Paradise Thriller

She Won't Tell

Then her skin turned to ice. He was calling her name softly.

She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. She tried to run, but the sand dragged at her feet. Her legs felt weak, and she couldn't move them fast enough. She fell again, and looked back as he effortlessly dropped down the slope and stepped onto the beach behind her.

She found her voice then, and screamed for help, screamed as loud as she could. But there was no one there, no one on the entire length of the beach, as far as she could see. She screamed again, crawling on her hands and knees, turning then falling back on the sand as he walked toward her.

"Who are you? I didn't see anything. I won't tell anyone. Please."

He just shook his head, then unfolded a latex mask and pulled it on, hiding his features.

She'd already seen his face. Why did he need a mask when she'd already seen his face? Images of every horror movie she'd ever watched flashed through her mind as the man in the mask moved toward her.

"Please!" she screamed again. Then sobbed, "I won't tell." She was scurrying backwards now, on all fours, like a crab.

"No," he said, "you won't tell."

When she saw the gun in his hand she closed her eyes and, for the first time in more years than she could remember, she began to pray.

* * *

"Good afternoon." The man leaned against a table in the front of the small conference room in the downtown L.A. hotel. The measuring look in his eyes as he surveyed the room seemed at odds with the casual stance.

This, Alison thought, must be the "ruggedly handsome" director her sister had described in her last, hurried phone call more than two months ago, before Gwen disappeared. She had supposedly left for the taping of a new reality TV show. But as far as Alison had been able to discover, no one in the industry had ever heard of it.

The director was tall and lean, dressed in a loose fitting polo shirt and faded jeans. Although he wasn't overtly muscular, Alison's experience as a fitness instructor told her this was not a man who spent his time sitting behind a desk. She could easily imagine him performing the physical challenges on an old school, survival-type reality show. His steady gaze scanned the forty or so people sitting on the folding chairs, and they immediately fell silent. Nervous excitement filled the air.

While she studied the director, he suddenly looked her in the eyes. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, afraid that somehow her face would reveal that she was no ordinary contestant. Answering the ad in a movie trade paper and coming here to the audition for the next taping of "Reality Island" was her last, desperate attempt to find out what had happened to her sister. The director seemed to measure her a moment longer, then moved on.

She exhaled slowly, unaware until that moment that she had been holding her breath. There was no way he'd recognized her as Gwen's sister. Gwen was movie-star gorgeous, in a classic cinema sort of way that belied her adventurous spirit. Alison, on the other hand, was a throwback to the Irish ancestors on their father's side of the family. She told herself to relax. The longer she kept her identity a secret, the better chance she had of catching the director off-guard. That is, if she ever got the chance to speak with him alone.

His voice, like the appraising look he'd used to survey the room, had an undercurrent of steel. "My name's Brogan. I want to congratulate all of you on being selected as possible contestants for Reality Island. I'm here to answer any questions you have. Then we'll be interviewing each of you briefly, and you'll be notified of our final selection by the end of the week.