Chapter 25

Ten minutes later, she walked back into the bedroom, wryly unsurprised to find that the maids had been in and finished the unpacking while she’d been showering.

Wrapped in one of the toweling bathrobes she’d found hanging behind the door, she rubbed at her wet hair with a towel as she wandered over to the window to look out. On impulse, she tried the handle and found that the window was unlocked. Pushing it open showed her a bleach-boarded veranda with white slatted rails. The wood was warm beneath her bare feet as she stepped onto it; the heat of the night was kind of soothing, and she stood leaning lightly against the rail and rubbing her hair while she tried to make out what the view in front of her was like.

It was truly pitch-dark out there, but she caught the frothing white roll of a wave as it came into shore. It wasn’t far away—perhaps a few hundred yards at most. And as her eyes grew more used to the darkness, she managed to make out the shape of a white-painted gazebo not fa