Girls like Candice had always been after one thing: Attention. She was loved by all the boys and hated by their girlfriends.
“We never ran in the same circles in school,” I said, “but there were a lot of rumors back then about her, and none of them were good.”
“Some people never change, and speaking of…” she said as she slammed her glass down on the counter of the bar, “I know a woman who has about two seconds to get her hand off my husband’s ass before I remove it for her.”
Rita lined Candice up in her sights and made a beeline through the crowd, shoving couples aside as she went. When she reached Candice, an argument ensued, and from the way Candice reacted, it was clear she thought the whole thing was funny—until Rita slapped her across the face.
Giovanni returned and handed me a drink. “I feel like I’m on one of those reality shows people watch nowadays,” he said.
“Feels like high school all over again,” I said. “And something tells me if Rita and I had gone to the same school, we would have been great friends.”
After Rita’s one-woman show was over, she escorted Stephen, by the hand, out of the room like someone pulling a dog on a leash after he’d been scolded. At the same time, Trista walked in—minus Doug—with a look of concern on her face. She sized up everyone in the room and then bowed her head and stared at the floor.
I looked at Giovanni. “I’ll be right back.”
“Everything all right?”
“I’m not sure. Ask me again in five minutes.”
I made my way over to Trista and said, “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “I spoke to Doug earlier out on the balcony. He said he was only going to be out there for a minute and then he’d join me, but he never did.”
I looked around. “Have you checked your room? Maybe he was tired and decided to call it a night.”
“I’ve been there already—he wasn’t there. The bed is still made up too. I don’t think he’s been back there since we left for dinner. Usually if he’s had enough to drink for the night he goes back to our cabin and passes out on the bed, but…”
Candice sauntered across the room taking it upon herself to join our conversation. Her face was still bright red on one side from the embedded handprint that stung it several minutes earlier. “What’s the matter, Tris—lose someone?”
“This doesn’t concern you, Candice,” Trista said.
“Doesn’t it?”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed what you’ve been up to all week.”
Candice batted her store-bought eyelashes. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Trista grimaced. “Do you really think I haven’t noticed you making eyes at my husband since the moment we stepped on the boat?”
Candice put her hand over her mouth and laughed. “What a crazy accusation. There’s nothing going on.”
Trista put on a brave face, but her eyes were satiated with tears.
“I know there isn’t,” she said, her voice shaky. “And there won’t be—not now, not ever.”
Candice leaned over and whispered loud enough for both of us to hear. “Trista sweetie, if I wanted your husband, I would have already had him. Oops. I forgot. I have.”
Trista surged forward. Her outstretched hands curled inward like a cat’s paws, ready to strike. I stepped in between the two of them. “Get lost, Candice,” I said. “Now.”
Candice swirled her pointer finger at me and jabbed me in the chest with it. “Or what, Sloane? This doesn’t involve you.”
In that moment, my mind only processed one thing: Candice’s fat finger pressed into me like she was the teacher and I was her student. I looked at Trista, “Wait here, I’ll be right back,” and then I grabbed Candice by the finger that penetrated my personal space and escorted her to the hall.
“Where’s your room?” I said.
Candice smirked. “Like I’d tell you.”
“Fine. Mine it is then.”
I yanked her over to the elevator.
“Get your hands off me!” she said. “I’m not about to get in there with you.”
She may have had the body back in the day, but I had the muscle. I shoved her in and pressed the button and the doors sealed shut. My hand remained affixed to her arm, and I didn’t say a word while we ascended and then came to a halt on the fourth floor. Candice, on the other hand, let out her best scream. On a scale of one to ten, it was a three at best, and when the doors re-opened, it was still the two of us. I shoved Candice out and over to room 418 where I scanned my key card, opened the door and forced her inside. Once it was shut behind me, I wrapped my right arm around the front of her and hooked my left hand around her neck until I had her in a choke hold.
“Sloane, what the—why are you doing this to me!”
“Shut your mouth and listen. I know you get your kicks from messing with other women’s husbands, but it stops…now. If I so much as see one of your eyeballs slant in the direction of another woman’s man before this trip is over, I’ll yank them from their sockets. Do you understand me?”
Candice sneered and went silent. I applied more pressure.
“Sloane…you’re…choking…me.”
“Nod if we have an agreement.”
She moved her head what little she could and I let her go. “Good, now get out of my room.”
Candice thrust her hands around her neck like I’d just broken it. “If I could just say—”
I pointed to the door. “I said get out!”
It took several minutes to bring myself back to center. Once I did I returned to the room where Trista was waiting. She had a confused look on her face. “What happened to Candice?”
I bobbed my shoulders up and down. “I’m not sure, but my guess is she won’t return to the party tonight. Now let’s get back to Doug. Any change?”
She shook her head.
“How long ago did you see him on the balcony?” I said.
“An hour ago, maybe.”
“Could he be hanging out by the bar on one of the other decks or in the poker room?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t play card games, never has. And he told me he would be right in. He may fall short in some ways, but when he tells me he’s going to do something, he’s a man of his word.”
