Despite being on solid ground, my stomach flips like I’m on a roller coaster.
When I was in the lobby waiting for Will, I didn’t see or hear another soul.
The hotel is big, so Reeve could’ve been in the basement, and we just missed each other. It’s not like I can ask him without making myself look guilty. He might find out soon anyway. I’m probably going to pop onto the screen soon looking shifty and sneaking out.
He might already know that I was out there…because it could have been him sneaking around and scaring me.
I clear my throat and try not to let him know I’m spooked. “You were here alone until then? Didn’t you get bored?”
He shakes his head, runs his hand through his short hair, and clicks a few buttons. “I did a final sweep after the last of them went to bed and then headed up.”
Okay, odds are he was somewhere else in the hotel, then. How close did I come to being caught?
“So, we’re thinking he got up early and snuck out. Liam heard him in his room in the early hours. Are you checking from this morning?” I ask, planting the seed that we can skip last night.
“Sure. I’ll start at six a.m. for speed. If we don’t see him, we’ll try earlier.”
I don’t realize how much of a relief it is hearing him say that until the tension leaves my shoulders. I roll my neck and slide my chair closer to the desk.
My heart rate returns to its seminormal rate. See, this is fine. No one will know that I’ve broken the rules. I won’t have to ask Reeve to cover for me, and I won’t have to lie.
“You take those two screens and I’ll do the other four,” he tells me.
“I can cover three.”
“Take the two, Paisley…. Wait, that’s weird.” He taps again and again. His dark brows pull together. “What the…”
“What’s weird?” I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing. The team is still walking, opening their mouths occasionally to, I assume, call Will’s name.
What the hell is he seeing that I’m not?
“Reeve, what’s weird?” I press.
He taps again, harder like he’s getting frustrated with it. “The footage is gone!”
“Gone? How is that possible?”
His fingers hit keys furiously. “This is crazy. How? There’s nothing here to suggest the cameras malfunctioned. We have alerts for that.”
“Hold on. You’re telling me that it wasn’t a glitch but someone erasing it?”
“Yeah,” he mutters, still tapping away as if there’s a chance he’ll recover the footage. His fingers hit the keys harder. “This is…Dammit!”
“Can you get it back? There must be backup for this, right? Like the cloud?”
He shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. Well, yeah, there’s a backup, but it’s gone too. Shit, Paisley. Everything’s gone.”
“From when?”
He looks at the files and then, very slowly, to me. “From the second you guys stepped through the gate to the park on the first day.”
I grip the edge of the seat and try to ignore the pounding in my ears. “Will, the footage, and the boat are all gone.”
It’s a grim summary of our current situation.
His head turns slowly toward me. “Is one or all of you behind this?”
I recoil, almost falling back off my chair. “What? No, of course not. Well, I can’t speak for everyone else, obviously. How would we even get access to this room to delete that stuff?”
His eyes tighten as he realizes that he is the one with the access here. Gibson does the boat and rides. Kenna cooks. Camilla is Malcolm’s servant. I mean, assistant.
“Can anyone do this remotely?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I can work this system because I’ve been trained on it, but I’m no tech wizard. Hackers can get into most systems, right?”
“There’ve been cases of people hacking the FBI.”
“You sound almost happy about that,” he says.
“I find it impressive, that’s all. I can’t even get into my email some days.”
He turns back to the screens, and after tapping a few more times, his shoulders slump. Gone is his anger. It’s replaced by fear. I can see it glowing in his eyes.
“They’re going to blame me. I don’t know how to do this, Paisley. I can view them, but I don’t have the clearance to alter anything. I can’t even download anything. I don’t know how hacking works. I didn’t do this.”
What is going on here? One minute he’s calm and the next he’s so uptight he might snap. “No one will blame you. We’ll figure it out.”
“That’s not true. He’s going to blame me,” he repeats.
The way he says it makes me shudder a little. He’s resigned himself to being the fall guy. Other staff members have access to this. A bunch of them were leaving the island as we were arriving, right as the cameras stopped recording.
“Goddamn it!” He thumps the desk and presses the button on his radio. “Malcolm, it’s Reeve. Come in.”
There’s no way of knowing what time Will left his room last night. I can’t even be happy that the evidence of me sneaking out is gone.
This is serious.
“Reeve…,” I say when he clips the radio back onto his belt.
“Malcolm wants us to meet him in the hotel restaurant.”
“Why there?”
“Because that’s where they are.”
Ask a silly question.
He shoves the mouse away, stands up, and runs his hands down his face. “All right, let’s go and find out what the hell’s happening here.”
I grab his sleeve as I get to my feet. “Wait. Do you think we’re in danger?”
The silent answer hangs in the air like a bad smell.
“Come on, Paisley. Stay beside me. Okay.”
Yeah, as if I’m about to go off on my own now. Reeve strides out of the security room, and I have to double my steps to keep up with him. For someone who wants me to stay right with him, he sure does move as if he wants to ditch me.
In the restaurant, Malcolm is pacing, his face red and a vein on his forehead like a bolt of lightning. I bet he’s calculating the losses of getting bad reviews from us. He pins his eyes on each one of us for a second before moving on.
Camilla is preparing coffee, spooning beans into the machine, her face ashen.
Who’s thinking about taking a coffee break right now?
“Is this part of the weekend?” Liam asks. “Are you messing with us? Because I’m all for a good mystery, but I want to know if this is real.”
I hadn’t thought of that. But I’m not sure Malcolm is the greatest actor and there’s something about his face that makes me believe this is very real.
“This isn’t a game!” Camilla snaps, spilling coffee beans on the counter.
Liam scowls at her.
In the corner, Gibson shakes his head, looks at his phone, and then holds it to his ear. He repeats this three times.
