Adrift on St. John (8 page)

The gate attendant’s voice boomed through the intercom, providing a noninformative update to my flight’s status as the man over-occupying the next seat bent down to the floor to sift through his briefcase. A moment later, he emerged with a large manila envelope.

“Hannah Sheridan?” the man asked, politely clearing his throat.

A sudden intake of moist, moldy air flooded my lungs. I snapped shut the lid of my laptop and turned to give him a suspicious look.

My first instinct pegged him as a process server. I rolled my eyes internally. Another malpractice lawsuit, I thought grimly—that was all I needed.

After a moment’s pause, I dismissed this option as unlikely. If he were one of
those
guys, he would have already slapped the papers in my lap.

Perhaps he was from the state bar’s ethics committee, I considered ruefully. They were due to issue their ruling on the latest complaint against my law license any day now…

But, upon consideration, this too, I rejected. The bar wouldn’t have sent someone all the way to Miami just to deliver that news in person, and it was too soon for the Florida boards to have caught onto my activities in their state.

Hmm, I mused, tapping my fingernails against the metal surface of my computer. Maybe he was some sort of petty-crime bounty hunter, cashing in on the stack of unpaid parking and speeding tickets registered to my name.

The possibilities were numerous, I concluded with a sigh, and none of them promised a pleasant outcome. This ballooning walrus of a man had caught me at a point of minimal resistance. Whatever bad news he had to dump on me, there was no point in trying to avoid it. If this poor fellow had tracked me all the way through the airport’s maze of dusty construction detours, I supposed he deserved to deliver his coup de grâce.

Nevertheless, I glanced down at my feet. Both shoes were kicked off. I was ready to run if necessary, and I stood a greater chance of escape without the high heels. Clutching my laptop with one hand and the handle of my roll-around with the other, my face flattened into an acquiescent grimace, and I nodded my confirmation.

Yes, he’d found Hannah Sheridan—at least some depleted version of her.

“Please, I have something for you,” he said in a measured, even tone. “A proposal I think you might want to consider.”

I stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Please,” he repeated. “Take a look. I think you’ll be surprised.”

Skeptically, I took the envelope. Pursing my lips, I pulled open the end flap and slid out the contents.

The papers inside outlined an unusual offer—one unlike any I had ever seen or imagined.

It had to be a joke, I reasoned, and glanced around the terminal, expecting to find someone smirking in a corner.

There were no obvious suspects; the area was a typical sea of introspection. Cell phones, tabloid magazines, and any number of handheld devices dominated the landscape. I was surrounded by strangers, each occupied by one means or another of self-amusement.

I returned my gaze to the puffy-faced man seated beside me. How had he located me, I wondered, and what was the catch? More important, what did he stand to gain?

He noted my perplexed expression and cleared his throat.

“I had someone else in mind for the job, but she fell through at the last minute.”

A puzzled stare was all I could muster. He tried again.

“I need someone on the ground there…someone with your skills.”

“Skills?” I asked dubiously, finally finding my voice.

“Yes,” he replied calmly. “Your legal training, your”—he paused and raised a suggestive eyebrow—“adaptive abilities.”

I squirmed uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair. Clearly, this guy knew far too much about me and my slightly illicit operations.

As it became harder and harder to pay my bills, I had slipped into somewhat less than honest and aboveboard relations with my clients. A couple of my creative variations on the truth had come back to haunt me—to be honest, the California malpractice suit was the least of my legal troubles.

The man gave me a reassuring smile and nodded at the
papers I’d removed from the envelope. “Take a close look. Let me know what you think.”

As the rain continued its numbing patter against the windows behind my seat, I returned my attention to the short sheaf of papers and began studying the details. The pay was minimal, but housing and meals were included; the scenery, it went without saying, came for free. When it came right down to it, what else did I really need?

I found myself giving the proposal serious consideration. The more I thought about it, the more the idea gained in appeal. Assuming false credentials wasn’t exactly new territory for me. Stepping into another person’s dream job on an idyllic tropical island where cell phone reception was spotty and pantyhose were a rare, even extinct invention—what was the worst that could happen?

“Penelope Hoffstra,” I murmured out loud, trying the name on for size. It was almost like slipping into a new pair of clothes. The moniker felt a little stiff at first, but it softened to my shape the more I repeated it in my head.

