She marched off with the grace of a Prussian general and howled at her staff.
Li tried to curb the nosebleed with his hand. The wounded imp mumbled a few sailor-tongued oaths that he would speak to her business manager and it wouldn’t be pretty.
Then the watery blue eyes of Sally Brent bubbled to the surface of Li’s brain.
He knew them. He recognized that haunted stare constantly on the threshold of tears. He had seen it before. Where? He dredged his memories, trying to skim over ones that included his dad. A headache blossomed at his hairline.
A pair of hurt, desperate, tear-soaked eyes.
The headache eased. His eyebrows climbed his forehead.
He knew where he saw Sally Brent before.
And it came right out of his high school past.
CHAPTER 17
Bullies
“At least your nose isn’t broken,” Travis said, piling a full henhouse of fried chicken onto his plate, “although listening to Doc’s lecture on horseplay left me feeling a little busted. I still think you should talk to someone about Princess Priscilla’s right hook.”
Li’s eyes glowed with uncharacteristic greed as he followed Travis’s lead on the chicken. “No use now. She’d just deny it. And I stopped bleeding hours ago.”
“Hey! Aren’t you pigs going to leave some for the rest of us?” Lusty French oaths crowned the complaint.
Travis gestured accordingly and took half of the mashed potatoes for himself. “I can’t believe she socked you just because you wouldn’t be her poster child. Although maybe you should have stuck with that modeling contract…I mean the babes alone—”
“Wasn’t going to happen. Priscilla would promise me anything to get me to agree to her plan. But she’d wriggle right out of those promises like the Ratface she is.”
Travis smirked. “I’m glad to see you both left on friendly terms.”
“Who took all the mashed potatoes?” This was followed by a multinational uproar farther down the line.
Li, satisfied with his plate, slunk out of the queue. “You know everyone is going to lynch you for your appetite.”
Travis looked a little depressed that he couldn’t fit one more roll on his platter, but he followed his friend. “If they aren’t used to it now, they never will be. And don’t think you can get off so easily, buddy. If only David was here to see you eat something mildly unhealthy for a change.”
No eloquent comeback could hide Li’s blushing. “Shut up, Travis.”
“Guess you used up all your big words on Ratface Reilly.” He plopped down at a table, chuckling. “Man, I’d love to shake the hand of the guy who came up with that name. Pure gold.” His smile sagged. “Although seeing you clutching a bloody nose and looking like your dad rose from the grave and popped you a good one is enough to take the shine off the memory. What happened anyway?”
Li stopped detaching the crisp skin from a chicken thigh, but his eyes never lifted from the plate. “I…I remembered something and…I wondered whether it’s important enough to tell someone.”
“Is it about your dad?”
“No.”
Travis’s grin brightened a few thousand watts. “Now I’m interested. So will you spill or is this going to be another tooth-pulling?”
“I don’t think I have the energy to argue with anyone.”
Li rolled a free swatch of chicken skin into a tube and used it as a spoon for his mashed potatoes and gravy. One bite and all his muscles relaxed. The meat may have been good, but fried chicken skin had been Li’s guilty pleasure from childhood. He never missed a chance to have it. Crispy, juicy, spicy…it warmed Li’s body like a hug.
“You’re stalling, Li.”
He took another bite, savored the secret spices in the breading, and swallowed. “I remembered why Sally Brent’s face was so familiar to me.”
Travis turned his attention to his own pound of poultry. “An old topic, though I guess learning about your secret obsessions is a sacrifice I make for friendship.”
“Well, when I was a senior in high school, I dated this girl—”
“Whoa! Hold it! Don’t tell me you dated Sally Brent? She would have been twice your age then! Isn’t that a felony?”
“Would you let me finish?”
“Will the story be more interesting if I don’t?”
Li popped him on the arm with his fist. “No. And stop interrupting. Normally, your mouth is too stuffed with food to do anything else anyway.”
Travis grinned, but kept quiet.
