§ § § -- January 12, 1999
When Leslie awoke, she had a monumental headache the like of which she had never experienced in her life. Her vision was blurred, and no amount of blinking or squinting would improve it. Her limbs felt limp and liquescent; she realized blearily that she was lying on one side, on what felt like a rough dirt floor. She had no energy with which to lift herself into a sitting position; not only was her body quiescent, so was her brain. After a few feeble, listless and unsuccessful attempts to move, she gave up and lay staring blankly and without focus at some indeterminate spot she could barely even see.
In the state she was in, time was immeasurable. Minutes or weeks could have passed when a pair of slender tanned feet in white sandals stopped directly in front of her face; she was so lethargic, she didn't even blink, let alone flinch. She simply stared.
"Get up, you worthless brat," snapped a voice, but Leslie couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. A few seconds later she was brutally yanked into a seated position and pushed back against a wall with a jarring thump. Leslie was aware but immobilized, in both mind and body; she was for all intents and purposes a live doll, unresponsive, glassy-eyed, utterly dependent on the whim of someone else. Her headache worsened as a result of her impact with the wall, but she had no energy or will to respond.
Paola knelt in front of Leslie and shifted a bit till she had placed herself directly in Leslie's line of sight. "Well, look at you, little girl. You remind me of a silly-looking doll I had as a child. It had a very stupid stare on its face, exactly like yours now." There was no reaction from Leslie, and she sat back on her heels, studying the younger woman thoughtfully. "Hmm…perhaps I gave you too much karnise. I didn't think about what it might do to a mere mortal." She experimentally snapped her fingers before Leslie's eyes, but Leslie only blinked once. Paola shrugged and rose to her feet. "No matter, little girl. Your father seems to be occupied with lesser things, so that leaves me all day to wait for you to come alive a bit more." She moved back, out of Leslie's field of vision.
Leslie's hearing, dulled like her sight, functioned as would that of someone partially deaf; so she heard the odd thump from time to time, muffled and indistinct. Her brain had begun to stir a bit; Paola's words rambled through her memory, and she seized one and fixated on it. What precisely was karnise? Paola had said that maybe she'd administered too much…without considering its effects on a "mere mortal". Strange choice of words…
Having grasped something to concentrate on, the rest of her brain began to clear. Her vision and hearing very gradually sharpened, though she was thinking so hard that she was barely aware of the improvement in her condition. And as a result, her memory began to reawaken. Roarke's completely out-of-character actions ever since Saturday morning came back to mind; and she now recalled him referring to "the average human being". Which, Leslie mused, seemed to suggest that Paola was not. And if she wasn't, then who was she? Did Roarke know?
There must have been some expression on her face that suggested her brain was back in functional order again, because Paola suddenly knelt before Leslie again and forced her head back by lifting her chin. "Well, little girl, it appears you're looking a bit more alive. Do you have anything to say?"
"You're…not…one…of…us," Leslie said, her voice rusty and her speech halting, but her demeanor very certain. Paola stilled, and the two stared at each other.
Then, very slowly, Paola smiled. It was not a friendly smile, and Leslie chilled inside. "So you're not so stupid, then," Paola commented. "Perhaps that's good…perhaps not." She sighed heavily. "Well, I can't let you decipher too much too soon." She rose, crossed the room and came back with the syringe. Leslie wanted desperately to avoid another injection of whatever this karnise stuff was, but her body was still sluggish and she couldn't twist away fast enough. Paola grabbed her arm and inserted the needle, and within minutes the world around Leslie went black once more.
‡ ‡ ‡
By early afternoon Roarke had caught up on the telephone messages and most of the backlogged paperwork, but there had been no sign of Leslie the entire day. Mariki was very worried by now about Leslie's absence; and because of her employer's strange behavior of late, she was not the least bit reassured by his dismissive assumptions that she was just playing hooky. When suppertime was a little more than an hour away and Leslie had not returned, Mariki tried to prod Roarke into looking into the matter. "Sir, don't you think it's time we tried to find her? She would never stay away this long."
Roarke's annoyance and irritation with Leslie had increased as the day progressed, and his temper rose at mention of her. "Have you not observed her jealousy of Paola, Mariki? For some reason she simply refuses to get along with her, and I'll have no more of her petty, childish tantrums. When she returns—and you can rest assured she will—I'll deal sternly with her. She must understand that I have my own life, as much as she has hers."
"That isn't the problem, Mr. Roarke," insisted Mariki. "It just isn't like Leslie to up and vanish like that. I feel it in my bones—something's wrong. Please, sir, call the police, or at least let me do it."
