The sliding glass door opened and Fay stepped to the railing, stretching her arms.
“What a beautiful sight. You were tossing and turning all night. Did you get any sleep?”
Jess stifled a yawn. “Some. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, nothing a few antacids couldn’t fix.” Fay sat in the other lounge chair. She stared at the sea for a minute before continuing tentatively. “Tyler’s the one that got away, isn’t he?”
Jess nodded. “I nearly didn’t come back to the room last night.”
“He’s interested in you. The eyes don’t lie.”
“A lack of passion was never our problem.”
“Then what was?” Fay swiveled in her chair. “Did he cheat on you in college?”
“Tyler? God, no. He’d be the last guy to do that.”
“Then what?”
“I was young. New to college. He wanted a commitment. I wanted to have fun. Maybe it was just bad timing.” Jess shook her head. “Tyler’s a good man. He deserves the truth about my situation, about Andy.”
“You’ll know when the time is right to tell him, dear. Just follow your heart.”
“My heart is saying I made a big mistake all those years ago. I know they say you shouldn’t go through life with regrets, but sometimes it’s hard not to.”
“The people who say that are sociopaths,” Fay said.
That surprised Jess. “You have regrets?”
“Too many to count.”
“Like what?”
“Smoking, for one. But we didn’t know any better.” Fay held out her hand, and Jess took it in her own. “Regrets will always be a part of you, Jessica. The mistake you shouldn’t make is letting those regrets keep you from enjoying the rest of your life.”
“I won’t.”
Fay smiled. “Me neither.”
Jess stood. “We’ve got a lot to do today. I’m going to take a shower.”
Thirty minutes later came a knock on the door. Jess watched as Fay answered and let Tyler in. His eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t bothered to shave, but his windbreaker, T-shirt, and jeans didn’t look too rumpled.
He nodded at Jess, but spoke to both of them. “The NSA guys found a Suzuki four-by-four that’ll fit all of us. They’ll be here in few minutes. We’ll stop for supplies at the hardware store. I’d wear a jacket. It’ll be cool out there.”
Fay excused herself to change in the suite’s bedroom. The silence grew thick.
“Tyler, I’m sorry about last night.”
“No need to be. I must have gotten the signals wrong.”
“No. You didn’t. You know you didn’t.”
“I know,” he said. “I was just trying to make this a little less awkward.”
“I shouldn’t have broken up with you.”
“Well, now you’re making it more awkward. Besides, I broke up with you. Not to get into a pissing match about it.”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t have broken up with me if I could have committed to you back then. I was stupid.”
“So we both agree on that,” Tyler said with a twinkle in his eye.
Jess couldn’t help but smile. “You are not making this any easier. I wanted to tell you—”
Tyler’s phone rang and he put up a finger. He looked at the display, then answered. “Hello … all right, we’ll be down in a minute,” he said and hung up.
As he pocketed the phone, Fay came back in. “Are they here?”
Jess sighed, realizing that she’d missed her opportunity. Turning to Fay, she asked, “Are you ready to do this?”
Fay beamed. “I’ve been ready since I was ten years old.”
The store had the caving equipment they needed: four flashlights, a couple of shovels, and a hundred meters of nylon rope. Jess was an experienced spelunker, so the idea of delving into a dark, creepy hole didn’t bother her in the slightest.
Tyler drove the Suzuki. Fay was in the passenger seat, and in the back Jess squeezed between two wiry security men, a blond kid in his twenties named Harris and a curly-haired guy called Polk who smelled like a locker room. Both were armed with silenced submachine guns. She thought the extra men were an unnecessary precaution, but Tyler had insisted.
It took only fifteen minutes to reach their destination four miles to the north. Once they left the paved road, the Suzuki bounced over the rough grassland toward the sea while Jess navigated. With the dry creek bed to their right, Tyler inched along to make sure they didn’t bog down in any unseen gullies.
Fifty yards from the cliff leading down to the Pacific, Tyler came to a stop, and they all climbed out. Far from any of the tourist spots, the area was deserted. Jess checked her cell phone and saw that it wasn’t getting a signal.
“Now what?” Tyler said.
“The map seems to indicate that whatever we’re looking for should be on the very edge of the island,” Fay said. “There’s probably a marker of some kind, possibly carved into a stone.”
“Let’s fan out. If you see anything unusual, give a shout.”
“Unusual like what?” Polk said.
“The Rapa Nui people were known for cave paintings and rock art,” Fay said. “Something like that might be what we’re looking for.”
Tyler devised a grid pattern for the search. They would space apart at five-yard intervals and walk parallel paths to make sure they didn’t miss anything, starting a hundred yards south of where the creek mouth met the cliff.
Jess chose the spot closest to the cliff face with Fay next to her. They methodically walked the route. Every few minutes someone would stop to check out something more closely, but it always turned out to be nothing.
The group slowed as they reached the dry creek bed’s mouth since that seemed to be the location of the dot on the map. They spent a half-hour meticulously combing the grass before Jess’s foot scraped across an abrasive flat surface. If she hadn’t been walking so deliberately, she would never have noticed the red stone almost completely buried in the soil. The eighteen-inch-wide slab looked nothing like the brown dirt surrounding it. She recognized it as scoria, the pumice-like rock that was used as a material for the gigantic hats adorning some of the Moai.
Jess called out, and everyone came running over to her find. Centuries of growth and accumulated earth had nearly covered the stone.
Tyler took one look at it and said, “That had to be placed there on purpose.”
Jess knelt and pulled the grass away. “Help me dig it out.”
Tyler went to the car to retrieve the shovels. After ten minutes of digging, they were able to see the carvings that adorned the sides of the circular slab.
A spider, a bird, a monkey, and a human figure. They were identical to the drawings on the engraving.
“Oh, my God,” Fay said, her hands trembling. “This is it!”
“Is that what the map was leading us to?” Jess said. “It doesn’t have any other drawings on it.”
“It must be a marker for something nearby.”
They fanned out to look again. Jess remembered her conversation with Tyler about the sea-side caves and walked to the part of the cliff closest to them, which was obscured by some low shrubbery. She pushed it aside and peered over the edge, where she saw a path carved into the cliff-side that was wide enough to accommodate an elephant. Without the marker, finding the path would have been pure chance in spite of its width.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Take a look at this.”
Everyone joined her at the edge.
Jess turned to Tyler. “Shall we see where this goes?”
“All right,” Tyler said. “Let’s get the rope and flashlights.” The three men returned to the vehicle.
“Nana, you should stay here.”
Fay looked at her as if she were insane. “That would be a big no.”