Natural Selection Read online

  Connor heard footsteps and a door opening and closing, then the sound of nails being hammered.

  “Why are we even going through with this charade of the show? Team Leader? What difference does it make?” The whiny voice sounded angry.

  “We went over this, Nathan. It’ll add to the hunt. We want to see if they’ll work together as a team or against each other.” The voice Connor had come to think of as New York chuckled.

  “And I’m betting that they’ll sabotage each other every inch of the way, once we start the hunt.”

  “I’m wondering who’ll last the longest. They’re all in pretty good shape. Probably the cameraman will go first.” The whiny voice seemed excited now.

  “Maybe,” the southerner said. “I’m thinking that black gal will last a while. She’s strong looking.”

  “I think we should have hired someone to take care of this. Then we could have flown some more animals in and had a regular hunt,” the whiny voice said.

  “Nathan, you have no sense of adventure.”

  “I just don’t like leaving him alive for that long,” the whiny voice protested.

  “What’s he going to do?” New York asked. “He’s not getting past that two-by-four. Just don’t let him out.”

  Connor slumped against the door. He had less than twenty-four hours to find a way out of the pantry.

  “Hey Shelby, check this out.” Zoe waved a folded sheet of notepaper and a check, then handed it to Shelby.

  Shelby glanced at the check. It was the one Zoe had sent to Lisa Johnston’s parents for the balance of the advance money they hadn’t used. She read the note and shook her head. “They’re returning the check because they think Paige did such a good job.”

  “Yeah, they want us to thank Paige for giving them closure and being able to have a proper funeral for their daughter.” Zoe sat back in her chair.

  “That’s an important part of the grieving process for some people,” Shelby said. “Maybe it will make Paige feel better about the whole thing.”

  “Yeah, she was pretty bummed when she left. You should call her and tell her about it. Maybe it’ll let her enjoy her vacation a little more.”

  “Good idea, Zoe. Paige said she’d be at her grandmother’s house for a few days.” Shelby sat behind her desk, clicked open her contacts file and punched the number into the phone.

  “Mrs. Blackwell? This is Shelby Parker, Paige’s partner. May I speak to her?”

  “Paige isn’t here,” Mrs. Blackwell said. “In fact, I haven’t even heard from her in several months.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought she was going to visit you for a few days before her camping trip.” Shelby was certain Paige had told her she’d be at her grandmother’s house for a few days, but maybe Paige had changed her mind.

  “Well, you could check with Robbie Malloy. He used to spend a lot of time with Paige and her father. They’re still very close.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Blackwell. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  Mrs. Blackwell hung up without saying goodbye. Shelby winced. Paige and her grandmother didn’t have the best relationship. But if Paige hadn’t gone to San Francisco, maybe she was still at home. Shelby punched in Paige’s home number and listened to the message on her voicemail.

  “Paige, Shelby here. Call me when you get in. Nothing urgent.”

  “She isn’t at her grandmother’s?” Zoe asked.

  “Evidently not. She said she hasn’t even heard from Paige in a few months.” Shelby searched her contacts list again, punched in the number for the Portland Police Department, and asked for Detective Robbie Malloy.

  “Detective Malloy.”

  “This is Shelby Parker, Paige Blackwell’s partner.” “Hey, Paige has told me all about you. How’s she doing as a PI?”

  “She’s great. Actually, she’s on vacation right now, and I was trying to get in touch with her. Her grandmother said you two are still close, and I thought you might know how to reach her.”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of a Dutch uncle to her, I guess. Used to go up to the cabin with her and her dad when he was alive.” Robbie laughed. “Anyway, she told me she was going on a trip. Said she’d be back in a few weeks. Is anything wrong?”

  “Oh, no, Detective. I just had some good news I wanted to give her if she hadn’t left yet. It can certainly wait until she returns.”

  “I thought for sure you’d win the competition yesterday,” Wade whispered to Paige. She glanced around, nervous about the others overhearing him.

