Model Suspect 3 Read Online Free PDF Page B

shore before the shooter decides to come back for more target practice.”
    Soon all four of us were doggy-paddling toward shore. The water was calm and it was pretty easy going even dressed in the clothes we’d worn on the flight down. “Don’t let your feet touch any of the coral,” Bess warned us. “Some of it might be poisonous.”
    “Good point,” George said.
    I didn’t respond. It was difficult to tell which direction the shots had come from—sound carried differently over water than it did over land, especially since the lagoon was basically a big bowl surrounded on three sides by tree-lined slopes leading up to the mountains at the center of the island. But based on where the holes had appeared in those pontoons, Iwas pretty sure the shooter had been somewhere in the thick jungle off beyond the beach to the north.
    As I swam, I scanned the shoreline in that direction. Unfortunately the sun had started to sink toward the horizon and we were swimming almost directly into it, making it tough to see much in the shadowy trees along the shore. I squinted toward a jumble of large boulders. Had something moved behind there, or was it my imagination? Even if it wasn’t, how was I supposed to tell from here if it had been a bird, a monkey, an innocent hiker … or the wedding saboteur?
    Just then I felt my toe scrape against something. Luckily it was just a rock and not coral, but I decided I’d better pay more attention to what I was doing, especially since the water was now shallow enough for us to walk upright. I wasn’t likely to see anything useful on shore anyway—anybody could be hiding anywhere in that jungle.
    “Hey!” a shout came from the beach.
    Looking up from picking my way among the coral formations, I saw that a small crowd had gathered there while we were swimming. Vic was at the front, standing calf-deep in the water, staring our way.
    “We’re okay, Vic!” Sydney called breathlessly, waving to him.
    “Yeah,” George added. “We—ow!”
    I glanced over to see her dancing on one foot in the water, which was about waist-high by now. “You okay?”
    “I’ll live.” She peered down at her foot. “I hope there are no sharks around here, though. I think I’m bleeding a little.”
    We pushed forward through the shallows. Vic rushed in to grab Sydney and sweep her into his arms. She hugged him around the neck.
    “What happened, babe?” he asked, hugging her back and then gently pushing her bedraggled red hair out of her face with one hand. “Trouble with the boat?”
    Someone had turned off the boom box by now. But I realized its loud music must have masked the sound of those shots.
    “Not exactly,” I said carefully, glancing toward the cameras. There were two cameramen there filming the scene from different angles, though I couldn’t help noticing that Butch wasn’t one of them. In fact, aside from the two camera operators and an older woman from the makeup team, nobody from the TV crew was in view at the moment.
    “Wow, that looks painful,” Bess was saying to George, bending over to peer at the cut on her foot. “You might want to get it looked at.”
    A uniformed resort employee pushed forward. “Yes, please come with me, miss,” he said in a polite but firm voice. “I’ll take you to the medical hut straightaway.”
    “Don’t be silly,” George protested. “It’s just a little scrape. All I need is a Band-Aid.”
    But the employee wouldn’t take no for an answer, explaining that coral cuts could be very dangerous if left untreated. George insisted it had been a sharp rock she’d stepped on rather than coral, but evidently the resort wanted to take no chances. Soon the young man and another employee were hustling her off down the beach.
    Meanwhile I sidled toward another uniformed employee, an intelligent-looking middle-aged woman. “Listen,” I whispered to her. “I don’t want this to be on camera, but you should know—someone shot at us.”
    The woman