What happened at Réunion Island?

On a warm sunny afternoon on Island Le Reunion, a French department on the African continent, right next door to Madagascar and Mauritius.

We are met with a view of gorgeous 21 year old Nancy taking majestic strides as she emerges from the sea after a long swim. The look of satisfaction on her face, one could easily tell that swim was a way she washed all her troubles in the Indian ocean and emerged a new woman.

A woman free of all the anger she felt towards her father for sexually abusing her as a teenager, the hate she felt towards herself for turning to drugs during her first two years of college in order to cope with the scars of her abuse and of course washing away all the alcohol she had consumed three consecutive nights before that. You wouldn’t blame her, being on an island such as Réunion, filled with thrill-seekers should bring out the party animal in anyone.

As she emerged, thoughts of her father telling her she was a bad swimmer crossed her mind briefly.

“Take that creep, I just took a swim in the ocean,” She brags.

She also recalls what an amazing week it had been; from the endless parties on the beach, their visit to “Piton de la Fournaise” (translates to: Peak of the furnace) one of the most active volcanoes in the world and the lovely people she had met from all over the world. She felt fulfilled!

The supermodel moment she was having as she emerged from the sea was cut short by her loud-mouth best friend Amanda. She rushes right to Nancy’s face.

“Girl you’ve got to see this insanely – hot – Italian – looking guy I got talking to at the bar right now!”  Amanda blurts.

“If he’s as hot as you claim, he’s definitely taken,” Nancy replies.

“Who cares? Let’s go!” Amanda says pulling Nancy along.

Just then, Nancy hears someone screaming her name. She pauses and looks up to find her over protective big brother up in the air on a water powered jet pack – having the time of his life. She’s pissed because he had talked her out of renting one – saying $115 was too expensive to spend on it. Having no words for him, she leaves with Amanda.

It’s the evening of Friday the 13^th on the island. We’re in a small convenient store at Saint Gilles, Réunion as the girls shop for cheap liquor and beer – all for their house party to mark their last Friday on the island. They are at the counter as they hear that baritone wrapped up in that sexy French accent – “hey Mandy.” They both turn and there he was; the insanely – hot – Italian – looking – guy, Leonardo. He could easily be any 21 year old's dream guy.

“Don’t tell me you both plan on consuming all that alcohol anytime soon?” He asks.

“oh no – no, of course not,” Amanda replies.

He walks closer to the girls.

Amanda continues, “ Nancy, meet Leo. The Italian- French guy I met on the beach the other day”.

Reaching for a handshake with Nancy, “I’m so sorry I had to run before Amanda could introduce us.”

“It’s no problem, nice to meet you though,” Nancy replies.

Amanda gets all excited once again, “ and for the drinks, it’s all for our house party happening right now. You’re actually lucky to have ran into us cause you’re officially invited!”

“Awesome! I’m in the mood for a house party,” he says.

“Great!” Amanda replies.

“You girls lead the ways,” he says with a smile.

They get into their GMC and ride all the to their pad for the vacation, it’s a cozy vacation house belonging to Melvin’s parents. Melvin is Nathan's best friend, he’s also on vacation with them.

Back from the supply run, they walk in to find music jamming through the speakers, tables set for the party but just Nathan and Melvin in the living room.

“Where is everyone?” Nancy asks.

“I have no clue,” Melvin answers.

“Like no one has shown since we left or they are all hiding in the kitchen or something?” Amanda asks.

Melvin and Nathan share a laugh. “ Why will they do that Mandy?” Nathan asks. “This is just a big fat sign that we are so unpopular here,” he continues.

“What are you talking about? We’ve made great friends here.” Nancy adds.

“Yeah, but they are all no-shows.” Nathan replies.

“Hey, technically we’ve got one guest,” Says Melvin. Handing Leo a beer, “Make yourself right at home bro.”

“Thanks man.” Leo replies. Perplexed – trying to figure out the reason for the low turn out. “Wait, hold up, is it Friday the 13^th?” he asks.

“YES!” the rest of the gang chorus.

“Oh no! There’s a live music concert on the other side of the island,” Leonardo says. “To be honest, I should be at the concert – I totally forgot about it.” He adds.

“Well that’s just great. Great planning guys.” Amanda says sarcastically.

Nancy, standing up from her seat – heading to her room. “That’s my cue to turn in for the night. I have to sleep off the rest of the alcohol in my system.

