R.J. smiled. “So what happens now?”
“They’ll fine you over that dog Nezbit used to torture. Poor thing was probably glad to die.”
“How is Phyllis Vancurren involved in all this?” R.J. asked.
Gideon shrugged. “She was told to be very nice to R. J. Brompton. They wanted to put him— you—in the jail upstairs in her house so you couldn’t escape. She was told that Brompton was known to be ‘a great cocksman,’ so she was allowed to seduce him.”
Sara gave R.J. an I-told-you-so look, but he ignored her as he put the platter of fish on the table.
It was when young Gideon got up from the chair that Sara saw the scars on the back of his legs. His trouser leg had caught on the bottom of the chair and ridden up to expose a few inches of skin. When he saw Sara looking, he brushed his trousers down.
“I have to get the twins,” Gideon said, then quickly went out th
e door.
“Did you see?” Sara whispered to R.J.
“Yeah, I saw. Don’t mistake his niceness. There’s enough hatred in that young man to start a war.”
“Or to kill someone?”
“Easily.”
“But he stays here to take care of the little kids.”
“Yeah, maybe. But if Nezbit was out of the way, he’d be free to leave the island and take the twins with him—if that’s what he wants to do. I’m not so sure.” He looked at the door when he heard voices.
“I like him and I vote that we tell him about Nezbit being dead,” Sara said. “Gideon is the first person on this island that I’ve thought couldn’t possibly be a murderer. The rest of them …” She rubbed her arms as she thought of the people they’d met so far. “We need help and we need it quickly. We don’t have much time. I expect sirens to go off any second because they’ve found the body and they’re searching for us.”
“I’m sure everyone on this island knows exactly where we are.”
“That’s reassuring.” When the door opened and Gideon came in with the twins, Sara stopped talking. Both she and R.J. watched the young man with the children. The love he had for them was evident. He sat them at the table, with big pillows on the chairs so they were high enough, then carefully pulled every bite off the fish to make sure there were no bones.
Sara watched the four of them at the table for about five minutes, then that’s all she could stand. All of them were nibbling on the remains of a few fish, but nothing else. To the right of the cookstove was a tall cabinet with a cotton curtain hanging across it. She could see a bag of flour peeping out of a corner and next to it was a can of baking powder. Getting up, she went to the cabinet and, without asking permission, she flung back the curtain. Everything she needed was there.
“Peel a dozen of these,” she said to R.J. as she handed him a bag of store-bought apples. She was glad she wasn’t going to have to deal with the hindquarters of some recently slaughtered wild animal.
“And, Gideon, take those children and a bar of soap outside. They don’t sit down to my table until they’re clean.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, then grabbed a child under each arm and hurried to the door.
“Heterosexual,” Sara said, staring at the closed door.
“What?” R.J. whispered.
“Gideon is heterosexual. The way you tell for sure is to say, ‘If you’ll go outside and set yourself on fire, I’ll cook.’ Straight men will say, ‘Where are the matches?’ Gay men— Hey! Are you listening to me?” R.J. had a glazed expression on his face that she’d never seen before.
“You can cook?”
“I had to if I wanted anything to eat. Are you just going to sit there or are you going to help me?”
“Do with me what you will,” he said, and in the next second he was peeling apples. “Wow, you can cook,” he kept saying.
She pointed a long knife at him. “When we get back to New York, if you ever expect me to cook anything for you, I’ll—”
He grabbed her hand and quickly kissed the back of it. “Never. I promise. Never.” For a full minute, he was silent as he peeled apples, then he said, “What kind of things can you cook?”
“If you fall in love with me I’ll have to get a new boss,” she said, mimicking his earlier phrase, then they looked at each other and laughed.