“Anyway, during lunch, I met this girl behind the band room. I’m going to call her Melanie.” Travis’s forehead puckered and the tips of his smile sank. “Melanie was one of the friendliest people in school. Ran several clubs and volunteered for nearly every school event. Then, shortly after Homecoming, she withdrew from everything: friends, clubs, school. She became a shell. When I met her behind the band room, she had been cutting her wrists with a razor blade.”
Travis’s smile died like a blown light bulb.
“She was terrified that I discovered one of her secrets. I wanted to take her to the nurse. Melanie refused, said she knew what she was doing. She took out all these first aid supplies from her backpack and started to bandage herself up. I insisted that she had to see the nurse or a counselor. She said she would sooner kill herself than see them, told me not to tell anyone what I saw or she’d come after me, and then bolted into the parking lot.”
“And you ended up dating her?”
“Not for a while. You see, after school, I saw her walking home. I decided to walk with her. I told her that I didn’t feel right about hiding her problem from people who could help her. She called me stupid and said I didn’t know half of her problems.” Li’s guilty pleasure started to cool in his hand. “We argued. I worried that she would end up in a morgue someday. My dad died the summer before, so I was constantly afraid that everyone would die around me. Melanie eventually broke into tears and dragged me off the sidewalk to the parking lot behind the ice cream parlor and told me what happened to her.”
“Jesus…” Travis whispered. His face was gray with dread.
Li was the definition of discomfort now: hands tearing apart his chicken, eyes shifting from corner to corner, voice weak and hesitant. “Well, her date to Homecoming wanted to have sex with her after the dance. She refused. So he took her to his house and raped her.”
The oath Travis muttered was the most colorful Li ever heard.
“That’s how I felt too. I couldn’t believe some asshole did that to her. But he did. And ever since, she had been plagued with nightmares and felt him crawling under her skin. That’s why she cut herself. To ‘get rid of him,’ as she put it.”
Travis looked at his plate, and his face suggested that the idea of dinner disgusted him. “What did you do? Did you get the police involved?”
“I wanted to. The minute I heard ‘rape,’ I wanted to dive into the ice cream shop and phone them. But Melanie refused. Apparently, I was the only person she told about what happened that night. And she had no intention of sharing it with anyone else. Not her family. Not her friends. No one. She just wanted all the memories to fade away.”
“And let that pig walk free? Why didn’t you make her call them?”
Li gave Travis a hard look. “She threatened to kill herself the moment she heard anyone asking about that night. What could I do? She was on edge. If there was even a hint that the police were interested, she’d end her life…and end their case. I wanted to try and coax her into agreeing with the police plan. Slowly. She was in a volatile state. If I pushed her too hard…”
He left the rest to imagination.
“But what did you do?”
“Talked to her every day. Acted friendly toward her. That’s what she needed. A friend who knew and understood. Eventually, I started taking her on dates. I think she enjoyed them. She even smiled a few times. Once, she kissed me.” He gazed at the wreckage of his meal on his plate. “Then sh
e broke up with me after six weeks.”
Travis slammed his hands on the tabletop, earning a full harvest of scowls from people around them. “Wait a minute…She broke up with you? Why?”
Li shrugged. “Maybe I did push her too hard. Maybe I should have left her alone. But I really wanted to help her. She was like a damsel in distress.” He poked at his cooling chicken. “I know that sounds sexist, but I couldn’t stomach the idea that I saw her cut herself and did absolutely nothing to help her. I had to do something.” A sigh pushed out of his throat. “She made all the stereotypical girlfriend excuses. Some days, I think she cut and pasted together phrases from other break-up letters to make one for me. I…I cried and tried to fight for our…would you call it a relationship? I cared about her. I let myself care about this girl who had been hurt so badly.”
“Are you sure you should be telling me this?”
“Wouldn’t matter anyway. A week after she broke up with me, she hanged herself in the girl’s locker room. In one of the old shower stalls.”