“Hey don’t be a buzz kill.” Amanda tells Nancy but she’s not having it.

It’s about 10 minutes later. Leo and the rest of the gang are chatting over drinks in the living room. The music's still playing like it was a full-on party. Leo asks to use the bathroom and he’s pointed to the direction of the bathroom. On his way to the bathroom he takes a detour to Nancy’s room to find her in her night gown.

“Oh I’m so sorry, I was looking for the Toilet.” He says remorsefully.

“It’s no problem really,” Nancy says politely.

He turns to leave – he turns back to Nancy.

“I think I have a confession to make,” he says as he takes slow steps towards Nancy.

“You never missed your way? You got in here on purpose?” Nancy asks.

“oh no, that was an honest mistake,” he says as he pauses right in front of Nancy. “I’ve known you a long time, even before this trip. Common! You are Nancy fucking Peters, you have thousands of followers on Insta, your ads – your YouTube channel! It’s impossible not to know you,” he adds.

“I beg to differ, you’re the first fan I’m meeting on this trip.” Nancy says.

Leo laughs. “Fan – well I guess you can call me that.”

He takes her hand. “ You can also add “crush” to that list.” He pecks the back of her palm.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to get you right where you are.” He adds drawing her to him by the waist.

He kisses her deeply – she doesn’t kiss back but pushes him off her.

“Don’t you ever try that again!” she says as she slaps him. “All you men do is – “

She’s interrupted by Leo. “Quit playing hard to get bitch, no one says no to Leo.”

He pushes her to the bed and forces himself on her. You could still hear the music from the living room, her screams will definitely go unheard but she still does as she tries to fight him off.

Just then, Amanda walks in unnoticed. She runs back to the living room and in seconds she storms in with the boys. Nathan – furious heads straight for Leonardo, grabs him by the collar, punches him and throws him out into the hallway. Amanda rushes to Nancy who lays helpless on the bed crying.

Melvin and Nathan are out in the hallway kicking Leo and throwing punches. They pick him up once more, this time, he’s thrown into the living room right next to a shelf carrying metal ornaments. Leo picks up one of them to defend himself.

He charges towards Melvin – trying to block the hit, Melvin gets struck on his wrist, this sends Melvin to the ground in pain – his wrist is dislocated.

A less distraught Nancy rushes into the living room with Amanda. They see Nathan struggling to get the ornament off Leonardo's hand – they rush to his aid.

A struggle ensues between all four.

The ornament falls to the floor but Leonardo is not done. He grabs Nancy's throat with the intent of squeezing the life out of her for turning him down.

Nancy slowly drops to the floor, she could pass out any moment. With this psychotic rage in his eyes Leo keeps squeezing. That rage is put out when he’s hit hard at the back of his skull with the ornament he had picked from the shelf. Leo falls to the floor – lifelessly, blood streaming out his cracked skull. Nancy gasps for air as the squeezing stops, she coughs a bit too – her eyes – red.

She’s the only one in the room moving at this point. Everyone else is frozen as they stare at Leonardo lying in a pool of his own blood.

Amanda rushes to the sound system and turns it off – still in shock.

Nathan throws the ornament to the floor and rushes to check Leo's pulse, before he could get to him.

“Don’t!” Nancy exclaims. “I can see his brains, he’s dead.”

Amanda drops to the floor – trembling.

“His brains?” Melvin asks moving towards the body. He sees what Nancy mentioned, he immediately felt sick, throwing up right where he was.

“I – I – I – he was.” Nathan mutters in a state of shock, not being able to put words together.

Nancy gets up and walks up to her brother, takes his hands. “You had no other choice, it was either him or me.” Turning to Melvin and Amanda, “right?”.

“Right,” Melvin says putting himself together. “ And we all know no one will believe what really happened here, not with all the alcohol we’ve got here. It’ll be just another drunken party fight gone wrong to everyone else.”

“And him being white and Nathan black, it all conforms to the prejudice that all black men are violent.” Nancy adds, sobbing.

“We can actually get away with this, it all depends on what we all do from this moment till the next few hours.” Melvin says.

“What have I done? What have I done?” Nathan sobs in the corner.

Melvin walks up to him and assures him it’ll all be fine as long as they stick to a plan and act fast.

