Free Arcadia Awakens by Kai Meyer Page A

fingers away from his the moment she was across the narrow channel of water. She had to be careful not to cross any other boundaries between them.
    “My family’s villa is a little way east of here, farther up the mountain.” Alessandro nodded vaguely up in the direction of the lava slope. “You can’t see it from here, but there’s a flight of steps in the rock.”
    “Does anyone live in the house?” asked Rosa.
    Before Alessandro could answer, Tano got in first. “No. A couple of our employees make sure it’s all right when they come to clean up the beach.”
    Alessandro bent down and picked up a handful of sand, letting it slowly trickle through his fingers. “My mother liked the house. She often came here.”
    The second motorboat came in. Four of the yacht’s crew unpacked all kinds of stuff, spread towels over beach chairs, set up a small music system, unloaded insulated crates of chilled drinks. The steward had come ashore as well and was checking up on the four-course meal the cook had been preparing when they were still on board. Until the full meal was ready to serve, they helped themselves to assorted snacks and antipasti.
    The crew went back to the yacht where it lay at anchor in the bay. Only the steward stayed ashore, taking the first orders for drinks. Two of the girls ran out into the surf in their tiny bikinis, while the third, Tano, and the others settled down on the beach chairs.
    Rosa was standing there, not sure what to do, when Alessandro took off his T-shirt, but kept his long pants on. He was suntanned like the others, and had a fit, athletic torso. He’d obviously played sports in boarding school. With a silent sigh she decided to copy him and took off her shirt, although she felt very skinny and pale in her black bikini top. She kept her jeans on. Compared with the other girls, her hips were too bony and her thighs too thin. When she’d arrived at the airport, she had wondered whether Zoe had an eating disorder, but now, next to those three Sicilian girls, she thought she must look anorexic herself.
    “Want to go into the water?” asked Alessandro.
    She shook her head, wondering what the hell she was doing here. Out of place was nowhere near strong enough to express the way she felt.
    “Let’s go for a walk, then,” he suggested. His smile was open, but she noticed that he was on edge. She thought of what he’d said before about killers, and looked at the others on their beach chairs. The girl was rubbing in sun cream, but the young men just lay there looking out at the sea. Maybe they were watching the other two girls swimming, but you couldn’t see their eyes behind the mirrored lenses.
    Tano looked up from the MP3 player that he had just connected to the music system and glanced at Alessandro. There was a cool, calculating note in his voice. “Your father wouldn’t have liked to have an Alcantara snooping around on the island.”
    Alessandro pretended to ignore Tano, but Rosa couldn’t help seeing his features harden.
    She gave Tano a challenging smile. “Nice to know there are things here that might interest my family.”
    “Let’s go.” Alessandro touched her fingers.
    “Not too far,” said Tano.
    Rosa took Alessandro’s hand. “Shall we see how far we can go?” And she assumed such a sugary smile that it even stopped the black-haired girl’s ostentatious application of suntan lotion for a moment.
    Hand in hand they walked away across the beach, taking no more notice of what was going on behind their backs. The music began, something fifties and jazzy, Rosa thought. Not her taste, and she was surprised that it was Tano’s.
    Alessandro led her up a narrow flight of steps between black lava rocks, then over a fissured embankment, and down to the sea again. From here neither the others nor the yacht could be seen. There was no sand, only rugged rocks where the breakers cast up foaming spray.
    “Weren’t you going to the villa?” she asked.
    “In a minute.” He