Last Resort Read Online Free PDF Page A

get to enjoy year round what you lovely people only get to experience for a week or two…the sun, the sea, the tropical breezes.”
    With a rueful expression, Gwen climbs into the van and turns to the waiting dog. “I am sorry. I have no more food to give you.”
    The dog gives a quizzical tilt of its head as Owen slides the door shut. As we drive away, Gwen waves to the dog. It watches us from the curb.
    “I feel so bad for that animal,” Gwen says.
    “As I said, miss, don’t fret for this pup,” Owen says. “It won’t miss many meals, believe me.”
    We bounce over pitted and crudely patched roads. Owen drives with self-assurance taken to the point of recklessness. Men and women—their skin dark and leathery from the blazing sun—walk on the cracked sidewalks and gutters alongside the narrow road. Some of them stop to watch us drive past. Can they see me through the tinted windows? More than once, I flinch as Owen nearly sideswipes one of the pedestrians, but he drives on without pause. The other drivers sharing the road are just as heedless, each behaving as if there were no other vehicles on the road.
    At the center of town the homes are little more than shacks with sheet metal roofs and crumbling, graffiti tagged concrete walls as dividers. Serpentine roads twist among the closely packed homes. The afternoon sun casts long shadows in the alleys between the homes where I glimpse flocks of chickens and the occasional goat.
    As we pass a white clapboard church, Owen points to a small building beside it. “Dis is our police station.”
    Alexandra remarks, “It’s no bigger than a fast food restaurant.”
    “Dere is very little crime on de island. Maybe every once in a while somebody steal a chicken.”
    Gwen chuckles.
    “We ban all de guns,” Owen continues. “We have no killings, no robbery. Safest island in de West Indies.”
    Conner glances at the poverty all around us and whispers conspiratorially, “I think we’ll stick to the resort, thanks all the same.”
    Once outside the center of town the homes scatter over the hillsides, separated by fields of switch grass and brush. Some of the homes are fairly large and modern—topped with satellite dishes drawing television channels from around the world to this remote outpost and probably used as vacation homes by rich foreigners—but most of the homes are similar in size and construction to the shacks in the town. Sometimes, through a break in the hills, we glimpse the sea. I am eager to sink my toes into the sand and feel the waves lap against me.
    We drop Piper and Willow off at their hotel. Steep, rocky slopes bound the road to our resort. The slopes become cliffs that surround our resort in a protective bowl. At the end of the road lies a sizable hut where we check in. The staff, all native islanders like Owen, greet us with warm smiles and help the women alight from the van. While Owen removes our luggage, the staff offers us tropical cocktails.
    “Now this is my kind of greeting,” Alexandra winks and sips her daiquiri from a coconut shell. Gwen handles our check in and I take the opportunity to wander. Tiny red lizards skitter along the side of the building. The lagoon spreads before me, surrounded by mangroves and dotted with flocks of migratory birds. On the far side of the lagoon lies the resort. A man drives an electric cart over the narrow wooden bridge that spans the lagoon. He parks the cart alongside the van so Owen can load our luggage onto the back of it
    “I am Jonas Dunlap, the resort manager,” says the man from the cart with a courteous bow. He wears an elegant linen suit and has the dark skin and heavy accent of the other islanders. His closely cropped silver hair gives away his age, but his skin is unlined, his figure long and lean and he moves with the grace of a ballet dancer.
    “I trust you had an enjoyable flight,” Jonas continues. “Now is the time for you to relax and let us pamper you. Leave the cares of the world