Play Along

by T L Swan

  I stink. I’m wet with perspiration. I grab my cat statue and walk into the bathroom and close the door, locking it behind me. I turn on the shower and look around. I need to break the statue open. I will do it later.

  When?

  When am I going to get the chance when I know Stace is occupied?

  Just do it now. I open the bathroom door and peer out to make sure he hasn’t come home and I close it again, lift the statue above my head and throw it on the floor. It bounces.

  Shit.

  I lift it again and throw it and it bounces again.

  Fuck it.

  I lift it again and really throw it down hard and it smashes across the floor.

  I stare at the broken pottery for a moment in shock.

  My eyes widen. Holy shit… I was right.

  Diamonds.

  Diamonds that are bigger than my thumbnail. Light golden and misty pink. Some are brilliant white. Oh my God, these must be worth a bomb.

  I can hardly breathe.

  I walk into the bedroom and grab a sock from Staces underwear drawer and then back into the bathroom and relock the door. I sit on the floor and sift through the broken pottery and pick up the diamonds, putting them into the sock one at a time.

  Forty-two diamonds in total.

  Whose are these?

  I carefully tie the sock off at the end and pick up the broken pottery and put it into a plastic bag. I’m going to have to throw this overboard as soon as I get a chance.

  I get into the shower and let the cool water run over me as it sinks in.

  Holy shit.

  I did it.

  * * *

  Sometimes life surprises me, but not nearly as much as I surprise myself.

  How stupid can a girl get?

  Why on Earth did I honestly think that there was something between this criminal and me?

  I eat the last of my potatoes and veg as I watch him with her. We are at dinner, it’s 8pm, and Stace arrived late after working all day. I would have assumed that he would have gotten his dinner and then taken a seat next to me as he has done every other time.

  Guess not.

  Tonight he got his dinner and then went and sat next to Chelsea, while I sit alone. He hasn’t even acknowledged me and I am sick of his mind games.

  Fuck him.

  This is the final nail in his sleaze bag coffin.

  Who in the fuck does he think he is?

  I’m livid. Livid that he thinks he can treat me like this. Livid that I didn’t see it coming. Livid that my feelings are hurt by yet another asshole.

  I’m so done with men.

  Angela comes over and sits down beside me. “What’s going on with you two?”

  I shrug. “Nothing.”

  She watches him as he talks and laughs with Chelsea and another blonde girl. “Are you fighting?” She frowns.

  “Not that I know of.”

  She screws up her face. “Weird,” she mutters.

  I drink the last of my drink. “I might head back to the room. I can’t get off this fucking ship soon enough,” I mutter.

  “Yeah, I bet.” She sighs.

  I stand.

  “Are you going to say something to him?” she asks.

  “No. Why bother?”

  “You should ask him what his problem is.”

  “I don’t care,” I reply dryly. “He can fuck her all night.”

  Her eyes hold mine. “You don’t mean that.”

  I fake a smile. “Yeah, actually, I do.”

  I stand and make my way over to the kitchen, order a dessert to go, and wait for them to cut the cheesecake for me. If I’m going to be depressed tonight, I may as well do it in style. I get my cheesecake and as I am on my way out, he catches my eye.

  “I’m going,” I announce.

  He nods, unaffected. “See you.” He goes back to his conversation.

  Is he fucking kidding? What is his problem? “Can I speak to you for a moment please?” I ask.

  “What about?”

  I glare at him and he rolls his eyes and stands begrudgingly. I walk out of the common room and he follows.

  I turn to face him. “What are you doing?” I whisper.

  He frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “Why aren’t you talking to me?”

  “I didn’t know I had to.”

  I fold my arms angrily in front of me. “Is that so?”

  He shrugs. “I’m going to hang with Chelsea tonight.” My eyes hold his. “I’m kind of bored in the same old cabin.” He pauses for a moment. “If you know what I mean?”

  If he had hit me in the stomach, it would have been less painful.

  “Hook up with someone if you want,” he replies nonchalantly. “I’m sure someone else can get the job done.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat.

  That hurt.

  Of all the things he could say to me… the fact that he thinks I’m a slut is the worst.

  I drop my head in shock. How do you even respond to that? I turn and walk away before he sees the tears that are welling behind my eyes.

  I’m done.

  * * *

  Stace.

  Standing still on the spot, I watch her walk down the hall away from me.

  I should feel something other than what I do. I should be elated to get rid of the conniving bitch, not remorseful.

  What I should be doing is hooking up with Chelsea for real, not standing here wishing I was going home with Rosh.

  Fuck you for being a cop.

  Fuck you for being the first chick I have dug in forever.

  Regret swirls deep in my stomach that I’m not a better man, that she was right. Fuck her for showing me time and again why I am out of her league.

  She deserved that, I remind myself. She deserved to feel betrayed by me because that’s what I feel from her. The act she showed to me in those first few days is what captured my attention. She had this strong willed vulnerability, and I found it so damn arousing.

