“Fletcher?” Melv asked, peering over the dock’s edge. “Waylon? Is that you?”
Relief flooded Fletcher’s system. Melv might have been the only person Fletcher trusted to talk sense into Jackie. He had the kind of levelheaded composure unshaken by the island. She hoped.
As Fletcher hauled herself up the ladder at the end of the dock, Melv offered her a hand. The sleeves of his blue oxford rolled up his suntanned arms. Not a single speck of dirt. Anywhere.
Hot sun silhouetted Melv, and Fletcher squinted. Down theboardwalk,Tiffany, with her polished white decks and three-hundred-person capacity, waited. So close.
Stubborn and dripping, Waylon heaved himself onto the dock with no assistance. Water suctioned his shirt to the broad plane of his chest. “Couldn’t have gotten here a few minutes sooner?”
Suspicion laced each word, but Melv was hardly a threat. Unless he decided to use his briefcase as a bludgeoning weapon.
“Don’t mind him. He’s in a bad mood because we almost got eaten by sharks.” Melv’s expression torqued toward confusion, but Fletcher barreled on: “You can’t let Jackie see you, or—”
“Or what, Miss Spence?”
26
At some point during the week, Fletcher had stopped flinching every time someone pulled a gun on her. If she lived long enough to look for a new job, she’d have to remember to add this to her résumé.
The editor in chief stalked toward them, coming down from the yacht. Clearly preparing for her great escape. Jackie’s—and her pistol’s—sudden appearance had Waylon taking a step closer, his hand circling Fletcher’s and pulsing three times.I’m right here.
Fletcher flitted her eyes toward Melv. Was this the right time to plead the Fifth? “Or…else?”
Jackie’s clarion laughter cut across the docks. “Are you really in the position to be threatening anyone right now?”
Caged between gunmetal and shark-infested waters, she couldn’t afford to be anything else. Without Jackie, none of them would be in this situation. None of them would be dead.
Like dropping a Mento into a bottle of Coke, rage bubbled behind Fletcher’s sternum and spewed out her mouth. “I trusted you.Hell, I wanted tobeyou, Jackie. You knew that, and you exploited it.”
Dipping into her pocket, Jackie dangled the key. Baiting Fletcher’s temper. Bad seed indeed.
Waylon hardened. “Enough is enough, Jackie. You’re outnumbered.”
A toothy grin. “Am I?”
Shoulder to shoulder, Melv and Jackie couldn’t be more different. Melv was all crisp lines and neat slacks while blood stained the editor in chief’s nail beds, and her blouse had been reduced to shreds. He was a statue, perfectly still, but every noise sent her twisting over her shoulder, antsy. The island had barely touched the lawyer’s polished exterior, but only one artifact remained of the version of Jackie Fletcher once admired. A stripe of red lipstick, perfect save for one smudged corner of her bottom lip. Almost like she’d just been kissed.
It was exactly the same smudge Fletcher had seen three weeks ago in the Art and Design Lab after the C-suite’s lunch meeting. That afternoon, she’d met with Melv. Innocuous at the time, barely a blip on Fletcher’s radar. What had they been discussing?
An ownership dispute.
A knife of realization twisted in Fletcher’s gut.
“You’re together.” The words flew out of Fletcher before she could think better of them. Not a question. Not even an accusation. The truth, out in the open.
When Jackie sidled up next to Melv, she was a moon entering orbit. Something in her razored gaze softened when she looked at him. Fletcher should’ve realized it before. How could she not have noticed?
Sudden, righteous anger slammed through her. “And you,” she said to Melv. “Saving us from the fire? Don’t tell me you only did that because you knew I owed Jackie the boat key.”
He answered with a silent shrug that saidI don’t recall the event inquestion. Typical lawyer. But Fletcher knew she was right. What Rick had overheard on the pool deck wasn’t Jackie and Fletcher—it was Jackie and Melv.
“What are you going to do? Tell HR?” Jackie snarked. “You made short work of Molly, didn’t you, Fletcher?”
“She. Stabbed.Herself.”
Jackie bulldozed on. “Semantics. It’s not like either of you are making it off this island today anyway. Eleven innocent people have died. Why shouldn’t you join them?”
Innocentwas a stretch, in Fletcher’s humble opinion. That still didn’t mean they deserved to die. Fletcher might not have killed anyone this week, but she couldn’t save anyone, either. Survivor’s guilt was a sticky thing, congealing to the underside of her ribs, making it harder to breathe. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the blue of Joplin’s lips, the red ringing Molly in the foyer.
