Illusion (Swept Away Book 1) (14 page)

“We need to find water.” He looked down, and I could see him thinking. “We need to go to the ocean.”

“What? We can’t drink the salt water. Even I know that will kill us.”

“No, we’re not going to drink the water.” He jumped up. “We need to collect the rocks.”

“The rocks?” I froze. “Why?” I had images of him pummeling Steve—and maybe myself—to the ground. I could almost see the pools of bright red blood in the sand. I shivered at my morbid thoughts and shook my head.

“I think I know how we can get some water.” Jakob’s eyes looked at me searchingly, and I knew that he had witnessed my shoulders shaking.

“From the rocks?” I frowned. How were we going to get water from the rocks? “You’ve heard the saying that you can’t squeeze blood from a stone, right? I’m pretty sure you can’t squeeze mineral water from it either.”

“Bianca.” He gave me a wry smile. “Please, just start collecting rocks from the ocean.”

“What are you going to do?” I huffed. “I’m not your slave.”
You can tell me what the plan is; I’m not too dumb to understand,
I thought.

“I’m going to show Steve what he needs to do.” He gave me a smile and then looked down at Steve, who was watching us with a curious expression on his face. “You do agree that it wouldn’t be fair if we asked Steve to shuttle rocks back and forth, what with his bad leg and all.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to help.” Steve frowned, and I could tell that he was annoyed that Jakob had pointed out his inferiority. “I may have a slight impediment, but I assure you that I can still get the job done.” His tone was snide as he spoke to Jakob. Then he looked at me and smiled. “I can assure you, Bianca, that I’m very capable of getting the job completely done.”

“Come with me,” Jakob said, grabbing Steve’s hand and pulling him up hard. “I’m going to need you to dig a hole.”

“A hole?” I exclaimed, my mind once again drifting to thoughts of someone getting their head smashed in by a giant rock.

“Bianca, why aren’t you going to get the rocks?” Jakob snapped, and I ran toward the water.

My heart skipped a beat as I reached the water and looked back. I saw Jakob and Steve walking farther away from the water toward the sand dunes. I reached into the water and pawed at the ocean bed. Why did he want me to find rocks? And why was Jakob having Steve dig a hole? Was he planning on killing one of us and then burying the body? I looked out at the empty horizon and shuddered. What I wouldn’t have done to have seen a yacht sailing along the smooth waters in that moment, or even a young guy on a Jet Ski. I’d feel bad about leaving Steve and Jakob behind, but I’d make sure to get help.

“Have you found any rocks yet?” Jakob’s smooth voice made me jump as he entered the ocean behind me.

“Not yet.” I shook my head and went back to running my hands along the seabed. “How many do we need?”

“We’re going to need quite a few. The larger the better.”

“What for?”

“Survival.” He walked away from me. There he was with that word again. I wished he wouldn’t keep saying it. The word
survival
made me think of death, and the last thing I wanted to be preoccupied with was my own mortality right now.

I stared at his back for a few seconds before turning around.

“So did your parents have a happy marriage?” Jakob called out to me as we looked for rocks.

“I think so,” I answered, not knowing how to respond. “My dad really loved my mother. He was devastated when she died.” I felt a pang of pain in my chest as I recalled my father sitting on the couch staring at a photograph of my mother. “He never loved anyone after her.”

“So it was true love, then?”

“Yes, I believe it was.”

“It’s ironic what love can do, isn’t it?” He came closer to me.

I could see a fairly large rock in his hands, and I stilled. “What do you mean?”

“Love can make you feel like you’re on top of the world, but it can also crush you. It can crush you so that you feel like you don’t want to live.”

“I think love is what people make of it.” I bit my lower lip. “It only controls you if you let it.”

“What if external forces are making those decisions?”

“I would hope that adults could make their own decisions
when it comes to love.” I shrugged. “And if they can’t, maybe it isn’t really love.”

“It’s easy to be philosophical about love, isn’t it?” His tone changed, and he looked away from me.

“I guess so.” I stared at the rock in his hand, contemplating telling him about my father and how he’d let the loss of my mother take over the rest of his life. I loved my father more than anything, but I was still so angry at him for letting her death dictate the rest of our lives. Especially if there were signs related to her death that he’d missed because all he could think about was her grief. “So what are you going to do with that?” I asked softly, and took a step away from him. I knew that now wasn’t the time to tell him about my father’s letter. I saw his eyes narrow as I moved back, and a small smile curved on his face.

“Are you scared, Bianca?” His voice dropped, and his eyes glittered into mine as he took a step toward me.

“No,” I lied, staring at his face, trying hard not to show him that I was unsure as to how I felt about him.

“That’s a pity. You should be.” His eyes fell to my legs and then back up to my eyes. He shifted the rock into his right hand, and his left hand reached up to my face. His fingers ran down my cheek, and he sighed. “I think there’s a lot to be scared of on this island.” His thumb moved to my trembling lips, and then his arm dropped back to his side. “You shouldn’t be so trusting, Bianca.”

“I’m not.” My lips trembled as I stared at him. My eyes wouldn’t leave his face or chest, and I could feel the blood in my veins heating up.

“Keep looking for rocks. I’ll be right back.” He took a step back, and I watched as he walked back up the sand to where he had left Steve.

