Rebel Island Page 0,4

louder, he cranked up Jimmy Buffett on his boom box. Songs You Know by Heart vibrated so hard against the wall it might've been Songs You Know by Braille. There was another sound, too - a blender, I think. Leave it to my brother to pack his own tropical drink factory.

Maia couldn't take a shower because of the storm, but she spent a long time in the bathroom freshening up. Warm water always made her feel better. Being pregnant, she missed her daily steamy hot bubble baths. She said she would take up that grievance with our kid once he was an adult.

As the storm got louder, so did our neighbors. Some college kids were right above us, stomping and whooping. One of them yelled, "Hurricane party!" Down the hall, a hammer was banging. Maybe Alex and his staff had decided to board up the windows.

I wondered what Alex wanted to ask me. Probably an investigative favor. An employee problem. A cheating girlfriend. Private investigators got everything, which was why I'd quit being one. Well...that was one reason, anyway.

I tried to convince myself Jesse Longoria's presence on the island was a total coincidence. Nothing to worry about, just like the storm.

If I closed my eyes and concentrated on the music coming through the walls, I could almost ignore the hammering and the rain.

The last time I'd seen Jesse Longoria had been the week of my best friend's funeral.

January in San Antonio. The grass was crunchy with ice. Frozen cactuses turned to mush in the tiny gravel lawns of the South Side. At San Fernando Cemetery, the sky was the same color as the tombstones.

I'd come to lay fresh flowers on Ralph's grave. I found Jesse Longoria standing on it, reading the headstone. He wore a black wool overcoat and his customary pleasant smile, as if he could imagine no place he'd rather be on a bitter cold day.

"I missed the funeral," he told me. "I wanted to make sure he was dead."

"Get off."

I expected a fight. I probably wanted one.

Longoria chose not to humor me. He stepped off the grave. "I never got to hunt Ralph Arguello. Shame. I would've enjoyed that."

"You need to leave."

"Going to blame yourself for his death, too, Navarre? You never had any sense about criminals."

I was crushing the stems of the marigolds I'd brought. "I don't murder fugitives in my custody. That what you mean?"

Longoria's laugh turned to mist in the cold air. "You're not honest with yourself, son. You knew exactly what would happen to that client of yours, sooner or later. He was no different from your friend here." He gestured at Ralph's headstone.

"Where'd you dump the body, Longoria?"

His smile didn't waver. "If you can't stop feeling guilty, son, maybe you should find a different line of work. Nobody's ever stopped me from doing what was necessary. Nobody ever will."

He strolled away down the line of tombstones. As he passed a child's grave, he flicked a multicolored pinwheel and set it spinning.

I turned on the nightstand radio. All I could get was a garbled AM news station from Corpus Christi. Tropical Storm Aidan, which forecasters had dismissed as dying, was regaining hurricane strength. Despite Garrett's assurances that it would veer north - that no hurricane had ever hit the Texas coast so early in the season - Aidan was bearing down on top of us. Ferry service to most locations had been suspended. Power was down in several communities. Evacuation routes were jammed.

"What's the news?" Maia came out of the bathroom, toweling her hair.

I turned off the radio. "Nothing much."

Thunder shook the windows. The power blinked out then came back on. Somebody upstairs yelled, "Yeah, baby!"

I stared at the clock flashing 12:01. I was just thinking how useless that would be if I were trying to time the occurrence of a crime, when I heard the shot.

Maia and I locked eyes.

"A board cracking," I said. "Something slammed into the building."

"Tres, that was a gun."

I looked at the bay window, which I'd closed with the storm shutters. I tried to believe the noise had come from somewhere out there, but I knew better. The shot had come from inside the hotel.

Garrett's music was still playing next door. The college kids were still stomping around upstairs. I'd heard enough gunshots in my life. Maybe if I just let this one go, let a few more bars of "Cheeseburger in Paradise" play through...

"Tres," Maia said, "we need to check it out."

"We're on vacation. They have a