Roarke raised an eyebrow. "She will be back," he said with finality and shifted his attention to other matters, signaling that the subject was closed. Mariki exhaled with angry frustration and left the study, muttering blackly to herself that Paola must have the world's silkiest claws: she'd sunk them into Roarke without his even realizing it!
A few minutes later Paola wandered into the study, and Roarke looked up in surprise, welcoming her with a questioning smile. "Did you enjoy yourself, wherever you went?"
"Immensely," said Paola. Her wide, close-lipped smile had a crafty quality about it that did not escape Roarke's notice. Something about it nagged him enough to arise from his desk and approach her cautiously.
"Where did you go today?" he asked with deceptively innocent curiosity.
"Exploring, of course," said Paola. "But I grew quite tired, and another migraine is coming on. Have you more of that wondrous elixir?" She ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders, smiling into his dark eyes, tipping forward as if to kiss him and then pulling back with a faintly taunting look.
Roarke's vague suspicion lingered, though it was already fading. "You don't seem to be suffering the symptoms," he said.
"Being with you seems to be a palliative," she murmured, changing from coquettish to seductive in a twinkling, stepping into his embrace and tilting her head far enough back to regard him with her eyelids at half-mast. "Oh, my Roarke, how good you are for me."
He was lost despite himself, and crushed her to him, kissing her with single-minded determination. Paola willingly submitted; but when he broke the kiss and asked that she be with him that night, she giggled and backed out of his arms.
"Too much of a good thing, my Roarke," she said in a mock-scolding tone, playfully shaking her finger at him. She went serious. "Whether you think so or not, I do feel another migraine, and I am nearly out of the elixir."
"I myself have run low on its ingredients," Roarke said truthfully. "Perhaps it can wait until tomorrow morning."
Paola blinked in surprise, then sighed. "Oh, very well," she muttered grudgingly. "Do what you must, but I can't go long without it." Without waiting for a reply, she pivoted on one foot and departed.
Roarke stood there watching her go, frowning slightly with mild perplexity. She was up to something; he'd seen it in her expression. He moved slowly back to the desk, trying to decide whether it was something he need worry about. This time the nagging feeling stayed with him and slowly grew while he dined, then completed the last of the backed-up work and prepared to retire alone for the night. In fact, it was the last thing he thought of before he drifted into slumber.
‡ ‡ ‡
Leslie wasn't sure whether she was really awake; her surroundings were still pitch-black, and either there was no sound or her hearing was out of whack again. It took her a good two hours to recover enough to be able to sit up on her own; by then her eyesight and hearing had returned to nearly normal and she was able to make out moonlight, filtered by trees, through a square, glassless hole in the wall. So it was night; but where was she? She strained her ears for any of the familiar night sounds; tree frogs croaked in serene chorus, and now and then there was the bass call of an owl. Finally she heard the one sound she'd been waiting for: the distinctive, unique voice of Fantasy Island's night crier. The bird could be found nowhere else on earth; so when its cry came, she was deeply relieved. Wherever she was, it was still on the island.
She struggled to get to her feet, but her limbs hadn't quite recovered enough strength to hold her up, and after just a few minutes she was exhausted and forced to sink back to the floor where she'd first awakened. Her stomach rumbled so loudly she thought at first it was another nocturnal creature, then had to laugh at herself for the misconception. Come on, Leslie Susan, time to give it another try. You've got to get out of here. This time, when she made it onto her feet, she managed to stay there, and took tiny, careful steps in the hope of making some actual progress. Sheer determination kept her moving, and in a few minutes she'd exited what turned out to be a crude, ramshackle grass hut that appeared to have been abandoned for years. Leslie knew she had never seen it before, in any case. She scanned the area for a trail; there was no way Paola would have brought her here without blazing some sort of trail, if only so she could find her way back out again.
Unfortunately, the way she ended up finding it was by seeing Paola emerge from it into the small cleared space in front of the hut. Paola's face became an enraged mask and she seized Leslie by the elbow, dragging her back inside and throwing her into the same corner she'd labored so hard to escape. "Did you really think you were going to make it, little girl?" Paola demanded, rummaging inside her bag as she spoke. "I think not. I have a few bones to pick with you first." She withdrew her jar and syringe. "Just to be sure you'll stay put and listen to me, I'll give you a little tranquilizer."
"No…" Leslie croaked. Her panic gave her a little extra strength and she scrambled to her feet, but she still wasn't completely recovered from her bout with the karnise and Paola caught her easily. This time, however, Leslie noticed that the syringe was only about half full, and wondered fearfully what Paola had in mind now.
"Yes, little girl," Paola crooned, watching the contents of the syringe empty themselves into Leslie's arm. "You'll be able to see and hear me well enough now, but you'll have no way of defending yourself."