I shook my head as my fingers ran to my lips. I closed my eyes for a second, remembering the feel of his fingers on my lips. I groaned as I realized that I was in trouble. My tongue flicked out of my mouth, and I licked the faintest taste of him off my lips. I turned around and groaned again. I was in really big trouble. I continued looking for rocks and tried to distract my mind from my attraction to Jakob.

There had been something odd in his questioning. Why had he been so concerned about my parents’ marriage? Did he know what I was investigating? I closed my eyes and prayed that when I opened them I would be back home in my apartment. Everything was getting so confusing. At first, when I’d read through the papers I’d found in my dad’s box, I’d been bored. Then I’d read through them again, and my curious nature kicked in. There had to have been a reason why my father had thought they were important. There had been some papers related to a corporation my father had been part owner and founder of, some patents for a bunch of different inventions, and some paperwork that called for a dissolution of the company and a request for all three founders to exit the company with what they had brought to it originally. My father had wanted his patents back, Bradley was to take his money, and the third party—someone called Maxwell—was to receive only a percentage of the profits from the previous year. The dissolution had never been signed, but it was drafted a week before my mother’s death, if
the time stamp was anything to go by. There had also been a report from a private detective about my mother’s car crash. A report that suggested my mother hadn’t died in an accident, but the report had ultimately resulted in an inconclusive answer.

I thought back to the corporation my father had been a part of: Bradley, London, and Maxwell. I was pretty sure that this was the corporation that was now called Bradley Inc. I’d found the Bradleys, but I’d had no luck finding the Maxwells. Running into David and catching his eye had been the best thing I’d done thus far in the investigation, but I’d soon realized that he knew nothing about the family business. It was his brother, Mattias, that now ran the company. It was his brother who had access to all the secrets of the company. It was his brother who I had yet to see. I could find no public information on him anywhere, not even Google. This had been the reason why I’d divulged some information to David about who I was. I wanted—no I needed—to gain access to Mattias. But it hadn’t worked out that way. I was starting to wonder if fate had changed its plan for me and was handing me something on a silver platter. I took a deep breath and tried to stop my shaking fingers. In that moment, I wished that I could talk to David more than ever. No matter what had happened in the past, he would know exactly what to say to calm me down.

“O
kay, I found another two.” Jakob walked up to me with two more rocks in his hands. “You take this one and follow me back to Steve.”

“What are we going to do with them?” I asked him again, feeling annoyed and curious.

“All will be revealed soon enough,” he replied, and handed me a fairly large rock. “Let’s go.”

“I’m coming.” I rolled my eyes and followed him back to the sand.

We walked back to Steve, whose face was shining a bright red. I could tell that he was going to have a terrible sunburn on his face and grimaced as I realized that I was probably as burned as he was. My skin wasn’t used to such direct sunlight.

“How’s that hole looking?” Jakob dropped the rock on the ground a couple of feet away from where Steve was frantically digging.

“Not that great.” Steve looked surly and tired.

“We’ll help. Come on, Bianca.” Jakob dropped to his knees and looked up at me. “Start digging.”

“Digging?” I sighed and dropped down next to him. “Why are we digging?”

“You’ll see.”

“I’m tired,” I groaned and wiped a mass of sweat off my forehead.

“We need this hole to be about three to five feet, so let’s get to work.” He immediately started throwing sand behind, and I joined him. The sand grains felt cool next to my fingertips, and I dug quickly.

“The sand is getting colder and colder,” I commented out loud.

“That’s because we’re getting closer to the water,” Jakob answered and gave me a small smile.

“What water?” Steve asked, and I pointed to the ocean. He looked like he wanted to ask another question, but he didn’t. I looked up and saw Jakob giving me another small smile.

I smiled back at him and continued digging.

“Pass me the rocks,” Jakob commanded after about ten minutes of us frantically digging in silence.

“Okay.” I stood up and handed them to him with a question in my eyes. I watched as he placed the rocks at the bottom of the hole we’d dug. “What are you doing?”

“We’re creating a natural filter.” He smiled at me. “We need some driftwood.”

“Where can we get that?” I stood up. “Should I go look?”

“I’ll come with you.” Steve jumped up and gave me a wide smile.

“No.” Jakob shook his head. “Bianca will go by herself. You’ll help me pat the sides of the wall down while we wait for the wood. We don’t want the sand to fall into our water hole.”

“Water hole?” I gasped and looked into the hole we’d dug.

“If it works properly, the salt water will rise up in that hole.” Jakob grinned. “The rocks will act as a filter and should remove most of the salt.”

“Wow.” My jaw dropped. “That’s cool. I had no idea.”

“I took a survival course once.” He shrugged. “I thought the information was useless at the time. Now I’m glad I did it.”

“Of course you did.” Steve’s eyes narrowed.

“Pat down the sides of the hole.” Jakob gave him a derisive look and stood up. “You sure you’re okay to go by yourself, Bianca? I can come with you.”

“I’ll be okay.” I nodded.

“Go farther up there.” He pointed to the left. “You don’t have to go into the jungle by yourself.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do. You’re not going in by yourself.” His expression grew serious. “I’ll stay here with Steve and keep the sides solid.”

“Okay.” I stared up at him.

“Good luck.” He leaned down and gave me a light peck on the lips. His eyes were laughing at me as I pulled back in shock.

I walked away quickly, with my heart beating. His lips had tasted salty but also warm and tender. I hadn’t been prepared for his kiss. I hadn’t been prepared for how good it would feel. My whole body tingled as I walked toward the tree line in search of wood.