  “I got delayed when Alex’s rappel line broke.”

  “He was lucky you were there.” Wade put a finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. “God, I can’t wait ‘til this is over and we can be together.” He licked his lips and Paige had to resist the urge to let her lips follow the same path.

  “I’d better get over there with the others.” Her breath hitched, and her voice sounded high and squeaky.

  Paige sat on a fallen log and looked at Ty, just a few feet away. He’d been insufferably smug since winning the competition yesterday. Wade had placed a beer bottle before each of them. She was hot and thirsty and a beer sounded great. Unfortunately the bottles were empty.

  “This is the third competition to determine the Team Leader. You each have one hour to solve the puzzle.” Wade dropped a pen into each of the bottles and stood back.

  “What do we do with this?” Ty asked.

  “You have to take the pen out of the bottle—without your hands or any other part of your body touching the bottle. You also can’t use anything to pick the bottle up.”

  “You ready to taste the agony of defeat again, Blackwell?”

  “You think you’re going to win?” Paige asked, and realized there was a little snarl in her voice.

  Nick’s camera whirred and moved from Paige and Ty to Wade and back as Wade laughed. “That’s what I like to see. Some healthy competitive attitudes.”

  Paige was ready to shove Ty’s competitive attitude down his throat.

  “Remember, you two are tied in the competition. Whoever wins this round becomes the Team Leader.”

  Ty snickered. “No problem.” He searched around on the ground for a slender stick and started poking around at the pen.

  Paige was sure he was wasting his time. This was one of those tricks. None of the obvious ways would work. She studied the pen and watched Ty from the corner of her eye. After about twenty minutes he gave up on the stick and went to rummage in his over-sized backpack. He came back a few minutes later with a length of sewing thread.

  “You brought a sewing kit to a wilderness camp?” Paige laughed and shook her head. “Afraid you’ll lose a button or a hem might come out and you’d have to fix it?”

  “You won’t be laughing when I win.” Ty frowned as he tied a loop in the thread, dropped it into the bottle and tried to snag the pen.

  Paige found herself holding her breath a couple of times when it looked like he might actually get the thread around the pen. Another half hour went by while she tried to ignore Ty and concentrate on how to get the damn pen out of the bottle. There was a trick to it. She just needed to think about it the right way.

  “You know, just sitting there staring at the pen won’t get it out of the bottle, Paige.” Ty laughed. “Unless you have some hidden talent I don’t know about.”

  Paige would have been happy to have Ty be the Team Leader if she thought he could do a decent job of it. But she had a competitive nature, and he’d pissed her off. Besides, the team would stand a better chance of advancing to the finals with a good leader. She might not be the best, but she was the best in this group. Most certainly, she was better qualified to be Team Leader than Ty.

  After another fifteen minutes Paige was getting desperate. She’d had a few ideas and then dismissed them. Ty had given up on the thread and was contemplating the bottle. Her mind was just circling back to ideas she’d already dismissed. Paige grabbed her empty plastic water bottle and walked over to the po
t of purified water to fill it.

  As the water splashed into the bottle, she saw that a small twig had fallen into the bottle and started to float to the top as the water level rose.

  Why hadn’t she thought of that? She filled her bottle, went back to the beer bottle and started to slowly pour water into it. Ty glanced over at her, realized what she was doing and rushed over to grab the pot of water they had purified for drinking. The jerk was stealing her idea!

  Her bottle was already half full when he started to pour water into his. She kept glancing over at his bottle while she continued to pour water into hers. He was gaining on her; his bottle already as full hers. Another two inches of water poured into the bottles would have the pens popping up past the lip of the bottle.

  Paige couldn’t help laughing when Ty screwed up. He poured the water too fast, causing it to splash over the top. His bottle fell over. Ty threw the water pot aside and mumbled a string of curses, part of which sounded like Amazon bitch from hell. She could have been wrong about that, but she took it as a compliment anyway, coming from him.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  PAIGE PLUCKED THE PEN FROM HER bottle and tossed it to Wade.

