Mega 5: Murder Island Read online

  MEGA 5

  Murder Island

  Jake Bible

  Copyright 2016 by Jake Bible

  www.severedpress.com

  Chapter One: A Three Hour Tour

  The yacht—a fifty-five foot Beneteau Sense sailboat christened The Spoiled Cheat— eased into the cove, the man at the helm laughing with the woman standing next to him. He picked up a pair of binoculars and scanned the small, white sand beach that lined the cove like a hint of skin peeking out from the dark green skirt of the jungle that framed the area.

  “It’s a deep cove,” the man said, handing the binoculars to the woman. “Great swimming, and I thought I saw a waterfall through those trees. Take a look and let me know what you see. If we have fresh water, then we can stay here for a couple weeks before moving on.”

  “A couple weeks?” the woman sighed. She scanned the tree line with the binoculars then set them next to the wheel. “Yeah, I see water in there. But is that good? I don’t know if I can take a couple weeks with Nivia and that guy she brought. A couple weeks, really, Van?”

  “Come on, Tessie,” Van said, turning to look at her, a pleading smile on his face. “She’s my sister. And that guy is her new husband. He isn’t that bad.”

  “He’s pretty bad,” Tessie said.

  Tessie stood with her hands on her hips. Late twenties, skin a dark tan from both genetics and the sun, black, kinky hair twisted up into a thick bun on her head, and blue eyes that shone from her dark face like jewels as exotic as the location around the yacht. Her hands did not move from her hips until Van nodded.

  Nowhere near as tan as Tessie, since his heritage was obviously of the Scotch-Irish persuasion due to his bright red hair and similarly colored neatly trimmed beard, Van held out his arms and pulled Tessie to his chest. He was also in his late twenties, muscular, fit, but fighting the inevitable widow’s peak and bald spot that his maternal grandfather had gifted him. Tessie tensed at first then eased into his embrace and he kissed the top of her head.

  “We have Frank and Bart to keep us company if you want to ignore my sister and Kyle,” Van said.

  Tessie giggled. “Can those two sound any more like wild west outlaws?”

  “I can try,” Frank said as he stepped onto the open cockpit. “Howdy, y’all. You two fine looking folks gonna get naked and dive into that deliciously blue water with me and my pardner here?”

  “That was the gayest outlaw I have ever heard,” Bart said as he joined his partner, giving the short man a wet kiss on the cheek. He wiped it away, rubbing back and forth over Frank’s cheek. “But I do think the stubble makes you look dangerous.”

  Tall, thin, with skin five shades darker than Tessie’s, Bart was an angular and beautiful man that used his looks to fill magazine spreads for high-end fashion designers. He leaned in for a two-cheek kiss from Tessie then smiled wide at Van.

  “Hello, my gorgeous people,” Bart said and turned to look out at the cove. “My Lord, Van, you do know how to pick them. Doesn’t he, Franky love?”

  Frank, on the other hand, was as close to Jersey Italian as a person could get—short, olive complected, wiry black hair that sprouted from everywhere, and a hooked nose that would have made ancient Rome jealous. But his eyes were a gold that held everyone in their thrall and his face was nearly as beautiful as Bart’s.

  “Van has a way with navigation,” Frank said. “He always knows how to find treasure when there’s treasure to be found.”

  “I found this one,” Van said and gave Tessie’s butt a soft pat.

  “Dear Lord, there had better be an open bottle of wine to go with that cheese,” Bart said. Tessie pointed at the ice bucket with the just-corked bottle of chardonnay. “Oh, praise be to the grape gods!”

  He poured a glass for himself and one for Frank then settled in on the bench closest to where Van steered. He plucked sunglasses from off the top of his tight-cut black, but bleached hair and stared out at the sapphire cove. “Are you going to anchor this thing so we can get naked and swim or what, Van love?”

  “I’m setting us right in the sweet spot,” Van said, guiding the yacht over towards a short cliff that edged the left side of the cove. “This will give us some afternoon shade when we want to cool down and take long naps up on deck.”

