‘I hope she’s not been caught up in the storm somewhere,’ said Scott. ‘The driver just said the rain has already hit the other side of the peninsula and it’s causing all kinds of havoc to the traffic.’ He paused to grab another thick slice of mango from the plate in Luisa’s hand.
‘Any more of those mangoes?’ came a new voice with a Welsh lilt from behind them. Mira turned to see a tall, athletic-looking redhead in skintight leggings and a matching vest jog up the stairs, her high ponytail swishing as she moved, one side of her mouth turned upwards, teasingly. ‘Hey, everyone,’ she said. ‘I’m Carly.’ She moved around the group, shaking hands, smiling.
‘Welcome!’ said Luisa. ‘Of course, Carly, we are so happy you are here!’
‘Me too – and just in time,’ she said, smiling. ‘I was dying to get here before it got dark and the rain kicked in.’ She raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘It’s starting to look pretty bleak, isn’t it?’
Luisa looked up, nodded. ‘I think the storm will come soon,’ she said. ‘I’ll get Paola, and we will go to the house, OK?’ But just as Luisa turned to leave, Mira heard something. A soft, swiftding: a text message. She rooted through the pockets ofher backpack, found her phone. As she reached to swipe the screen, a series of similardingsechoed around the pavilion.
‘Did we all just get a message at the same time?’ asked Mira. ‘Maybe it’s...’ She swiped at the screen, tapped the green icon, opened the text. It was a message from a number she didn’t have saved, starting with the digits 506– is that the Costa Rican dial code?– but next to it was a little icon with a picture of a smiling blonde woman she recognized.Hannah.
‘Yes, it’s her – did you all get one too?’ The three of them nodded; Luisa turned back to the group to listen as Scott read the message out loud, Mira’s eyes following the words on her own screen at the same time:
‘Hey, everyone! Welcome to The Hideaway. I’m so happy you’re here, but I’m sorry I’m not there right now. Earlier today, I took a boat to Golfito to pick us up some special supplies for our retreat. Now the weather has taken a turn for the worse and none of the boats will take me back! But I’ll be with you just as soon as I can–the second the storm passes and these boats start up again, I’m out of here. In the meantime, enjoy a gorgeous evening of pampering at my Costa Rican home! I’ll see you very soon – I can’t wait! Love, Hannah.’
Scott finished reading and looked up at the group, his eyebrows drawn slightly together. Just then, Mira caught a flash of movement along the track, where a dark green jeep was jerking its way along the uneven ground.I wonder who this is?She peered over, tried to make out the features of the person inside before it came to a halt.
‘Ah, Paola is here,’ said Luisa.
She muttered something in Spanish, then jogged down thesteps towards the jeep, calling, ‘Paola, Paola!’ She opened the driver’s door, leaned over and spoke rapidly. A slight, grey-haired woman who looked to be in her late fifties, with narrow features and a pinched look to her face, wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt, stepped out of the jeep and walked towards the pavilion.
At the top of the steps, Paola offered each of them in turn a brief smile and a nod. ‘Hola, welcome to you all, our guests. I am Paola, The Hideaway’s housekeeper – I look after Hannah’scasa, and I will look after you all,’ she said. ‘I am sorry I was not here to greet you – I wanted to get to the store in the village for some fresh milk before the storm, but I was too late – it looks like the track will flood quickly in this rain.’ She turned to Luisa, spoke in Spanish; Mira caught mention of Hannah’s name, but not much else.
‘Luisa has told me about your message from Hannah,’ she said. ‘She has taken the boat to Golfito, yes? She must have needed some extra things for our retreat – we were just with her this morning, weren’t we, Luisa?’ Luisa dipped her head in agreement. ‘She was so excited to meet you all. I will call her now, to check what time she’ll be here.’
Mira and the others watched as Paola pulled a mobile from her pocket and called Hannah on speaker for everyone to hear. But Hannah’s phone was switched off; it went straight to voicemail, Hannah’s chirpy Texan drawl asking the caller to leave a message.
