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But before long, several people had jumped into the water, and were making their way over to assist Chase in subduing Rick, while others swam over to the second boat and managed to bring it to the dock in next to no time, no doubt earning them a debt of gratitude, and a kiss from Scarlett, the oldest seductress in Passion Island’s history.

“Why!” cried Clint as soon as Rick had been brought safely to shore. “Why did you do it!”

Rick shrugged, and didn’t look entirely happy, faced with a minor mob and several cameras pointed at his pockmarked face. “For the money, what do you think?”

“So you’re behind this kidnapping business?” asked Chase.

“I’m just a minor cog in a big wheel,” said Rick. “I’m the guy who sends the footage, and arranges for the personal information of the candidates to be sent to the potential buyers.”

“Potential buyers?” asked Clint, making a powerful effort not to smack the man in the face.

“Yeah, you’d be surprised how many people out there are willing to pay through the nose for the privilege of acquiring one of Passion Island’s contestants,” said Rick. “I’m talking millions.”

“People are buying Passion Island contestants?” asked Tina, shocked.

“Yeah, five of them,” said Chase.

“They’ve all been found,” Clint assured them. “And I swear I didn’t have a clue.”

“You could have taken the reports that those women were missing a little more seriously, though,” said Kimmy accusingly.

Clint, perhaps for the first time in his life, contrived to look moderately contrite.“Yeah, I probably should have done that little thing,” he confessed.

“Instead you wanted to keep the show running, and didn’t care one hoot that you were putting people in danger,” Kimmy continued.

“I didn’t know, okay!”

“So who are these buyers?” asked Odelia.

Rick shrugged.“Russian oligarchs, Arabian billionaires, Chinese mobsters… Passion Island isn’t just wildly popular with your regular audience, but with the criminal element, too, and those with enough money to burn decided they wanted a piece of the action—literally—and so a couple of very enterprisingpeople set up a business to give them what they wanted.”

“This is sick,” said Joanna, looking nauseous.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” said Clint. “They only targeted blondes. Like Odelia.”

Chase then strode forward and gave the producer a single punch to the face. It was enough to land the man on the sandy ground, wondering who’d turned off the lights.

Loud cheers and applause broke out amongst Clint’s staff.

Apparently the man wasn’t as popular as he thought—nor as free of responsibility in the drama that had just unfolded.

Next to Odelia, Tina heaved a little sigh.“I guess this is the end of Passion Island.”

“I think so,” Odelia admitted.

Tina broke into a smile.“Good. I was fed up with being stalked by seducers anyway.”

Chase walked up to Odelia, and grabbed her into his arms for a bone-crushing hug.

“I missed you, babe,” he breathed passionately.

“And I missed you,” she said.

And then they kissed, and more applause broke out.

They might not have won that fifty grand, but they had caught their guy.

Epilogue

“I’ve never been contacted by the FBI before,” said Uncle Alec, sounding particularly proud of the fact. “So when they told me they’d freed the women and arrested the bad guys, all I needed to do was call Clint Bunda and get him to play ball. The feds had the number of the kidnappers’ contact on the island but didn’t have a name, so I placed the call, and the rest is history.” Next to him, Charlene Butterwick was beaming, clearly proud of her man, as evidenced by the fact that she kept patting his hand.

“You did a wonderful thing, Alec,” said Hampton Cove’s mayor. “A wonderful, wonderful thing.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Uncle Alec, modestly plucking an imaginary piece of lint from his polo shirt. “Some people call me a hero, others call me a savior. I just like to think I did my duty, same as anyone would.”

We were finally home again, after a long journey, and not a moment too soon. Traveling by plane and car, I was happy to be back, and so were my friends.

Harriet and Brutus, who’d risked life and limb by traveling on that boat with Chase and Gran and Scarlett, had had the scare of a lifetime when Chase had steered the vessel straight into Rick’s boat. For a moment, Harriet had told me, she’d feared the boat would be lost with all hands—and paws. Luckily that hadn’t happened, but she’d been happy to feel terra firma under her shaky paws, that’s for sure.

As for Rick, he’d been collected by the police and locked up with the rest of the human traffickers. The women had been freed from the clutches of the rich men who’d had them snatched for their own personal enjoyment, and justice had finally prevailed.

As far as Passion Island was concerned, the network had decided to take the show off the air, as well as every other reality show like it. Lawyers would presumably have a field day working out culpability, as the families of all five women had decided to sue.