AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He looks at me flatly, and I realize how out of my element I am. What is a person supposed to say to a stranger who has just found out his friend is dead?
“I’m Brooke,” I finally think to say, realizing I never introduced myself during our brief exchange last night.
“Daniel.” Unlike then, when his eyes roamed my body freely, this time, he doesn’t make eye contact. But he does begin to stir as if he’s getting up.
“Whoa there, tiger.” I scramble up next to him, quickly grabbing his arm. Even with two hands, my fingers can’t stretch around the perimeter of his biceps, but I try to guide him back to a seated position. “People are coming to help you. We just need to sit tight until they arrive.”
Surprisingly, he obliges, and we fall back into an uncomfortable silence.
After what feels like an hour of nothing but the crash of the waves and Daniel’s heavy breathing, my curiosity can’t stand it anymore. “So,” I ask, “do you, um, want to tell me what happened?”
He turns quickly, too quickly, and I cringe when I see him wince in pain.
“You heard her. Lucy’s dead.”
I expect emotion with this statement, but his tone is so cold that it takes me by surprise. He seems like an entirely different person from the brash guy I met yesterday.
“But she wasn’t diving with you guys, right?”
“No,” Daniel says coldly. “She didn’t show up this morning. But she was already…down there.”
I don’t know how to respond. Eventually, he starts again, seemingly talking more to himself than to me. “She was just floating there. At the bottom of the ocean. But it wasn’treallyher, you know what I mean?”
I pause for a moment, a bit taken aback by his response. Hadn’t he just met her when the dive class began? I didn’t expect Daniel to be so introspective, to form connections with fellow travelers that quickly.
But then I think of that girl I saw just yesterday. Those big blue eyes, so determined. That quiet confidence she seemed to exude.She was certainly one to make an impact. And it doesn’t seem possible that all the life she carried could have been extinguished so quickly.
But I suppose that’s the nature of death. It never seems possible.
“How could this have happened?” Daniel continues.
“I mean,” I say, brainstorming, “maybe she had too much to drink at the Full Moon Party and—”
Daniel doesn’t give me the chance to finish.
“Naw, I don’t think so,” he interrupts. “I saw her at the party. She wasn’t pissed.”
I try to think back to last night on the beach, my memories smeared into flashing neon and the punching bass. It’s possible I saw Lucy there, but with everyone’s faces lined with green and pink paint, I can’t be sure.
“Hm,” I muse, reflecting on how he and Lucy were on their way to pregame when I left them last night. Maybe Lucy was drunker than he noticed. “Then that means it was an accident.”
Daniel turns to look at me, his expression concerned. “But why would she get in the water alone? And how would she have gotten so far out from shore?”
His questions are valid. WhywouldLucy have done that? Even if she had been intoxicated, what would possibly have convinced her to get into the ocean alone in the middle of the night while a huge group was partying just down the beach?
“Well, if it wasn’t an accident, then…” I trail off, and I watch Daniel’s eyes widen as we seem to reach the same conclusion. “Someone did this to her,” I say finally. I expect Daniel to laugh, to tell me my idea is ridiculous. But he stays quiet.
And then I think again of seeing Lucy last evening. Howdesperate she was to talk to me about the woman who fell from Khrum Yai. Lucy is now the second woman to die on this island in less than a month.
Suddenly, a commotion from behind makes me turn. Two staff members dressed in white polo shirts with the Koh Sang Dive Resort logo emblazoned on the chest run toward us from a golf cart parked at the edge of the sand.
As they approach, Daniel starts to stand. I try to help him, but he shakes me off. He mumbles a “thanks” as the two staff members take over, flanking him.
I watch as the trio shuffle toward the golf cart and lay Daniel in the back seat. And as I do, one thought plays on repeat through my mind.
It’s happening again.
Because a guest is dead. And if our suspicions are right, someone on this island killed her.
