by Dale Mayer
“But so was Chucky,” she said. “At least in theory.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” she said.
“I can tell you that he was locked in, but, beyond that, I’m not sure,” he said.
“Could he have gotten free from the inside of the freezer?”
He frowned and shrugged. “I’d have to go check.”
“Then let me get dressed,” she said. “That way we can at least knock something off our list.”
He grinned at that. “Does that mean you don’t want to stay here and try to sleep?”
“I’m not sleeping at all,” she said, “particularly after whoever the hell knocked on my door.”
Immediately his frown disappeared, and he studied her with an intense gaze that she had already come to recognize.
He wanted answers, and he wanted them now. With whatever little tidbit of information she had to offer. She shook her head. “No, I have no clue who it was.”
He nodded. “You didn’t recognize the voice? You didn’t recognize anything?”
“No. I didn’t. But I did recognize the anger in the voice. Not per any one person, just the fact that whoever it was either expected to be let in or hoped to be let in and was angry that he wasn’t.”
“Which could be all kinds of things.”
“In a place like this in this situation? Yes.”
“Unfortunately we do find a breakdown in human decency under emergency situations sometimes,” he said. “And the fact that you’ve been friendly with us could have sent somebody over the edge.”
“Not surprised if it did,” she said quietly. “I’ve already told you about a couple guys giving me trouble.”
“But only one who’s here now, correct?”
“Yes,” she said. “Most of the other guys are harmless. Go stand facing the door, and I’ll get dressed really fast.”
He nodded and asked, “Do you want me to step out?”
“You don’t need to.” She was already pulling on her jeans. She left her sweatshirt on over her pajama top and grabbed her socks and shoes. “I’m ready to go.”
He turned and looked at her and smiled. “Okay, let’s go.” He led the way out. “I want you to stay with me,” he said, as he led went down the stairs.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I have no intention of getting more than an arm’s length away.”
“So, how about we make sure you’re close enough.” He held out his hand.
Smiling, she grabbed it. “This is getting to be a habit.”
“Safety first.” He smiled, barely over a grin.
“Is that all it is?” she said in a teasing voice.
He looked at her in mock outrage. “Of course not. You’re too beautiful to ignore. But I obviously won’t distract either of us or do anything that could make you feel uncomfortable, while we’re in a situation like this.”
“Ah,” she said, “I wondered.”
He shook his head and smiled, tugging her closer. Heading down the hall, he released her hand to send a quick text while she watched; then he reached out, snagged her hand again, and repeated, “Stay close.”
“This way I don’t have much choice,” she murmured.
“We’re not turning on any lights,” he said, as he led her down a different hallway.
Very quickly they were in the storage area. He walked over to the cold rooms.
“So this is where he was, in this first one?” She walked over, nearly being pulled.
He studied it, using a flashlight, and then pulled open the door.
She studied the door and then stepped inside, using her phone for a flashlight. “Well, no sign of Lionel here.”
“I know. We still haven’t found him either,” Troy said, a dark edge to his tone. He looked at her. “Do you trust me?”
“Meaning, you’ll shut the door on me? Yes,” she said, with a smile. And, just like that, the door closed in front of her. She stood there for a long moment, studying the door. No handle was on the inside. She called out, “Why would no handle be here?”
“Check on the side of the door,” he said, “There should be a quick-release lock.”
She ran her hand up and down the side and found a button. She pushed it and heard an intermittent grinding noise.
He pulled open the door and said, “I heard it try to work,” he said, “but obviously it’s broken.”
She nodded. “But, if he went in here and didn’t know that, he might have ended up locked inside, unaware that he couldn’t get out.”
“But he never mentioned that. And we don’t have a motive,” he said quietly. He studied the inside, now that the door was wide open, and the two of them were standing in the open doorway, using their flashlights.
“I can’t think of any motive, except for the fact that Lionel was in here,” she said. “Or at least I think it was this one, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was this one.” They stepped out and checked the other two freezers.
“This is the only one that doesn’t have an automatic opener from the inside,” she said. “This one’s got a lever, but it opened and closed easily.”
“So the only way somebody would be caught inside any of them is with that broken one.”
“Exactly,” she nodded. She stepped out and ran her hands up and down her arms. “Now that I’ve been inside all three,” she complained, “it’s damn chilly.”
Immediately he wrapped his arms around her and tucked her up close. He wore a jacket, so she took a moment to spread the side of the jacket wide and tucked in close, as he wrapped the jacket around her, so they were both wearing it.
“That helps,” she murmured, the shivering starting to rock her body.
“Hey, I didn’t realize you were that cold,” he muttered and wrapped both arms around her and held her tight.
“I think it may have been the subject matter as much as the cold,” she muttered. When she could feel some of the chills settling back, she looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you. I feel better.”
