Page 107 of Sunburned

At the bottom of the stairs were two baskets of shoes, but I could find only one of the sandals I’d worn yesterday. The one that had been soiled was nowhere to be seen. “Where is my other shoe?” I asked one of the girls sorting a pile of discarded dive gear.

She held up a yellow flipper without a pair. “Is it this one?”

“No, my street shoes,” I said, showing her my sandal. “You guys took my other one to be cleaned.”

“I’ll find it,” she said, setting the flipper down to trot up the stairs, speaking into her walkie.

Another crew girl held up a dive compass attached to a carabiner. “Whose is this?”

Jennifer raised her hand and reached for it. As she clipped it to her belt loop, I frowned. What was a novice diver like Jennifer doing with a dive compass? How to use it underwater wasn’t something you learned until advanced open water dive training. Perhaps she wasn’t as inexperienced as she claimed.

“The announcement just went out,” Allison said, looking at her phone from behind big black sunglasses.

As the police began to load us into the dinghies to transfer to their boat, the girl who had gone to find my shoe returned empty-handed, apologizing profusely. My shoe was nowhere to be found. “Can I please go get my other pair of shoes?” I asked Officer Lambert, but he shook his head.

“We must go now.”

“Here.” I looked up to see Marielle jogging down the stairs, a pair of Havaianas in her hand. “Have mine.”

“Thank you,” I said gratefully, taking the shoes from her. They were a size too big, but better than nothing.

She helped me into the dinghy, and I sat next to Allison. We pulled away from the yacht, the wind whipping our hair as we motored over the top of the waves toward the police boat. If Allison had been the one to push me off the boat, I felt certain she wouldn’t try anything here, under the watchful gaze of the police, so I could afford to be direct. I seized the moment, leaning into her, my voice barely rising above the sound of the motor. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t tell the police about the blood test Tyson was blackmailing you with?”

She stilled.

“I have pictures of it, so there’s no use denying it,” I said, locking the cage. Now to show her a way out. “But I don’t want to throw you under the bus if there’s a plausible explanation.”

She glanced at Rémy and Laurent, who sat on the opposite side of the boat, out of earshot with the sound of the motor. The others were on the first dinghy. “Fine,” she acquiesced. “It was a stupid mistake. I was using EPO to increase my red blood cell mass after a hiatus, and it worked so well…I got sloppy. That blood test ended my career.”

“But no one ever knew about it,” I said. “You retired before it came out.”

“That was the deal I struck.”

“How did Tyson get hold of it?”

She shook her head. “Who knows. But he’d decided Cody was toblame for leaking the environmental report, and he was using the blood test to pressure me to vote him out. If I didn’t, he’d slip that blood test to the press.”

“Is that why you killed him?” I asked.

Her head whipped toward mine. “I didn’t kill him. I was getting what I wanted. Tyson was bringing in another investor and had agreed to let me sell some of my shares to him once I voted Cody out.”

“So you were willing to screw Cody over, even though it was you who leaked the environmental report?” I pressed.

“I didn’t—”

“I saw you, Allison. I was at Le Ti that night.”

Her jaw tensed. “I didn’t have a choice,” she muttered. “I didn’t like it, but I had to save my own ass.” She leaned closer, her voice urgent. “I may be a liar, but I’m not a murderer.”

She could be lying about that too, of course, but in my line of work, I’d learned to trust my instincts, and I didn’t believe she was. Allison might be duplicitous, but she was too rational to let her hate for Tyson get the better of her if she was already getting what she wanted from him. “Did Cody know Tyson was trying to vote him out?”

She shook her head. “No.”

We docked next to the angular police boat and the officers helped us board, directing us to the interior, which was gray and bursting with gadgets and screens. The sides were lined with benches, and I took a seat next to Laurent, who gave me a reassuring glance as we lurched forward.

The engine was loud enough that conversation was next to impossible as we cruised around the edges of the island, my dread growing heavier the closer we got to Gustavia. A pair of Jet Skis streaked by, and I could see surfers waiting for waves offshore and beachgoers frolicking on the golden sand, oblivious to the morbid scene on this police boat.

A phone dinged, and then another. We were back to service. I felt my own device vibrate and pulled it from my pocket to see my homescreen lit up with messages that had come in since the news of Tyson’s demise had been posted fifteen minutes ago. Rosa alone had texted me seven times, increasingly worried when I didn’t respond.

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