The plan was for Nathan and Amanda to head to the music concert and then to any packed club with Nancy’s phone, posting on her Instagram page with thousands of followers, also making it look like all 4 of them were present. Meanwhile Melvin and Nancy are left home to clean up the scene and wrap the body for disposal.

Nathan and Amanda where to come back to the pad in exactly 1 hour when all four will drive to Melvin’s father’s construction site for a condo project on the island to dispose the body. Head back to the concert and party like nothing ever happened before turning in for the night.

This plan was executed swiftly. A pact was made never to bring up what they had done, ever.

They got back to their home country, Nigeria which has no good database or proper records anyone from the island could trace them with, to them, they were a needle in a haystack.

The weeks after their trip wasn’t easy for any one of them, having to deal with the guilt of what they did all alone and the feeling of not knowing if they would be in jail the next day for their heinous crime.

Nancy spent most of her weeks locked up in her room, turning down her influencer gigs, frequent trips to her therapist where she’d talk for hours or cry, evading the real issue which brought her there – the murder they committed.

Nathan spent his drinking, smoking, doing pills, anything that would get him high enough to silence the voices in his head telling him he was a low down, dirty murderer.

Amanda withdrew from being the loquacious, witty youngster everyone knew her to be.

Melvin felt the guilt for a bit but just as he was getting a little confident in their plan; the alibi and where the body was disposed, a knock at his front door threw his confidence to the wind. It was two French detectives form Réunion island accompanied by two officers from the closest station to Melvin’s house in Nigeria.

Leonardo’s disappearance had turned into a full-on investigation on the island and the police had learnt through interrogations that Leo was at Melvin’s on the night of his disappearance. Melvin’s dad was somewhat popular on the island since his construction company was building a condominium somewhere on the island. His permanent address which was in Nigeria wasn’t that hard to get.

Melvin felt sick once again but he knew he couldn’t throw up in front of the cops. He followed them to the station for proper interrogation and to make a statement. He couldn’t call his friends to alert them because he feared the police could be on to them and his conversations monitored.

Not long after getting to the station he was asked for the address of his friends who were also at the party. Few hours later, there they were, the entire gang at the station for interrogation.

The squad did a good job hiding how nervous they were. They all answered their questions like they planned if the situation ever came up. All their answers matched even as they were interrogated separately with loads of posts on their Instagram pages to back up their claims, almost like it was too good to be true. The French detectives weren’t convinced, they stuck around for more investigations.

Things seemed to have cooled off a bit until Nathan was found unresponsive in his bathroom. He had taken an over dose of narcotics and was rushed to the hospital.

Mrs. Peters who is Nathan and Nancy’s mum, frustrated by all that was happening; The frequent visits of the cops to her house, her son’s overdose and their change in behavior. She sends for Melvin and Amanda for a talk with Nancy present.

“You all may not know this but nothing hurts a parent more than when the life of their child is being threatened, especially when that parent is willing to do anything to protect that child.” Mrs. Peters says calmly.

She continues, this time with her voice slightly raised. “I can’t remember the last time you all hung out like you used to – there are these foreign cops all over the place everywhere I turn – my son lies helpless in the hospital because he over dosed for some reason I don’t know. All starting from the day you returned from your trip to the island. Now for the last time, what happened at Réunion island?”

They see the fierceness in her eyes, they know she wouldn’t take any more lies. They confess what really happened with Leo to Mrs. Peters.

She wasn’t prepared for what she heard, she breaks down.

Just then, Melvin gets a call from his family lawyer. A French judge had granted a search warrant for the vacation home and the construction site to be searched for evidence for the disappearance of Leonardo.

Hearing the latest development on the case, Nancy slowly gets up from her chair, walks out to the yard, drops to the ground and lays on the grass with a million and one thoughts going through her head.

Looking up to the starry sky, she remembers how she had always found comfort in looking up at the stars when she had a bad day, whenever her perverted late father would touch her. She would think of how cool it’ll be if all she had to do in life was just shine – no struggles, no abuse but just – shine.

Still looking up at the stars, the thought of Leonardo’s murder and the investigation came to mind. She recalls Leo will likely be buried under 6 feet of concrete by now. The spot where he was buried is right where the half-built condominium presently stands.

“Good luck taking down that condo to find that psycho.” She says.

Right then, she promised she won’t forget to shine like the stars no matter what the outcome of the search will be. “After all, no one thought to investigate the food poisoning incident which led to the death for that pervert of a man I called father many years ago,” she thought to herself.