Ariel presses her lips together as she shakes her head. “You’ve got to understand,” she says, and then looks back at Tech, “forty years on the run is traumatizing. Always looking over your shoulder. Wondering if anyone will recognize you.” She quiets. “Gabe was very nervous around strangers for that reason. Eventually, it got bad. So he started writing.”
This is heartbreaking. At first, I thought Gabriel had found something peaceful. Although I’m happy he had his cousin, the shadow of the Starline was always looming over him.
“In his last days,” Ariel says carefully, “he asked me to share the story with whoever came to find him.” She sniffles, her eyes glassy under the kitchen light. “And to let you know that he had a good life. It was hard, but it was good.”
Tech sits back in the chair, and when he blinks, a tear drips on his cheek. He quickly wipes it away.
“I’m sorry it took us so long to find him,” Tech says after a moment. “But I’m here now. I’m ready to hear his story.”
She smiles at this and glances around at us. I can see her pride, her love for her cousin. “I’ll go get his journal,” Ariel says, and leaves the room.
When she’s gone, Tech puts his head down on the table, seemingly overwhelmed. Jamie claps him on the shoulder, squeezing it to let him know that we’re all here for him. I can’t imagine his disappointment. All this time, we were so close to Gabriel—close to the truth.
Ariel comes back into the room and hands the journal directly to Tech. She sits down, and then, as if she already knows all the words by heart, she begins telling us the story.
“Gabriel wasn’t responsible for Florence Marston’s death,” Ariel says, as if we all agree on that point. “In fact, he was in love with her. And she loved him back. I have her letters. They had planned to run away to Naples together, but then Florence’s fiancé found out.”
“Alessandro Mancini,” I say, and she nods.
“But Gabe and Florence weren’t going to let him stop them,” Ariel continues. “It was Florence’s idea to stay at the Starline Hotel that night. Gabe was scheduled to work, and Alex was supposed to be in New York. The plan was for Gabe to take a boat, the two of them escaping into the night without any explanation, never looking back.”
“But that didn’t happen,” Tech says.
“No,” Ariel says. “Gabe was going to meet Florence in his staff room at midnight, and then they would leave together. The hotel was quiet as he made his way toward the lobby, excited. Nervous. However, the door to the staff hallway was inexplicably locked. He tried his key, but the door had been jammed. Florence was on the other side, but she wouldn’t answer. That’s when he noticed a small bit of smoke seeping from underneath. Terrified, he banged his shoulder into the door, trying to get it open. Suddenly, Gabriel was struck hard from behind.”
Smoke?I’m confused. Was there an actual fire at the Starline Hotel? I look at Tech, but he’s listening intently to Ariel’s story.
“When Gabe came to again,” she continues, “his coworker had dragged him to the service entrance. He said there had been a fire in one of the staff rooms, in his room, and that Florence was dead. He told him that two of the guests had accused him starting it… killing Florence in the process.”
“So there was a fire?” I ask out loud. “Because we didn’t…” I stop before continuing. Even here, I’m not sure it’s safe to say that we found the Starline Hotel. That we’ve actually been inside there.
“A small fire,” she allows. “From what Gabe was told, it was in the back of the hotel—localized to just his room.”
“Someone was trying to kill him,” Tech says.
“Or her,” Shawn adds.
Ariel nods at them. “Perhaps both. And in a way, it worked. Neither Gabe nor Florence ever went home again.”
“I still don’t understand,” Jamie says. “How did they get everyone to leave? To stay quiet?”
“It was late at night and the guests smelled the smoke,” Ariel says, like it’s simple. “They heard that a young, prominent woman was dead. People panicked. And as the owners got those guests safely off the island, it came with a warning. A warning to stay quiet. To walk away. Most weren’t really in a place to argue—after all, the Starline had been keeping their secrets for years. It was easy to blackmail the Collective. For the Chasers, well—many didn’t want to get involved. Call it fear, call it cowardice, call it self-preservation. Eventually, time passed and people wanted to forget.”
Jamie looks down at his hands, thinking this over. I’m reminded that in the rooms at the Starline, people’s bags were left behind. It makes sense that they left in the middle of the night, frightened. And I’m not going to judge them for not going back. I don’t know what they went through.
“So what happened to Florence?” Tech asks. “Was it an accident?”
Ariel hums out a sound, noncommittal. “Well,someonestarted that fire. But… no one saw Alex there that night. And back in Cape Hope, the story had already circulated. The family was told that Florence died in a fire, burned to ashes alongside the Starline Hotel. They blamed Gabriel Mendez, local dock worker. And no one denied it.”
“And he came here,” Tech says. “Far enough to hide, but not too far away from his family.”
“Exactly,” Ariel says. “He kept up on the coverage, but just as quickly as it was mentioned, it was gone. The story. The hotel. The island. You see, shortly after the fire, the town council began passing all sorts of flood controls and water diversions.Hundredsof them.” She nods to accentuate how strange it is. “By the next year, half the Everglades had been dredged, the water rerouted. And with it… Rum Runner Island disappeared.”
“And that’s why no one found the Starline again,” I say, turning to Tech. “You were right. They changed the waterways.”
He nods, neither of us acknowledging that we’d been there. I turn back to Ariel.
“And no one ever accused Alessandro Mancini of killing his fiancé?” I ask, incredulous. “It’s always the husband, or in this case, the fiancé.”
