All the times someone told her how lucky she was to be marrying into a wealthy family came rushing back in. The subtext was always that she didn’t deserve it, that she’d done something wrong to be in the place she was in. That she was a little bit of a whore. Some people didn’t even make it subtext. Eddie wasn’t being subtle.
But then she wasn’t David’s girlfriend. She was his fuck buddy until the end of this trip, and she shouldn’t be so offended.
“David doesn’t take money from them, you know,” Eddie said. “He has wealthy, powerful friends, but he doesn’t have money himself and likely won’t.”
“Then it’s a good thing I have an excellent job and can take care of myself financially.” She was done with this conversation. “Speaking of my job, I need to find a way to call back to the States. Cell service doesn’t work. I was hoping I could use your phone. Your landline.”
Eddie frowned. “Oh, there’s no phone. We had a satellite phone, but it no longer works. I think something went wrong with the company that serviced it. We’re trying to find a solution, but for now if we wish to contact someone off the island, we have to go into the small village a few miles down the road. It’s where some of the biologists stay. Sometimes you can get a signal there. But only sometimes. It’s very small. You don’t want to go there, I assure you. I don’t think it would be safe. We have radios if we need to speak with the mainland.”
That was odd since David had assured her how safe the island was, that there was no real crime. She wasn’t going to argue with Eddie though. She would simply find her own way. “Of course. I’ll talk to David about it. We’ll figure something out. I promised my boss I would check in once I got settled.”
“Well, David should have mentioned how hard communication is out here. I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he murmured.
She wanted to tell him that she would be okay, that she would find a way, but she didn’t want to tip the enemy off, and in that moment he felt like the enemy. “Well, then I’ll have to check out the pool.”
“I hope you have a lovely afternoon.” He turned and walked away, but not before picking up the picture of himself as a baby in his mother’s arms. He took that with him.
She wanted to look into him more, too.
A young woman opened the door to the room Luis was staying in, a bucket of cleaning supplies in her hand. She gave Tessa a bright smile. “Hola,” she began and then winced. “I mean, hello, ma’am. I am going to start your room soon, but I need to go into town to buy…supplies.”
Oh, she wanted to tell the young woman she didn’t have to cater to the American, that she could speak her own language, but she had to play dumb. Still, she wasn’t about to let this opportunity go by. “How long do you think it will take?”
The young woman’s eyes widened. “Oh, not long. I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so. It is close.”
“Excellent. Then you can show me the way.” She could make it into town and back before anyone knew she was gone. “I need to make a phone call, and the big boss here tells me there’s no landline.”
“Si. Yes, we haven’t had a phone since the storm took it out a few weeks ago. It’s hard to get people to work out here.” She started for the stairs, her ponytail bouncing.
Tessa followed, determined to get the information she needed.
Ten minutes later she stood in front of a small building that claimed to be a bar and a hostel and a general store all in one. And apparently they also made great empanadas. The building itself was charming, with open windows overlooking the small bay and allowing a breeze to run through the space. She’d found a group of young men sitting around a table with their laptops open, arguing over something to do with sea turtles and someone miscounting.
No danger there. Her escort, who she’d discovered was named Lara, had waved her in like she wasn’t worried at all. She’d promised to come back for her after she’d picked up her supplies.
Tessa stared down at her cell. Not even the hint of a bar.
“Lady, it doesn’t work in here. You have to go to the roof.” One of the scientists hopped out of his chair and gestured to the stairs. He was a lanky young man with dark hair and a scruffy beard that was barely short of being scraggly. But he had a wide smile and curious eyes. Even if she hadn’t seen him with the science group, she would have pegged him as some kind of an intellectual. She seemed to be surrounded with them these days. “You staying at the big house? I heard they were having guests this week. That’s pretty cool since the guy who owns the place is almost never in residence anymore.”
She nodded, taking in that information. “Yes, I’m staying with my boyfriend who’s doing some research of his own, but I need to call back to the States.”
She glanced down at the clock on her phone. It was almost two thirty, so it was pretty much lunchtime back home. It wouldn’t matter. Someone would answer their line if she could get a call out.
“Well, since they took out all comms a couple of weeks back, this is pretty much it,” the young man said. “I’m Joe, by the way. I’m with the biology department at Stanford.”
“You’re definitely studying biology and not freaking math,” one of his colleagues snarked.
Joe rolled his eyes. “I know how to count. You don’t know how to add. Sorry, we’re doing a study on the sea turtle populations on the island. The man who used to own it put protections in place on the beaches here thirty years ago, and we’re trying to prove that it’s actually changed some of the migratory habits of the animals. But we can’t because someone doesn’t know how to use a calculator.”
It was good to know that boys were the same no matter their professions. She followed the scientist up the short flight of stairs and onto the rooftop lounge. There was a bar and some tables. There was also a barbecue with the most delicious smells coming off it. “This is nice. I was told this place was sketchy.”
“Not at all,” Joe said. “I love this island. I mean, it’s small, but you can get pretty much everything you need. The island is safe. Even with the occasional treasure hunters, there’s almost no crime here. Obviously there are animals out there who will eat you if you give them a chance. There are some big snakes crawling around the interior of this island, but other than that, it’s kind of a paradise. Good food, nice place to stay, friendly people. All in all, I couldn’t have pulled a better job. I have a friend who’s in Antarctica studying penguins. She would kill to be here. The one complaint is how hard it is to get a cell signal.”
She was confused about this. Eddie had told her something had gone wrong with the satellite phone, but Lara had talked about a storm taking out the landline they’d used. “But they have phones out here, right? Or they did?”
Joe nodded. “Sure, but something happened a couple of weeks back.”
“The storm?”
“I mean that’s what they said, but it wasn’t that bad a storm,” Joe replied. “I’ve seen way worse and not had service drop. And it didn’t affect the electricity at all. We’re more used to that happening. I mean we didn’t have a single outage.”