greg, crumpled lifelessly on the floor in another. A familiar shape raced through a third screen, briefly darkening the vent opening beside her.

“Rafe!”

As Rafe spun around, trying to find her voice, Esti felt a gloved hand clamp across her mouth.

“If he finds us,” Alan murmured, his breath tickling her ear, “I will do whatever it takes to stop him.”

Icy fear swept through her, starting at her scalp and crawling down her spine. Alan let go of her, stripping off the masquerade costume that covered his black clothes. As he grabbed her wrist again, she looked back at the stage. Several police officers had their guns drawn, sharply ordering people off the stage. Someone called out in horror as they discovered Greg. Aurora’s voice cried Esti’s name.

Esti opened her mouth, then closed it again, light-headed. She was no longer Juliet, so what was the reality of Esti? If Alan was kidnapping her, her life had become a nightmare straight out of Leroux. But she would never brutally expose Alan to the world with a cruel sweep of her hand. He would never threaten her. George couldn’t be brandishing a gun on Manchicay’s crowded stage. Greg wasn’t really dead.

None of this was happening.

Rafe yelled in vain for everyone in the noisy theater to shut up so he could hear. Then Alan dragged Esti around a corner, and they all disappeared.

“Please,” Esti gasped, “you don’t have to do this.”

“You’ve no idea what I have to do,” he snapped.

The light disappeared behind them as they reached the back stairway, but Esti needed no light for the familiar steep steps. Alan dragged her across the musty basement, then shoved open the tiny back door and drew her outside.

The sullen afternoon light shocked her. Although it no longer rained, warm air draped across her skin, silent and muggy. Holding her wrist in a steely grip, Alan locked the door with his other hand, then turned and pulled her down the narrow trail behind him.

“Alan, wait.” As she twisted her arm in an attempt to free herself, she tripped over her gown. Without slowing, he yanked her back to her feet. Still stumbling, she frenziedly gathered red velvet up into her free hand. “Where are you taking me?”

He ignored her, but Esti knew it was a pointless question. They were going to the cay. No one could follow them there, not even Rafe. Especially not with the hurricane coming.

“How could you—”Her voice broke in fear. “How could you kill Greg?”

Alan spun around so fast she ran into him, his awful face inches from hers. She stiffened at the sight of his scaly, tortured skin in full daylight.

“I did not kill Greg.” He immediately turned around again, pulling her forward with wiry strength.

“Please.” She couldn’t let her terror overwhelm her. “You’ve sworn you won’t hurt me. Will you be forsworn?”

“So will I never be.” She heard his muttered words, but he didn’t slow down, nor did his grip lessen on her wrist.

“Is this how you repay my dad’s compassion, then?” Her voice sounded shrill and unfamiliar to her.

“Compassion!” Alan tossed the word over his shoulder. “Yes, Legard showed me compassion. I don’t doubt that he respected me. He acknowledged the mind and feelings behind my face when no one else would. Did you know that I was the one who convinced him that darkness was the best way to control his voice? I told him that practicing in the dark would keep his acting honest.”

Esti gasped as Alan continued, his voice bitter.

“He told me to get involved with the theater department at Manchicay School, but again, the actor was stronger than the friend. He didn’t wish for you to come here.” Alan dragged in a deep, painful breath. “The thought of
you
becoming friends with me frightened him. His compassion was limited, Esti.”

She stumbled again, and again he smoothly kept her from falling. She knew her dad had told Rodney that Manchicay School wasn’t the best place for her, but she had never dreamed the true reason.

Alan barely seemed to notice her frantic struggles as he pulled her into the water, plunging through a swampy thicket of red mangroves. The sea was very different now. Rhythmic swells brought the water from Esti’s knees to her shoulders, Juliet’s gown floating absurdly around her.

Her fingers involuntarily tightened on Alan’s hand as she saw the tiny boat in front of them. He waited until the swell subsided, then turned and lifted her, depositing her in the boat. As the water began rising again, he grabbed the branches of a mangrove tree and swung himself in after her.

“Alan,” she tried one last, desperate time. “Please let me go.”

“The sea is rough with the approaching storm,” he replied flatly. He sat down, then planted his feet wide in the boat and picked up the oars. “When we emerge from the mangle, I recommend you stay as low as you can.”

The sea wasn’t rough, it was terrifying.

The boat dipped and swayed in a macabre drunken dance as Alan pulled on the oars. They rode to the top of each ten-foot swell, hovering at the crest before plunging into the troughs between. Esti clung to the bottom, cringing with each new wave.

Alan watched without expression as Cariba Island retreated behind them. He automatically shifted his weight with the motion of the boat, but Esti saw the tightness in his scaly jaw as they approached Manchineel Cay. Huge waves crashed against the northern cliff, jets of seawater spraying them as they drew near.

Esti didn’t know how they could possibly maneuver through the crashing water into the cave, but Alan didn’t hesitate. He glanced over his shoulder, timing the waves and using the oars to keep them moving. A swell caught them, and he pulled with all his might. Esti swallowed a scream as they hurtled toward the face of the cliff. As the wave washed under and past them, the boat fell into the deep trough just in time for Alan to turn them around and slide between the narrow slot in the rocks.

