Geomancist (Seven Forbidden Arts 5)

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his Bermuda shorts. “I can’t stay.” He glanced over his shoulder at the bar.

“Why don’t you put a sleeping pill in everybody’s drinks?”

“Not half a bad idea. We can recreate Sleeping Beauty.”

She laughed, but her eyes weren’t in it.

He went down on his haunches. “Hey, are you all right?”

She inhaled deeply. “Sure.”

The last time she’d said that little word to him, it was spoken with just as much deception. “My shift ends in thirty. I guess in another half-an-hour, they’ll be too mindless to notice if I slip away.”

“Fine.”

Her unfazed attitude bothered him. She should be worried, like last night, not cold and calculated with a shrug-of-the-shoulder attitude.

“Meet me on the other side of the island,” he said. “It’s a small island. It won’t be a long walk. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes if you cut straight across. Follow the path underneath the palm trees over there.”

Finally, concern flickered in her eyes. “What if Juan returns early?”

“The fishing spot is little over an hour from here. Even if they catch nothing, he won’t be back for three, minimum two hours.”

She took a sip of her drink. “I’ll be waiting then.”

“Do you have your phone?”

“No. Juan said there was no reception here.”

He checked the bars on his. “He’s right.” He didn’t like that he couldn’t communicate with her in case of a problem. “Be careful. If someone follows you, turn right back.”

She nodded but continued to stare at the ocean, her gaze far off.

He kept an eye on her for the remainder of his shift, his worry mounting. Even before he tied up the last rounds, she moved into the dense vegetation behind the bar. No one was looking. If someone saw her, they’d probably think she was going for a bathroom break, like everybody else.

The thirty-odd guests who had chosen to come on the excursion were past a reasonable state. Most of them would have trouble calling up a memory of the event the following day. Only one couple lying in the sand was still at it. They’d been fucking for the last hour. The old man had to be on Viagra. Leona was passed out on a deck chair, snoring softly. She wasn’t handling the new turn of events too well. Although she had been overseeing Juan’s functions and parties for years now, it was the first time a murder was committed on her shift. Like all of them, she was an accomplice now. He wondered how Juan would explain Jeanne’s death to the media. Maybe he’d say she drowned. Since Juan had the authorities in his pocket, he didn’t have to be concerned about an investigation or interrogation.

He left the bar to his assistant and, with a last glance to ensure no one was paying attention, took the path that crossed the island.

The farther Asia moved away from the beach party, the quieter it got and the calmer she felt. She hadn’t realized how much she needed the tranquility until she found herself alone, surrounded by giant palm trees that swayed in the wind and the silence pierced only with birdsong.

She exited from the fringe of the forest onto a rocky beach. Patches of sand lay between the rock pools of a sharp ocean bed that protruded through the shallow water of the low tide. Broken, undisturbed shells littered the shoreline, accentuating the desertedness.

At first, she kept looking over her shoulder, worried that she’d been followed, but when nothing happened, the stillness won. No one was coming after her. She found a soft patch of sand and sat down. The temperature was pleasantly warm. The air smelled of salt. The sound of the breeze and the lap of the water were soothing. She wiggled her toes into the sand, closed her eyes, and focused on the way the sun kissed her skin.

Footsteps crunched on the shells. She quickly opened her eyes. Sean crossed the beach, walking toward her. He’d removed his shirt, and his chiseled chest glistened with perspiration in the sun. A new pendant hung around his neck. When he reached her, he sat down next to her on the sand. The big rocks not only sheltered them from wind but also from view.

She waited until he’d pulled his knees to his body and rested his elbows on them, staring out at the sea, before she spoke.

“He’s meeting Godfrey soon.” After the welcome silence, her voice sounded strange to her own ears. “He’s supposed to get a call in the next couple of days to confirm the meeting time and place. Godfrey wants him to come with two guards only, unarmed. He’s asked Garcia to find out the whereabouts of Godfrey’s son, Nicolas, to use as some kind of leverage.”

His jaw bunched. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”