by C. L. Stone
He pulled a tiny box from his pocket and opened it, revealing a diamond engagement ring.
I leaned in, as did Corey. The stone was a square cut, and the band looked to be silver. “Nice,” I said. “I still say you’re a sucker for asking.”
“She hasn’t stopped hinting at a ring since I brought up the question about kids.” He shook his head and smiled, the dark skin contrasting with his white teeth. “My own fault. I jumped ahead apparently in how this whole planning a lifetime together works. Good thing I was thinking of asking her.”
“Congrats, man,” Corey said. “I can’t believe it’s really happening.”
“I can’t believe I’d actually consider getting married,” Kevin said. He closed the box and put it back into his pocket, zipping it closed when he looked at me. “If you would have asked me two years ago, I would have said forget it.”
“I still say forget it,” I said. “Take the ring back, save the money from the wedding to buy a house.”
Corey elbowed me. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t like marriage?”
I shrugged. “Why? Do you need a piece of paper to say you’re together?”
“Do you not like the paper?” Corey asked. “Or do you not like having to wear the dress?”
“Both.”
Kevin smirked, a rare occurrence for him. “Well, remind me not to ask you.”
“Deal.” I grinned again. I was glad for Kevin, but I couldn’t help thinking of girls back in high school who’d already been planning weddings by cutting out pictures from magazines. Dresses, fancy cakes, churches. Totally not my thing. Well, maybe the cake part was a good idea.
Axel whistled, drawing everyone’s attention to him. His shoulder-length black hair was drawn back into a ponytail. He was wearing khakis and a white ribbed undershirt, along with an olive drab jacket. He usually didn’t wear the khakis unless he was at the aquarium, so I must have interrupted his work. He wore his glasses now and I couldn’t tell his mood. With his steady eyes and confident demeanor, he had a way of appearing he knew everything, even what I was thinking.
Then there was the way he’d been talking to me lately. He always asked how I was feeling. He always asked if I needed anything. Fine and no were my standard answers to his questions. But then, the odd thing was, he’d compliment something: my eyes, ears, lips. Before I could formulate something in response, he’d walk away, or would talk to someone else in the room, like he didn’t need me to respond. It left my heart racing every time, and yet he never did more than that.
He stood a short distance from the gangway, raising his hand and making a circle. “I need a meeting,” he said. His voice was steady, smoky and commanding. “My team.”
The security team had left and were walking back toward the security house. Kevin, Corey and I shuffled to join Axel and Brandon. Brandon was looking a little tired, and since it was late, I thought he might have gotten woken up and told to pack.
I’d been more sensitive to his moods since we’d been in the hospital together. Identical in every way to Corey, except Brandon’s eyes were sad, his cheeks were tinted red, like he’d spent a little too much time in the sun today. He wore dark jeans and a red T-shirt under a black jacket, a spare since I’d stolen his other one. There were a couple of grease stains on his jeans. If he’d been asleep, he’d probably put on his jeans from the day of working at his motorcycle shop before hurrying over. That might make him grumpy. I did my best to look contrite and sympathetic, an effort to avoid a fight right from the start.
Luckily there were a lot of distractions, so while he did wave shortly to me, he didn’t have much of a chance to say anything.
Axel’s gaze fell on each of the guys’ faces, although he avoided mine for the moment. “Where’s Raven and Marc?”
“Raven went to go get Marc,” Kevin said.
“Marc went to work out with Avery where to fit us all,” Corey said.
“I’ve already lost two of you,” Axel said. He put his hand out and counted off as he made his points. “Now listen everyone, I know it’s late, but if we’re going to do this, we need to start work now. I want to know the ins and outs of this ship. I want the manifest for both crew and guests. I want an objective and then I--”
“I can help,” I said. I didn’t like interrupting Axel, but I didn’t want him to depend on the boys to do all of this for him when there were things already prepared. Blake said he’d make a binder for me and put it in the room, so hopefully if Avery was listening, he’d make sure it would get there.
Axel turned and everyone’s eyes landed on me. “You’ve got something for us?”
“I’ve got some material for you to go over,” I said. “And a game plan in place if you want to hear about it. I can share the materials I was given: ship schematics, crew and visitor rosters and an outline of the next few days.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “And then we need an objective.”
I took the picture out of my pocket and showed it to everyone. “This is Michelle,” I said. “Her shelter for teenagers was promised money from Nightingale, but it never made it to her.” I went over as quickly as I could about Michelle, that we had six people coming onboard that were of interest to us, and a quick overview of the plan: identify bad people, discuss dirty money, steal their dirty money, and after that, quietly eliminate the bad guys from the companies.
Corey took the picture from me to study and the rest focused their attention on me. It surprised me not to be interrupted as I continued. They listened, nodding heads, taking in what I had to say.
“Avery can give a tour, if he isn’t too busy,” I said, feeling uncomfortable with the silence, even though it was respectful. It compelled me to keep talking. “Although some of us should get some sleep and we can reconvene at breakfast. It won’t do us much good to be too tired to work.” I looked at Brandon for this part. “Some of us have been up all day and we’ve got people coming tomorrow.”
