by Hannah Pearl
If the girl was trying to make out that she wasn’t eavesdropping then she failed miserably. She moved her hands away from her ears so that she could hear Lily more easily. ‘I told you about the items my doctor came in for once, didn’t I?’
I shook my head. ‘But please feel free to save that tale for another day.’
‘You can tell me,’ the girl said. I read the name tag on her white blouse. Beneath the four-leaf clovers in the corners of her badge was delicate writing in black calligraphy. Orla stood up and Lily and I put down the cut glass whisky tumbler and walked over to talk to her.
Lily leaned over the counter and whispered in her ear. Orla’s face grew flushed. ‘People really do that?’ she asked. Lily nodded.
‘If you help us find Daisy’s brother, I’ll tell you a whole lot more.’
We explained our predicament, yet again. We were becoming so well-rehearsed with the story that we were finished telling it in no time. ‘Is there any way I can get down to the car decks to search her car?’ I asked.
Orla thought for a moment before she answered. ‘I think they lock the access doors once we’re at sea. It’s for passenger safety in case the cars roll.’ I’d been desperate to go and hunt around until she said that, but the thought of being squashed by a vehicle was enough to convince me to try all other options first. This wasn’t exactly the steadiest of journeys to begin with. ‘If I were them, wanting to retain my privacy, I’d have booked a cabin,’ Orla continued.
‘I wish we’d booked one, then we wouldn’t have to watch Sick and Sicker seeing who can look most in need of medical attention whilst spread-eagling themselves in chairs. I swear Taylor tripped about three people with his stupid long legs just now,’ I moaned.
‘They usually save one or two cabins for people to book up on the day,’ Orla told us. ‘Of course, those might have gone by now, but you might as well ask. There’s a counter on the cabin desk, it’s quite hidden away at the end of the corridor, but Niamh might well be there still.’
Lily and I raced out of the shop, as fast as we could when we were bouncing off the walls with every wave and trough. The queue at the counter wasn’t as long as the one that we had been in for ferry tickets earlier, but it was longer than I’d have liked considering that Orla had suggested that there might only be a handful of cabins up for grabs. I looked at Lily. She looked back at me. I shrugged. I was out of ideas and almost out of hope.
‘Everything is half price at the café?’ Lily asked me, her voice incredulous and much louder than usual. ‘I guess they have too much food due to the bad weather. I think they were about to sell out of coffee though.’
Two of the couples ahead of us glanced at each other before slipping away towards the café. ‘The staff are going to kill you if they find out you started a rumour like that,’ I whispered.
‘I sneaked into the stock room with one of the chefs whilst I was looking for Ben earlier. I think he’ll forgive me,’ she said, and winked. ‘You know the saying, “it’s not the boat you float, it’s the motion in the ocean”? Well, it turns out that when you have a big boat and the ocean is moving like this, it’s pretty epic.’ Then she mock-whispered loud enough for the group of students ahead of us to hear her every word. ‘I hear they’re giving out free whisky shots at the bar to help with travel sickness.’
‘No one is going to believe that,’ I said, keeping my own voice to an actual whisper. But Lily was right, and sure enough the students also dropped out of the queue, mysteriously announcing to each other that they thought they might just get one more drink before they tried to score a bed. Before I knew it, we were in front of the desk.
‘Do you have any cabins left?’ I asked.
The harassed lady behind the desk wore a name tag that identified her as Niamh. We had found the person Orla had mentioned. She sighed and typed a few buttons on her desk, then a few more. Then she sighed again, rolled her neck in such an exaggerated fashion I heard it crack and stared at the screen for so long I wondered if she had fallen asleep with her eyes open. ‘Cabins?’ Lily prompted. Niamh jumped, her pink blouse coming untucked from her navy skirt.
‘We have two left,’ she said, pushing her tortoiseshell glasses back up her nose. She mentioned a price so astronomical that I cringed. Just then Eli and Taylor re-joined us, as did an overwhelming odour of seasickness.
