Thunder in paradise (part 3)

               As each of them looked at each other they knew that one of two things; either Lucas was behind both murders or there was a killer amongst them. No one was ruling the other out.

               ‘So,’ Mike sighed, tears streaming down his face, ‘we have another fallen comrade!’

               They all nodded and bowed their heads out of respect.

‘I don’t know who is doing this!’ he wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand, ‘or why! But you can be damned sure I’m going to find them and kill them just as they have Patricia and now sweet innocent Sinead!’

The group all sniffled and couldn’t stop thinking that Lucas was involved.

‘Lucas is still missing!’ Mike read their mind, ‘and so until we find him, we will have to suspect that this is all down to him!’ Mike said uncapable of thinking one of his friends were behind this. He was too petrified at the idea that one of his employees, that he chose personally, would betray the whole firm like this.

‘I want off this god damned island!’ Carol piped up again.

‘We all do!’ Sean said for the whole group who were thinking the same thing. ‘But Lucas is our only way off…that’s why we need to find him!’

‘Yea Carole, who’s to say that you are only wanting off the island because you took out two of your fellow comrades and don’t want to be found out!’ Robbie piped up.

               ‘What is the deal between you too?’ Sean asked, ‘you have been bickering since we landed!’

               ‘Oh she’s just jealous that me and Nicola joined the ‘mile high club’ and feels left out!’ Robbie answered.

               ‘Yea, like I’d ever sleep with you!’ Carol said under her breath.

Robbie cupped his hand to his ear, ‘em, what was that?’

‘Drop it, Robbie!’

‘I do remember quite a few nights where you and I did the dance with no pants!’ Robbie reminisced.

‘I said drop it, Robbie!’

‘Wait a minute!’ Sean butted in…...’you and her?’ he pointed at the pair who were bickering like teenagers the whole trip.

‘Yea,’ said Robbie

‘No,’ said Carol in unison

‘Well which is it?’ Sean asked intrigued.

‘People in glass houses don’t throw stones Sean!’ Carol said and he immediately dropped the subject.

‘Don’t throw stones?’ Nicola joined the conversation, ‘what does she mean by that Sean?’

Sean fell quiet and shot daggers in Carols direction with his eyes.

‘A good receptionist hears everything and knows everything about all of her subjects!’ Carol gesticulated towards the whole group. ‘I even have shit on Mike!’ she boasted.

Mike did a double take…...’what?’

‘Yea,’ Carole explained, ‘I can see everything but more importantly I can hear everything that happens in that house / office of ours!’ she paused for them all to think about their deep dark secrets and wondered if she knew what they were.’

‘Well I know things about you too!’ Robbie piped up…’I know secrets about you that you don’t even know about yourself!’

‘Well that’s big talk coming from a private investigator!’

‘You’re just a receptionist and your talking big too!’ Robbie retorted…not one of his best lines but it was the best he could come up with.

‘SHUT UP!’ Mike was sick of the bickering. ‘The whole idea of bring you all here was to pull you closer together, not push you farther apart! The rain has stopped now! What would everyone think if we all sat around a camp fire and spilled all the hurtful things we have stored in vaults in our heads waiting for the right time to open them. How about we open them all up here and get it over with!’

‘Jes sir!’ Pablo was on board.

‘Any other takers?’ Mike asked, his eyebrows raised expectant that his work force wouldn’t let him down.

‘Ok!’ they said as enthusiastically as the crab walked across the wooden floor.

 

Once Pablo started the fire, the six of them sat down together in the sand and watched the flames dance poetically.

‘Ok,’ Mike started, ‘who would like to go first?’

Carols hand shot into the sky!

Robbie rolled his eyes audibly.

‘Right Carole, you can go first!’ Mike handed her the floor.

‘I know a lot of shit so I’ll start with the person on my right and continue until it comes back to me!’

They all nodded in agreement.

