Charlie thought that the best person to disclose this information to was Moxxie. She waited til Moxxie was alone, til he had gone off to take a whiz, and then she discreetly approached.
"Mr. Hamiliton." She called softly with her eyes covered.
"Ah!" He said pulling up his pants startled. "Miss Morningstar, didn't anyone tell you not to sneak up on a man trying to relieve himself."
"Sorry to choose this moment to come to you but I need to talk to you about something privately. Something I think you need to know and I...I wasn't sure who could be trusted so I waited til you were alone."
"What do you mean?"
She pulled the tape recorder out from her jacket pocket.
"I found this in Dr. Bodine's tent. It was your father's journal. Listen to the last entry he made."
Moxxie did and it took all his willpower not to start crying when he heard his father's voice. It's amazing how even the sound of the person you loved and lost could cause you to grieve all over again. But grief quickly turned into suspicion when he paid attention to the words that had been recorded.
"Now I haven't heard Dr. Hamiliton speak in a very long time and I could be wrong about this." Charlie said. "But is that his voice?"
"Yes." He answered bitterly. "I'd know my father's voice anywhere."
"So he didn't want this place turned into a theme park or whatever."
"I knew it." Moxxie said getting upset. "I knew there was something fishy about this whole thing. What did Dr. Bodine say?"
"Nothing. He doesn't know that I took the recorder and I haven't showed this to anyone else."
"Good. For now keep this to yourself. At least until we find out what's really going on here."
"Alright, but what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to show this to Blitzo. Find out if he takes his position as a lawyer seriously. In the meantime, you just go back to your tent and act like nothing's changed. Okay?"
"Okay."
"And Charlie."
"Yes?"
"Thanks for telling me this. Not a lot of people would be this honest in circumstances like these."
"You're welcome."
Charlie did as she was told. She went to her tent, finished the last part of her report for today, and began to get ready for bed. She was just about to pull off her shirt to change when she had that feeling again. The one that made her feel like she was being watched.
"Max?" she called, hoping that it was the boy trying to scare her again. "Max is that you?"
She heard footsteps.
"Max if you scare me again, I'm telling your parents this time."
There was no answer. She could see a shadow on the tarp of her tent. Her hands were now starting to tremble. She was suddenly very afraid. She slowly picked up a book with a hard cover and raised it to attack, ever so slowly she pulled back the tent to find that the shadow belonged to Quinlan.
"Oh! Hello Miss Morningstar." He said grinning in attempt to look innocent.
"Mr. Hickey what are you doing creeping around my tent?" Charlie said.
"I wasn't creeping. I was just grabbing a smoke and I happened to thoughtlessly move to your tent. Did I frighten you? I'm sorry."
She looked at his hands. There was no cigarette and she didn't smell tobacco on him. He must have thought that she was really stupid. But she wasn't.
"Right." She said. "Well from now on smoke away from my tent."
"Of course. But you know places like these are especially dangerous at night. Why don't I move my tent closer to yours so you'll be safer?"
"No thanks, I sleep with a pocket knife and I know exactly how to use it." She produced it from her jean pocket for emphasis. "Goodnight Mr. Hickey."
She closed the tent and zipped it up.
"Creep." She muttered.
Once she was certain that he was gone, she proceeded with changing into the short pink night gown and light-weight, cream colored robe that she would usually wear to bed. She was a little too unnerved to go right to sleep so she decided to calm herself down by looking over some of her photos. Pictures of animals, of her friends and family, things to fill her head with happy memories to ease her nerves.
She hummed to herself as she looked at each photo. Thinking back to each moment that the picture signified. Sometimes wishing that those moments could happen right now.
She was soon calm and the feelings of being nervous or that she was being watched was long gone. Completely replaced by emotions of peace.
However she was still being watched. But not by Quinlan, by the creature who had spied her by the river. This creature which could sense the disgusting man's lechery and had decided to keep watch so he wouldn't try to touch the young woman in the tent. The unseen creature could smell rain coming and picked up the faint sound of thunder but it chose not to move from it's spot. Rain or no rain, it would stand guard and protect Charlie all night and into the morning if need be.
Like Charlie, Moxxie waited until his target was alone before talking with them. He stepped into Blitzo's tent and quietly told him everything he had learned from Charlie. He was quite angry but he kept his tone quiet.
"What kind of bullshit are you trying to pull?" He asked after playing the recording. "My father didn't want to share anything here with the world. He said this island was dangerous. That the animals here were violent and savage. I'll nail your ass for this!"
"I swear I didn't know about this." Blitzo said.
"How could you not know about this? You're his lawyer."
"I had journal entries saying the total opposite of what was on that recorder, and they were written in his hand. They even had his signature."
"Did you check to see if they could have been forged?"
"Well...No. No I didn't."
"Oh God. Oh God. Oh this is bad. This is very bad."
"Now don't panic."
"Don't panic? We're on an uncharted island that could possibly be overrun with dangerous animals. Not to mention my wife and my children are on this island with us."
"Nothing bad has happened yet. So instead of getting all upset, why don't we just get some sleep for tonight and tomorrow morning we'll leave. We'll get off this island, we'll go back to San Francisco, and we'll strighten this whole thing out."
"Okay." Moxxie said calming down. "You're right. There's no need to alarm anyone if we don't have any reason to. Besides, I don't want to scare Millie and the kids."
"Right. Goodnight Moxxie. We'll talk more in the morning."
Without another word, they finally went to sleep. Unfortunately their conversation had been overheard by Vox, who quickly reported it to Valentino and their other assoicates.
"What do you mean they plan to leave the island tomorrow?" Valentino said angrily.
"They found out about how Edward really felt about the island. That he thought it was dangerous and that he didn't want anyone to know of it." Vox explained.
"But how? How they could have possibly discovered that?"
Then a thought occurred to him. He quickly looked through the bag on his shelf.
"Damn it!" He threw the bag down. "They found the tape recorder!"
"Now what do we do?" Vox said. "It's only a matter of time before they find out we forged the journal entries."
"Not if they stay on the island."
"But they're going to leave first thing in the morning."
"Then we'll give them a reason to stay."
"We can't just kill the motors on the boats or anything like that." Quinlan said. "Then we'll have no way to get back."
"I know that you moron!" Valentino snapped. "There are other ways of keeping them here."
"Like what?"
Valentino thought long and hard about what he could do to prevent them from leaving. He needed those notes. There was no way he was leaving this island without them. He needed to be clever about this. Greed would probably hold Blitzo but Moxxie was a family man. He wouldn't jeopardize his wife and children just for money.
That's when the perfect plan dawned on him.
"Quinlan I have a job for two of your men. First I want you to send one of them into the jungle with a flare. Have him go specifically into the tall grass. That'll attract an animal that will prove very useful to us."
"What animal?"
"One that I want him to lure back here so it'll cause a chaotic scene and distract everyone long enough for the second man to pick up two very valuable items."
A smile that could rival Satan's spread across the evil man's face as he further explained his plan to the group. Needless to say, no one would be leaving the Binomial Isle tomorrow.