There was a pale green flush to Travis’s face. “I will never ask you to tell me anything that happened to you ever again.” He pushed his food away with his finger. “But how did that make you think of Mrs. Brent?”
“I thought you weren’t—”
“Just shut up and tell me.”
Li flinched, but, since his friend looked ready to ralph the dent he made into his food mountain, he complied. “It was Sally’s eyes. Or more the look in them. They were haunted, abused, hurt. It hit me. The same look was in Melanie’s eyes when she told me about her rape.”
“So what does that mean for Sally?”
Li slipped out of focus again.
“Do you think Aaron Brent is the kind of man who would maritally rape his wife?”
The green flush filtered out of Travis’s cheeks. He drew his eyebrows together in a frown.
“No, I don’t.”
Li didn’t contain his surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah. I know he’s an evil son of bitch, but I got the impression that he thought he owned his wife. Like she was a favorite piece of furniture or something. I never got the impression that he found her interesting sexually. Or that he saw her as anything but his wayward daughter. Every time he hit her, I bet he believed it was nothing more than spanking a bad child. But I don’t believe he’d rape her. That’s too intimate.”
“Strangely enough, that makes sense. She’s nothing more than property to him. And that makes how he treats her even more disgusting.” He took a bite of his now cold chicken. “And it begs the question: Why did they marry in the first place?”
Travis forked through his own meal. “Maybe she’s got money. Since he’s obviously trapped in ancient, chauvinistic views about women, maybe he thinks a wife will bring him prestige and a positive image. Especially a wife with money. And he abuses her to keep her modern thinking in check.”
“But why on earth would she marry him if they don’t love each other?”
Travis left that question alone, so the two friends ate their dinner in dour silence. Li’s stomach argued against the cold food and unhappy memories. But he had to eat something before service, so he bullied himself into swallowing a few bites.
Bully. The word simmered in his brain. A bully’s crime.
Light glimmered in his eyes like a sunbeam through storm clouds.
“You thought of something,” Travis said, pausing in his renewed attack on his feast.
“Rosemary Hale called Charlegne a bully.”
“Sounds accurate. Although she wasn’t as big a bully as Powerhouse Priscilla turned out to be. What about it?”
“You said that taking the sunscreen was nothing more than a prank and I just wondered…”
“What?”
Li imagined a shadow slicing across the unconscious woman and a tempted hand grazing a bottle of sunscreen resting nearby. “…if it was the sort of prank a bully would do.”
Travis steepled his fingers and tossed a sidelong glance at his friend. His generous mouth pulled into a taut slash on his face. “I wondered about something too, buddy.”
Li squirmed. He didn’t like the dark suspicion churning in Travis’s eyes. A very skeptical imagination toiled behind that curious gaze.
“What is it?”
Li knew in his bones that his friend brewed some sort of scandalous idea about his conversation with Rosemary. Could he help it that fashion designers took a shine to him? Li armed himself for war.
Travis folded his hands and prepared to judge the damned again. “Why did you talk to Rosemary Hale?”
A headache drummed against the roof of his skull.
Why am I always getting in fights? Can’t I have an hour where nothing happens?
Li’s latest argument with Travis succeeded in splintering their friendship again. Travis believed there was too much evidence against Li to fully trust in his innocence. Li countered with a less gentlemanly response. Li sought more solitary adventures in his free time before a late dinner service.
He knocked on the door of the Security Office.
A thick, lazy drawl welcomed him. As he stepped into the room, he had the instant impression of strolling into some super-secret command post for the CIA. A wall of monitors, blinking with black-and-white pictures of every corner of the ship, provided the backdrop for a large, semicircular desk bulging toward the door. A man with a weak attempt at a mustache reclined in his chair, propped his feet on the end of the desk, and grinned at his guest. His nametag said IAN.
“What can I do for you?”
Li’s eyes darted from monitor to monitor, shivering at how watched they were on the ship. He could see Paul in the crew mess draining mug after mug of coffee, sobering up for service. Ian can see everything.