‘They have double beds and private bathrooms with showers,’ she added.
‘We’ll take them,’ Lily said, her nose wrinkling. We handed over my credit card and our passports. Niamh spent another few minutes typing into her system, though I wasn’t clear how much she would have needed to add apart from our names and payment method before handing them back, along with two keys.
‘Mr and Mrs Kirk, you’re in number fifty-seven, that’s down the hall to your right,’ she said, handing me the receipt. I didn’t look at the total again. I was going to have to get Lily to pull some more of her bumper shifts in my shop to help me recoup some of the expenses of this trip already.
‘Mr Kirk?’ Eli asked.
I shushed him, wondering whether this was where we’d finally find out whether Taylor was a first name or surname. ‘Miss Lily, you and your partner,’ she looked down her nose at Taylor who was stood with his eyes closed, leaning against the wall, ‘are in number sixty.’
‘Mr Kirk?’ Eli asked again, following me as I began to count off the room numbers.
‘Lily and I will take this one,’ I said, opening the door and dumping my handbag on the bed. ‘You guys can take the cabin down the hall.’
‘We are not sharing,’ Eli said, gesturing at Taylor.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Fine, you can share with me. Lily will share with Taylor. It’s not like we’re going to sleep, anyway. Let’s get our heads together once you guys are feeling better and we can think where we’re going to look next.’
‘Daisy, I think we can afford to take a little break. We’re not going anywhere,’ Lily pointed out. ‘The engines are still off. What harm could there be in having a quick nap. I’m a little tired from all the … motion on the ocean.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘I bet he thinks he’s hilarious,’ Eli complained, as soon as Lily and Taylor left us alone.
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, looking around me at the stark bedroom which I’d just paid a small fortune for. We were below the main deck, just above where the cars were parked. As such, the odour of stewed coffee from the café met with the lingering exhaust fumes in the corridor outside our cabin. Thankfully the door was a sufficient barrier, keeping those fragrances in the hallway, leaving only the scent of stale bodies and disinfectant. Presumably the crossing before ours had been rough too and the staff had been left with a serious cleaning job. Perhaps that explained why the room was so bare, it made for quicker clearing up.
There were no windows, only bare walls coated in a wipeable plastic. A bathroom was accessed through a door set into the right-hand wall. It was so small you could practically sit on the toilet and take a shower at the same time, but it was still far nicer than the loos upstairs. Those had been used by many queasy passengers already and I shuddered at the relief of not having to use them again. The rest of the room was dominated by a double bed. The sheets were thin, again probably for ease of washing, but as the ferry was heated so thoroughly I was feeling warm enough without them. Eli hadn’t noticed. He was too busy feeling sorry for himself. I wished that he would snap out of it. If everyone else was determined to have a nap when they should have been out looking for Ben, then the least they could do was stop moaning.
‘Taylor said that he couldn’t get my passport so he had one of his contacts make one quickly. He didn’t mention that he’d given me your surname. Congratulations, we’re married,’ Eli complained. ‘I suppose he found that hilarious.’ He tossed the passport to me. ‘Catch.’
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I wasn’t surprised that Taylor was having a joke about commitment phobia at Eli’s expe
nse, but I was surprised that he was relaxed enough about me not following up on our flirtation at the wedding to include me in his ruse. Behind me, Eli stripped his T-shirt off and dropped it onto the bed. ‘I’m going to take a shower, then I’m going to sleep for an hour. After that I’ll be ready to search for Ben again. If the ferry hasn’t sunk by then. And assuming I haven’t slipped into a coma from being so poorly,’ he said. How did he cope on missions if he felt this sorry for himself when he felt ill?
I opened the passport and stared at the picture of Eli that Taylor had used. Remembering back to when he had last had his head shaved almost bald, I guessed that the picture was at least five years old. Taylor must have copied it from Eli’s Instagram account. Eli had paired his look with a goatee and had looked rugged. Ben had done the same but had looked like he was ill. Dad had made him grow it out when they received the third get well soon card. It wasn’t a bad photo, but Eli had broadened out and put on some serious muscle tone since it was taken, and I had to wonder if that was why Taylor had used such an old shot.
