“So, what do we do now?” It dawned on her that in addition to Skye being held captive and her imminent decision to kill Stefan pending, Trevor might indeed be dead. Killed. Murdered. Trevor is dead.
“I called into Reggie on the SAT phone but he didn’t reply yet. I told him to bring help on my boat. I’m hoping he knows police in Belize that aren’t corrupt and can help. I’m sure he does. He’s been here quite a while. Knows the locals.”
Erin couldn’t take her eyes off the counter. He walked up to Erin and took her hands. “We have to find them. We’ll get help on the way and we will find them. I promise.” His lip quivered. “I promise.”
All she wanted was to be back home, tending to her old garden, sci-fi novel in hand ready to be binge read. But her consequences had come knocking, and the repercussion was murder yet again. This time, she’d pull the trigger.
Erin rose to her feet and walked toward the coffee pot and poured herself a glass, hand so shaky that she almost dropped the whole pot. Leaning up against the counter, she sipped the java. Stefan took two deep breaths, poured a cup of coffee, and walked over to the couch and collapsed onto it. He ran his fingers through his long black hair, muttering something to himself. His armpits were soaked through his shirt. The kitchen light reflected off the silver of the gun.
Chapter Twenty - Trevor
Trevor shoveled at the dirt, each spike into the ground bringing him greater satisfaction than the last. He showered dirt over a body, the scent of decomposition wafting. The sand had quickly covered the legs, leaving only the upper half of Ashton’s body remaining. From behind he could hear a girl crying, the irritating interruption adding fuel to his already hot fire. Erin stood there, babbling something incoherent between sobs, disgusting tears defiling her already homely face. She looked to him for mercy, but he was too furious to supply her with any. He welcomed the feeling, the satisfaction, as he showered dirt on his best friend. She reached out toward him, pleading for him to take her hand, to move away from his dug grave. “You’ll get your turn!” he snapped.
The cracking sound of gunfire woke Trevor. His head was split in two, a wedge separating each side of his brain with splinters piercing through the soft texture. His head pulsed in pain, and before he had time to recognize how angry his stomach was, he vomited. Eyes closed as he finished his half-hearted purge, he opened them expecting to find a pool of yellow vomit, but instead found a dark substance on the glass floor of the villa out on the water.
He rolled over in bed. The sheets were wet. I pissed the bed? He glanced down at blood. When his head turned, he came face-to-face with Skye, her mouth wide open. He scrambled off of the bed, blood and vomit splashing about.
Her throat had been cut wide open. There were ligature marks around her wrists and ankles, her eyes partially open and angled to the side. She had known only horror leading up to her death.
Trevor closed her mouth and eyes, and her skin was cool to the touch. He scrambled off of the bed and snatched his pants and dressed. I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming. He turned away from her dead body, from the blood, the smells, and racked his brain, searching for an answer. Skye is dead. She’s dead… Focus Trevor… Did I do this? No, you didn’t do this. Someone is trying to set you up. Cassidy did this.
On the breakfast table was a folder. Trevor tiptoed around the blood and opened it. There was a note. “Should we kill Ashton or your father?” A slew of photos had been taken of his dad around his home, and also around his law office. The message continued: “Murder looks good on you. Kill Bruce. Or accept our decision between Ashton and your old man.”
Next to the folder on the table sat a gun. Making sure he kept his back turned to Skye’s bloodied body, he left the villa with gun and folder in hand. He had no choice. The only thing to do was kill an old man he didn’t know, had suspicions of to begin with, in order to save his friend and father.
Trevor made it to the beach and walked up to the tree line and dug a small hole with his hands and buried the folder. The evidence that he was coerced into murdering Bruce would certainly come in handy, and the threats couldn’t have been clearer. Which side was Stefan on? Were there sides? Walking down the beach, Trevor fumbled around with the gun until finally figuring out how to load it.
Chapter Twenty-one - Erin
Just a quick vacation to take a break from school. A little beach, a little beer, lots of food, a little sleeping in. What would it hurt? If anything, the break should have helped clear the fog that had seemed to have settled in. She would be more efficient with her studies when she returned to her life.
Now, she was faced with a decision. Let them kill Skye or kill Stefan. She couldn’t risk them murdering Skye.
Stefan remained on the couch, strung out, hands pulling at his dark hair. The gun remained on the kitchen counter, closer to her.
Erin swayed back and forth on her decision. Option three just wouldn’t present itself. Her hand slid along the table and stopped. Who wants Stefan dead? Bruce lived there before him, so maybe there were some disagreements with how he was running the land. As they had discussed on the other side of the island, there were too many unknowns about him, and their encounter with him in his cabin was less than pleasant. Granted they had broken in to his place while he looked for their missing friend. Okay, that leaves the staff. Her encounter with Teresa was pleasant in a way, but there was something strange about her. Maybe the staff drove the previous owners out? Or maybe they are in alliance with Bruce? Bruce expressed his frustrations with Stefan when we were in his cabin. Something about property lines.
How are they seeing me right now? She glanced at her phone, then looked around the ceiling and kitchen cupboards for a camera. They were either in the surveillance room downstairs or in Bruce’s cabin. Or the duplex. Erin hadn’t stepped foot in Ashton and Skye’s side of the duplex yet, largely because they were humping whenever they got a chance. Erin slid her hand back away from the gun, dumped the coffee, and snagged a bottle of water from the fridge. She needed more time. Just then, another text came through, vibrating against her leg. She checked it. “Time is of concern.”
Another video came in. She took out the phone and played the video without volume. A knife was being held to Skye’s throat, applying enough pressure to barely break the skin.
“What’s going on?” Stefan asked. He looked at her and the phone. “Your phone shouldn’t work here.” He rose from the couch, his face switching from confusion to suspicion. “Erin, I’m not going to ask you again.” Thud, thud, thud. Surely her heart would pop like a balloon. “What’s on the phone, Erin?”
She shoved it back in her pocket and tried to play it casual, but it was too late for that. “It’s nothing. I was just looking at old messages from Trevor. I hope he’s okay.”
“Is that right? Because it looked like you were reading something relatively new to me.”
Thud, thud, thud. “No, it—”
“You wouldn’t happen to be playing me? You and Trevor? You wouldn’t do that, right?”
“Play you? What does that even mean?”