The cave echoed with familiar deep booms that shook Esti’s bones. In the dim light, she saw a rocky ledge in front of them. The sea rose again as they reached the ledge. Alan leaped from the boat and pulled it over the lip of rock, then dragged it as far as he could until the water began subsiding.

“Get out,” he ordered. “Quickly.”

Her heart in her throat, Esti scrambled out, gathering her skirt into her arms and running several feet up the path. The tunnel quickly narrowed, becoming pitch dark. Although she listened for the eerie wailing, the cave ahead was quiet this time except for the gathering wind. She sagged against the wall, waiting for Alan to lead the way. Whether she liked it or not, her life was in his hands.

Act Three. Scene Six.

By the time they reached the forest trail, Esti’s fear had turned into anger. She’d wrenched her hand from Alan’s the minute they left the darkness of the cave. He didn’t protest. Grimly following him along the path as the clouds grew darker overhead, she shivered as a breeze gusted through her drenched gown.

She came to a determined stop just inside the house. Alan bolted the door without a word, then turned on a light and disappeared down the steps to his bedroom. Esti stood rigidly against the door, studying his living room with narrowed eyes. His beautiful, organic house had become a prison. Waterproof plastic containers stood in stacks before empty bookshelves and the bare rock wall; the enormous wooden doors to the porch were barred shut.

When Alan reappeared several minutes later, he wore dry clothes and carried a large cardboard box. He hadn’t bothered with a mask. He gave Esti a grim look as he crossed the room to drop the box beside her. Her last name and Manchicay’s address were written in large letters on the top, next to an airline tag.

“You may find some clothes in here,” Alan said. “I haven’t gone through it, so I’m not sure what it contains.”

“You’re lying.” Esti clenched her fists. “You found my dad’s book in there.”

“I have never lied to you,” he said coldly. “The book was on top. When Ma Harris delivered the box last summer, neither of us knew you had arrived on Cariba. I had received many packages from Legard, and in my wildest dreams, I never guessed you would come here. Ma Harris assumed the box was for me when her brother brought it home from the airport.”

Of course. Domino worked in the freight area of the airport.

“Legard’s death was a devastating blow. I couldn’t bring myself to open the box until after I met you, and I immediately closed it when I realized it was yours. But . . .”

He turned away. “By then I couldn’t bear to part with it. I thought it might be the only piece of you I would ever have.”

He climbed the steps to the kitchen, leaving Esti alone with her box. She had forgotten what she packed, but she finally found a pair of old shorts and a T-shirt. Alan remained silent above her as she tucked everything else back into the box and trudged down to the bathroom cave.

She took her time, dumping her Juliet costume in a soggy pile on the stone floor. Faint pounding from the distant sea cave echoed in the quiet room as she changed into dry clothes. She ignored the bone-deep sounds, concentrating on scrubbing her face with soap and water until she felt no more traces of greasy makeup.

Removing Juliet’s cap, she untangled her hair as well as she could with her fingers, then resolutely made her way back up to the living room. As she climbed the stairs, she smelled rain against the stone walls of the house. The storm had grown outside, gusting now against the big porch doors and the high shuttered window in the kitchen. Rafe had told her a hurricane could whip up hundred-mile-an-hour winds within a few minutes when the storm finally hit.

Alan leaned against the wall of boulders, watching her and waiting. She studied his terrible face for a long time before she finally spoke.

“So,” she said. “You’ve given me back my belongings. Does this mean you no longer need just a piece of me, since you’ve stolen all of me?”

He cringed and closed his eyes.

“Are you going to kill me now?” Her breathing sped up as she finally voiced her fear. “You killed Paul, didn’t you?”

Alan flinched, but he didn’t deny it.

“Did his death make your unhappy life better? Or Greg? What about Mr. Niles! Tell me, Alan,” she said in a shaky voice, “did you do something to make Danielle sick before the Christmas show? What about Steve’s locker?”

He still didn’t reply.

“Don’t you realize how much you hurt me,” she whispered, “how much you terrify me, when you hurt other people?”

He opened his eyes again, staring at her with an expression she couldn’t read.

She forced her breathing back under control. “I don’t understand why you brought me here,” she said. “Tell me what our story will be. Are we finished with Shakespeare?”

She took a step toward him as wind rattled the shutters. “Maybe you were hoping for a fairy tale. Beauty, trapped by the Beast with no hope of escape. But you’ve shown me how to sneak past your cay’s vicious traps, and Rafe taught me how to swim. You can’t hold me here forever. I truly believed you were honorable, but what I see is a coward.”

“A coward!” he finally snapped. “Yes, perhaps I am a coward.”

Esti stumbled back in fear as he shoved himself away from the wall, breathing hard.

“You were right, it’s not difficult to despise cowardice.” His voice rang flat over the storm. “So teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak. Tell me what I’m to do when people shrink from me in loathing. Teach me how I’m supposed to feel, when the only gift I have to offer is fear. No one will touch me, not even Legard, who gave me so much.”

His breathing filled the room, harsh and painful. “Only you, Esti, ever sought out my company for no other reason than to be with me. You’re the only one who has ever held my hand. Shall I tell you how Niles hid backstage in the dark, trying to catch me by surprise? I was scattering frangipani blossoms for you to find onstage, when he turned on the lights from the wings. Every light in the house, to keep me from hiding in the darkness. I merely looked at him. I didn’t even move before he fled across the stage and broke his own leg.”