Rebel Island by Rick Riordan Read Free Book Online

called, you do what you think is best, son. I’ll back you up. The others looked to you naturally, you know. There was no doubt that you would be in charge.”
    “Thanks a lot,” I said. “And now we have a bloodstain along with a dead body. How am I doing so far?”
    Lindy patted my shoulder. “You go find that wife of yours, try to relax a little. Lock your bedroom door. I’ll call you if anything else happens.”
    “We should all stay together.”
    Lindy smiled. “Too late for that, son. These people are not the types that stay together well. Now, go salvage what you can of the first night of your honeymoon. I’ll get my gun back from Alex Huff. I’m increasingly beginning to wonder if I will need it.”

8
    Imelda watched nervously as Señor Huff ransacked the building. He muttered to himself, throwing open doors and clutching his borrowed gun. She had seen him in many moods, but never like this before.
    “Where is he?” Señor Huff growled. He pulled sheets out of the linen closet and dumped them at Jose’s feet, then moved to the next guest room and kicked open the door. “Where is the bastard?”
    “Señor—”
    “No.” Huff stuck his finger in her face. “You don’t talk to me. Neither of you.”
    Jose cleared his throat. “But, Señor Huff—”
    “Get back downstairs,” he ordered. “Make the guests some food. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear you.”
    He stormed down the hallway and left them alone.
    Imelda looked at her husband. “What do we do?”
    She was used to Jose having answers. Usually, no matter how bad the situation, he would give her a reassuring smile. She loved the way the edges of his eyes crinkled, his gaze warm and brown. He was a handsome man when he smiled.
    Now his expression was grim. He knelt and gathered up the fallen linens. “We make the guests food.”
    “Jose…please. It’s killing him.”
    He folded up the sheets clumsily and stuffed them back into the closet. He was never good with linens. That was her job, folding the corners perfectly, smoothing out wrinkles.
    “Señor Huff will survive this,” he promised. “We all will.”
    “We owe him—”
    “I know what we owe him,” Jose said. She heard the steel edge in his voice and knew better than to argue.
    “We’ll go downstairs,” Jose insisted. “And do our jobs.”
    He trudged off, not waiting to see if she would follow.
    Imelda hesitated, staring into the empty guest room. It was room 207. It hadn’t been used in weeks. Every day, Imelda would go in anyway to dust and fluff the pillows. She would open the window to let in fresh sea air. She loved empty rooms. They were clean and full of promise. They had no past. Unlike their own room. Terrible memories could not be smoothed out. They couldn’t be neatly folded and tucked away.
    It had all started to go wrong last fall, when the visitor arrived from the mainland. That day, she had known their lives would be shattered yet again. Their hopes of finding peace would be dashed.
    She gathered her strength. She could not give up now. The young man, Señor Navarre, might be a new opportunity. She would know, soon enough.
    She closed the door of room 207 and followed after her husband.

9
    I should’ve followed Lindy’s advice and gone straight to my honeymoon, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Jesse Longoria’s body in the cellar.
    In the hall, I ran into Garrett, who was hand-walking down to check on me.
    “Got worried,” he told me. “Lane said something about a bloodstain.”
    “Is Maia all right?”
    Garrett shrugged. “She’s calming Lane down. Rather have that job than looking for you, little bro. Lane’s a lot hotter.”
    “Don’t even think about it.”
    He gave me the innocent eyes—a look Garrett doesn’t do very well. “Can’t a guy want to comfort a young lady without people getting ideas?”
    “No. Now come on.”
    “Where we going?”
    “To visit a dead man.”

    It was rare for a house on the Texas