Nicola:

I know that you were married whilst in college. Your husband, Senan, broke up with you just after graduation but that you were relieved because you were having an affair with a guy named George who happened to be the guy your husband was leaving you for. I also know that George was screwing your sister, Mary, and that you haven’t put full trust in a man since.

I know you are promiscuous and have woken up in a lot of strange beds after a night on the town. I know you never really loved Robbie even though you took six months of his life and were sleeping with other guys whilst in the relationship.

‘WHAT!!!’ Robbie screamed. ‘You were sleeping with other guys when you were with me?’

Nicola bowed her head in shame and said ‘yes’ very faintly.

Robbie stood up and began to pace the beach, cursing under his breath as he went.

 

It didn’t stop Carole from continuing.

‘Ok, who’s next……. Pablo!’ she smiled.

I know that you have been sleeping your way through the firm. I know about you and Sinead and that when ye both ‘worked late’ you were actually screwing her.

Pablo looked perplexed.

‘But you said I was the only one!’ Nicola hit him on the top of his arm and gave away the fact that she had been one of his many conquests.

‘Oh don’t worry Nicola, he was sleeping with me too!’ Carole volunteered. ‘I think the only one he wasn’t screwing was poor Patricia.

Pablo sat there with a smile on his face, proud.

 

Sean:

You are a very unhappy man. I know you are on anti-depressants and Xanax and see a shrink once a week. I know your wife is screwing a guy named Gary and that your kids hate you because of the way your wife talks about you when they are in earshot. I know that you are a major gamer and that you see crying as a sign of weakness.

Sean sat there and took it like a man, he even nodded.

‘Oh, you’re also gay!’

 

The whole firm gasped and looked at Sean who behind his beard was turning red, fuming about what Carole had said. He never told anyone that so how could she know? He pursed his lips and awaited ridicule.

‘Geez man,’ Robbie said to the quiet Sean, ‘why didn’t you say anything to me? I thought I was your best friend!’

‘You are…. I just…just…’ Sean was tearing up, ‘…I’m ashamed ok!’ he said, his beard catching his tears.

‘Its not good to live a lie man!’ Mike placed his hand on Seans shoulder, ‘you’re still the same Sean to us!’

Everyone nodded in agreement. Mike continued, ‘was it because of the wife thing that you didn’t say anything?’

Sean nodded.

‘Were all here to protect you buddy!’ Robbie added to which everyone agreed.

Sean took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. ‘I’m not ashamed of being gay,’ he started, ‘its just that bitch Sammy (his wife) told me that if word got out that she would never let me see the kids again!’ he began to sob like a baby…...’but they hate me too because of the poison that bitch has spread. They call me loser and fagot! My own kids…its just disgusting!’ Sean wiped his eyes again, accepting a tissue from Carol to blow his nose into.

‘God man….’ Carol started, …I’m sorry!’

‘Well the truth had to come out somehow!’ he said graciously. ‘I just don’t want anyone to think less of me!’

They all were warm and welcomed his honesty and were supportive of him no matter what his sexual orientation.

‘We accepted Patricia, didn’t we?’ Mike asked.

Sean nodded again.

 

Carol wanted to move on so as not to upset Sean further.

Robbie, you next:

You used to be an armed police man, but was sacked as you were involved in a kid dying. The kid had mithered you into holding your gun. When you gave in you were positive the safety was on. You had only looked away for a moment, but it only took a moment for the kid to click off the safety and the gun went off in his hands. The boy had it pointed at his face when it went off. You were so shaken up over the whole thing that he turned to drink. You were only twenty-seven at the time, and spent the guts of two years reliving that awful tragedy over and over. It plagues your dreams to this day. When your father, who also drank, had a bad stroke and needed to go to a nursing home, you had no other choice but to sell the house and get your life together. You turned to Mike to handle the sale of your father’s estate and as you cried on Mikes desk, he offered you a job. He was in the market for a private investigator and who better than an ex-cop?

Robbie swallowed hard nodding at the fact that Carol had all the details right.