Something else is wrong.
“What’s up?” I ask him as he swears at the phone.
“It’s not working. Everyone, check your phones.”
I check mine and I have no service or Wi-Fi. Battery has dipped under half now.
Why wouldn’t the Wi-Fi work?
I clear my throat. “Nothing,” I say, flashing them my screen to prove it.
One by one, we all acknowledge our lack of service.
“How could this happen?” Malcolm asks. “We have a cell tower on site and generators in case the power goes down and takes the Wi-Fi out.”
Camilla crosses her arms, waiting for the coffee to brew. “This shouldn’t be happening.”
“Reeve, what did you find out?” Gibson asks.
“Err, the CCTV is working but not recording. Which makes sense since we need the Wi-Fi to back it up. But the really weird thing…Yesterday’s footage has been erased.”
“We need to get help,” Camilla says. “I didn’t sign up for this. The isolation is one thing, but now we can’t contact anyone or leave. No. No way.”
“Camilla,” Malcolm says, leaning in and whispering something in her ear. She doesn’t completely relax, but her shoulders lose some of their tension.
Liam and I exchange glances, both seeming to think the same thing. Camilla is being weird. It’s an overreaction.
What’s he saying to her now?
Maybe he offered her a big bonus. I might need one after this. Ava probably already has a figure in mind for keeping quiet.
“I think everyone should stay in the hotel. Gibson and I can do a sweep of the park for Will,” Reeve says.
“No, you need to try getting us back online,” Malcolm says. “Gibson, James, and Liam can do a sweep of the park and continue looking for Will. I’ll try to reach a couple of contacts.”
“I’ll come,” I say, not loving the “women stay inside and men do something worthwhile” thing.
“Actually, I could use your help, Paisley,” Reeve says. “You’ve been in the security room, after all.”
“Um. Okay.”
I wasn’t allowed to touch anything, so I’m not sure what help I could be.
“All right. Reeve, you take Paisley. Camilla, you stay here and keep an eye on Harper and Ava. Call for Kenna too. We’ll all meet back here. James and Liam, stay with Gibson. Everyone needs to keep their radios on.” Malcolm nods, almost to convince himself that his plan is the best way forward.
“No one is to go anywhere alone,” Camilla says. “Not after Will…”
My stomach twists into a big knot at the thought of something happening to him, but it must have. He wouldn’t still be hiding if he was playing a prank.
So where is he?
James and Liam mentioned falling into the sea. There’s a wooden railing around the perimeter for safety. He couldn’t have stumbled into the water accidentally.
“Maybe you should check Will’s room again, Camilla, while you’re getting Kenna. It’s a long shot, but I don’t want the boys running around the park if Will is back here,” Malcolm says.
She gives me a small, pitiful smile. Camilla has written Will off already. I won’t give up hope that he’s okay until I see evidence that he’s not.
“You really think he would’ve gone back to his room?” Ava says. “And what, be sitting there watching Netflix and eating peanuts?”
I’m glad Camilla only made coffee for Malcolm, because I would have thrown mine all over Ava’s perfect pale-pink outfit.
“Maybe he went back for his phone,” I say through gritted teeth.
“That’s a good point, Paisley…and Malcolm. We’ll check,” Camilla replies.
I smile at Ava—sarcastically, of course—and she turns away.
“Let’s all get going,” Reeve says. “Paisley, I just want to run out and check the jetty first.”
Our three groups split up again. Camilla’s heading for the staff side of the hotel. Gibson’s going East. Reeve and I walk toward the lobby door.
“What do you want to see down there?” I ask, hesitating. “We already know that the boat’s gone.”
“We do, but I want to figure out if the boat sunk or was stolen. We know that for sure, and we’ve at least solved one mystery.”
He makes it sound fun. Like we’re at a murder mystery party.
I’ve not failed at one of those yet.
I start walking again. We take long, purposeful strides and reach the jetty fast. “You think if we can raise it, it’ll work again?”
He shakes his head. “There’s no way we’d ever get something like that out of the water.”
“So, we’re trying to work out if this was someone on the island trying to hurt us or a series of events brought on by the high wind last night? The boat sinking after being caught in rough waves and the wind knocking out the service?”
“Precisely.”
“There must be another way out of here,” I say.
“Rowboats. Six of them in storage near the service jetty. Weather isn’t good enough for that. We’d be catapulted back against the rocks in seconds.”
“Are you serious? That’s our only option? What about the helicopters!”
“Not on the island. Malcolm decided to keep only the boat here. Helicopters can be here fast, but only if we can get a message to Ramesh.”
“Who’s that?”
“The pilot.”
Of course.
Reeve and I walk down the slope. I run my hand along the jagged rock of the cliff face. We walk along the jetty.
“The rope is gone,” I say, crouching down. “No fibers around the post, so it was removed, not ripped.”
Reeve glances up at me. “Good work, detective.”
I ignore him and lean over the edge. “No marks against the side of the wood, so it was probably pushed to the side. If it was sunk it might have scraped and left a trace. Water’s too deep to confirm, though.”
“You’re right. We can’t be certain, of course, but it looks like it was taken,” he agrees.
“You can’t steal a boat and stay on an island at the same time.”
Reeve dips his fingers in the water. “I wish I knew what’s going on. If we’re in danger. Let’s get back and see if we can figure out why we’re cut off.”
On the walk, Reeve radios the others and tells them what we found and our theory behind it. Malcolm seems relieved that the boat was stolen, said it means that whatever group of “random dumb kids” came out here left with his boat and theirs.
He thinks the fact that his boat was taken is proof that no one else is on the island.
I’m not so sure.
Why would anyone take a boat and just leave us here?
