Immortal Unchained(68)

They ate in a mostly companionable silence, and then cleaned up together. Domitian was about to finally get to his plan to lure her to the bedroom when she suddenly took his hand and led him from the kitchen. Thinking he wouldn't need to lure her to the bedroom and that she was leading him there instead, he followed easily. However, he frowned with confusion when instead of turning toward the bedroom, Sarita instead led him across the living room and outside.




 

 

"Er . . . Sarita?" Domitian asked finally as she tugged him toward the pool. "What are we doing?"

"We're going in the pool," she announced, releasing him to reach up and undo the towel wrapped around her torso. Letting it drop to the ground, she stepped over it and dove into the water.

Domitian stared after her with bemusement for a minute, his mind frozen on the view he'd got of her in the tiny, pale pink bikini she was wearing today. It was smaller even than the white one he'd first seen her in and contrasted beautifully with her tan skin.

"Hey! Come on. Hurry up."

Blinking, he forced the image of Sarita that was still frozen in his mind's eye away and peered at the real woman to see that she was by the waterfall and appeared to be waiting for him. That was when he got the idea she might want to talk about something that she didn't want overheard by the cameras. Kicking himself into action, he walked to the edge of the pool, dove in, and swam toward her, surfacing just a foot or so in front of her.

"I was thinking when I woke up," Sarita announced.

"Okay," Domitian said warily and waited.

"Well, we have no idea where we are and no clue what direction to go in to get to the mainland," she pointed out. "And the ocean is full of sharks and whales and other unfriendlies."

"Unfriendlies?" he asked with amusement.

Sarita shrugged, "I just didn't want to say creatures that want to eat us," she admitted with a crooked smile. "Anyway, the point is I got thinking that maybe we need a raft, and maybe there'd be something in one of the books in the office that could help with this escape of ours, so I went and took a look. There wasn't really," she added quickly. "I mean the closest thing I found to useful was Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. But-"

"Sarita," he interrupted gently. "It will be fine. We may not know where we are, but it has to be north of Venezuela, so if we go south we will find the mainland."

"Yeah, but we have no idea which way is north and which way south," she said at once.

Domitian raised an arm and pointed toward the front of the house and the dock. "That way is south."

She blinked, glanced in the direction he was pointing and then turned back to him and raised her eyebrows in question.

"I am more than two thousand years old, mi Corazon. I learned long ago how to navigate by the stars."

"Oh." Sarita looked nonplussed, and then glanced toward the beach again, but followed that by turning to peer toward the jungle behind the house. "So north would be that way."

"Si," he agreed patiently. 

"Okay, well see, that's good to know, because the big island is north of this island," she announced.

Domitian stiffened. "I thought you did not know where this island was? Yesterday you thought we might be on the big island."

"I found a letter," Sarita said, suddenly practically bursting with excitement. "It was from Mrs. Dressler to a friend of hers back in England, and she was saying that they were living on this island but building a new bigger home on an island not far from here. Half an hour by one of those little fishing boats with an outboard motor. Well, half an hour when Dr. Dressler piloted it, but forty-five minutes when she did," she corrected herself. "Elizabeth Dressler said she was nervous about driving it there on her own, but he marked the compass at a point between twenty and thirty degrees north and said to keep the boat heading that way and she would reach the island."

"That is good news, mi Corazon," Domitian said smiling at her widely. "It means when we get to the mainland, we can tell my uncle where the island is."

Sarita frowned at him. "Yeah, but I was thinking . . ."

"What were you thinking?" he asked, wary again.

"Look, I don't especially want to go to the island, but-"

"No," Domitian interrupted firmly. "I am not taking you anywhere near that island. The idea is to get you as far from Dressler as possible, not to deliver you and myself into his arms."

"I know," Sarita said with understanding. "But just listen to me. I was awake for the helicopter ride to the island and it was quite a long ride. Unfortunately, I didn't check my watch when we left and arrived, but I'm guessing it was a good hour, and the helicopter wasn't puttering along like a fishing boat, it was going really fast. I don't think we can make it to the mainland."