“I’m fine,” Brandon said.
Axel put his hands into his coat pockets. “Sounds like you’ve got this covered,” he said. “So where do you want us?”
I hesitated at this. “Where...what do you want to do?”
“You’ve been put in charge, haven’t you?”
I nodded slowly, expecting some sort of retort, an argument why I shouldn’t run the team.
“Then we’re here to follow you. But I do have a couple of requests.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I don’t want anyone wandering off alone without someone else there,” he said. “Not with so many people around and on such a large ship. I request that we all stay in teams, no wandering off without being within arm’s reach of another.”
Sounded reasonable. The ship was huge and we could get lost or cornered by bad guys. I had a feeling though, from the way the others didn’t seem surprised or protest, that this was normal for them and Axel was saying this for my benefit. “If we can arrange that,” I said.
“And I’d like to speak with Mr. Ethan myself before we take off. I want to be assured of everything going on. I don’t like being on board someone else’s boat without direct permission.”
Again, reasonable. I’d want to do the same thing. “Anything else?” I asked.
“Maybe after we check things out. I’ll let you know.”
He seemed rather calm. It threw me off of my expectation to have to fight with him over staying. Maybe he was more open-minded than the others had expected, too. I also needed to talk to him about Blake, hopefully before he found out he was on board. “I know you’ll want to catch up,” I said. “But maybe tomorrow morning we can talk at breakfast?” That seemed like the best solution. It would give him time to get involved and look at the whole thing. Then after he was invested, I’d mention Blake was coming along.
I just hoped they didn’t run into Blake before then. Was he listening to us now? Would he know to stay away until I had a chance to talk to Axel?
His lips twitched at t
his, nodding. His eyes behind the glasses were focused on me, and I felt intimidated, even if his face was otherwise expressionless. He was a blank slate, too difficult to read. “Yeah. We should do that.”
“And for anyone who isn’t too tired,” I looked at Corey, who was usually a night owl. “I could use some help figuring out what we can do to gather the most data on people coming in. We’ve already set up listening devices, but we should probably find a good way to focus on some particular guests that are of interest to us. I’m more interested in getting to the bottom of Michelle’s case and the Nightingale group, but we should gather as much data as we can while we’re here.”
“I can do a search on your Nightingale guests,” he said. “I might be able to find out what types of phones and laptops they have, and work out possible passwords before they even get here.”
“Some of us could work with the crew,” Kevin said. He redirected his gaze to Axel. “Bribe a few for any info on anyone who is acting funny.”
“Don’t look at me,” Axel said. He had his arms crossed over his chest and motioned with his elbow in my direction. “Talk to her. She’s in charge.”
Kevin shifted on his feet, looking uncomfortable. He blew a breath out of his thick lips, his cheeks bunching up as he did. He readjusted his red jacket, drawing it closer across his body. “Sorry,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Although to be honest, I can’t account for the entire crew here. I don’t know much about them. I don’t know where their loyalties lie. Although it might be worth it to be friendly with them and see what they think. I don’t know if we have much time to get that friendly.”
“A good honest answer,” Axel said. “But we should probably go over the data before we hash out any more ideas.” He clapped a hand against Brandon’s shoulder. “Let’s get organized.”
Brandon nodded. Everyone else said or grunted something like an agreement. At that point, everyone broke off and started moving in different directions.
Corey winked at me and then leaned in, whispering, “If you can bring me that information, I’ll spend time going over it with Axel. And I’ll be there to smooth things over with Ethan and find out how Axel feels about it.”
I could have kissed him for helping me. “Anything I should do tonight?”
“Prepare your defense for tomorrow,” he said. “And get some sleep. It’s already midnight.”
As if knowing they were wanted, Avery appeared with Raven and Marc. Raven and Marc went to Brandon and Kevin, greeting and offering to help with the luggage and to talk about the ship.
Avery went to Axel and offered a hand to shake. “Hi,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”
Axel smiled at this shortly and shook Avery’s hand. “Hi, and thank you,” he said in an oddly polite and business-like tone. “Avery, how are you?”
“Good, good,” Avery said. “Nice to see you here.”
“Is Ethan still awake?” Axel asked.
“He is,” Avery said. “He’s in the kitchen…I mean, galley. Did you want to talk to him?”
“And you, too, if that’s okay.” He motioned to the team. “Someone coming along?”
Corey rushed in before the others could offer. “I’ll come.”
They wandered off. The rest divided up the luggage among them. I grabbed one rolling bag and trailed after them.
Marc took the lead, already knowing where to go. Kevin walked beside him, asking questions about what was going on. Raven followed them with two bags he rolled on either side, leaving no room to walk next to him.
Brandon and I took up the rear, each of us with a bag we rolled it behind ourselves. Given that Brandon was so tall, walking alongside him always made me feel weirdly short. The white overhead light showed me how red his cheeks and nose really were.
If we were going to use Brandon and Corey as twins and to let them blend in and out flawlessly, we were going to have to put make up on their skin to even out the redness. Brandon would have to talk like Corey, or Corey’s voice would have to heal.
