Island of Bones
PRAISE FOR ISLAND OF BONES
Publishers Weekly Book of the Year
Best Mysteries of the Year Oline Cogdill
Shamus Award finalist
"Island of Bones opens like a hurricane and blows you away through the final page. It's a major league thriller that is hard to stop reading."
-- Robert B. Parker
"The tension builds to a near palpable level as the pair uncovers secrets as dark and warped as the primal landscape. World-weary, contemplative Landeta is the perfect foil for Kincaid, a true man of action. Their camaraderie, combined with Parrish's crisp dialogue and skill at stringing out the suspense, are what make this carefully constructed mystery so absorbing. Parrish's second Kincaid mystery, Dead of Winter, earned a nomination for an Edgar, and this book merits another. Anyone who has read Parrish's mysteries will undoubtedly clamor for this one."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A killer ending will have you looking forward to the next entry in the series."
— Orlando Sentinel
"Because she works in the critically snubbed thicket of original mass market paperbacks, P.J. Parrish's terrific books about Florida private eye Louis Kincaid don't always get the respect they deserve. Her latest is a worthy addition to the series. There are some striking verbal pictures of the Florida coast, especially after a hurricane, and a memorable scene on the deserted island of the title where grim truths are revealed. For the price of a fast-food meal, you can have a nourishing, satisfying reading experience that will last a lot longer." —Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune
MORE
PRAISE FOR THE BOOKS OF P.J. PARRISH
"Tense, thrilling...you're going to bite your nails!"
—Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author
"The kind of book that grabs you and won't let go. I absolutely loved it. Nobody is writing better private eye fiction anywhere than P.J. Parrish." --
Steve Hamilton
"Powerful stuff...The quiet sadness that underpins it all really got to me, the way Ross Macdonald always does. Among my favorite Florida crime writers are Charles Willeford, John D. MacDonald and Ed McBain. I'll have to add P.J. Parrish." -— Ed Gorman, Mystery Scene magazine
"A stunner of a book. Amazingly skilled at creating a sense of place, P.J. Parrish stays true to her characters. I can't wait to see Louis's growth as he learns more about the world." --Romantic Times
"A gripping and atmospheric novel that will remind many of Dennis Lehane. The author's ability to raise goose bumps puts her in the front rank of thriller writers."
— Publishers Weekly
"A wonderfully tense and atmospheric novel. Keeps the reader guessing until the end."
—- Miami Herald
"A standout thriller. It is an intriguing and atmospheric story set largely on the grounds of an abandoned insane asylum, a haunting location that contains many dark and barbarous secrets. With fresh characters and plot, a suspense novel of the highest order." --
Chicago Sun-Times
"A complex, sophisticated mystery...a guaranteed can't-put-it-down book that absorbed me as much as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." --
Triage RobertaGately.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank D.P. Lyle, MD, for his kind assistance on the medical aspects of this story. And we owe a debt of gratitude to Captain Dale K. Fewell, Ret., who patiently translated passages into Latin for us.
Experto Crede
. Also, thanks to Dave Jensen for his help with island geography; Linda Wigginton and Alina Lambiet for help with the Spanish; Marie-Pierre Carannante for help with the French. For copy-editing help and her eternal love of commas, we salute Jean Dudley Johnson. And a big hug to Val Viglione, who knows where the bones are buried.
For my daughter Renee,
and my cave-daughter Heather
“I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark.”
-- Henry David Thoreau
P.J. Parrish Copyright© Kelly Nichols and Kristy Montee aka P.J. Parrish
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Edition: August 2013
Dark. It was so dark. She could see nothing.
But she could feel. She could feel the rain stinging her face, the trees tearing at her flesh. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, feel the life beating inside her. She could still feel and that meant she was still alive.
She kept running.
The wind was blowing hard now, making the trees twist and groan above her. The wet leaves rained down, sticking black on her bare white arms. Her feet were slippery with mud and blood.
She kept running.
Something dark rose up in front of her. The fence...she had made it to the fence. She searched the dark wood, looking for a gate. Nothing, no way out. She had to climb over.
She jumped, grabbing the top of the fence. It was jagged, cutting into her fingers, but she held on. Bracing her feet on the fence, she strained to pull herself up. Her bare feet slipped on the wet wood but she was strong. She got an arm over the top and pulled herself up. The jagged wood cut into her as she jumped down, falling and rolling in the mud. There was a gash on her arm and something burned on her right foot, but she kept moving.
Mangroves...she had
made it to the mangroves. But where was the dock? She stopped, her eyes raking the darkness.
The light. Where was the light? There was a light on the dock. She had seen it before. She had seen the dinghy there, too.
She pushed her wet hair back off her face and tried to get her bearings. Had she gone the wrong way? Everything looked so different at night. The storm must have knocked out the power. Where was the dock?
A sudden gust of wind knocked her back against a tree. Her knees buckled and she grab
bed the rough bark, pulling herself back up.
A light. The dock light! She could see it now, faintly through the trees.
With a cry, she pushed off the tree and stumbled toward the light.
She froze.
The light was moving. Jerking, swinging back and forth. It wasn’t the dock light. It was a flashlight, coming toward her.
God, not here! Don’t let me die here!
She pulled a ragged breath deep into her burning lungs, pushing down the fear that was rising in her throat. She sank back into the black mangroves, crouching in the rib cage of roots.
The beam of light grew larger and brighter. She bit down on her
lip to keep from crying and tasted her own blood. A violent clap of thunder rose above the wind. She closed her eyes.
Then, suddenly, for just a moment, the wind died and it was quiet
.
Her eyes shot open. A bump. In that one second of silence she had heard the bump of a boat against wood. Just a few feet away.
Get up! Run... you can make it! Run!
S
he could smell the water now and she moved toward it, feeling her way and stepping carefully over the high twisting mangrove roots. She could feel the cold mud covering her feet now and then the water rushing up over her ankles.
Oh, God! There it
is! The dock!
And the boat was there. She could see it, a small slash of white bobbing in the churning black water.
She looked back. The flashlight was gone. Twenty feet, all she had to do was run twenty feet out in the open to the boat. Just twenty feet and she would be free.
She crept out of the mangrove cover and into the open. Her feet hit wood and she ran down the dock to the boat. She jumped inside, pulling off the lines. She pushed the boat away from the dock, grabbed the cord on the motor, and pulled hard. It jammed.
Her eyes shot to the dark shore. Through the slashing rain, she could see the flashlight. Faint but moving again, coming toward the dock.
S
he yanked on the cord again. Something tore in her shoulder but she kept pulling. Finally, the motor sputtered to life, its whine rising above the roar of the storm.
She looked out at the water. Nothing. No lights, no land. Just the angry swirl of the night sky and the roiling black waves spitting out whitecaps.
She took one last look back. The flashlight was coming fast.
She hit the throttle and the little boat started away.
“Bitch! Where you think you’re going, bitch!”
The rain was slicing into her like knives. A flash of lightning
and for a second, she could see the huge waves, green and foaming.
Then a sharp crack of thunder so close she could feel it.
A sudden sting in her back.
A pain burning through her body like a hot sword.
She reached back to touch her back and felt something warm.
Another sharp, close crack of thunder.
She jerked as the second bullet pierced her neck.
Then it was quiet.
She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t hear anything. She couldn’t feel anything.
The motor sputtered out and the small white boat lurched sharply. A huge wave grabbed it, heaving it up
on the foaming crest and then smashing it down into the trough.
When the boat bobbed upright, it was empty.