Page 70 of The Bridesmaid
Sliding out of bed, I shower groggily, and open my wardrobe to find an entire ensemble of outfits has been hung, complete with tags matching them to what I assume are photoshoots planned for the island. My fingers hover on a cluster that read ‘beach picnic’, with today’s date.
There’s a floaty kind of black dress with spaghetti straps and a sweetheart neckline, which would usually be much too girly for me, but overlapping bias-cut skirts at mid-calf give it a gothic feel. After a moment’s thought, I rake through a few more outfits, and pillage a jungle-print scarf from another ensemble, and hold the two together.Could work, I decide. There’s a pair of designer sandals with studs set for another day and I pick those out too, dressing with more care than usual.
I eye myself in the mirror, surprised at how much I like the look. My blue hair forms a waving cloud in the humidity, and I pin it back with the scarf. I really don’t suit this climate, I decide, noticing how my sleepy face is flushed with sun.
Picking out the eyeliner I always carry in my purse, I hesitate.The subtle make-up look that Ophelia applied yesterday didn’t looksoterrible. I approximate the toned-down colors with my own kit.Not bad, I decide, taking in my reflection. Simone would certainly have approved. She always thought I hid behind my make-up. I lift a cobweb necklace from the scattered collection in my purse and opt, instead, for a more subtle half-moon in silver.
Still struggling to wake up, I manage to vend myself a coffee from the high-tech machine, and open the doors onto my deck, letting rosy dawn cast low shadows across my room. The morning ocean is a smoky blue, deepening like a pastel wash, further out to sea.
Beneath my feet, small fish flit in and out of the stilts. The scythe shape of a shark tail flickers in and out of sight. My eyes lift to the strata of dawn colors. I sip coffee. It’s beautiful.
There’s a knock at the bamboo door and I cross the room to open it. On the other side is Fitzwilliam, looking sickeningly fresh-faced, eating some kind of tropical fruit. His thick black hair is neatly combed, pale blue eyes shining with health, and his clear skin is somehow ruggedly bronzed after a single day in the Tropics. He wears a designer-logo checked-blue buttoned shirt, cream shorts with a brown belt, and preppy deck shoes. Fitzwilliam couldn’t look more at home on a paradise island if he tried.
‘Nice outfit,’ he says. ‘You’re really getting this couture thing.’
I stifle a yawn. ‘Ugh! Can you come back more bleary-eyed?’ I tell him. ‘Don’t you even have jet lag?’
‘Don’t really get it,’ he says, taking a loud bite of the crimson fruit. ‘A morning jog tends to chase it away. I take it you’re not a morning person?’ He’s carrying a velvet pouch, I notice. Black and luxuriously deep-textured.
‘Correct. What even is that?’ I eye the pouch, snatching a packof plastic-wrapped cookies from near the coffee machine.
‘Dragonfruit.’
‘No. That purse thing.’
‘Ah,this.’ He smiles. ‘This might be the thing to buy us more time on the island.’ He holds it up triumphantly. ‘I got in early. Managed to take a look in Silky’s luggage.’
I bite a cookie. ‘Find the notepad?’
‘Maybe something better.’ He loosens the silken string around the neck and opens the bag. ‘Manacles,’ he says, drawing them free and letting them hang. ‘They’re old. Antique.And… they look just the manacles photographed in the evidence folder. After Adrianna’s kidnap. The ones she was chained to a bed with.’
I stare. In real life the manacles have an even creepier dungeon feel. Dark with age. A key is fitted to the lock, but when I turn it, nothing happens.
‘Looks like the mechanism has seized shut,’ I tell Fitzwilliam. ‘They kind of remind me of the prison cells in the caves, right?’ I suggest. ‘Old-world gaol kind of vibe.’
Newspaper images of Adrianna emerging gaunt and filthy, the safe-room floor strewn with cut hair, spring to mind.
‘There’s something very sinister about how Adrianna’s kidnapper used manacles from the island,’ I say. ‘Kind of suggests a power game. Or an obsession with the Kensingtons.’
‘What have I told you about criminal profiling?’ says Fitzwilliam dismissively. ‘It’s nothing more than conjecture. Let’s look at the actual evidence. The floristry scaffold. Manacles in her luggage. Even better news is we can search Silky’s room now. Find the sketchbook, if it’s there.’
‘We’re allowed to do that?’ The idea makes me nervous.
‘We have due cause,’ he says, ‘and technically, Mark Li has givenus permission to search the island, which you could take to include private rooms.’
I remember how fragile Silky seemed the last time I saw her. ‘I don’t feel right about that,’ I say.
‘She’s our prime suspect,’ says Fitzwilliam. ‘And I’m NYPD so I overrule you.’
As we approach the hut where Georgia and I carried Silky yesterday, I’m struck with sudden unease.
We walk the gangplank to the rustic door. Fitzwilliam knocks a couple of times. There’s no reply.
‘Hello?’ I call tentatively. ‘Silky?’
I turn to Fitzwilliam. ‘No answer.’
He nods. I push the door gently. ‘It’s not locked,’ I say, as the door opens.