Paola shrugged and hung up. ‘OK, never mind,’ she said. ‘The weather sometimes affects cell service out here, and the storm is already starting further down the peninsula. She’ll be back soon, I am sure.’ She slipped the phone back intoher pocket, looked around at the group, properly, for the first time.
Then she seemed to register something; her eyes roamed around the four of them, back and forth. They widened a touch, then narrowed. ‘Wait a moment – there is a problem,’ she said. ‘There—’
But whatever Paola’s problem was, they didn’t get to hear it: a crack of thunder erupted, so loud it was as if the sky above Mira’s head was being ripped in two. Seconds later, fat droplets of rain began to plummet from the sky, lashing through the open sides of the pavilion into their faces. Mira had never been in a tropical storm before, and the mixture of heat and rain was strange. A bit like being in a warm shower, but out in the open air. She felt irrationally naked, exposed; she moved a hand quickly to her hair, held onto the top of her head. It was OK, everything was still in place.
Luisa fired some more rapid Spanish at Paola, who hesitated, looked at the group again, then glanced at the rain. She nodded, said: ‘Sí, sí.Everybody, let’s get to the house – we can work this out when we get into the dry.’
Mira tugged her jacket out of her suitcase and threw it on, then lifted it onto its wheels and followed Paola and the others down the stairs of the pavilion, shielding her face with her hood.
She shivered and tried to shake off a prickle of unease. It was probably just her body reacting to the sudden rain, the violence of the storm, the darkening of the clouds. She pushed away the thought that her disquiet was because of something else. Like the expression she’d seen pass across Paola’s face as she looked around the group of people gathered here.
She’d looked confused, thought Mira.
Understandably so, perhaps – it sounded like she’d not expected Hannah to take a last-minute boat trip just before the storm.
But it was more than that. She’d lookedafraid.
SCOTT
Scott shielded his face from the pummelling rain and forced himself to focus on the movement of his shoes on the earth. It would be easy to lose his grip here, especially while he was so giddy with excitement. The last thing he needed was to fall on his face and make an ass of himself before they’d made it as far as Hannah’s lodge.
The trees were thick and high on both sides of the narrow track as they walked, the branches waving wildly as the wind and rain picked up speed, obscuring their view of what lay ahead of them. The chirps and croaks coming from the dense jungle were loud even through the storm, nature’s symphony blaring over the thunder and rain. The air smelled damp and earthy. In the shadows, swinging between branches, Scott thought he could make out the silhouettes of two small monkeys. Perhaps they were weaving their way back to a comfortable branch, somewhere to spend the night and shelter from the storm.
His eyes had just started to adjust to the gloom when there was a thinning in the canopy above them. With the relative shelter of branches and leaves removed from above their heads,the black, rumbling clouds came into stark view, and the rain slapped his hood with the force of a shower on full blast.
Then – its slate walls and floor-to-ceiling glass so out of place in the middle of this lush forest – there was Hannah’s Costa Rican home.
Holy shit.Scott shielded his eyes from the storm to get a proper look in front of him. He’d never seen anything like it; not even Hannah’s online tours had done it justice. He remembered her saying in one of her videos that she had bought the land and then got some hotshot eco-conscious architect from San José to design the place, bringing together ‘the environmentally friendly and the luxurious’.
Well, the luxurious part had clearly come to fruition. Even now, in the near dark, with the rain lashing down and those bruise-coloured clouds overhead, the place was superb. Sharp, clean lines and the combination of sleek grey walls and glass made it look like it had fallen from the pages of a design magazine. Pulling the hood of his waterproof further down to shield his head from the rain, Scott noted a stone footpath leading neatly through some gardens to the front of the house. It then split into two: one path leading to the house’s front door, the other to a sharply rectangular infinity pool surrounded by bright green tiles. Dark mahogany loungers the size of double beds lay around its edges, loaded with thick cream mattresses and bright turquoise pillows, the whole pool area protected by a sloping roof of glossy wood.
