Page 105 of Sunburned

“I’m so sorry,” I managed, the edges of my peripheral vision darkening.

“Audrey?” Rosa’s voice was tinged with worry as she rushed down the aisle of clothes racks toward me, but she sounded very far away. “What’s going on here? Are you okay?”

“He thinks he’s won, but he hasn’t,” Andie whispered. “One day he’ll pay.”

Part III

Chapter 41

A heavy rapping at the door ripped me from slumber. Laurent’s arm was flung across my waist, the sheets tangled around our bodies as we jerked awake, discombobulated. Light bled from the edges of the blackout shade over the window.

What time was it?

The rapping came again, louder this time, as I fumbled on the bedside table for my phone: 7:36a.m.

“Police,” came a male voice. “Open up.”

I sat bolt upright. “One second,” I called out, blood rushing in my ears. “I’m not dressed.”

I rolled out of bed and opened the shade, flooding the cabin with light. Laurent’s hair was mussed, his cheek dented with the wrinkle of the pillow as he rubbed sleep from his eyes and stepped into his pants. My heart squeezed as I looked at him. I wished our circumstances were different, but I didn’t regret one minute of last night.

I went to my closet, pulling on a T-shirt and ripped jeans shorts with shaking hands. I heard the rapping again, this time on Rémy’s door.

“I guess they wanted to surprise us,” I said.

“Yes,” Laurent said, pulling me in for a quick kiss. He was trying to be reassuring, but I could tell he was as spooked as I was.

I heard a clunk in Gisèle’s room, and rapid male voices. Again, a rapping on my door, this time more polite. “Everyone to the main deck, please,” said a female voice. Crew.

“Okay, one second,” I called out.

While Laurent dressed, I splashed water on my face and quickly brushed my teeth in the bathroom, then downed ibuprofen for my head, which was fortunately not hurting as badly as I’d feared it might.

“Let’s go.” That was one of the cops. “Leave all your things in your room.”

Thinking fast, I fished Tyson’s blackmail note out of my bag and stuffed it in my back pocket along with my phone, debit card, and ID. I wasn’t sure yet what to do about the blackmail note, but I figured it would be better for me to it hand over than for them to discover it.

Laurent and I exchanged a glance. Apparently, the police weren’t going to conveniently step away so that he could slip out of my room and into his without anyone the wiser.

I realized, as he opened the door, that this was worse for me than it was for him. He was the one person who could vouch for my whereabouts during the dive, and now the police would think he was biased because we were involved. They might even think I’d seduced him to cover my tracks.

This was very, very bad.

I followed him into the hallway, where Officer Lambert leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, looking down his nose at us. If our appearing together was a surprise, he didn’t let on. He pointed to the stairs. “Main deck.”

Through the open door to Gisèle’s room, I could see the police bagging the money she’d hidden in her suitcase. So much for my promise to keep it a secret. In my mind, I scanned my room for anything they might find suspicious in my own belongings, but since I’d removed the blackmail note, I didn’t think I had anything. That was something, anyway.

When we reached the main deck, we found everyone else already assembled at the dining table, hastily dressed and on edge, seated before an untouched spread of pastries, eggs, and fruit. Jennifer looked like she’d slept in her makeup, and even always-put-together Allison looked disheveled, her perennially smooth hair kinked in the back, bags under her eyes.

An officer was stationed in the hallway between the doors to Allison’s and Cody and Jennifer’s rooms while additional officers searched their cabins. All the officers were ripped, confident. There might not be a lot of crime on St. Barth’s, but these guys seemed unnervingly ready to handle whatever was thrown their way.

One of the crew girls offered me a coffee and I took it gratefully. My brain was foggy from the lack of sleep, not to mention all the alcohol I’d consumed yesterday, and I needed to be sharp today. I added a dash of milk as I slid into a seat next to Samira.

“Are they going to let us back in our rooms?” Jennifer asked of no one in particular. I watched as she spun her hair into a bun atop her head. Why would she have been blackmailing Tyson? And if she had been, could she also have killed him? She was pint-size, and such an inexperienced diver—unless she wasn’t. An advanced diver would know how to mount a tank to control another diver, no matter their size difference. “I need a shower,” she complained. “I didn’t even get to brush my teeth.”

“None of us did,” Allison said.

“What the hell are they looking for, anyway?” she asked.