He and his crew had arrived on the island late in the afternoon after the heads and arms of the murder victims had been found onshore.
“I don’t know how much I need to tell you all about the way the sea and the sand can hide evidence, or how deep the channel can be in places and how wind and weather can wreck anything on the sand. I’m telling you, here were the problems—the sand on the beach by the victims was dead dry. There were no prints. No footprints whatsoever. Obviously, someone put those bodies there. We found some smashed bracken nearby and further inland, so I’m assuming that Travis was murdered earlier, and that the killer was either Carlos Roca and he came back with Georgia, killed her, too, cut up the bodies and escaped in the night, or—there had been someone else on the island, that person had a boat, maybe something really small, got in, killed Travis, pirated Carlos Roca, killed him and the actress, and went back to pose the bodies.”
“What about the people on the island?” Sean asked him.
Jimena shrugged. “They all looked as if they were shell-shocked. Lewis Sanderson, a Bahamian national and guide, was with them, and he was in control but equally horrified. The tents the film crew slept in were all near one another. Apparently, they’d been working all day, work was over, they were about to split open some champagne, and Georgia came down the beach screaming. Sanderson said that he walked down the beach with Jay Allen and Vanessa Loren and that they found nothing—except that someone had been digging in the sand, right where the heads and arms were found later. We searched the shoreline and the surrounding water. We sent out divers. We never found the rest of the bodies, Carlos Roca or the boat. Bahamian officials questioned everyone on that island, and although it’s a sovereign country, the Bahamians invited the FBI in and their men questioned everyone involved, as well.”
“So what did you believe in the end?” Liam asked him.
“Let’s see…one woman told me that alien monsters lived in the Bermuda Triangle and that they rose from the depths to kill. But that’s not what I believe. I believe that the most logical answer is that Carlos Roca killed the actor—Travis—and came back to camp and behaved normally. Then he left with the girl, killed her, came back and staged the scene—and disappeared himself. It might have been hard for him at first. But there are a lot of places where you can go by boat, and I don’t care how any government or law-enforcement group tries—there are just miles and miles and miles of coast around here, along Florida and in the Caribbean. It’s possible to disappear. And after a few years, he could establish a new name, and eventually, people would forget to look for him.”
“What about the others on the island?” Sean persisted. Jimena frowned, having answered the question once.
“We’re working with what was left of that crew now. I’d like to know what you thought of all of them—and if you think it was possible that whoever carried out those murders had an accomplice,” Sean explained.
Jimena arched his brows. “Well…I suppose it’s possible. It seemed to me that they were all in reach of one another, but…I suppose you’d have to ask them all if they’re really certain they were all together at the times when it occurred. I know that when the investigations took place, no one suspected the survivors of being guilty.”
“That doesn’t mean that they weren’t,” David said quietly.
“Well, no, of course not. All I can tell you is that it was…clean, if that makes sense. There were no mounds of drying blood. There were no footprints, no fingerprints, and there wasn’t a murder weapon to be found, and they had to have been chopped to pieces. We searched for the boat and never found it. If you’re out with that crew and you’re the least bit suspicious, well—I’d keep one hell of a good eye on them.” Solid, experienced man that Jimena was, he shuddered. “That was one hell of a scene on Haunt Island. One hell of a scene.”
Soon after, they left Jimena, thanking him for his help.
“I think there’s something we should start doing,” Sean said as he, David and Liam headed back.
Liam looked at him sharply.
“I’ve charted a number of recent disappearances. I think we might want to make another chart and do some comparisons. You’re the only one with the contacts to do it, Liam,” Sean told him.
“All right. What am I doing?” Liam asked.
Sean explained.
“Vanessa! Vanessa!”
It was natural, of course, that the others ran after her.
She ignored them at first, running as fast as she could to the path, and then frantically searching the smaller trails among the foliage, hoping against hope that she would find Carlos, that he would be alive and real, and ready to tell her the truth about what had happened—including the fact that he was innocent.