Free Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred by Lynn Viehl Page B

years.”
    “Another thing about the deterioration of the English language to mourn.” Again he detected the note of scorn in her tone. He wondered what he had done to earn it, and how quickly he might dispel it. For some reason Charlotte didn’t like him, and that would not do at all. “Let’s have a look at the beach. We might be able to see something from there.”
    Charlotte silently accompanied him down the coral path and along a grassy trail through a dense thicket of banana trees. As they passed one ripe bunch she stopped and inspected them.
    “These look okay.” She snapped off two, handing one to him, and proceeded to devour hers in a couple of bites before taking another and doing the same.
    Her show of hunger worried him. “Isn’t there any food at the house?”
    “Enough to feed an army, but after the way they drugged us, I’m not touching it.” She sighed and tossed the peels away. “Come on.”

Chapter 4
     
    T he two bananas helped settle Charlie’s empty, churning stomach, but every step she took away from the mansion made her anger burn brighter. Although Sam seemed as surprised as she was at waking up in this tropical paradise, she still couldn’t get rid of the suspicion that he knew more than he was telling her. He’d told her he was handicapped, which he was anything but, and then there was that business on the stairs with the mask and her club.
    By the time they reached the edge of the walkway leading down to the empty pier she felt ready to explode. She took a moment to look for surveillance equipment before she turned on him. “Okay. I need to know exactly what this is about. For real.”
    “So do I.” He studied her face. “I see. You still have some doubts about me.”
    “Some?” she snapped. “I’m kidnapped, drugged, and dumped at a Club Med for millionaires. I wake up naked, with pearls in my hair, next to a cripple who is in shock from blood loss and nearly dies on me. Twelve hours later his wound disappears, and suddenly he’s not a cripple anymore. In fact, he looks like he can run the hundred in five flat and tosses me around like I’m a rag doll. So yeah, Sam, I have doubts. Not some; many.” She moved her hand horizontally from left to right. “Imagine a mountain range of doubts.”
    “Let’s walk down to the water,” he suggested. “The sound of the waves should cover our voices.”
    The pristine, powdery amber sand spoiled her attempt to stalk down the beach, and that annoyed her almost as much as Sam’s neutral expression. Once they were standing in the sea up to their ankles, she glanced back and went still.
    Only the tiered, flat rooftop of the mansion was visible from the shore, but the beach itself curved away from them on both sides, hugging the landmass in an irregular circle before it vanished behind it. The only other structure in sight was the long wooden dock. The coast and roadways she had expected to see didn’t exist, and over the very tops of the trees to the left she saw a distant green blur swaddled by ocean.
    Suddenly it made sense why she hadn’t been able to pick up any thought streams last night. “We’re on an island.”
    “That would explain why he didn’t secure us in the house.” Sam made a slow three-sixty turn. “No boats, no way for us to leave, and no way to call for help.”
    Now she noticed just how pristine the empty beach was: no litter, no lifeguard, not even a discarded cigarette butt. “Who kidnaps two strangers and dumps them in a mansion on a deserted island? And why?”
    “I wish I knew.” Sam glanced back at the house. “You said you heard a recording over the speaker in the bedroom. Was it the sniper?”
    “No, the voice was different. Educated, more polite. He also spoke Spanish and English, but his accent was strange.” She wished she could erase what he’d said from her mind, but his words still needled her. “He knew my name and yours. He called the house Séptima Casa. He said it was our new