Page 75 of The Resort

“We split up the morning after Lucy checked in. She went to herdive class, and I walked around the island, trying to get as familiar with the place as I could. I found the dive bar where Jacinta had said all the expats hang out—Frangipani, I guess they call it.

“Lucy and I met down at the Tiki Palms that evening, after she was done with class. She was with a couple other people, including that guy Daniel”—I suck in a breath at the mention of his name—“but she pulled me away so that we could debrief. She said she’d met someone who remembered her sister. The woman told Lucy that she knew something, and they agreed to meet that night during the Full Moon Party to talk about it further. Lucy and I agreed that I would go with her, that we would confront this woman together.” Regret seems to seep into her words.

“When the party started, it was so crazy down at the beach, so chaotic,” Alani explains.

I think back to that night, the bodies grinding against each other, the heat from the fire dancers close enough to singe flesh.

“I saw you at one point too,” Alani says.

“At the party?” I ask cautiously. The thought is jarring.

Alani nods solemnly. “I recognized you from Instagram. Lucy had followed your profile. I think she might have even sent you a message or something.”

Hot shame floods every inch of my body as I remember Lucy’s innocent plea for help sitting in my inbox, ignored.

“But when I saw you at the party,” Alani continues, “you didn’t look like you wanted to be bothered.” She diverts her eyes away as if she’s embarrassed.

I think back to the night of the Full Moon Party, when we arrived as a group from Frangipani. My memory flashes to Neil’s hand, warm and safe in my mine as we wandered onto the beach,and I force it away. It’s too painful. As he and the others had gone to get drinks, I’d headed to the bathroom, but amid the flashing lights and the painted, camouflaged skin and the bone-shaking bass of the speakers, my body returned to that night three years ago. I stumbled to a secluded area far away enough from the party so that no one would see me—or so I thought—trying to get as much distance from the writhing bodies as possible, just as the feeling hit. It felt like fingers reaching into my core, strangling me from the inside out. My heart beating so fast it seemed like it would detach itself and rip out of my chest at any moment, my breathing so jagged that more air was rushing out than coming in. And the memories, coming in spurts. The smell of Eric’s pillow, a mix of cheap hair gel and chlorine. The pain reverberating through my scalp. The shame.

“I had a panic attack,” I admit. “I get them sometimes. I didn’t think anyone saw me.”

I hadn’t told any of the Permanents about it. I didn’t want them to know how easy it was for me to lose control.

Alani nods. “I thought so.”

I find I’m holding my breath, silently begging for her to continue.

“Somehow, I’d lost track of Lucy. I don’t know how. I turned around for one second, and when I turned back, she wasn’t there. I looked everywhere, but with all the people pushing against me… I just… I couldn’t find her.”

A sob sneaks out of Alani’s throat, and she clasps a hand around her mouth to prevent another from following. I hold her other hand in silence for a minute until she recovers enough to continue the story.

“I found Daniel. He’d been following Lucy and I for most of the party. He kept trying to get Lucy to dance with him, although it was clear she was not at all interested.” She smiles, a sad, slight upturnto her mouth as she remembers, and suddenly Daniel’s video makes sense. He had been following Lucy in a desperate, drunken ploy to get her attention. It wasn’t anything sinister. It was just annoying and a tad creepy. Daniel being Daniel.

“But by that time in the night, Daniel had become distracted by some other girl,” Alani continues.

My thoughts go to the redhead I saw in the dozens of selfies he had taken that night.

“It was a bit difficult to get anything coherent out of him, but he eventually said that he’d seen Lucy talking to Doug, that Australian guy from the dive shop, and later to one of the other expats. And I knew instantly it was the expat Lucy had mentioned, the woman she planned to meet at the party. She wasn’t supposed to meet her alone. I was supposed to be there, to protect her…”

She sobs again, and instinctively I shuffle closer to her.

“I finally spotted two figures, way down on the far side of the beach, barely visible, and I just knew something was wrong. I had this feeling in my gut that Lucy wasn’t safe. That the woman was going to do something to her. I sent Lucy a few messages, trying to get her to come back to the party, but she didn’t respond.”

I remember the messages I’d found on Lucy’s burner phone. They were from Alani.

“I started running as fast as I could. But by the time I got close enough, it was too late.” She falls quiet, as if she can’t bear to finish the story.

“Alani.” I say her name gently. “What happened?”

She responds without a pause. “She killed her.” Her voice is clear and convinced, absent of the emotion in which it was wrapped mere seconds ago.

“Who did?”

She ignores the question. “They’re not who they say they are. They’re all in on it.”

Her words lose their meaning, tumbled together among all the questions racing through my mind.

“It was the woman Lucy met that night who killed her,” Alani continues, and the sound of it turns my bones to ice. “The blond one.”

---