He let his arms drop to his side, and she stepped back out again and immediately felt a sense of disappointment. It was a perfect opportunity for him to kiss her, but he hadn’t. But then why would he? It’s not like they were in that kind of a relationship. Hell, she didn’t even know what the hell they had right now. And given the same thing that she had just thought about him, she hadn’t taken the opportunity to kiss him either.
She stepped a little farther back, looked around, and said, “Is there anything else down here to look at?”
“Well, we’re still missing the one body,” he said. “And Daniel hasn’t shown up yet.”
“And what about the others, are they still there?”
“They were the last time we checked.”
“You didn’t see a cause of death on Lionel, right?”
“No signs of beating or anything like that. But we didn’t check too closely. We saw what appeared to be a dead body and accepted that.”
“So, any chance he is still alive?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. His body was warm though, as in recently deceased. You were there. You saw it.”
“Could he have just been unconscious? Heavily drugged?”
“I’m starting to wonder myself,” he said. “So, if Lionel is alive and is hiding somewhere here and is potentially behind some of the craziness going on here, what would be his motive?”
“Depends on if any of the dead men left here were some of the ones who tormented him,” she said.
He gave her a sharp look.
“Lionel was gay. Remember?” she said. “And his partner is one of the bodies in the morgue.”
“Right,” he said. “So you’re wondering if somebody here gave him a hard time, so he pretended to die in order to get back at them?”
“No, he’s not capable of that kind of violence,” she said. “That sounds foolish, even to me.”
“All of it do
es,” he said. He led her around to the far side where there was a locked door. He reached up and knocked.
She looked at him in surprise, and, when a voice answered from inside, he opened it up and guided her in.
She froze. “Wow,” she said, recognizing Dane and France easily. “So you do have more than the four of you here. I did wonder.” Even Axel was here and Nelson. Mason too. She smiled at them. “So what’s this? I get to step into the inner circle?”
“You’re the one who called us in,” Mason said, “so it seemed like a good idea.”
“And still no sign of Lionel’s body,” Troy said. “That freezer does have a button mechanism to open it up from the inside, but it’s broken. The other freezers have an inner release button or lever that’s a lot more evident and functioning as well.”
The men digested those tidbits of information. Mason studied Berkley’s face for a long moment. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
“No,” she said. “To make matters worse, Troy asked me if the hacker in my computer system while I was eating dinner could have done it remotely, since everyone was there in the dining room, and the answer is yes.”
“Hell. Remote?” Nelson said, straightening up.
She looked to where he’d been sitting on a bench, one leg on either side, but he now stepped free to stand with his hands on his hips as he looked at her.
“Theoretically he could have been at the same table. Our internet with this storm has been pretty rough, so I don’t imagine it was somebody back at the home company,” she said. “But then think about everybody who you saw touch his phone during dinner. It could have been nearly anybody.”
“Do you know of any of them who would have good enough computer skills?”
“Not as hackers per se,” she said. “Obviously Jonesy because he’s an IT guy. The engineer, Bruce, he’s knows IT to a certain extent and certainly as it applies to his system. Does that mean he can hack into mine? I don’t know. And why would he?”
“How far did the hacker get?”
“Only to the next firewall I put in,” she said. “It has an additional password attached. He gave it three tries and got locked out.”
They all slowly nodded. “What was behind that second password?”
“Controls for the drills,” she said. “Everything’s computerized these days. But the thing is, one of the drills is out of service, and two are damaged and have been taken offline. So the fourth one isn’t operating, given everything else that’s going on, but it’s still mechanically sound and intact. It’s just been put in a neutral status at the moment.”
“Would that give them anything? What would access to that area do?”
“It’s hard to say,” she said. “Everything is backed up, but, if they were looking to see if damage had been done, that’s possible. I’ve been trying to figure that out myself, but it’s not my area of expertise.”
“Could they erase damage that may have been done, if something computer-wise caused this?”
“Delete the data? It’s possible,” she said. “I’m worried about backups with the weather as it is. They do lose a lot of backups here occasionally.”
“Deliberately?”
She stopped, looked at him, and frowned. “That’s possible as well.”
“Are you the only one who comes here to do maintenance and to troubleshoot?”
She shook her head. “No, there are four of us. We travel around a lot.”
“Women or men?”
“I’m the only female.”
One of the men asked, “Have you been to this rig before?”
She nodded. “Yeah, several times.”
“Any trouble?”
“No. Not like you mean,” she said. “Definitely not like my friend had.”
“We were talking to Gregor,” Mason said. “He did know about the rapes. He said he wasn’t terribly impressed with the way the company handled it, and that it was something he’d bring up to the board next time.”
“Which means nothing,” she said. “There should have been an immediate and full investigation and charges.”
“The trouble is, they keep these things quiet,” Axel said.