  “He can read minds,” Frank said, joining Bart. “Long naps are my specialty.”

  “Speaking of naps,” Tessie said. “Are Niv and her nerd awake yet?”

  “Oh, they are awake,” Bart laughed. “But they certainly aren’t out of bed. Why do you think we came up to join you people? They are making enough noise down below that I’m afraid they’ll punch a hole in the hull.”

  “Great,” Tessie said. “I was going to shower and then lay out for a while. I guess I’ll skip the shower. I do not want to walk past their cabin to get to ours if they are going at it.”

  “Going at it is a mild way to put things,” Frank said. He gestured out at the cove. “Why shower, dear? You have all this water that can wash away your troubles. In fact…”

  He downed the wine and handed the glass to Bart then started to strip off his clothes. More dark hair made an appearance until he was standing there naked, looking half-gorilla and half-man. He gave Tessie and Van a wink, leaned in and kissed Bart’s nose, then hurried out across the deck, diving over the side of the yacht as an ecstatic cry left his lips.

  “I better join,” Bart said and was naked and leaping into the water before Tessie could even start laughing.

  “They have a point,” Van said. “It would almost be blasphemy to wear anything in water that clear.”

  “You just want to see me naked,” Tessie said as she began to undress.

  “Yes. Yes, I do,” Van said. He pulled his shirt off and tossed it onto the bench seat where Bart had just been. “Join the boys, and I’ll be with you as soon as I drop the anchors.”

  “Hurry,” Tessie said, her skin glowing in the South Pacific sunlight. She gave him a hip shake then a suggestive smile. “I may get bored swimming around with just a couple of gay men to keep me company.”

  “Five minutes, tops,” Van said.

  “Five minutes,” Tessie said then was gone, running and diving overboard, her body lost from Van’s sight.

  “Yes, this cove will do just fine,” Van said to himself as he cut the engine and locked the wheel, ready to drop the four anchors the luxury yacht was equipped with so it stayed exactly where he wanted it to stay.

  ***

  Nivia bit down on the pillowcase, her screams of pleasure muted only slightly as her hips bucked up towards Kyle’s head that was completely occupied between her legs. Her fists pounded down on the mattress over and over until she gasped so hard that she thought she would never breathe again. Then her entire body went slack and she let the pillow fall away off the bed.

  “Holy shit,” she gasped as she ran her fingers through Kyle’s long blond hair. She’d been meaning to tell him to cut the locks, since she had never been too keen on the hippie/nerd look he had going, but at that second, she could care less if his hair was long or dyed fluorescent green. “Holy shit.”

  Kyle looked up from between her legs and gave her a huge smile. It was that smile, plus his innocent good looks, that had attracted Nivia to him in the first place. At no time would she have thought she would have fallen in love with a Silicon Valley nerd, but that smile was game over the second he turned it on her at that San Francisco coffee shop.

  “You have a skill,” Nivia said, reaching for him. He crawled up next to her and she shifted her sated body against his. The heat between their sweat-damp bodies was intense enough to almost fog the two portholes above their bed. “Don’t you ever leave me.”

  Early twenties, and just as ginger
as her brother, Nivia was at least gifted with skin that didn’t burn like crepe paper under a flame when she stepped into the sun. It was as if all the freckles she was destined to have had come together to give her a red-skinned tan. She stretched and kissed Kyle’s bare chest before closing her eyes and sighing with pure contentment.

  A couple years older, Kyle was a California surfer boy all the way. Except for the myopic squint that never seemed to leave his face even when he wore his contacts. The squint was just a professional side effect of hours upon hours, days upon days of coding he had done for nearly his entire life. But his coding days were done, having just sold his tiny tech company for a sum that would allow him to live on yachts the rest of his life without ever thinking about balancing a checkbook.

  He kissed the top of Nivia’s head then closed his eyes. They popped open when he heard the splashing from outside the yacht followed by Tessie’s high-pitched laughter. He could just hear Bart and Frank calling to her, but the hull was thick enough that their voices were whispers on wind.

