My feet carried me through the woods, branches striking my face and shoulders as my heartbeat banged like gunfire.
Breaking out of the jungle, I picked up the pace and ran toward the woodpile. I skidded to grab the ax, but my flip-flops slid on wet grass, and I crashed hard on my right side, my elbow driving hard into the dirt. Pain shot up to my shoulder.
“Stop!” Hunter’s voice boomed from somewhere right behind me.
“Shit.” I scrambled to my knees just as Hunter pushed his way out of the line of trees. Forget the ax. I bolted off the ground and dashed into a massive wall of greenery, hoping to reach the kitchen soon, reach the hut, reach safety… but was I safe there?
Hunter caught up to me. His hand went to my wrist, but I ducked and pivoted to the left.
“Stop running!” he shouted when we were under the kitchen tent.
I beelined for the shelf with the utensils jar and reached for the biggest knife. My fingers gripped the handle, and I yanked the blade out, tipping over the jar. Forks and spoons spilled all over the ground. I kept moving until the picnic table stood between Hunter and me.
“Stay away.” My hand stretched out with a knife at him, my pulse beating unpleasantly hard. There was no way I could out power the large man before me, but it didn’t mean I would go down without a fight.
He stilled and lifted his palms. “It’s not what you think it is,” he panted, his chest heaving.
“I saw the other grave. I stepped on it.” My right thigh throbbed with hot pain. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t bleeding, but my eyes didn’t dare shift away from Hunter. “Are you going to kill me next?”
“No!” Hunter bent and pressed his hands onto his knees, trying to catch his breath. “Shit, you run fast.”
I was the least athletic person on the planet and ran at the speed of a manatee (barely passed high school PE), but I also never had to escape a killer before. I wiped my face with the back of my free hand. “Why are you digging graves?”
“Those are not graves.” He shook his head. “You can put your knife away. I have no intention of killing you or anyone else. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have already.”
He had a good point there. I lowered my arm a degree—offering a detente.
“Okay.” I swallowed, shifting on my feet. “Care to explain what the hell you were doing?”
Scrunching his face, he said, “I’m searching for something.”
“What do you meansomething? Did you just wake up one morning and decide to dig for things?” My palm patted the cut on my thigh. It was wet. I brought my fingers up for a quick glance. Just mud. No blood.
He looked skyward for a count of three, then said, “I’m searching for treasure.”
Was he making this shit up? Just like how he joked about working for the mob.Thiscouldn’t be true.
A nervous laugh escaped me. “Treasure?”
Hunter hung his head in defeat. “Edward and I searched for it for years. Last night, I thought of a new place. I hoped I’d be done before you woke up.”
It took all my power to suppress a laugh at how unhinged and delusional this all sounded. He sounded. Frankly, it wasn’t a lousy pretext. I probably would’ve said the same thing. Most treasure-hunting stories were set in remote tropical locations, and we were on an island in the middle of nowhere. But let’s be serious. This was just too far-fetched.
I straightened, pushing my shoulders back. “I’m sorry, but this sounds like bullshit.”
“You asked what these numbers are.” He pointed at his forearm with the tattoo. “These are the coordinates. At least, we think they are.”
If I wasn’t scared to lose eye contact with Hunter, I would have rolled my eyes so far, I would have needed a surgeon to put them back in place.
“Let me tell you how I see this. You lied about what you and Edward were doing here. You lied about the numbers on your arm. So you probably lied about running a deep-sea fishing rental too.” Hunter opened his mouth to say something, but I shushed him. “You’ve lived here for five years—ifthat’strue—and you haven’t found anything? You’re either terribly bad at searching or your story is BS.”
“I did not lie about Edward’s business. TheNauti Guyis docked at the pier. At least I hope it’s still there in one piece. I moved here six years ago to help Edward. He lived here and also rented a place on Avarua. I lived on a boat. Edward passed away, and I’m changing this place to be mine.” He closed his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t tell you about the numbers or about the treasure because you are a stranger to me just as much as I am a stranger to you. And yes, six months out of the year, we were out in the water searching for the lost Treasure of Lima.”
Silence stretched between us as my mind processed this information. Either it was true, or Hunter had an insanely overactive imagination. I once worked with a software developer who came to work each day sporting a Spock costume, believing our office was a spaceship and that he was writing code to fight aliens. He was a brilliant and friendly guy, but seeing his cubicle turn into a mission control out ofStar Trekand him calling me Admiral York (Kirk–York, you get it?) was a teensy weensy strange.
My coworker had a fantasy-prone personality, but he was harmless. Perhaps Hunter had the same disorder. Or maybe he had been shipwrecked here so long (who knew how long his boat was in the water), and living alone on the island was messing with his head. Hunter might have needed a hospital bed instead of a hammock.
Taking a deep breath to bring back oxygen into my lungs and gathering myself, I put on a sympathetic but stern expression. At least, I hoped that was how it looked. “Hunter, I want to believe you, but?—”