“It shouldn’t have happened the second or the third time,” Troy added. When the men looked at him, he turned to her.
“I only found out after my friend was attacked,” she said. “I had no idea women were at risk on this rig.”
“The fact that this isn’t just a single rapist changes things considerably. They could be colluding to protect each other—or the opposite, trying to eliminate each other to protect themselves.”
The conversation was clearly stirring up these men.
“So how is she doing now, your friend?” France spoke up, looking concerned.
“She’s different now,” she said. “She doesn’t go out. She doesn’t date and is generally scared to be alone. Yet scared not to be,” Berkley said, feeling bad all over again that she couldn’t be spending time with her friend.
“Of course,” Dane said. “It’s not an easy trauma to get over. It changes everything.”
“Exactly.” She walked over to one of the benches and sat down. At this point the tension in the room was palpable, so she decided a change of subject was in order. “I still think Lionel could be alive and hiding here on the rig. But, if you guys have already searched everywhere and can’t find anybody hidden, what the hell is going on?”
“We don’t know.”
“We did find a storehouse of C-4 though,” Dane said. He leaned against the locker. “The locker belonging to Jude.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Interesting. So his brother did drop off something for him.”
“So this Jude, did we find any personnel files on him?” Troy looked around the room, seeking an answer from someone.
She pulled out her phone and quickly tapped into the system. “I can send the company files to you, but there isn’t much in them.” As soon as she had access, she emailed it to Troy and to Mason. When their phones buzzed, they pulled them out.
Mason spoke up. “You open that one, and I’ll open the one we have, so we can compare timelines.”
“Got it,” Troy replied.
“You won’t see it in those company files, no doubt,” Mason said, “but apparently he was a bit of an activist early on. His brother is a big activist. When Jude was younger, he actively protested against oil rigs.”
“Right, and here he is working on one,” Axel said, shaking head.
“But only for six months,” Mason said, as they sorted the information between them and discussed it out loud.
“What? So his brother wants him to blow up the place, you think?” Berkley asked.
“Maybe,” he said, “or maybe the brother didn’t want anything to do with it, and Jude is behind it all. Or maybe the older brother tried to pressure Jude into it, and, when something happened, he got off as soon as they could because he didn’t want to get blamed. He might not have wanted anything to do with it.”
“And again, tons of speculative thoughts,” she said, “and no answers. I deal in data. I need real evidence, real data, in order to sort this out,” she said in frustration.
The men stood in a circle, looking at her, and smiled.
She raised both hands. “Is that really so unexpected? What?”
“No,” Mason said with a smile. “That’s how Tesla talks.”
The other men all chuckled.
“Yeah, if she were here, she’d be into all kinds of shit,” Berkley said.
“What would she be doing?” Nelson asked.
She thought about it a few moments. “She’d have hacked into God-knows-what and already cross-run everybody’s history and cross-matched for connections. And then she would have done the same for everybody in the navy who was here during the recent war games. We already found Jude and his brother’s connection, but there’s got to be a reason why these eight guys are here now—plus Lionel—and nobody else is.”
She snorted at that. “No, I don’t.”
Just then Mason’s phone rang. He answered it and immediately said, “I’ll be right there.”
He looked at Nelson. “That’s the boss man. Apparently one of the men has been found dead.”
*
Troy stared at him in shock. “Which guy?”
“The marine engineer, Bruce,” he said.
“He was there at dinner,” Berkley said. “They all were.”
“And they just found him in the hallway outside his room,” Mason said.
“Is there a clear cause of death?” Axel asked.
“Don’t know for sure, but there’s evidence of a blow to the head.”
“Of course there is,” she said, crying out. “This place is such a nightmare. Why can’t we just leave?”
“Everybody will be leaving, and a whole new crew is coming in,” Mason asserted. “In a situation like this, it just has to happen and should have been done already. There will be duties to hand off and a full investigation of everybody who’s here.”
“But now we have another death,” she said. “Accidental or not.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Nelson, get your suit jacket back on, and we’ll go get a briefing.” He looked at Axel and Troy. “Maybe take her back to her room, and one of you at least come up and hear what the guys have to say.”
“I want to hear too,” she said, wrapping her arms around her gut. At their silent looks, she added, “I brought you guys in on this. Remember? And if something else even nastier is going on, I want to know.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Troy said.
“It doesn’t matter if you think it’s wise or not,” she said, turning on him. “We need answers, and somebody has to have them. So far it doesn’t seem to be us.”
“Ouch,” Axel muttered.
“Maybe she’d be better off staying with us,” Troy said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Better that she understands and knows what’s going on.”
Mason frowned and then shrugged. “Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t like it, but I know I’d have the same damn problem with Tesla, if she were here.”
Immediately Berkley smiled, sparks flashing in her eyes. “We are a trial, aren’t we?”