I avoided asking myself what might have occurred to the real Penelope Hoffstra that would have left her so conveniently unavailable for this assignment.

Desperate times call for blind leaps of faith. If it didn’t work out, I told myself, I would simply head for home after a much needed week of sunny rest and relaxation; I could regroup and remake myself from there.

And so, strange as it may seem, at the end of my conversation with the mysteriously marshmallowing man, I took the package from him, walked up to the ticket counter, and changed my destination to STT, the airport code for St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

That had led to the best four years of my life, I summed up as I glanced across my office to the balcony doors and the tropical surroundings beyond. I wasn’t giving up this gig without a fight.

Once more, I replayed the morning’s conversation in my head.
Try as I might, I couldn’t dismiss the interaction as one of luckless coincidence.

“Hannah Sheridan,” I repeated warily.

The young woman’s presence here at the resort was meant to send me a message, to provoke a reaction. Someone—most likely, my large friend from Miami—had sent her here.

I slid behind my desk, pulled open the bottom drawer, and retrieved my not-so-secret bottle of Cruzan rum. After a deep steadying gulp, I marched resolutely to the door of my office.

The next step was to figure out why.

7

A short distance offshore from St. John, a white catamaran motored across the Pillsbury Sound, heading toward St. Thomas. The current splashed against the red-painted lettering on the side of the boat and the words that read WATER TAXI.

Twenty minutes later, the vessel angled around the island’s craggy bottom lip into Charlotte Amalie’s protected harbor. Slowing to an idle, the boat pulled into an open slot along the waterfront near the mint green block of the Legislature Building.

The brawny captain swung himself down from the upper deck and tossed a heavy rope around the nearest concrete piling. Following the rope onto shore, he pulled the boat up against the side of the wharf. With expertise gained from years of repetition, he quickly cinched a knot in the line and slipped a lock around the mooring.

His boat secured, the captain set off across the shoreline’s main thoroughfare. Selecting a narrow road heading inland, he tromped up the incline through the downtown area, his worn flip-flop sandals popping against the rough asphalt. Past Fort Christian’s bright red edifice, he veered right to
cut through the edge of Charlotte Amalie’s primary public green-space, the Emancipation Garden.

At the opposite side of the park, the captain’s path turned sharply steeper. A sheen of sweat broke out across his dark chiseled face as he labored another block up the hill to his destination.

Built in the 1860s, the three-story Government House held the main offices for the Territory’s governor and much of his cabinet. The ornately decorated interior showcased several paintings by Pissarro, a native of the island. A white iron railing formed a delicate trim around the building’s front porch and balcony, which looked out across the hillside to the cruise ships docking in the harbor below.

The captain wiped a dingy handkerchief against his brow as he skipped up a short flight of red-carpeted steps into a wood-paneled foyer. He was recognized at once by the receptionist, who ushered him toward a mahogany staircase leading to the building’s second floor. At the top of the stairs, she led him down a hallway into the governor’s well-appointed office.

Wordlessly, the captain took a seat at a small oval table, next to the governor’s other guest, who had arrived a few minutes earlier. The receptionist discreetly departed, shutting the office door behind her.

The governor waited until he heard the receptionist’s footsteps treading down the staircase before he opened the meeting.

“Thank you both for coming this afternoon,” his deep, gravelly voice intoned.

Then, he turned toward the first guest and asked with thoughtful curiosity, “Please, tell me more about this Amina Princess.”

8

I cracked open the door to my office and, after confirming that the hallway outside was clear of the perplexing Hannah Sheridan, headed for the exit at the end of the corridor. A concrete stairwell attached to the outside of the building led down to the first floor and the resort’s main administrative suite.

Generally, I avoided Vivian’s frigid lair of purposeful efficiency, lest she use the opportunity to coerce me into doing some manner of substantive work. But, given that she would be tied up with Hannah’s orientation on the opposite side of the resort for at least another hour, I proceeded without hesitation into her office suite—for once, without first conjuring up a ready excuse as to why I was immediately needed elsewhere.

I wrapped my fingers around the door handle and steeled myself for entry. Vivian controlled the thermostat on the opposite side of the glass. For a person who’d been born in the tropics, the woman had an unnaturally strong preference for cold environments.