Sarita stood up in the water and staggered to the side before catching herself. Sighing, she stood still for a minute, surveying the trees as she gave her legs a moment of rest before forcing them to move.
“Are you all right?” Domitian asked in a voice that was almost a whisper as he waded up beside her.
Sarita nodded. “Just checking to be sure there’s no one in the trees,” she said softly.
Nodding, Domitian surveyed them himself. When he let out a little breath and relaxed a moment later, she knew that he hadn’t seen anything. Since his eyes were undoubtedly better than hers thanks to those nanos, Sarita gave up looking as well and started forward. With every step she took she was sure her legs were going to give out, but they held her up and carried her to shore.
“Let us move up by the trees and sit down,” Domitian suggested, taking her arm to urge her forward. “I think we should rest for a minute before we continue on. I want you able to run if there is trouble when we get to the house.”
“What kind of trouble are you thinking there might be?” Sarita asked with a frown, briefly forgetting her shaky legs.
Domitian shook his head. “Could be anything—guards on the house, guards inside the house. Or your grandmother might not even be here. Dressler might have given the house to his head of security as part of his income.”
Sarita considered the possibility, but shook her head. “That can’t be. My grandmother and Mrs. Dressler have to live somewhere here on the island. And other than this house and the big house, all there is are the labs.”
“I am sure you are right,” Domitian said mildly. “I just want to be sure you can move fast if you have to. Now sit down and rest your muscles.”
Sarita glanced around to see that they’d walked all the way to the edge of the jungle while she was distracted. Relieved, she dropped to sit in the sand facing the water and drew her knees up to rest her arms on top of them. Resting her chin on her crossed arms, she peered out toward the horizon, noting that it was lightening. Dawn wasn’t that far away. They couldn’t rest long and should be inside before the sun brightened the sky and made them easily visible. There might be guards here.
“I will be right back.”
Sarita glanced up with a start, but before she could ask where he was going, Domitian had slipped into the trees and disappeared.
“Probably going to the bathroom,” she told herself in a mutter and glanced nervously along the shore, watching for anything moving. There was nothing that she could see.
Sighing, Sarita turned to scan the spot where Domitian had disappeared. Not seeing anything, she shifted her gaze back along the shore again to give it another quick once-over and then repeated the two actions, looking for Domitian, then checking the silent beach. Sarita had just done that for about the twentieth time and was looking along the shore when a crackling sound brought her head sharply around toward the trees behind her.
Sarita peered into the dark mass of trees, straining to see and thought she saw branches moving in a tree behind and to the left of her. And then a sound behind her on the right had her turning her head sharply to look that way. She sagged with relief when she saw it was Domitian slipping back out of the woods.
“Come,” he whispered, holding a hand down to her.
Sarita took his hand and allowed him to haul her to her feet. Her legs were no longer trembling, but her muscles protested at being forced to move again so soon. Ignoring that, she followed Domitian into the jungle, asking, “Shouldn’t we use the beach?”
“It is shorter this way,” he replied quietly.
Sarita nodded to herself as she forced her legs to follow him up a winding path. He hadn’t gone to relieve himself in the woods then, but had been checking out the house to be sure it was safe to approach. The man seemed to forget she was a police officer and could take care of herself. They’d have to talk about that some time, she thought, and then glanced up and leaned to the side, trying to see how much farther they had to walk. Her calf muscles were burning like crazy.
Unable to see around Domitian’s wide chest and shoulders, Sarita simply put her head down and continued forward, reciting song lyrics in her head as she went as a way to distract herself. It worked so well that she was completely unprepared when Domitian suddenly stopped. She plowed right into his back, nearly knocking him over.
“Woah,” he whispered, reaching back to steady her as he regained his own balance.
“Sorry,” Sarita muttered and clasped his arm to lean out and try to peer around him again. This time she managed the feat, and her eyes widened as she saw that they were there. A small English-style cottage sat not ten feet in front of them. Two stories, it was cross-gabled with steeply pitched roofs and tall, narrow, lattice windows. Her gaze slid over the chimney and gabled entry and she nodded solemnly. “Oh yeah, Mrs. Dressler lives here.”
“What makes you say that?” Domitian asked in a whisper.
“She was missing England in her letter, and this is definitely a little bit of England in the middle of the tropics,” Sarita pointed out. “It looks like it could have been scooped up out of the Cotswolds and dropped here or something.”
He nodded agreement. “Yes, I suppose it does.”
“Come on . . .” Sarita started to move around him, but he caught her arm.
“Wait,” Domitian rasped, pulling her close to his side. “What is the plan?”
“We knock on the door and ask to see my grandmother,” she said simply.
“Just like that?” he asked with disbelief. “What if Dressler has some of his security detail in there?”
Sarita glanced at the cottage again and shook her head. “It’s too small for that. My guess is there are three tiny bedrooms upstairs, a living room, bathroom, kitchen, and dining room downstairs. There can’t be much more than that,” she said with certainty.
“I did not say his men had to be living there,” Domitian said grimly. “What if they are posted at the doors?”
Sarita sighed with exasperation, but supposed it wasn’t impossible. “Okay, we’ll look in the windows first and then knock on the door if there’s no sign of Dressler’s goons.”
“And if there are goons in there?” Domitian asked.
“Then we come back here and make another plan,” she said patiently. “Come on.”
He didn’t stop her this time when she started toward the house, but did mutter, “You are entirely too used to being a police officer.”
Sarita scowled at him over her shoulder. “What does that mean?”
“It means you seem to think you can just walk up to the door and knock and no one will take a shot at you or anything.”
“I agreed to check the windows, didn’t I?” Sarita pointed out. “Besides, I suspect Dressler needs us alive for whatever nasty little experiment he has in mind for us, so we aren’t likely to be shot. Now hush or we’ll wake someone up before we want to,” she warned, slowing as they approached the front window on this side of the house.
“Too late for that, children. Do come in. We’re all awake.”
Sarita stiffened and peered at the window as the voice of what she thought was an old woman drifted out to them. Only then did she see that the window was open. Mouth tightening, she peered in at the dark shapes inside.
“The door is unlocked,” the voice said now and Sarita thought it was coming from a chair across the room where she could just make out what looked like a seated figure. The voice was definitely an old woman’s and it had an English accent to it.
“Mrs. Dressler?” she asked.
“Yes, dear. And you are Maria’s granddaughter, Sarita. Come in, dear, she’ll be down in a minute.”
Sarita turned at once and moved around the corner to the front of the house. Domitian was hard on her heels. When she got to it, the front door wasn’t just unlocked, it was half-open. They both slowed cautiously as they entered. Sarita half expected someone to leap out and attack them, but nothing happened and she paused a couple of steps inside to glance around. They were in a tiny entry. A door on her left led into a small kitchen cast in shadows from a light that had been turned on in the room behind it. A set of stairs were directly in front of them, leading to the second floor, a narrow hall led past the stairs to a door at the back of the house, and a door on their right led into a small sitting room.