Adrift on St. John by Rebecca Hale Read Free Book Online

ignoring my assistant’s instantly rebuking stare.
    Hannah slapped her hands together girlishly. “Great! When can we start?”
    She seemed not to notice the revolted expression on Vivian’s face as I hurried the two of them out of my office. No rain could wilt her effusive flower.
    As Hannah skipped down the hallway, her voice floated back to us. “I want to learn as much as I can about the island. I’ve got so many questions for you…”
    Vivian scowled at me with silent but livid recrimination. Then, she spun around and stormed off after Hannah.
    I pressed the door shut and firmly twisted the lock, breathing out a temporary sigh of relief.
    In the four years since my arrival on the island, not a single question had been raised about my assumed identity. My metamorphosis from down-and-out estate lawyer to disheveled and frequently inebriated resort manager had gone off without a hitch—until now.
    How much did this young woman know about my past? The “uncle” she’d mentioned—why had he sent her here, and what did he want?
    Even more important, I thought as I thumped the back of my head against the door, why was she using my name?

5
The Amina Record
    In the dusky basement of a New York City library, a wiry little man with thinning gray hair dyed an unnatural shade of reddish brown crept through a dusky maze of bookshelves. Humming softly, he skimmed his fingers over the spines, searching through the overloaded stacks for the Dewey decimal code number scrawled across the scrap of paper he held in his hand. It was a listing for an obscure title he’d found at the computer terminal on the main floor, several levels above.
    At last, Conrad Corsair located the item on a top shelf, several rows removed from its designated location. Standing on his tiptoes, he wiggled the book free from its wedged position, releasing a poof of dust and cobwebs. Yipping out a series of light nasal sneezes, he carried the heavy volume to a small table near the center of the basement and flicked on a reading lamp. The yellowed pages creaked as he flipped the book open to the desired selection.
    Clearing his throat, Conrad glanced around the room to confirm that he was alone. Then, with a slight pump of his eyebrows, he pulled a crumpled packet from the backpocket of his tight-fitting blue jeans and set it on the table. The paper bag rustled as he fished around inside for one of his special self-rolled cigarettes. Once he’d made his selection, he brought the lumpy cylinder to his lips, waved the flame of a lighter beneath the opposite end, and took in a deep doobie-infused breath.
    Exhaling with a relaxed sigh, Conrad unfolded a pair of dime-store reading glasses, slid the frames onto his thin face, and bent his head over the open book.
    As he began to read, the basement’s cramped ceiling faded into the pale arid blue of a cloudless sky. The dingy, graffiti-marked reading table became a dry parched savannah, framed by the purple-mounded humps of distant mountains. A hot, dry African sun burned down on the wide listless plain, wilting the field of grassy reeds, browning the scattering of scrubby, low-slung trees. What few creatures quivered beneath this searing atmosphere flattened themselves against the curve of the earth, seeking even the slightest shadow as a reprieve from the parching heat.
    A young woman’s galloping footsteps suddenly broke through the baking stillness. The calloused soles of her feet slapped against the dusty red dirt as she sprinted headlong across the savannah, hurtling down a narrow goat trail.
    The sizzling sun cooked the smooth surface of the woman’s cocoa brown shoulders, searing the tender scalp beneath her curly mop of dark hair—but the Amina Princess dared not stop to search for shade. Nothing could slow her frantic, fleeing pace.
    The woman’s eyes squeezed shut as she raced across the field. Her pounding legs needed little visual guidance for the path whose every twist and turn was etched into