“She was bleeding, Bruce,” Abigail said. “All down her side.”
There were footsteps again. Paul was leading Chip Ramsay to them. She hadn’t seen him since they’d landed on the island three days earlier. The large red beard was unmistakable, combined with the carefully buzzed hair. He was wearing a green silk robe and had slippers on his feet.
“Tell me what you told Paul,” he said to Abigail as a greeting, perching on the edge of a free chair.
She took a deep breath and quickly recounted her story, ending by saying again that someone needed to go to Jill’s bunk and talk with Alec, the husband. Or they just simply needed to call the police. Bruce was quiet, watching Abigail while she spoke.
“Okay,” Chip said. “I do need to ask you a couple of questions first. Are you absolutely positive that the woman you saw was Jill Greenly?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know her last name, but it was Jill from the other honeymooning couple. Married to Alec.”
“That was their name. Alec and Jill Greenly. And you’re sure it was her?”
“Yes,” Abigail said, loudly.
Chip slowly nodded, frowning a little.
“I don’t understand,” Abigail said. “Do you not believe me?”
“So, the thing is,” Chip said, “Alec and Jill Greenly are no longer here with us.”
“What do you mean?” Bruce asked.
“They left this afternoon. Mrs. Greenly wasn’t feeling well, so a plane took them both back to the mainland.”
Abigail found she was shaking her head. “No, no,” she said.
“They didn’t, or at least Jill didn’t, because I saw her tonight.”
Bruce reached over and took Abigail’s hand, and without thinking she snatched it away from him.
“I took them to the plane myself,” Chip said. “I watched it take off, and I got confirmation when they were safe on the mainland. Is there any way that you might have seen someone else, or that, possibly, you were dreaming?”
“I wasn’t dreaming,” Abigail said at the same time that Bruce said, “She’s not making this up, Chip.”
“I know. I know. I’m not suggesting. I’m just looking for a logical solution, that’s all, and one possibility is that you had a very vivid dream.”
Abigail said, “I was not dreaming. I was outside and chased Jill across the lawn and she went into the woods. I came back and woke Bruce up. Bruce, you felt me. I was cold.”
“I didn’t notice, Abigail, sorry,” Bruce said. “But let’s be logical.
Abigail says she wasn’t dreaming, so she wasn’t dreaming. What if Jill came back to the island somehow? Maybe she forgot something, or maybe—”
“I know everyone who comes onto this island,” Chip interrupted.
He rubbed at the edge of his nose with a finger.
“Then there’s only one conclusion,” Bruce said, then turned to Abigail. “You saw someone else, who looked like Jill. How many women are on this island, Chip? We’ll have to check.”
“Okay, I’ll do it. There aren’t many. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“It was Jill,” Abigail said, but she said it quietly. In her mind she was going back over exactly what had happened, trying to figure out if she could have possibly been wrong.
Bruce stood, then crouched in front of her and said, “We’ll find out what happened, I promise. We’ll figure it out.” He stood and turned to Chip, who had just stood up himself.
Abigail stood, too, hit with a wave of exhaustion tinged with nausea. “Can I call Jill?” she said, the words coming out just as the thought occurred to her.
“What do you mean?” Chip said.
“You must have her number, or the number of her husband. I want to call her, hear her voice, make sure she’s all right.”
“Sure, I can look into that. In the morning, okay? It’s three a.m.
now. Try to get a few hours of sleep, both of you, and we’ll square this all away in the clear light of dawn.”
Abigail clenched her jaw, but she was tired—how much total sleep had she had since the wedding?—and a little bit of doubt had crept into her mind. Once, as a child, she had woken up and told her parents that a large black bird had been crouched on her chest and had fled out the window after she pushed it away. It had been so vivid that she believed for years it had really happened.
But what had just happened to her was even more vivid, far more real than the bird.