Adrift on St. John by Rebecca Hale

they had that kind of cash to throw around.
    Property values on St. John were among the highest in the Caribbean, due in large part to its national park. This massive federal holding made the island’s remaining private land relatively scarce; proximity to the park’s undeveloped beaches further enhanced real estate assessments.
    The park’s origins went back to the 1950s when financier and wealthy heir Laurance Rockefeller began purchasing land on a then largely unknown St. John.
    Using a private broker to mask his identity, Rockefeller bought up huge tracts from unsuspecting owners—a move that was still controversial among many of the sellers’ descendents, who felt they had been cheated out of their properties’ true values.
    Once Rockefeller had acquired as much property as possible along the island’s north shore, he consolidated his landholdings and donated the bundled plot to the National Park Service, reserving a renewable lease back to the lavish resort he’d built on the parcel’s west end, the site of the former Caneel Bay plantation.
    The owners of the Maho Bay property were one of the few landholders who had been able to resist the negotiating power of Rockefeller’s bankers. Sixty years later, the trustees representing these property rights were now ready to cash in. It was hard to imagine any other development prospect in the Caribbean that could match Maho’s unique features.
    I reached for the shot glass as I turned to the last page of the prospectus. I wasn’t looking forward to the extra eyes such a high-profile land sale would draw to me and my rum-soaked fiefdom. I wasn’t sure how well my Penelope Hoffstra routine would hold up to the parent company’s corporate diligence committee.
    Another swallow of rum helped tamp down my concerns. Vivian would make the necessary arrangements for our soon-to-be-arriving friends in suits. I would just have to hope no one knew enough about the original Penelope Hoffstra to recognize the difference. It would probably be prudent, I reflected somberly, to keep a low profile in the coming weeks.
    I dropped the prospectus onto the pile of papers from my inbox, and my focus returned to the troublesome issue of the resort’s new employee.
    “Maybe Vivian hadn’t had a chance to put her file together,” I offered to Fred. “Simple as that. Maybe it’s all just a coincidence.”
    Fred continued to chew on his leaf. He was still considering the pros and cons of the Maho Bay land deal; he didn’t like to be rushed from one topic to the next.
    I took another steadying gulp from my glass. The rum was beginning to numb my Hannah concerns. “Plenty of people have the same name.”
    If only she had been a strung-out party girl, like most of kids who came to work for us, the strange happenstance of her name would have been much easier to dismiss.
    The bulk of our temporary employees were college students, free spirits looking for a semester’s break from the books. They spent far more time enjoying the island atmosphere than actually working in it.
    I shook my head. There was no way to deny it. Simply put, Hannah didn’t fit the mold.
    Fred began to carefully back down off his limb, rustling the branches as his stiff, awkward movements caused the tree to sway wildly back and forth.
    I glanced at my watch. It was time for his daily afternoon swim at the beach that fronted the resort. Several guests would be lined up along the sand, waiting with their cameras, eager to capture the event on film. Fred, the body-surfing iguana, was something of a legend on the island. He seemed to enjoy his fame; his adoring fans were rarely disappointed with his performance.
    As Fred hit the shaded ground below the balcony, I drained the shot glass and set it with a loud
clink
on a small metal table beside my chair. My gaze fell once more onto the prospectus.
    “Fred,” I mused aloud as he waddled off down a concrete path leading toward the water, “she’s staying at Maho Bay.