Just thinking about Eli’s physique was enough to get me hot under the collar, and when the man himself emerged from the bathroom stripped down to just his pants with beads of water rolling down his chest, I licked my lips. ‘They don’t provide towels apparently,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘The shower is pretty decent though, if you want one. I feel better for it. I’ll be ready to help you search again soon, I promise.’
There was no natural light in the cabin to judge his hue by but at least Eli did look less like he was about to collapse. I couldn’t begin to think about how rough I might look. I didn’t want to stop searching long enough to shower, though to be honest I probably needed one. It was just an hour’s sleep did seem very tempting as an alternative. ‘They can’t go anywhere,’ Eli said, as if he could read my mind and sense that I was wavering.
I sighed in frustration. ‘This is the slowest chase ever. How come in the movies it’s all top speeds and shoot outs? We’ve had queues and now a broken-down ferry. And we’re still none the wiser for how to find Ben.’
‘Which is why I’m going to grab a nap,’ Eli responded. ‘I can’t think straight right now. Maybe I’ll have a brainwave whilst I’m asleep.’ He climbed under the covers, laid his head down on the pillow and was snoring before I could ask him to budge over. I wondered if this was what it would be like to really be married to Eli. Then I tried not to think about it because I was fairly sure I’d be able to cope if so and that was scary.
I lay next to him so that I could close my eyes and try and think where to search next instead. That was a much safer topic and a useful distraction, that was until Eli turned over and threw his arm around me, drawing me against him. It grew more difficult to think straight after that. Especially because it wasn’t just his muscles that were hard.
He rubbed his lips against the back of my neck, I wondered if he was awake until I heard another gentle snore. It amazed me that he had managed to switch off so completely. Only a few minutes ago he had been fuming at Taylor, now he lay completely relaxed next to me. Well, most of him was relaxed. I tried to force my mind to consider the problem at hand, finding my brother, but it was difficult to concentrate. Eli had been so angry at Taylor. Was he pissed off because he was the butt of a joke, or was the idea of being married to me so awful?
I had loved him for so long. Even though we had been teenagers when we first got together, I knew that my feelings for him had been real from the beginning. I’d spent years trying to get over him, with no success, watching him hook up with countless other women without ever making a commitment to any of them. Occasionally I’d seen him with the same girl twice, but it was only ever due to him bumping into her again at the same club rather than a purposeful arrangement. Clearly some of them had also found that he was addictive once you’d had your first taste. Others were upset to see that he had clearly moved on quicker than they had, and I’d seen more than one drink thrown in his face. It was possible that in private he also had a little black book to refer to if he ever needed company. If he did, was I in there?
We had spent several days together now, and I was quite sure it was the closest thing Eli had ever had to a relationship, but we still hadn’t spoken about whether there was anything more between us, any chance at the future I hoped for with an ever-increasing longing. He’d not mentioned any specific feelings towards me. Was I just a convenient booty call while we were on the road? But if that was the case, why had he displayed such antagonism towards Taylor? True, he had never liked any of the men I had dated previously either, but in the past I had put that down to his belligerent personality. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that it might be anything else. Now I began to wonder.
Was that why he had been so grumpy with me whenever I’d mentioned Taylor, or was he really just blowing hot and cold on me? And why was I spending so long questioning this yet again? Hadn’t I wasted enough of my teenage years doing just that? Fed up and needing a break, I swung my feet out of bed and got up again. There wasn’t room to pace so I left Eli to his nap and headed back out to the deserted corridor.
I turned the corner, building up a huge head of steam as I planned to walk the ship until Erin emerged, at which point I’d hit her over the head with the sodding teddy bear and its freaky bulge until she told me where she had stashed Ben. I was daydreaming about pulling her stupid mousey hair until she squealed, when I almost walked into Lily.
