1

      It was a skull.

      That much Beth Anderson knew after two seconds of dusting off bits of dirt and grass and fallen palm debris.

      “Well?” Amber demanded.

      “What is it?” Kimberly asked, standing right behind Amber, anxiously trying to look over her shoulder.

      Beth glanced up briefly at her fourteen-year-old niece and her niece’s best friend. Until just seconds ago, the two had been talking a mile a minute, as they always did, agreeing that their friend Tammy was a bitch, being far too cruel to her best friend, Aubrey, who in turn came to Amber and Kimberly for friendship every time she was being dissed by Tammy. They weren’t dissing anyone themselves, they had assured Beth, because they weren’t saying anything they wouldn’t say straight to Tammy’s face.

      Beth loved the girls, loved being with them, and was touched to be the next best thing to a mother for Amber, who had lost her own as an infant. She was accustomed to listening to endless discussions on the hottest music, the hottest new shows and the hottest new movies—and who did and didn’t deserve to be in them, since the girls were both students at a magnet school for drama.

      The main topic on their hot list had recently become boys. On that subject, they could truly talk endlessly.

      But now their continual chatter had come to a dead stop.

      Kimberly had been the one to stub her toe on the unknown object.

      Amber had been the one to stoop down to look, then demand that her aunt come over.

      “Well?” Kim prodded. “Dig it up, Beth.”

      “Um... I don’t think I should,” Beth said, biting her lower lip.

      It wasn’t just a skull. She couldn’t see it clearly, there was so much dirt and debris, but despite the fact that it was half hidden by tangled grasses and the sandy ground, she could see more than bone.

      There was still hair, Beth thought, her stomach churning.

      And even tissue.

      She didn’t want the girls seeing what they had discovered any more closely.

      Beth felt as if the blood in her veins had suddenly turned to ice. She didn’t touch the skull; she carefully laid a palm frond over it, so she would recognize the spot when she returned to it. She wasn’t about to dig anything up with the girls here.

      She dusted her hands and stood quickly, determined that they had to get back to her brother; who was busy setting up their campsite. They were going to have to radio the police, since cell phones didn’t seem to work out here.

      A feeling of deep unease was beginning to ooze along her spine as vague recollections of a haunting news story flashed into her mind: Molly and Ted Monoco, expert sailors, had seemed to vanish into thin air.

      The last place they’d actually been seen was Calliope Key, right where they were now.

      “Let’s go get Ben,” she suggested, trying not to sound as upset as she felt.

      “It’s a skull, isn’t it?” Amber demanded.

      She was a beautiful girl, tall and slender, with huge hazel eyes and long dark hair. The way she looked in a bathing suit—a two-piece, but hardly a risqué bikini—was enough to draw the attention of boys who were much too old for her, at least in Beth’s opinion. Kimberly was the opposite of Amber, a petite blonde with bright blue eyes, pretty as a picture.

      Sometimes the fact that she was in charge of two such attractive and impressionable girls seemed daunting. She knew she tended to be a worrywart, but the idea of any harm coming to the girls was...

      Okay! She was the adult here. In charge. And it was time to do something about that.

      But they were practically alone on an island with no phones, no cars...not a single luxury. A popular destination for the local boat crowd, but distant and desolate.

      It was two to three hours back to Miami with the engine running, though Fort Lauderdale was closer, and it was hardly an hour to a few of the Bahamian islands.

      She inhaled and exhaled. Slowly.

      The human mind was amazing. Moments ago she had been delighted by the very remoteness of the island, pleased that there weren’t any refreshment stands, automobiles or modern appliances of any kind.

      But now...

      “Might be a skull,” Beth admitted, and she forced a grin, lifting her hands. “And might not be,” she lied. “Your dad isn’t going to be happy about this, Amber, when he’s been planning this vacation for so long, but—”

      She broke off. She hadn’t heard the sound of footsteps or even the rustle of foliage, but as she spoke, a man appeared.

      He had emerged from an overgrown trail through one of the thick hummocks of pines and palms that grew so profusely on the island.

      It was that elemental landscape