We had a lot of work to do to prepare, and I didn’t really have much of a plan at all for myself, let alone the rest of them. I’d be relying a lot on Axel to help.
I wasn’t much of a leader, at least I didn’t feel like one. This whole spy thing was harder than picking pockets. There was a lot to think about and consider.
We started toward the wide glass double doors, and Marc led the way through them into the foyer. The boys all went slowly at first, admiring the immensity of the foyer, looking up and around at the different levels. We could see a bit of the shops from where we were, but nothing of the third, fourth or fifth floors above us.
“Shit,” Kevin said. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”
“We only need to collect data,” I said. “If we don’t do anything else, we’re just gathering information.”
“That’s usually the best strategy,” Marc said.
There were a couple of elevators behind the staircase that I hadn’t noticed before. We crowded in front of them and hit both buttons. Moments later, the two elevators appeared at nearly the same time. Marc, Kevin and Raven boarded one with all their luggage. Brandon and I jumped in the other one.
“Go to the...level M,” Marc shouted at us before the doors closed.
Brandon stabbed a finger at the M and we waited for the elevator to move.
“Hi,” I said to him.
“Hi,” he said, although his voice was gruff. He coughed once and cleared his throat before speaking again in his normal voice. “Are you okay? I heard what happened.”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to start a fight, but I thought Brandon would at least be honest with me. I spoke in a quiet tone, trying not to sound upset. “Marc said you all had been diverting phone calls from me.”
“He said you were mad about it.”
“I was.”
“Are you now?”
“A little bit,” I said. “I don’t exactly blame you for it, but I wish I’d been told.”
He sighed and his cerulean eyes looked forward. “Kind of wish they’d done it one more time.”
“We would have missed the boat,” I said.
“We wouldn’t have felt so rushed. It’s not that I wouldn’t be interested, but I don’t like going in not really being aware of things.”
“We can’t always be prepared,” I said. “Personally, I’d like to get the jump on anyone who might have worked with the old Mr. Murdock, and get them before they might come after us.”
Brandon frowned. “I hate to say this, but you’ve got a point.”
I shared a long look with him, empathizing. After being kidnapped together and spending time together in the hospital, Brandon and I had grown close in ways I’d not really experienced with anyone else. His brother Corey was my best friend—as great as it got—but Brandon and I had something deeper. Some very vibrant connection.
In a lot of ways, we didn’t get along. Since the hospital, Brandon got after me about my eating, my sleeping, even my cursing. And for some reason, while I wanted to fight him on it, I’d started to listen. Everything except the cursing. I still let a few slip, especially when he tried to get me to eat veggies.
The elevator doors opened and we walked off to see Marc and the others already there waiting for us.
Marc guided us to a set of rooms. These looked similar to hotel rooms, with numbers and peepholes. “I got us two rooms, each with a double bed,” he said. “These are the only rooms they’ve got outside of staying with the crew in bunks, but we’re separated from other guests on this floor. I think it’s meant for higher ranking crew members that get special rooms rather than the bunks. There’s only two beds but Avery said we can get some cots down here.”
Marc opened up the door, showing us the inside. The room was smaller than I expected. There was a double bed, a small chair at a desk and a tiny porthole window. There was limited walking space between the bed and desk. The desk had its own
coffee machine and a tiny desk phone with only three buttons to dial. The pillows were embroidered with a blue letter L. The desk had its own stationery and pens. Yup. Hotel. A fancy resort room crammed into the size of a walk-in closet.
I didn’t see room for a cot, not unless we wanted to roll over them to get to any of the doors.
Marc went to the only door inside the room, and showed us the bathroom with a shower stall, toilet and sink in a tiny space and another door on the other side. We’d all be sharing the tiny bathroom.
We crowded together in what space was available. While the others were checking out the bathroom, I took advantage of the opportunity and jumped on the bed. “I claim this room,” I said.
“I guess we share this one,” Brandon said.
“The bed is too small to share,” I said.
Marc shrugged. “As it is, we’ll have to share, and we might even have to sleep in shifts”
“I don’t know what you all are talking about,” I said, spreading my limbs out to take up as much of the bed as I could. “This one is my bed. You guys get the other one.”
Marc snorted and smirked. He wove around Brandon and crashed on the bed, his stomach on my leg. “Have to stick together.”
I dragged my leg out from under him and then kicked him in the shoulder gently, more trying to push him. “Then you get the floor,” I said. “This bed is too small.”
“Pick a side.”
“Fine, I get the top side. You can have any of the other sides.”
Brandon smirked and shook his head. At least it was working to ease the tension. Kevin rolled his eyes and then looked over the luggage. He took a couple of bags over to the second bedroom. Raven shifted the rest to behind the door.
Marc caught my foot and then did some weird thing where he was pinching my smallest toe into my foot. It was a sharp pain that radiated up through my leg. I yowled, trying to wriggle free. Marc held on, grinning. “What did you say? You’ll share? And you won’t hog the blankets all night? Oh. Okay, Bambi. That’s wonderful.” He released my foot, and I retracted my leg. The pain was gone instantly and he flattened himself over half the bed. “I’m so glad we could agree.”