‘I can still hear the bang of the gun reverberate through the busy park. Birds scattered and people gasped, but no one was more shocked than me. Every night I go to sleep that faceless boy clouds my dreams. He is the first person I think of in the morning and the last person I think of at night. He seemed like such a nice boy, and my one mistake….’ Robbie teared up, ‘…. well!!’ he cleared his throat and asked Carol to do Mike next.

 

‘Mike,’ Carol began, ‘you are divorced because you had an affair and you would do anything to take it back. Your ex-wife is a bitch who is always hounding you for money and guilt tripping you about the kids when it is her who won’t let you see them only every second weekend. You work for your kids, wanting them to see how successful you can be when you put the work in. You secretly go to all of their ball games, cheering from the side lines in a baseball hat and a hoodie. You see them as your biggest accomplishment and wish that their mother would give you more time with them.’

‘The reason you have extended the practice into your grandmothers old house was not to make it bigger or better, but so that your ex-wife couldn’t get her hands on it. She’s a demanding bitch and you still cannot believe why you married her in the first place.’

‘You disappear at two pm everyday not to have your lunch, but to see your kids walk out of the school gate at half two. You curse that bitch of a woman from not letting you see them, but curse her even more when her new boy toy collects them. Rage fuels you to win cases and make this practice work…. for your kids, so that they will have a stable future.’

Mike nods, ‘impressive!’ he says, astonished at the detail in which she described each and every one of the remaining people in the practice well.

 

Robbie pipes up. ‘Now I’m going to do you!’ he says to Carol. She shrugs her shoulders and accepts her fate.

‘Carol,’ Robbie starts, ‘you are the hardest worker I know! Not only are you a receptionist, but a loving mother to Suzie and you are going to school at night to become a lawyer. You are covered in tattoos and piercings but refuse to conform and show them to the world regardless as to what others think. You are outgoing and constantly play with your hair. You write everything down on a post it notes and attach it to your computer screen. You play with your tongue stud constantly and you used to be a junkie.’

‘You cleaned up your act when you fell pregnant, your idiot boyfriend unwilling to get clean for the sake of his unborn child ended up dying from asphyxiation when he was shooting heroin. You have been on your own since and are afraid to enter into a serious relationship in case it brings you down the slippery slope you fought so hard to get away from. Your pride and joy is your three-year-old daughter and you want to become a lawyer because it’s the only thing you have ever wanted to do your whole life and being a receptionist in a law firm encourages you to keep the head down and not to give up until you reach your dream…...’

 

Carol looked at Robbie impressed and stunned. She was sure he was going to bring up the fact that she was promiscuous and was carrying his baby, but he refrained from the temptation of epic bragging rights, and went for all the positives she had in her life. She wasn’t sure if he was taking in all that she had told him after they had sex and cuddled in the backseat of his Toyota, but she mouthed the words, ‘thank you!’ to him when he had finished.

 

‘Ok,’ Mike said…they could all hear a beloved locker room talk about to happen, ‘we have heard a lot about each other tonight, the good, the bad and the ugly, but were not going to let that bring us down. Unity, unity is the key here people! We need to all go to a bungalow that isn’t occupied by a dead body and try and get some rest. We are all jet lagged and if we have any chance of finding Lucas, then we all need some sleep, so chop chop people. We have a gargantuan task in our hands and need to be fresh like daisy’s when this ‘sun’ appears in the morning!’ He clapped his hands together once and they could all feel the fatigue he was talking about and they all began to yawn.

With each tucked away for the night, Mike woke to the killer putting a pillow over his face. Unable to breathe, he squirmed under the pillow that was keeping the oxygen from flowing into his lungs. The more he struggles the harder the killer pushed the pillow onto his face.

They had read that it took seven minutes to kill someone by suffocation, but it seemed like they were pushing down onto Mikes head for much longer, but then again time did slow on that got forsaken island.

When Mike stopped squirming, they kept the pillow there a couple of minutes extra before lifting the pillow and feeling for a pulse…. there was none.

And then there were five!