“You got something to say to me, kid?” Ian asked, jolting Li out of his thoughts.
“Oh…um…” Crap, I didn’t think this through. “…just…uh…seeing if anything happened recently.” He swallowed painfully. “Seems quiet.”
Ian’s idle grin never faltered. “Sure is. Clean as crystal. Nice and quiet.”
“You didn’t…miss anything? Like with one of the passengers? Charlegne, perhaps?”
The smile stayed, but a calculating scrutiny flickered in his eyes. “I miss nothing, kid. I’m down here all the time. Got a slight sensitivity to fragrances. Plays hell with my asthma. And these ladies like to bathe in the stuff, so they put me down here. I’d run out of medication in my inhaler if they didn’t. I got a relief officer to cover the night shift, but I’m here every day of the cruise. And I didn’t see anything happen.” A lewd spark winked in the corner of his eye. “More’s the pity, eh?”
Li shuddered. The man’s certainty was cold, final, but he openly suggested that something had happened and he was upset about missing it. A voyeur, Li thought.
A second cursory check of the monitors revealed that no cameras were found in passenger or crew cabins.
“Is that it, kid?”
An idea sparked in Li’s head like a burst of light from a flash bulb. “Could I see the Lost and Found box?”
It was a long shot. What if the bottle of sunscreen wasn’t thrown overboard? Since Ian claimed that he saw nothing out of the ordinary, what if the murderer—Li was steadfast on that belief—simply took the sunscreen with him and abandoned it somewhere on ship? Then a crew member would turn it in to Lost and Found. That way, the cameras wouldn’t catch him throwing the bottle off the ship.
Ian slipped a clipboard out of a drawer. “Did some bullies take your lunch money?” He handed the clipboard to Li. “Policy’s changed. No one can simply look in the box and take what they want. We catalogue the items now, so you tell me what you’re missing, and I bring it to you.”
Li scanned the list. It was staggering what people can lose on a ship: a few silver bangles, dentures, some instant-picture camera, a wrap dress, a single slipper, a Rolex, a bottle of nail polish, swim trunks, a white bathing suit, a pair
of leather pants, and a pack of cigarettes.
No bottle of sunscreen.
“If you haven’t found what you lost, I’ll take the clipboard back now. And I won’t take the box out to see if I missed anything.” His smile slid into a sneer. “I miss nothing, remember? Besides, something stinks in that box, and I’d rather save what little of my lungs I can.”
Ian snatched back his paperwork, dropped it in the drawer, and used his heel to close the drawer. The voyeuristic glint kindled, then blazed, in his eyes. He dragged a red tongue over dry lips. It felt like X-rays speared Li’s body.
He can’t ask about that stupid rumor. He sees everything! He saw me leave after I delivered her tea that night! He would know I never went into the cabin!
Then the feeble, unwelcome voice of reason reminded Li about the night relief officer. Ian didn’t watch the monitors that night. He learned about the rumor like everyone else.
Ian traced the line of his half-assed mustache with his tongue again. His eyes glowed with expectant pleasure at details he was unable to learn through his profession.
“So what was she like in bed?” he drawled.
Dry flakes of burgundy sauce melted in the flood of soapy water, revealing the golden sheen of the plate. Li settled into his pattern of washing dishes. Tonight hadn’t been so bad. Paul and Mr. Brent had nursed twin wine headaches and could only manage a surly growl or two. Li reveled in a peaceful service. He even found himself enjoying the usual kitchen rush. Though there was that one disturbing comment from Jeremy about finding dirty pictures in Li’s quarters.
He’s bluffing, right? He didn’t find any pictures in my bunk, dirty or otherwise. The only one I have is in my wallet, and I’m never letting anyone see it.
Slipping the dish into the rinse water, he decided to just enjoy the silence. He could let his wounds heal. No Paul. No customers. No new injuries. He was blissfully alone. Even his thoughts were cheerful. His lips bent into a small smile. He began to hum a few bars of a favorite Queen song.
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