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Nathan Gill materialized in the arched opening that separated the dining room from the lobby. “Rand is wasting his time. He won’tget a signal anywhere on this island. But he could easily get lost if he leaves the gardens and wanders into the woods. He wouldn’t be the first person to disappear on this rock.”
Marcella frowned. “Are you serious?”
“There’s a reason why we tell the guests not to go outside the grounds,” Nathan said. He looked at Talia, his eyes cold. “But I doubt if you need to worry. I’m sure Rand is too smart to do something stupid like hike into the woods just to find some cell service.”
“Way too smart,” Talia said.
“Let’s hope so,” Nathan said.
Marcella spoke up. “Say, that’s your cabin cruiser tied up at the dock, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “But before you ask, the answer is no. I can’t take you off the island in the cruiser for the same reason the ferry can’t dock here. The weather is bad and the water is too rough.”
He turned and went toward the hallway that led to the rear door. Talia watched him until he was out of sight, recalling Luke’s observation about the man.What’s more, Nathan Gill wasn’t just looking for signs of an injury when he checked Keever’s body tonight. He was searching for something.
“So much for projecting positive energy,” Marcella said in low tones. “I’m starting to feel like a prisoner on this island.”
“You can say that again,” Jasper said. “But speaking of positive thinking, I’ve got a title for my blog post on the Unplugged Experience. ‘My Vacation on the Real Devil’s Island.’ ”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The body wasgone.
Luke stood in Eddy Keever’s small cottage, rainwater dripping off his plastic poncho, and contemplated the empty bed.
The missing body was not the only thing that had changed since he had last been here. Someone had conducted a thorough search of the cramped space. The old mattress sat at an odd angle on the rusty bedsprings. The contents of the drawers had been rifled through. The corner of the worn, braided rug was flipped up as if someone had raised it to check the floorboards. The door of the small medicine cabinet in the bathroom stood open.
Luke took a moment to prowl the cabin, trying to get a feel for the man who had lived in it. He found a sophisticated assortment of academic tomes and a handful of out-of-date journals—all devoted to botany. Scraps of paper tucked into two of the journals marked pages with articles written by Edward H. Keever, PhD. The subject of each was the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants.
There were other records of Keever’s past stored inside a battered suitcase, including divorce papers dated five years earlier thatindicated he’d had an inept lawyer. There was also a printout of a terse email informing him that he was being fired from his job as a professor in the botany department of a small college for unspecified reasons.
Keever had been an academic whose life had apparently fallen apart. Somehow he had wound up as an assistant gardener on Night Island.
Something about the way the cabin had been torn apart sent a message of desperation and frustration. The fact that the baggie full of dried mushrooms was still sitting in plain sight meant the intruder had not been interested in drugs.
Luke unzipped the pocket of his cargo trousers and took out the small, flashlight-shaped device. He thought about the quick but methodical way Nathan Gill had searched Keever’s body while pretending to look for signs of injury.
“Is this what you were looking for, Gill?” he said to the empty room. “Why did you take the body?”
Gill would probably be at the lodge eating breakfast with the others. There might be time to take a look around his cabin.
Luke went back out into the rain- and wind-tossed garden. The latest downpour was over but the next wave was fast approaching. The cloud cover was heavier than it had been earlier, cloaking the island in a surreal twilight.
He turned a corner and stopped when he caught sight of the conservatory. He changed his mind about searching Nathan Gill’s cabin. Time to wake up the Night Gardener.
He followed the winding path through the maze of towering plants and stopped at the entrance to the glass-walled building. Yes, the island was sunk deep in gloom, but it was midmorning, so there should have been no sign of the eerie bioluminescence that he andTalia had observed last night. The plants inside the conservatory, however, glowed with a pale radiance. He got the uneasy feeling the vegetation was stirring in reaction to the energy of the storm. It was as if it was drinking in the currents of power that charged the atmosphere.
If this was any other place besides Night Island he would have lectured himself severely about his overactive imagination. But thiswasNight Island. Death by paranormal means happened here. Bodies went missing.
He was about to move past the steel door and follow the stone path that would take him around the conservatory when he heard a tiny, muffled ping. For a couple of seconds he wondered if he had stumbled into a location where he could get connectivity.
He moved into the limited shelter provided by the overhang above the conservatory entrance and took out his phone. Nothing. The device might as well have been a rock.
Another ping. Louder this time. The sound was coming from one of his cargo trouser pockets. He retrieved the gadget he had found on Keever’s body. The pinging was stronger now, more frequent.
It was as if he was holding a directional indicator of some kind, he decided. He turned slowly on his heel. When he faced the steel door, the pinging became a constant hum. The circle of crystals set in the front end flashed with dark energy. He heard a low rumble from within the steel door, the sound of heavy bolts sliding aside. There was a click. The gadget went quiet in his hand.
Not a directional indicator, he decided. The gadget was a key.