  “Your sister-in-law doesn’t like me,” Kyle said.

  “Not my sister-in-law,” Nivia said. “She won’t marry Van. She says they can have kids, but she won’t ever get married.”

  “Whatever she is, she doesn’t like me,” Kyle said. He stroked Nivia’s upper arm with the tips of his fingers. She shivered and swatted at him.

  “That tickles,” she said, her voice sleepy and satisfied. “And Tessie likes you.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Kyle said. “I irritate her.”

  “Then that’s her problem, not ours,” Nivia said. She smiled, her eyes closed, and nuzzled Kyle’s chest. “Ours. I like how that sounds.”

  “Your folks thought we were crazy to get married after six months of dating,” Kyle said.

  “We were crazy,” Nivia said. “But I have zero doubts. I knew you weren’t after me for my money, so it was easy to be real and let my guard down.”

  “Same here,” Kyle said. “Sometimes it just works.”

  “Sometimes it does,” Nivia agreed, her voice quiet and drifting.

  There were more far-off shouts and splashes.

  “You want to go up and join them?” Kyle asked.

  “No,” Nivia replied. “You?”

  “I’m good right here,” Kyle said. “Maybe a quick nap then a swim?”

  “Mmm hmmm,” Nivia said and was asleep before the sounds were finished being made.

  Kyle kissed the top of her head again then closed his eyes and let the gentle rocking of the yacht ease him into sleep.

  ***

  A school of small, silver fish darted out of Van’s way as he swam a couple feet below the water’s surface. His lungs were starting to burn, and he knew he was pushing his limits, but he had set himself a goal of swimming to the shallows and he intended to meet that goal.

  The shallows came up at him faster than he thought, the cove having quite the dramatic drop off about thirty feet out from the beach, and Van was grateful he could finally come up for air. He gasped and wiped water from his face as he slowly made his way out of the small waves and up onto the white sand beach.

  A voice called to him and he turned, squinting into the sun. He shielded his eyes with his hands and could see Tessie waving to him far out by the yacht as Bart and Frank swam around laughing and splashing. He waved back to her then turned back to the beach to look at the sixty feet of ocean-front treasure he’d discovered.

  It was perfect.

  Hundreds of miles from civilization, and well off the normal travel lanes the leisure set took their yachts along, Van knew the next couple of weeks would be nothing short of peaceful paradise. No phones, unless he wanted to hook up the satellite phone, no internet, no TV, no radio, nothing. Off the grid in the South Pacific. Society could kiss his ass.

  He became aware that his ass was totally bare as he walked up towards the tree line. Van was more than positive that the island was uncharted and deserted, but still, it was a strange place and he was stark naked. He half-wished he’d brought a towel and a change of clothes in a dry bag, but the decision to swim in to shore had been a spur of the moment thing. So there he was, not a stitch on as he surveyed the jungle before him.

  It was nothing he hadn’t seen plenty of times. Large palms, small palms, tropical ferns, some spiky-leafed plants here and there. There was a bush of bright yellow flowers he didn’t recognize off to his left and he walked that way.

  “…ass!” a voice called to him.

  Van glanced over his shoulder and saw the shadowed dots of Bart and Frank raising their hands in the air above the water. Van turned and bent over and high peals of laughter drifted over the surf to make him smile as he leaned in and sniffed the flowers.

  Van drew his head back fast and tried not to gag. The flowers smelled like death. They stank of carrion and he had to hurry away so he could get a lungful of fresh air. He made a note to warn the others. Then tossed the mental note away as the impish thought of a good practical joke came to him.

  It wasn’t too surprising to find a flower in the tropics that smelled like dead meat. Some of the most gorgeous blooms stank to high heaven. But as the stink lingered in his nostrils, Van became sure that the yellow flower had been the worst he’d come across.

  The breeze that had been blowing stopped, silencing the palm fronds that rubbed and scratched together, allowing Van to hear the distant sound of the obscured waterfall. He tossed caution to the wind and pushed past a five-foot-high fern, stepping into the cool darkness of the jungle, exposed junk be damned.

