46

Less than five minutes later, the great escape was over. The WaveRunners cruised to a stop beside an exhausted Finney, their wakes nearly swamping the surf kayak. Finney braced his paddle in the water and leaned into the waves, coughing and wheezing as he feathered the paddle back and forth. After the waves subsided, Finney dropped the paddle across his lap, his shoulders slumping in fatigue.

“Get on the back, Tarzan,” one of the security guards said.

Finney could have resisted, but it would only prolong his humiliation. He handed his paddle to one guard and reached out his hand to the other. The guard took it and helped Finney climb onto the back of his WaveRunner. His partner tied the kayak to the back of the other one.

“What were you thinking?” the guard asked.

Finney didn’t respond. He sat behind the man, his hands braced on the seat, struggling for breath. The world was spinning.

The guard cranked the throttle, and the WaveRunner lurched forward, nearly throwing Finney off. Finney grabbed the shoulders of the guard and held on.

“You on a midnight cruise, Judge?” the guard yelled over his shoulder.

“You going to read me my Miranda rights?” Finney asked.

“You’re not under arrest, Judge. I’m just trying to keep you from being shark food.” They bounced across the bay at speeds designed to impress the onlookers.

“Good,” Finney said, sucking in air. “Then you can save your questions.”

They rode the rest of the distance in silence. By the time the WaveRunner swung next to the shore, the camera, lighting, and sound crews were fully deployed. They captured a shirtless Finney stumbling off the WaveRunner and into the surf, followed by the burly security guards who dragged the WaveRunners to shore. Murphy, McCormack, Javitts, and a host of others stood watching. Kline stood on the fringes of the small crowd, and Finney shot her a knowing look.

He put on his docksiders, dried off with a towel somebody handed him, and followed the show’s executives into the Paradise Island library. They told Finney to take a seat at the end of the table, which he did, putting his folded towel on the seat first so he wouldn’t stain the wood. They provided him with water and then waited for the camera and lighting crews to complete their work.

“All set?” McCormack asked.

Wearing his John Deere cap but no shirt, Finney appreciated the warm heat from the bright klieg lights. The audio and lighting crews gave McCormack a thumbs-up.

“Do you want off the show?” Javitts asked.

Finney smirked at the question—at the way this whole episode was being handled. Another made-for-TV moment. It’s why they were having Javitts ask the questions. They had captured the attempted escape on camera and now wanted to stage a postcapture interview with the crazy judge himself.

It’s also why they started with this type of dramatic question, one that Finney knew they would ask. He had thought this through carefully in the past twenty-four hours. If he left now (assuming they would let him), he wouldn’t have enough evidence to get the authorities involved. What would he tell them—that one of the other contestants told him that the show’s director told her she shouldn’t try to make the finals? Hearsay on top of hearsay. Certainly not enough for a warrant.

If he left now, he could probably protect the other participants just by going public with his suspicions. But then the show’s producers would play it by the book, Finney (and Christianity along with him) would look foolish, and whoever had plotted harm to the show’s contestants would get off scot-free.

And that analysis assumed the best case—that they would actually let him return to his home unharmed. If he quit, Finney would be transported back to the United States by himself. An entire helicopter ride and plane ride for whoever wanted him dead to get at him. How hard would it be to make it look like a crazy lung cancer patient passed away during the flight?

Busting the bad guys would require Finney to stay on the island. But still, he needed to know if leaving really was a possibility. “Am I free to go?” he asked.

“You know the agreement you signed with the show,” Javitts replied.

The agreement, of course, required Finney to stay until the end of filming. “I didn’t ask about the agreement,” Finney said. “I asked if I am free to leave.”

“If you can’t handle the pressure, you can quit.” Javitts leaned forward on the table—a good posture for the whirring cameras. “You need to tell us why you want to quit, and then you will need to stay on the island until the filming is complete. We can only send people back to the States if necessary for medical reasons.”

Finney coughed. The timing seemed a little too convenient, but it wasn’t anything he could control. He removed his cap and wiped his forehead with his arm.

“I want to finish the show,” Finney said calmly. “I just thought a little midnight paddle would be some good exercise, and next thing I know, you’ve got the CIA after me.”

Javitts snorted. Murphy mumbled something that Finney couldn’t quite pick up.

“Are you saying you weren’t trying to escape from Paradise Island?” Javitts asked with as much incredulity in his voice as possible. Later, Finney would have to give the man some pointers on how better to intimidate a witness.

“Why would anyone want to escape from a beautiful place like this?” Finney asked, surveying the skeptical faces in the room.

After a few more questions, followed by a stern off-camera lecture about how disruptive his behavior had been, the cameras started rolling again, and they informed Finney that staying on the show would require that he pass two medical exams, one conducted by the island medical doctor and a second by a clinical psychologist the show had brought to the island for this final stressful week.

“Nobody told me that being sane was a prerequisite,” Finney quipped. He was starting to regain a little strength and was having fun at the expense of the worried and tired faces around him.

Nobody laughed. Nobody even cracked a smile.