“I never took Keith as the sort to desert his post,” Andrew said.

“If he had a good reason.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, a bad case of the trots?”

“He should’ve gotten you up three hours ago,” Andrew said, making a point of the three hours part.

A mighty long time to spend squatting in the jungle.

“Maybe he decided to let me sleep…” I looked over at where the fire used to be. Only a smokeless pile of ashes remained. Obviously, nobody had fed the thing for hours.

I suddenly got sort of a sickish feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“What’s the matter?” Connie asked, sounding groggy. With a yawn, she pushed herself up on one elbow. Her hair was a messy tangle, in spite of being almost as short as mine, and her T-shirt hung off her shoulder. She actually looked sort of cute that way. This was the first time I’d ever seen her wake up in the morning.

Andrew explained to her about Keith. “Did you notice anything last night?” he asked.

She yawned again and shook her head. Then she added, “I bet he went jogging or something. He’s such a fitness freak. Probably on the other side of the island by now.”

“Maybe,” Andrew said, but I knew he didn’t buy it. I’d noticed before how he sometimes agreed with his daughters and wife even when they were obviously wrong. It was just his way of keeping the peace.

Anyway, our discussions were getting nowhere fast.

So Andrew went over to Billie, bent down and shook her. She seemed to be quite a heavy sleeper. She moaned and rolled onto her side. She’d gone to sleep in her bikini, and wasn’t covered by anything eke. Looking between Andrew’s legs, I saw that her upper breast had gotten dislodged a little. About half the nipple showed. I kept watching, hoping her entire breast would fall out. But then Andrew turned around, so I had to look the other way quick.