  ***

  “Where the hell is he going?” Bart asked. “He’s gonna get a cut on his wiener from some jungle plant if he doesn’t watch out.”

  “Wiener?” Frank laughed. “Baby, that ain’t no Oscar Meyer he has there. That’s some serious man meat.”

  “My man meat,” Tessie laughed. “Hands off, boys.”

  “No, really, where does he think he’s going to go?” Bart asked.

  “Maybe he had to pee and wanted some privacy,” Frank suggested.

  “I’ve seen that man piss off the deck a hundred times since we set sail,” Bart scoffed. “Privacy is not his worry.”

  “No, it is not,” Tessie said. She began to swim towards shore. “Only way to find out where he’s going is to follow. Boys?”

  “Let’s see,” Bart mused. “Swim here with the love of my life or go ashore with the love of my life and see your boy naked. Hmm, what to do…”

  “We don’t have much of a choice, do we?” Frank said. “We have to make sure he’s safe.”

  “Yes, we should make sure he’s safe,” Tessie said.

  The three giggled and started to swim to shore.

  ***

  Van regretted the no-clothes choice. Some of the plants and ferns were downright aggressive in how tough their leaves were. He knew he’d have cuts from stem to stern for a few days after his little trek to the interior.

  Not that it was much of a trek. It only took him about five minutes of navigating the jungle before he saw the majesty of the waterfall before him. It was incredible. Fifty feet tall and crystal clear, it fell with a roar to a pool that was like liquid glass.

  The bottom of the pool was lined with iridescent rocks of turquoise and aquamarine. The churning froth from the waterfall became bubbles and foam that drifted up into the air, swirling high above the pool as the breeze grabbed them. Van grinned from ear to ear.

  “Jackpot,” Van said.

  He dove in head first, unable to resist, then came back to the surface with a cry of pain and delight on his lips.

  “Cold!” he shouted once his breath had returned. “Cold, cold, cold!”

  He hurried to the edge of the pool and scrambled out onto the dry rocks around the edge. They were warmed by the sun that beamed down through the wide hole in the jungle canopy that surrounded the pool. Van stood up to take in the sun’s heat then winced and frowned down at his thigh. There was a two-inch gash there and
it was bleeding heavily.

  “Dammit,” he said. “How’d that happen?”

  He pressed his hand to it and winced some more then took a deep breath and examined the wound. Not deep, but not shallow. He looked from the wound to the pool and saw how sharp the rocks by the edge were. He’d have to warn everyone before they tried to go for a frigid swim. Telling them to stay out was not realistic; he knew Frank and Bart would be swimming in the pool the second they saw it.

  He held the wound together with his fingers for a few minutes until he heard voices calling for him. He pulled his hand away and was happy to see the blood had slowed to a trickle. With some careful walking, he shouldn’t do much more damage. There was an extensive store of medical supplies on The Spoiled Cheat, so he’d have it fixed up in no time once back onboard.

  Van stared at the waterfall for a brief minute then turned and headed back to the beach and the calling voices

  “Coming!” he yelled and almost stumbled over a pile of weathered wood. He cursed then realized he’d found the perfect wood for a beach bonfire. Mental note made.

  There was some crashing in the bushes and he hurried towards it, wanting to get his leg fixed up before the others reached him and became distracted by the waterfall.

  ***

  Nivia let out a startled squawk as she slid the head door aside and found Tessie standing right there, arms crossed, less than pleased look on her face. Nivia wrapped the bath towel around her tighter and gave Tessie an apologetic smile.

  “We each have our own heads,” Tessie said, voice cold.

  “I know, sorry,” Nivia replied. “Kyle was in ours and the boys’ head is just gross. For two gay guys, they are total slobs.”

  “You couldn’t wait until Kyle was done?” Tessie asked, although it was way more of an accusation than a question.

  “I, yeah, sure, I could have, but…” Nivia trailed off and frowned. “You know what, Tessie? Fuck you. This is my family’s yacht. You’re a guest here, not me. If I want to use this head, or any head, then I goddamn will.”