"I'd like to know how the hell you managed to fool Father so completely," Leslie said, her voice still hoarse but filled with anger.
Paola looked at her in surprise and then shrugged. "It really wasn't so difficult once I found out how…but that isn't the issue here," she said. "What happens to Roarke doesn't concern you."
"Oh yes it does," Leslie muttered, already feeling the effects of the drug washing into her brain. "He's my father."
Viciously Paola spat out a curse in Italian. "You fool! You're not his spawn at all, just some little waif he took in out of pity. Leave the subject. Your imaginary claim on Roarke is not the reason I intend to kill you. It has to do with my baby sister."
"I don't even know your sister," Leslie protested, forcing the words out.
"Yes, you do," Paola said ominously and knelt beside Leslie, so close that the latter woman instinctively shrank back from her. "Yes, you do, Leslie Hamilton. And your very existence is preventing her from being truly happy."
Leslie glared at her; anger, impatience and bewilderment combined in a tidal surge that almost overcame the effects of the karnise. "What under the sun are you talking about? Just get to the point, Paola!" she snapped.
"Well enough," Paola said. "Not so long ago, my baby sister was married to a handsome prince from another country. She has all her heart could desire, except love—because he doesn't love her. Instead he loves you—a futile love, for there is no way you and he can ever be together. My poor Marina could have had a blissful marriage with Prince Christian, if it weren't for you and the pointless hope he retains that you'll be together!"
Leslie let the karnise have its way for a moment, dizzy with stupefaction. Marina was the younger sister of this virago? "You've got to be kidding," she breathed.
"I wouldn't joke about such a thing," Paola said, rocking back onto her heels and staring fixedly at Leslie. "My father saw to it that Marina made an excellent marriage, and in time Prince Christian would have learned to love her. She's a sweet and joyful girl, all the things I could never be. She isn't plagued by the demons that haunt me. But Christian is fool enough to cling to his love for you, even though he knows he can never have you to wife. You stand in the way of my baby sister's final happiness, and for that, you must die. Once you are dead and he has received word, he will be forced to face reality and accept Marina as his true wife, instead of waiting for her to die so he can run to you."
Leslie absorbed this in silence. Puzzle pieces had started to fall into place. That was why Paola had looked oddly familiar to her at the plane dock: she and Marina bore a passing resemblance, though not enough to have alerted Leslie beyond a vague sense of having seen her before. Calmly she returned Paola's intense stare; the karnise was in fact having some of the tranquilizer effect on her that Paola had mentioned, giving her the emotional strength to face the older woman on equal ground. "It won't make any difference if you kill me, Paola," she said quietly. "The outcome's going to be the same—Marina will still die of her disease." She paused a beat or two before adding, "And so will you."
The four soft words seemed to slam into Paola like bullets; the Italian woman reared sharply back and gasped loudly in horror. "You know?" she shrieked.
"Marina told me herself: her father and sister have the disease just as she does. And you just told me you're Marina's sister…ergo, you have the disease." Leslie met Paola's shocked stare with a pitying look. "Tell me, how long have you been ill? How soon will it be before you can no longer avoid the fact that you're as mortal as any of us?"
For one endless moment time seemed to suspend itself, while Leslie watched Paola and Paola gaped back, reeling from Leslie's revelations. Then Paola's rage exploded out of her in one wordless roar and she sprang to her feet. "You die now!" she shouted and, with shaking hands, began to refill the syringe, holding the jar at eye level to take advantage of the dim glow of false dawn.
Leslie took one very deep breath, gathered all her strength and concentration and made a desperate lunge for Paola. It was a clumsy attempt, but it was enough. She fell headlong into Paola, knocking her off balance and causing the remaining contents of the jar to spill into the dirt. Paola screamed and gave Leslie a brutal shove, then seized her arm and prepared to inject her again. Leslie struggled with what little strength she could muster up, but it was no use; and she could see to her terror that Paola had managed to fill the syringe a bit more than halfway. With what was already in Leslie's system, it was entirely possible that this latest dose could be lethal.
Cursing fluently in Italian, Paola yanked the needle out and hurled Leslie's arm down in a boiling fury. "You miserable little wretch!" she finally wheezed, her lungs audibly straining for breath. "Now I'll have to make up more karnise to get the job done properly, for I want you dead before Roarke has a chance to find you." She stood there sucking in air like a bellows. "And…this time…he had best…cooperate…with me…" Blindly she stuffed the needle and jar into her bag and stumbled out without looking back. The sky grew steadily lighter; but for Leslie, darkness closed in—perhaps forever this time.