The Contestant. Stephanie Doyle

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СКАЧАТЬ had thought it, but now that she was actually being filmed, it was starting to hit home that for the next several weeks, however long it would take to whittle down eight contestants to one, her life was going to be played out in front of a camera. Again.

      She was going to kill her father when she got back. Despite the fact that she was doing this to save his damn hide.

      “I’m in a wee bit of trouble, my dear.”

      He always liked to bring out the Irish whenever he was telling her bad news. He thought it softened the blow. The more wees he added, the worse the news. She should have hung up after wee number three.

      Instead she’d dutifully driven from her apartment in Miami to Islamorada in the Keys, to the marina and the boat she’d called home since her mother died of cancer when she was only ten. Her father had supported both of them by taking sport fishers out on day tours. And while growing up on the Slainte wasn’t exactly a routine childhood, it had allowed her always to be close to her two favorite things: the water and her dad.

      Of course she’d go to him in his hour of need, as he called it. She loved the rascal, despite his tragic flaw. The man was the ultimate dreamer. In truth it had been his idealism and hope that had urged her on throughout her diving career. She would have been content diving for fun. A competition here or there because she liked the challenge of testing herself.

      But her father had dreams of Olympic gold.

      An adult now, she could recognize that being an idealist and a romantic probably wasn’t the worst flaw to have. If only it didn’t make him such an easy mark.

      “He had maps. Maps and charts and a diary. He knew the course the Spanish galleon was headed on when it sank. And there were records of Spanish royalty onboard. It would have been filled to the brim with doubloons.”

      “Did you see this map?”

      “I— Well…I…was going to…eventually. I suppose.”

      Fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand dollars he’d borrowed—not from a bank since no respectable institution would dare give him that kind of money, but from a local loan shark, a muscle-bound goon named Rocco. Then Colin Mooney had handed all that money over to a man named Buck Rogers in the hopes of finding lost treasure and quadrupling his investment.

      As if the name alone hadn’t been a clue that the treasure hunter was a fake.

      Mooney’s Sport Fishing Tours barely made that much in a season, let alone in enough time to make a decent repayment that would keep the shark off Colin’s back. Of course, Buck Rogers was already long gone with the fake maps and the cash. And the loan shark was getting antsy.

      Everybody in the small island community knew that Rocco was a bad imitation of a mob thug, but when it came to getting his money back, he wouldn’t mess around. If he didn’t outright kill her father as a lesson to others not to cross him, then he’d certainly take out a knee or two. And without his legs, her father wouldn’t be able to make a living on a boat.

      “You’re my only hope.”

      Talia grimaced as she recalled his plea. She’d just finished college at the ripe age of twenty-eight, she had no savings, no job yet, and no way to bail her father out of this latest mess. She’d offered up her silver medal to auction off on eBay, but he refused to let her part with it. That’s when he’d shown her the application.

      Ultimate Endurance. A reality-TV game show where the prize was one million dollars. He’d sent in her information, her picture and a video of her competing. Apparently the producers had gone for it. If she could outlast just a few of the contestants, she could bring back enough prize money to pay off Rocco and save her father’s knees.

      She’d spent her life on the water and camping on various islands. Her mother had been Australian and had loved the outdoors, so they’d often vacationed on islands in the South Pacific. From an early age, her mother had taught Talia how to fish with her hands, make a fire, make shelter and stay away from deadly predators.

      “A few weeks on a remote island competing against seven people who you know you can beat doing something you love to do…to save my very life. Is that so much to ask?”

      As an added push, he’d reminded her that she wasn’t having much luck finding a job in her chosen profession and that a little extra pocket cash might help to tide her over. Granted his reason for her failure to land a job was ridiculous. He’d said it was because no one interviewing her would ever believe she was an accountant.

      But she was. Or at least she wanted to be. It was what her degree read.

      She even believed that being a former Olympian might give her an edge when it came to finding an entry position in an accounting firm, but now she was seriously considering removing it from her résumé. Each time she went in for an interview, the human-resource person would start asking about her hand—as if after four-and-a-half years it might still hurt—and end it with the question: “Are you really sure you would be satisfied with a job where you do nothing but sit in a cubicle all day working on a computer?”

      Yes! That was exactly what she wanted. She wanted to wear business suits instead of bathing suits. She wanted to walk in pumps instead of bare feet. She wanted to have a normal job, in a normal company and have a normal apartment that didn’t rock when the wind picked up.

      It was during those moments of rejection that she wished her mother was still alive. Because as much as her father didn’t understand her need to be taken seriously as a smart businesswoman, she knew her mother would have. Her mother may have married a dreamer, but she had been all about hard work and getting the job done whatever the cost.

      But instead of being on another interview right now, here Talia was with her father’s life in jeopardy, back to wearing a bikini and cutoff jean shorts, riding in a boat with a camera, en route to an island with a bunch of people who were all after the same prize. There was nothing normal about this.

      She absolutely was going to kill her father when she got back.

      For now there was nothing to do but play the game. She sat quietly on the bench seat with three of the other players while a second speedboat, being piloted by a crewman who worked for the show, was behind them carrying the other cameraman, Dino—a short, stout, bald man with a round face—plus the other four contenders for Ultimate Endurance.

      Ultimate Endurance? They had to be kidding.

      Two of the contestants were well over fifty—Iris and Gus. One was a grandmother, the other a former military officer who looked gritty, but would that translate to real toughness on a deserted island? Then there was Sam, a soft-looking marketing executive who liked to smile and tell stories and who, Talia suspected, was closer to fifty than he let on.

      Also appealing to the fortysomething demographic was Nancy. She was a last-minute replacement for the other fortysomething housewife who had dropped out. It was just luck that Nancy had decided to take a vacation to Hawaii and was available when the show needed her. A sweet-faced, overweight divorcée, from the moment she’d stepped on the yacht she’d alternated between some form of sheer ecstasy for having made it on to the show or wrenching tears at being separated from her children. The woman was an emotional roller coaster and liked to gather sympathy by telling everyone how her rotten ex-husband had dumped her for a younger, more adventurous woman.

      However, Talia couldn’t help but feel protective of Nancy. The divorcée was so far out of her element, Talia didn’t СКАЧАТЬ