She nodded at the distance behind my shoulder. “Your friend.”
I spun around and saw Dex standing in the forest, his dark figure half–hidden by the trees, watching me. It had been awhile since Dex had given me the creeps like that.
I turned back to look at Mary but she was gone. I was alone on the beach.
I looked back at Dex and walked toward him, mulling over what had just happened and what he had seen. Had he seen Mary? Or had he seen me talking to myself like I had feared? No wonder Mary said he thought I was sick in the head.
I stopped a few yards away from him, trying to suss him out. Technically I should have been rightly pissed off at him leaving me in the woods like that, so I went with that emotion.
“What the hell, man? Way to leave me alone in the woods like that,” I said, crossing my arms.
He frowned and stayed suspiciously silent.
“Why are you just standing there like a creeper, huh? What’s your problem?” I asked.
He seemed to snap out of whatever it was clouding over him and looked apologetic.
“Sorry. I thought I saw something.”
“Thought you saw something? Dex you took off, didn’t even bother to check if I was behind you. You know I can’t keep up with you!” My voice was shrill as the indignation I felt earlier came back. “What happened to all that shit you said about having my back, huh?”
He puffed air out of the corner of his mouth and threw his hands up in the air. “I’m sorry, OK? I thought you were able to follow. I didn’t go that far but by the time I came back you were gone. Look, I’m really sorry.”
I didn’t like this at all. And I was starting to lose my trust in him. Sure, Mary’s words were floating around in my head, which didn’t help, but the fact was he had just promised to never leave my side and then went against his word only an hour later.
He came out of the trees and walked up to me. I stood my ground.
“What the hell were you chasing anyway?” I growled.
“It was a deer,” he said, chagrined. He rubbed his chin and looked away. “I know, I’m an idiot. If it makes you feel any better, I got totally lost trying to get back to the campsite.”
“That’s because someone switched the markers,” I said. “How did you know to find me here?”
“I heard your voice. What do you mean someone switched the markers?”
“I mean what it means. Someone switched the markers. If it wasn’t for where you threw the cigarette package, I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“So that’s where that went,” he mused. “I was trying to do a Hansel and Gretel trail.”
I looked up at the sky and the waving tree tops treetops. The night was coming in fast.
“We’ll get going,” he said, taking my arm. I flinched a bit. “What, you hate me now?”
I didn’t hate him. I was just annoyed. I felt like he totally interrupted my time with Mary, as silly as that sounds. And I wanted to talk about it with him but knew he probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.
I shrugged him off and began the slog up the coast, back to the campsite. We didn’t say much to each other, except near the end.
“Who were you talking to on the beach?” he asked hesitantly. I could tell he had wanted to ask me the entire journey. I gave him a quick look. He seemed more curious than concerned. Still, I didn’t want to give him any reason to worry.
“I was talking to someone?” I repeated casually.
“Yeah. But I didn’t see anyone else. I was watching you for a couple of minutes.”
“Watching me? That’s creepy.”
“No, you’re creepy.”
I stopped in my tracks and raised my brow incredulously. “I beg your pardon?”
He stopped too and started fishing around for his gum, avoiding my eyes. “Sorry.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, daring for him to meet them. He didn’t. He popped the Nicorette in his mouth, three pieces at a time, and slowly chewed them, keeping his eyes on the space above my head.
I let out an angry sigh, not wanting to deal with him or what he thought of me. We got back on our way, easing into the campsite just as the clouds turned black and the light of day was gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dinner was another lazy mess of a meal. Dex threw some of the bacon he had made earlier into some penne pasta and called it a day. That was fine with me. I should have been absolutely starving from the day’s events, not to mention the constant battering from the weather but by the time the dish was in front of me, I could barely bring myself to eat it.
He also made some coffee to keep ourselves us warm; of course, we mixed the coffee with Jack Daniels and creamer. Sounds disgusting but it took the edge off while sharpening my mind at the same time.
We sat in relative silence, one more uncomfortable than usual. Dex flipped through the books about the island, though I could see from his ADD eyes that he wasn’t really absorbing anything in. His mind was elsewhere.
So was mine. It was Mary I kept thinking about. And why not? Whether Dex saw me talking to myself or not, the fact was Mary had been there. I had felt her. I could hear her voice in my head. The details of her skin. The cracks in her one lens.
If Mary and John had a child together, why did John tie her up in the woods? Sure, I could understand the scandal. But so would Mary. Why would John do something like that to the mother of his child? Then again, Mary had called him her “friend.” Not her boyfriend or husband or partner. There was so much more to this that I needed to know.
Especially if John and this San person were here on the island. If John could switch markers around, couldn’t he harm me or Dex? If he was as solid as Mary and really meant to keep us here, what could we do to stop him? He could be watching us right now, hidden in the shadows of the trees, away from the light of our lantern.
A shiver violently rocked my body at the thought.