Poe nodded, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off me. “Was anything else destroyed, Salt? The cabinet? The furniture? The paintings?”
“No,” the caretaker reported. “Just the china.”
Poe’s lips compressed to a thin line. “Call a meeting. I want every member of the Trust in the tomb in ten minutes.”
“Of the Trust?” Demetria said. “What about the rest of us? Don’t we all have a right to know who is on the island and why?”
Poe dragged his gaze away from me. “I think we’ve put on enough of a spectacle for the barbarians in the group. Everyone, go back to lunch. I’ll take care of this.”
Okay, what were the chances? Poe and I had been joking about smashing that china all week. He hadn’t done it, had he? In some bizarre attempt to get my attention?
“Take care of what?” George scoffed. “Nothing was stolen, nothing was ruined that shouldn’t have been, if you ask me. Change the locks and call it a day. Why does everything have to be such a big deal?”
Poe whirled on him. “Because someone has been systematically infiltrating both this island and the tomb back home. I want to know who it is, I want to know why, and I want it stopped, now.”
“Why do you think it’s the same people?” I asked, baffled. Clearly, Dragon’s Head was responsible for the break-in at Eli, whereas the likely culprits here were the conspiracy theorists on the other island. I mean, if it hadn’t been Poe himself.
And now he looked back at me. “I don’t,” he said simply, then announced at large, “Ten minutes,” and walked past us all to the tomb, belying all of my suspicions. If he’d smashed the china, why would he need to see it for himself? Unless he was trying to cover those tracks and pretending to be more upset than he was. Salt hurried behind him, along with some other Diggers and patriarchs, all eager to see the extent of the damage. The barbarians and the rest of the knights clustered, whispering furiously to one another. George rolled his eyes and sat down on one of the rocking chairs, which seemed to me to be the most sensible reaction I’d seen so far. Like he’d said, what was the big deal? So a couple of really macabre bits of Digger booty got wrecked. So what?
Still, I stood there, in the middle of the path, completely unmoored. My mind spun with possibilities, lies, suspicions. Was Poe responsible for breaking the china? And if so, then why was he launching some big meeting to deal with the situation? Why would he lie like that? Why would he lie about eating that damn lobster?
And then I remembered our conversation on the moored boat that night, when he was so determined to make me believe that someone was after me and he was the only one who recognized it. It wasn’t possible that this was for me, was it? That if I saw him taking charge of the situation, directing people, acting the part of avenging angel, that I’d somehow be impressed?
No. That was way too manipulative, even for someone who’d bought in to the Digger party line.
So why couldn’t I shake my suspicions?
For that kind of vandalism, I’d expect a lover’s reward.
Had he done it hoping I’d…reward him?
A hand clamped down on my wrist. “I need to talk to you,” Poe hissed, and tugged me off the path. I had to almost run to keep up with him, and he pulled me around the back of the main house, away from any open windows, and into the shadow of its walls.
I whipped my arm back and crossed both over my chest. He stood across from me, eyes wide and disbelieving.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I snapped back.
“Why did you do it? It’s not like I care. I’m glad to see that shit gone. But how am I supposed to defend you to the Trust?”
I let out a bark of laughter. “Me? You’re kidding, right?”
“Amy,” he said, “this is no coincidence. Not after our conversations.”
“Oh, I agree,” I said, my tone dripping with sarcasm. “You practically promised me you would. For a reward.”
He did a double take. “You think I did it? That’s ridiculous. I was joking. I have a lot more respect for society property than that.”
“Oh, and I’m just the one who tosses all our traditions to the wind? That’s what you think of me, isn’t it?”
“You hardly even looked at the plate pieces Salt had. You had no interest in checking out the damage. That reeks of guilt to me.”
“George wasn’t interested, either!” I said in my defense. “Because you know what? It’s not a big deal.”
Poe clenched his jaw so tight, his cheekbones stood out like knife blades. “George,” he said, and almost smiled, though it was the scariest smirk I’d ever seen. “Of course. How stupid of me. Especially given the nature of your ‘reward.’ Tell me, was the big plate smash part of the foreplay or just something to pass the time between bouts of mind-blowing in-tomb sex?”
I gasped. Actually gasped. And from the expression that flashed across Poe’s features, he didn’t believe he’d said that, either. But almost before I had a chance to register the look, it was gone, replaced again by the cold, calculating mask.
Every inch of my face burned, but whether with anger, shame, or sadness, I couldn’t tell. I could hardly breathe, could speak not at all.
“What, no denial?” he said in a mocking voice.
“I wouldn’t dignify it with one,” I whispered, since that was the most I could manage. George was right about Poe. He was a jerk. I swallowed, and for a moment I thought I’d never done so before, it was so hard. “But because you’re about to go into that meeting with who knows what kind of theories, let me at least put your mind to rest about one thing: I never touched those goddamn plates in my life.”
And then I was back in the sunlight, back in the compound, surrounded by friends and fellow knights, but a red haze had settled over my vision. I stumbled blindly past them, shook off their hands and Amy-what’s-wrongs? and Are-you-okays? Through the compound, down the path to the beach, where the afternoon sun was already glinting on the water. But I felt cold. My shoes flopped hard against my soles and eventually filled with sand, but I kept running. Through the trees, where pine needles and bits of bark scraped at my ankles, through a grove of mangroves, where I crushed roots in my rush, sloshing through muck and onto another beach. The one where Poe had given me those swimming lessons. I must not be far from the lagoon. At the edge of the water was a large, bulky shape caught upside down between sand and shore. The skiff.
Eyes still stinging with unshed tears, I waded into the water, fully clothed, up to my thighs and yanked at the boat, tugging until I pulled it all the way back onto the shore. I found one oar stuck in the sand nearby, another flung beyond the tidemark close to the path that led back to camp. So this is where Ben and Demetria had come in the previous night. Not far from the second oar was a pile of material. The ruined sea monster costume, currently festooned with buzzing flies. I kept my distance, picturing last night’s scene in the woods.
I piled the oars inside the boat and stood, breathing hard and unsure of what else I could do. Part of me wished I could cry, just get it out, but tears didn’t come. The burning coal inside my chest refused to erupt into outright sobs.
Why? Why can he hurt me so much? Why do I care?
I wandered back up the beach and dropped onto the sand, leaning back against the roots of a tree that skirted the edge of the woods. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, but still, no tears.
I’d been the one saying over and over that I couldn’t take any of this seriously. It shouldn’t bother me in the slightest that he thought I was sleeping with George. It should even work to my benefit—proof indeed that this was nothing more than a Spring Break fling.