Along Came a Spider

told him that she was fine. She had just been lost in a thought.
    Maggie Rose didn’t tell him that she’d been making up stories again, wonderful fantasies to help her escape from her pain.

CHAPTER 82

    GARY SONEJI/MURPHY undoubtedly still had his master plan. Now, I had mine. The question was: How well could I finish mine off? How powerful was my resolve to succeed, no matter what the human cost? How far was I willing to go? How close to the edge?
    The trip to Virgin Gorda began in Washington, D.C., on a bleak, rainy Friday morning. It was about fifty degrees. Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t have gotten out of there fast enough.
    We had to change to a three-engine Trislander in sundrenched Puerto Rico. By three-thirty in the afternoon, Jezzie and I were gliding down toward a white sandy beach, a narrow landing strip bordered by tall palms swaying in the sea breeze.
    “There it is,” she said from the seat beside me. “There’s our place in the sun, Alex. I could stay here for about a month.”
    “It does look like what the doctor ordered,” I had to agree. We’d soon see about that. We’d see how long the two of us wanted to be alone together.
    “This weary traveler wants to be in that water. Not looking down at it,” Jezzie said. “Exist on fish and fruit. Swim till we drop.”
    “That’s what we came here for, isn’t it? Fun in the sun? Make all the bad guys go away?”
    “Everything is good, Alex. It can be. Just go with it a little.” Jezzie always sounded so sincere. I almost wanted to believe her.
    As the door of the Trislander opened, the fragrant smells of the Caribbean breezed in. Warm air rushed over the nine of us inside the small plane.
    Everybody was decked out in sunglasses and brightly colored T-shirts. Smiles broke out on nearly every face. I forced a smile, too.
    Jezzie took my hand. Jezzie was right there — and yet she wasn’t. Everything seemed dreamlike to me. What was happening now… couldn’t be happening.
    Black men and women with British accents took us through a sort of relaxed minicustoms. Neither Jezzie’s nor my bags were searched. This had actually been prearranged with the help of the U.S. State Department. Inside my bag was a small-caliber revolver — loaded and ready.
    “Alex, I still love it here,” Jezzie said as we approached the tiny queue for taxis. Along with the cabs were a number of scooters, bicycles, dirty minivans. I wondered if we’d ever take another motorcycle ride together again.
    “Let’s stay here forever,” she said. “Pretend we never have to leave. No more clocks, no radios, no news.”
    “I like the sound of that,” I told her. “We’ll play ’let’s pretend’ for a while.”
    “You’re on. Let’s do it.” She clapped her hands like a small child.
    The island scene seemed unchanged since our last visit. This had probably been the case since the Rockefeller family began to buy up the island back in the 1950s.
    Cruise ships and sailboats were collecting out on the sparkling sea. We passed small restaurants and shops for snorkeling gear. The brightly painted one-story homes all had TV antennas sticking from their rooftops.
Our place in the sun. Paradise
.
    Jezzie and I had time to catch a swim at the hotel. We showed off a little. We stretched our bodies, racing out and back to a distant reef. I remembered our first swim together. The hotel pool in Miami Beach. The beginning of her act.
    Afterward, we sprawled on the beach. We watched the sun drop down onto the horizon, bleed into it, then disappear from sight.
    “Déjà vu, Alex.” Jezzie smiled. “Just like before. Or did I dream that?”
    “It’s different now,” I said, then quickly added, “We didn’t know each other so well before.”
    What was Jezzie really thinking? I knew that she must have a plan now, too. I figured she knew I was on to Devine and Chakely. She needed to know what I planned to do about them.
    A young black stud, muscular and trim in his white bathing suit and crisp hotel T-shirt, carried piña coladas down to our beach chairs.
    Let’s play “pretend” didn’t get any better than this.
    “Is this your honeymoon?” He was loose and carefree enough to joke with us.
    “It’s our second honeymoon,” Jezzie told him.
    “Well, enjoy it doubly,” said the smiling beach waiter.
    The slowdown pace of the island took over eventually. We had dinner at the hotel’s pavilion restaurant. More eerie déjà vu for the two of us.