‘You know they don’t give you towels in these cabins?’ she huffed. ‘Taylor just took a shower and just stood there with the water dripping off him, looking like he was asleep on his feet until I dried him with his top and put him to bed. He didn’t even ask me to join him.’ She looked put out by his lack of interest.
‘Didn’t you get enough action when you went to the café?’
‘You didn’t see Taylor naked. I’m pretty sure it would have been enough to tempt even you to look past Eli for once.’ She was clearly not offering the distraction I had hoped to find by leaving my cabin.
‘Come on,’ I told her. ‘Let’s go and see if there’s anyone else we can talk to. If nothing else maybe Orla will still be in the gift shop and we can score Taylor a clean T-shirt. If they sell any that would fit him.’
We strode down the corridor, bouncing off the walls with the sway of the boat. There were fewer people around than there had been even half an hour earlier. Those that were still in the main passenger area lounged in the chairs, sprawled just as Taylor had been before we had booked the cabins. The crew were walking around handing out sick bags, though several looked like they had better hang on to a few for their own personal use.
‘I need something to drink,’ I said.
‘I hear you. A shot of tequila would be pretty medicinal right now.’
‘I meant water,’ I told her. ‘We need to stay sharp.’
‘No one else is,’ she replied, gesturing at the passenger who had given up trying to find a seat and was now lying prone on the floor.
‘I left my purse in my room. Come with me to grab it and I’ll go to the café so that you don’t need to see your personal chef again. Unless you want to?’
She shook her head. ‘It was fun, but it was pretty cramped in the back room. Maybe I’m growing up, but I think I might wait for somewhere a little more comfortable next time.’
‘Lily,’ I said, staring at her in shock, ‘I never thought I’d hear you say something so sensible. Please tell me that I haven’t broken you?’
She laughed and threw her arm around me. ‘Don’t worry, Aidan gave me his number. Once we’ve rescued Ben I might look him up. If Taylor doesn’t make me a better offer.’
We didn’t get as far as the cabins. Heading back downstairs to the lower deck, we passed the counter, only to see the lady who had booked us our rooms, Niamh, now leaning forward across her desk with her head on her hands. We hurried over. ‘Let’s try and get her talking, see if she’s seen Ben or Erin,’ I whispered to Lily.
>
‘Are you okay?’ Lily asked her, taking in the pallor of Niamh’s already pale skin. As we got closer I could see that the journey was taking its toll even on the most seasoned staff.
‘How are you still walking around?’ she asked us. ‘Half of the crew have gone off sick and we’re supposed to be used to this. You took the last two free cabins, which means that everyone who came to ask for one after that has been shouting at me.’
I tried to apologise but she waved it away. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s always like this during rough crossings.’ Her speech was punctuated by the contents of her desk rolling off the side and crashing to the floor. She bent and picked everything up as if it were a frequent occurrence. ‘What can I do for you?’
I thought back to Lily’s description of Taylor attempting to dry himself after his shower and shuddered. ‘I was just wondering if we could borrow some towels?’
She moved her chair back from her desk and opened the doors to a cupboard on her left. The ferry rolled again and instead of reaching down to pass us the supplies, she clapped her hand over her mouth. Lifting the counter, she moved from behind it and ran past us to the loos.
‘Do you think she meant for us to help ourselves?’ I asked Lily.
‘She didn’t lock up so I guess so.’ Lily and I glanced at each other before making our way into her domain. Lily counted out four towels whilst I scoured her desk quickly. ‘What are you doing?’ Lily whispered, as if Niamh might reappear any second. Given the speed at which she had legged it to the bathroom I wasn’t expecting her back in a hurry. Still, I tried to speed up my search.
‘If Erin is squirreled away in a cabin, there must be a list here somewhere of which one they’re in.’ There were no paper lists on the desk and I looked at the computer. Luckily Niamh had run in such a hurry that she hadn’t logged out. I stretched my fingers and began to try and navigate my way to the list of cabin users. ‘Keep an eye out,’ I told Lily.