I waved Giovanni over and gave him the I’ll-fill-you-in-later look. “Trista’s husband is missing. I’m going to help her search for him. If you want to go back to the room and wait for me, I’ll join you as soon as—”
He placed a hand on my wrist. “What can I do to help?”
There were a total of six decks on the ship. After we walked to the photo section of the boat where all the pictures were displayed and Trista showed Giovanni what Doug looked like, the three of us split up and took two decks each. We made a plan to meet back in an hour regardless of whether we found him or not.
On my way out, Giovanni said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“On the balcony,” I said, “like we just discussed.”
“Not without this…”
He removed his suit jacket, wrapped it around me, winked and left the room.
“Your husband is easy on the eyes,” Trista said. “And so thoughtful.”
Heat generated around my face, and I wondered how many shades of red I’d turned. “Oh, he’s not my husband,” I said. “He’s my, umm…we are, ah, he’s my date. We’re dating.”
Forty-five minutes and two decks later, I’d found nothing but two teenagers getting frisky in the hot tub by the pool and a whole lot of people wandering around like happy hour had rocked steady for the past twelve hours. I wondered if Giovanni and Trista had better luck, but when I walked back into the atrium and saw the disappointed looks on their faces, I knew they hadn’t found Doug either.
“Nothing?” I said.
Trista shook her head.
“Show me where you last saw him,” I said.
“I’m not sure how that will help. It’s so dark out, we won’t be
able to see anything. And anyway, he’s not there now.”
Giovanni walked over to the bar and summoned the man behind the counter. “Excuse me, my date thinks she may have lost one of her diamond earrings outside. I’m in need of a flashlight.”
The man behind the counter nodded and called out to a kid that looked like a penguin in a purple vest. A few minutes later Giovanni returned, flashlight in hand, and the three of us headed outside. We walked about fifteen feet from the door and Trista stopped. “This is it,” she said. “He stood against this railing.”
“Are you certain?” I said.
She nodded. “I can tell because I remember him being by one of those round life preserver thingies.”
Giovanni flicked on the flashlight and scanned the area. The light ran up and down the railing and then he stopped and glared at the deck for a few moments.
“What is it?” Trista said. “Did you find something?”
Giovanni gave me a strange look and then stared back at Trista. “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
“Mind if I try?” I said.
Giovanni handed the flashlight over, but gripped it for a moment before letting it loose in my hand. It was then I realized he’d found something but didn’t want to say what it was. I gave him a slight nod and knelt down and peered at the planks lining the deck next to where Doug had been standing. I didn’t see anything at first, but then I noticed a series of splotches that looked like they’d been smeared. I leaned in to get a better look, and when I did, I was surrounded by what looked like dried paint. Only it wasn’t. I was familiar with the particular shade of red, and it only came in one tint: Blood.
“Neither of you see anything, are you sure?” Trista said.
I hated lying to her, but I didn’t see the sense in causing her to worry until I figured out what had happened.
Trista braced herself against the railing and wound her fingers around it like she was holding on for dear life. I placed my hand on her shoulder. “You look exhausted. Why don’t you go back to your room and rest for a while? Let us keep looking and see what we can find out, and I’ll stop in and check on you in a bit.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not while Doug’s out here somewhere. I’m embarrassed to say this, but he had a lot to drink tonight. I mean, he always does, but tonight he seemed more out of it than usual. It was like something triggered him. Maybe he couldn’t remember how to get back to the room and he’s in someone else’s—”
Trista twisted up her face, and it was obvious what she was thinking—Candice hadn’t returned to the party.
“I need to check on something,” she said, and she walked back inside.
I turned to Giovanni. “Don’t most ships have surveillance cameras these days?”
“This one would—yes.”
“Good. I’m going to check into it. Will you keep an eye on her?”
It took about twenty minutes, but eventually I found a room set up with over a dozen miniature-sized televisions. The different screens offered multiple angles of the ship and refreshed at five-second intervals. I got closer and peeked through the small window for a better view. Two boys sat at a long desk that spanned the length of the room. One had nodded off, and the other was engrossed in a magazine—the kind most teenage boys hid between their mattresses so mom would never see. Perfect.
I twisted the knob and opened the door.
The boy with the magazine glanced up and then hurled it over to the corner of the room. When the magazine landed it sprawled open to a full page spread causing the boy’s cheeks to light up like a motel sign on Hollywood and Vine. The other boy remained in his comatose state.
“Hey lady, you can’t be in here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you want me to leave?” I slipped off Giovanni’s suit jacket and bent over an empty chair by the door giving him a front row seat to my rear view mirror. “I’m just so bored, and I saw you in here, and well—I thought you could tell me where I could go to have a good time.”
His eyes widened like he’d just been given the keys to a brand new Ferrari. “What did you, umm, have in mind?”
I approached him and ran my fingers down the sides of my body, starting at my shoulders and working my way down to my waist and then rested them on my hips.