  “And we have a winner!” Wade caught the pen and walked over, grabbing her wrist and holding her hand in the air like a triumphant prizefighter. “Paige Blackwell is the Team Leader.”

  Alex and Aleisha clapped and jumped up to congratulate her. Ty glared. Nick’s camera whirred as he pointed it at Wade, then at the rest of the group.

  “So, what now?” Paige asked Wade when he handed her the plastic bag that contained the map. The map was a rolled up sheet of old looking parchment, artistically ragged and browned around the edges, sealed with a glob of dark red wax with an ornate X stamped into it.

  “Tomorrow, you start to compete as a team.” Wade turned and pointed to the northeast where a cluster of rocks jutted out of the jungle. “You need to be at the far end of the island tomorrow morning. It’s about twelve miles, so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting there before dark. Make camp at the base of those rocks.” He grinned at them. “Don’t forget to look for food along the way.” He wagged a finger at Paige. “And no looking at that map until I say so.”

  The contestants had learned their lesson about food yesterday. No one had thought about gathering anything for dinner except Paige, and all they’d had to eat were the fruit and vegetables she and Aleisha had gathered along with a lizard Paige had snared. Ty, Kevin, and Paige had been the only ones to eat the lizard.

  “What about me?” Nick asked.

  “You go along for the hike. That’s why we gave you that small, incredibly expensive camera, Nick. But I’ll show up tomorrow with another cooler of food for you.”

  Everyone moved to take down their tents and pack up their backpacks. Paige followed Wade a few yards down the trail toward his jeep.

  “What about the bear I saw the other day?”

  “No need to worry about that. I got him with a tranquilizer gun yesterday. We’ve got him penned up and I contacted a bear rescue organization. He’ll be going to a zoo soon.”

  “You guys came prepared for everything.” Paige grinned.

  Wade shrugged and ran a hand through his long hair. “I certainly didn’t expect to find a bear here, but we weren’t sure what might be on the island.”

  “I’m glad he’ll be okay.”

  “So, how do you feel about making Team Leader?” Wade flashed her a smile and touched her hand lightly. “I knew you’d make it. You’re the best one in this group.”

  “Thanks. I guess we’ll see how I do now. Ty looks like he might have a problem with it.”

  “He’ll come around soon. He’s just one of those guys who can’t stand a woman getting the best of him.” Wade flashed her a grin, his green eyes sparkling against his tanned face.

  “And you’re not?” she asked.

  “Darlin’, I insist on a woman getting the best of me. Don’t forget we have a date when this is over.”

  Yeah, she only thought of that a hundred times a day.

  “Hey, this isn’t the way to the other side of the island.” Ty had jogged up to walk beside Paige. “We need to go northeast and we’re headed west.”

  “We’re going to the coast. It’ll be easier that way,” she replied.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” He grabbed her arm and jerked her to a stop. “We’re going out of our way.”

  “If we go to the coast—which isn’t that much out of our way—the hike will be a lot easier than going through the jungle. We’ll get there in plenty of time to set up camp and get some food for tonight.” Paige pulled her arm from his grip and kept walking.

  “So, you think you’re in charge of everyone?”

  “According to Wade, I’m the Team Leader.”

  “Oh, yeah, how could I forget?” Ty shook his head. “Wade probably told you how to get the damn pen out of the bottle. I’ve seen how chummy you two are. What’d you do, give him a little horizontal tango?”

  Paige grabbed the front of Ty’s shirt and hauled him closer. “Who I sleep with is none of your business, Ty. But let me assure you that I don’t screw anybody to get anything. I don’t need to.”

  “Hey, Ty, lighten up. Paige won fair and square,” Alex called from behind them. “Besides, I’d rather hike along the beach with nice, flat, hard sand than through the jungle.”

  “I hear that,” Aleisha chimed in.

