Page 45 of Beach Bodies

Very possibly, it’s our only commonality– but an important one.

‘Do you have a minute to talk about Daniel Black?’ I say, leaning into the door frame of Vic’s sunny office thirty minutes before my morning beach shift. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day, as post-storm days usually are. Blue skies and bright sun– the opposite of the never-ending sleepless night I’m just emerging from.

Vic removes his fashionable, clear-framed reading glasses and sets them on the desk.

‘Tell me Serena didn’t pull another Serena,’ he says, sounding pre-emptively exhausted.

‘No, nothing like that.’ I come in the rest of the way, close the door behind me, and sit across from him. Lean on my elbows. ‘He’s been asking me questions about that death last year. You know… the music producer?’

Vic groans and leans back in his chair. ‘Michael Johnson,’ he fills in. ‘Carli Elle’s manager.’

‘Right. I just wonder,’ I say carefully, ‘if Daniel might be here under… false pretences?’

‘Why can’t people leave well enough alone?’ says Vic, snapping his head back up in real exasperation. ‘I donotneed another branding crisis this year!’

‘Sorry,’ I say humbly.

It hasn’t escaped me that every time I kill, I am leaving a bit of a mess for poor Vic– but maybe part of me enjoys that little twist of the knife.

The first year, Vic was person of interest number one on my target shortlist. After all, who could be more toxic than the manager of a toxic place? I even planned his death, involving a modification to his nightly Old Fashioned that would interact with his medication regime. Ultimately, I had to bow to practicalities and hit the brakes. He was too high up to kill. His death would risk too much attention. Not to mention, Vic seemed to both like and respect me– which made him my ticket back into this place.

I’ve come to understand that Vic is both oblivious and impervious to the Riovan’s toxicity. He doesn’t see the harm he’s doing; he’s too self-obsessed. You can just feel it when you’re around him– that Vic loves Vic with every ounce of Vic’s heart. Sometimes I want to shake his bronzed shoulders and say, ‘Wake up and smell the shit you’re calling roses!’ But I’ve concluded the exercise would be useless. People like him can’t understand the rest of us– the ones with cracks where the poison can leak in.

‘No, you did the right thing, telling me,’ Vic says, shaking his head. ‘These journalists.’

‘Daniel seems to think it wasn’t a suicide,’ I say, trying to sound innocently surprised. ‘But it was… right?’

‘Of course it was,’ he says, with so much conviction I almost believe it myself– and I’m the killer. Good old Vic. Just as stubbornly oblivious as always. ‘Any more questions, you send him my way.’

‘Will do.’

Vic’s gaze floats to the window. His mind seems suddenly elsewhere. ‘There was a death the year before that… do you remember?’ His eyes slide back to mine.

I shake my head, even though my mental file spits it all out. Brett Teubler. Staff nutritionist with a convenient allergy to penicillin. It wasn’t as hard to get hold of the antibiotic as you might imagine.

‘A staff member died,’ says Vic.

‘Oh … that’s right. B … Brent?’

‘Brett. We kept it quiet. It was a freak medication mistake, but…’ Vic’s forehead almost wrinkles. ‘Never mind.’

‘What?’

‘Well, it’s silly. Blame it on my superstitious abuela, but sometimes I can’t help but think this place is cursed. Did you know it used to be a sanatorium?’

‘No,’ I say with an involuntary shiver. However involved I’ve been in the hotel’s present, I’ve never looked into its past.

‘Yes… the place was originally built in the 1890s. Rich French families used to send their daughters here to have abortions, whether they wanted to have them or not. And sometimes the servants too, if… well, you get the picture. My abuela used to say,Victor, evil calls to evil.I can’t help but think…’ His brown eyes meet mine. ‘Every year I’ve worked here, someone has died.’

I force myself to breathe normally, blink normally, keep my face calmly compassionate, but say nothing.

‘Do you believe in curses?’ says Vic.

‘No,’ I say.

And I’m not interested in dwelling too long on the idea,since that would make me the curse. We wrap it up, but I leave my tête-à-tête with Vic feeling sobered, thinking about those girls who were sent here, possibly against their will. Their bodies were a source of shame. The professionals had to intervene.

I guess a hundred and thirty years later, nothing on this island has changed.

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