He swallowed—hard.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Toby.”
I straddled the chair he sat in and lowered my body down until it rested on his lap. I pushed my face forward until it was level with his, leaned in and whispered, “What about you, Toby? Are you…busy?”
A bead of sweat trickled down his face as he tried his best to keep his eyes centered on me without looking down. After a few moments of consideration, he kicked the chair the other guy slept in and said, “Hey douche bag, wake up.”
Douche Bag shouted an expletive and then rubbed his eyes. Once he got all the sand out and the view in front of him came into focus he said, “What the hell is she doing in here? Ma’am, I mean, lady—this room is restricted to the crew only.” He looked back at Toby. “What were you thinking?”
Toby snapped his head back and laughed. “Dude, I’ll give you a hundred bucks to take a hike for twenty minutes.”
The other boy looked at him like he didn’t understand why he said twenty when he only needed ten. He milled the moral dilemma around in his head and then got up and strolled out the door. Before it shut, he poked his head back in. “Twenty minutes—no more. Make it fast.”
I slid off Toby and went to the door and locked it. When I turned back around he had his shirt off and was going for the belt on his pants at a rate faster than any heartbeat I’d ever heard in my lifetime.
I swirled my finger in the air. “No…no…no…not so fast.”
“What do you mean? I thought you wanted to…?”
“These cameras,” I said. “Do you ever see things you shouldn’t?”
Toby laughed. “All the time.”
“I want to see something first,” I said. “Will you show me?”
“What’s it worth to you?”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I do something for you, you do something for me.”
“Such as?” I said.
He indicated to my dress with his chin. “Take it off.”
I took a moment to consider what he was asking and how far I was willing to go to get what I wanted. I’d been in a lot of compromising positions before, but nothing like the one I was in now. He requested my dress, not my bra and panties, so I rationalized it was no different than strutting around in my bikini on deck. With one hand I undid the back zipper and let my dress puddle around me on the ground. I stepped out of it and looked him in the eye. “Now will you show me?”
His eyes sparkled with anticipation. “What did you umm…have in mind?”
I crossed the room, touching different screens as I walked like I was lighting up letters on Wheel of Fortune. “Can I just pick one?” I said.
He looked at his watch and sighed.
“We’ll hurry,” I said. “Promise. This is just so exciting!”
I selected a screen that displayed the various decks. “How does this work?” I said. “What if you wanted to look at one in particular instead of all of them in a rotation?”
“That’s easy.” He pushed some buttons on the keyboard in front of him and brought up the deck on level two.
“I was on level five tonight, and I’d love to see what was going on when I wasn’t looking.”
“Level five…let’s see here.” He pushed a couple more buttons and the level five camera sparked on.
“What time?”
“Around nine,” I said.
“Which side?”
“The one by the dance floor.”
When the screen refreshed I saw Doug, alive and staring out into a sea of nothing.
“All right, I showed you how it works; can we get back to you and me now? I wanna get the rest of those clothes off.�
��
“In just a minute,” I said. “I want to see where this guy goes.”
He groaned. “Why do you care?”
I’d already fibbed more than a drug dealer in an interrogation room, what was one more?
“One of the women at the party was going around telling everyone she got it on with some guy out on the deck, and I wondered if it was true or not.”
Toby stood up. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Voyeurism—I like it!”
I tilted my head and smiled. “How about we fast forward to the good part?” I said. “Then we can get back to us.”
He grabbed the remote, and the screen moved forward. After several minutes Doug’s eyes shifted to the side and he spoke to a shadowy person shielded under a dark cloak.
Toby slowed things down until the recording played at regular speed and then stood up for a closer look at the coming attraction. “Hey, I bet this is it.”
Somehow I didn’t think so. The expression on Doug’s face was not of a person prepared to enter the throes of passion—he looked scared.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Go back.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
He reversed until I told him to stop.
I put my finger on the screen. “What’s that person holding in their hand?”
He shrugged. “This doesn’t zoom, it just records.”
I bent over the screen to get a closer look. The person talking to Doug held something in his right hand, but in black and white, it was too fuzzy to see. A knife?
“Play it again,” I said.
Toby clicked the button, and we watched the person move toward Doug and then raise his hand and swing it down. Doug hunched over. Blood that appeared black on the monitor, oozed from his white button-up shirt. Toby threw his hand over his mouth and backed up until he tripped and fell over his chair. “This can’t be happening. There’s no way. How did I miss this?”
I had a pretty good idea. I continued to watch what appeared to be a knife stab Doug again and again until he didn’t move anymore. The cloaked person then tried to lift Doug but couldn’t at first. The person rested a moment, looked around and then tried again. The second time Doug’s body flopped halfway over the railing. He made no movement of any kind. A couple more heave-ho’s and Doug’s body plummeted over the side, tumbling to the water below. The cloaked person then threw the knife in after him. And Doug was gone.
I Have a Secret (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Three) Page 2