  Outnumbered, Ty dropped back a few paces, still grumbling under his breath. His attitude was going to get old real fast, and Paige knew she needed to come up with some way to bring him around. Kevin snickered and continued walking past them. Paige squinted at his back. Kevin had to be the strangest one of their group. He kept to himself, rarely even talked to the others. Not much of a team player, Paige thought. But at least he wasn’t confronting her all the time.

  “This is kind of cool, actually,” Nick said as he moved up to take Ty’s place next to Paige.

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, I thought I was only here to do the video thing, you know? I’m real happy that I get to participate a little. Hiking with you guys and all.”

  “You ever do any wilderness camping?” she asked.

  “Oh, sure. Well, a few times anyway. I did a wilderness camp vacation once.” Nick shook his head. “Thought I’d breeze through it, but it was really hard. I learned a lot.”

  “I know what you mean. I was still a little kid the first time my mom took me wilderness camping. They cut me a little slack, but I still had to pull my own weight. I’ve been in love with it since my first trip.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s so great about it,” Nick said. “You have to depend on yourself and the other campers.”

  “Good to have you along.” She meant that. As the cameraman, Nick wasn’t competing, but he could certainly slow the team down if he couldn’t keep up. Paige had asked Wade if the team’s score would be impacted by the cameraman’s abilities, but she hadn’t gotten a real answer. Whenever she’d asked Wade to clarify anything, he’d just told her that there were no rules to clarify. Paige pushed aside her uneasiness. It didn’t really matter. She was on an adventure.

  They made the coast in less than an hour. Hiking on the wet sand was much easier than the jungle, and they were making good time. Everyone seemed to lighten up a bit as they trekked across the hard-packed, wet sand. The turquoise sea swelled into waves that crashed onto the shore. The bright sun glistened off the waves and sand, and everyone seemed to be happy to get out of the suffocating gloom of the jungle for a while.

  Nick pulled his camera out and filmed Alex and Aleisha joking and chasing each other, and Ty struggling with his over-sized backpack.

  “Hey, Ty. You know you probably won’t need most of that stuff. Why don’t we stop and you can unload some of it here,” Paige suggested.

  “I don’t need any advice from a girl, but thanks anyway.”

  Paige bit back a ret
ort. When he took off the backpack and dove into the ocean a few times, she decided not to tell him that he’d regret it. But she took a little perverse pleasure when he started to scratch his dry skin and pull at the damp clothes.

  His scratching was making her all too aware of her own itchy scalp. She had been on the island for four days, and as soon as she found fresh water, she was going to use a portion of her shampoo.

  After a few hours, Paige saw what looked to be a good trail to get to the rocks they were headed for and led the group back into the jungle. It took another two hours to reach the base of the rocks.

  Backpacks fell to the ground with relieved sighs from everyone. Aleisha and Alex both leaned against a tree. Alex was breathing hard, and Aleisha looked like she was about to fall asleep.

  “Now what?” Ty asked in a tone that could only be described as surly and antagonistic.

  “Now we hunt for dinner.” Paige looked up at the sun. “Looks like we still have a few hours until dark.” Paige raised her voice in case Aleisha had actually passed out. “Aleisha, you gather some firewood and get some fresh water at that stream we passed.”

  “Seems like we’re filling those things all the time,” Aleisha complained, but picked up the empty bladders.

  “Well, it’s supposed to be real survival,” Paige reminded her. There were only two bladders, each holding about a gallon of water. That meant they’d need to be filled at least twice a day. The producers certainly weren’t making this easy, but then they’d said it wouldn’t be like the other reality television shows.

  “Everyone else, fan out and get whatever food you can find in the next two hours, then come back.”

  “I still have a couple of sandwiches from last night,” Nick offered, holding up a bag. “And some bottled water.”

  “What kind of sandwiches?” Ty asked.

  “Turkey and cheese and tuna,” Nick answered.

  Paige shook her head. “I wouldn’t be eating those after all this heat.”

  “They look okay to me.” Nick peered into the bag.