  What an actress.

  Anyway, I don’t have time to worry about her now. I head to the control tower to ring Chris. I am anxious to see who Little Miss Innocent really is.

  * * *

  Two hours later I sit at my desk as I watch the clock. I have rung Chris every half hour and the results are still are not in. I blow out a frustrated breath. Come on, come on. I tap my pen as I think. If she is a cop, I have to kill her. I don’t have a choice. She has seen too much. I know she hasn’t had a radio to contact back so they know nothing yet. If she leaves, though, they will for sure. I rub my forehead in frustration. I don’t want to kill her. Fuck, what the hell does she think she’s doing out here, anyway? I hold my bottom lip between my fingers as I sit deep in thought, wondering if she is working with someone. Do we have a mole on this ship that has called the authorities? I narrow my eyes as I remember her coming out of that back door that night.

  She was crying. She did put up a good fight. I should have known then that she was no normal chick.

  The phone rings and I pick it up first ring. “Hello.”

  “Hey, Stace.” It’s Chris.

  “Are they in?” I ask.

  “Yep.”

  He hesitates and I frown. “What?”

  “How long since you have heard from this girl?”

  I bite my lip as I think of my answer before I reply. “A while.”

  “I know why,” he replies.

  “Why?”

  “She’s reported missing. It’s all over the news.”

  I screw up my face. Of course he was going to find that out. “What happened?”

  “She apparently caught her boyfriend making out with her best friend in a nightclub.”

  I frown as I listen.

  “Took off and they think she has committed suicide somewhere.”

  Her best friend and her boyfriend. What the fuck? That’s why she was crying.

  “Anyway, she’s a nurse,” he continues.

  I frown again. �
�Nurse?”

  “Yeah, ICU.”

  “I thought she was a cop?”

  “Nope, did she tell you that?”

  I shake my head distracted by the best friend and boyfriend thing. “No, I just sort of thought…”

  “Thought what?”

  “I sparred with her in the gym once and she could fight. I assumed she was a cop.”

  “No, not a cop. She does have a membership to a kickboxing gym. Works out regularly.”

  “Does she have any family?” I ask.

  “That’s the weird thing. There is no trace of her before her eighteenth birthday.”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she didn’t exist until she turned eighteen.”

  “I don’t understand.” I frown.

  “In most cases, that means she has changed her name as soon as she was old enough.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Who was she before?” I ask.

  “I can find out, but that info takes about a week or so. They have to go through records and stuff. Does it really matter anyway?”

  I hold the phone to my ear as I think.

  “I mean she’s probably dead,” he replies.

  I shake my head. God, nobody is even looking for her. No wonder she wants a new start.

  “Who does she live with?” I ask.

  “She lived with her best friend.”

  “The chick who was fucking her boyfriend.” I frown. This is unbelievable.

  “That would be her.”

  My heart drops. “How do they know she killed herself?”

  “They don’t. Apparently the friend and boyfriend had gone out of town together and she had followed them and went berserk right before she went missing. The police found her car in the nightclub parking lot when she was reported missing two days later.”

  “Apart from the appearing at eighteen thing, is there anything else unusual?” I ask.

  “No. She’s a nurse and works hard. Goes to the gym. Keeps to herself and never been in trouble with the law. A few boyfriends. Five to be exact.”

  “How long was she with this last guy?” I don’t know why I want to know that, but I do.

  “A couple of years.”

  Regret fills me. She probably loved him. I picture her face when she walked though that back door, and I just told her I was bored and going to spend the night with Chelsea tonight. What a weak prick. She really is out of my fucking league.

  “Listen, I got to go into a meeting. I will ring you as soon as I get her birth information.”

  “Okay, mate. Thank you. About a week, hey?”

  “Yeah, speak soon.”

  He hangs up, and I sit for a moment in the semi-lit office as I process her story. I shake my head in disbelief. Her boyfriend must be fucking batshit crazy to play up on her. Stupid prick. I think for a moment. I need to get her off this ship before Vikinos arrives. I don’t want her here after the shit goes down. I sit back in my chair and blow out a deep breath.

  What do I do?

  I bite my thumbnail and think for a moment. I do need a new part for the engine. Although it’s not urgent, I could pretend it is. I turn on my computer and type an email.

  * * *

  Columbia Docking Security

  Permission requested to port for 48 hours for unscheduled urgent engine maintenance.

  I look forward to your reply.

  Mac.

  * * *

  I walk into the cabin to find Rosh laid facing the wall with her back to me, the desk lamp on and the room dimly lit.

  “Hi,” I wait for her reply, but it doesn’t come. She stays silent.

  I can tell she is awake. Unsure what to say, I take a shower without saying anything else.

  After getting into my boxers I lie down beside her. She gets up violently and grabs a blanket and pillow and lies down on the floor.

  “Are you mad?” I ask.

  “Go back to Chelsea, you scuz bucket.” She growls.

  I smile into the darkness. There she is—the fiery little witch I like so much.

  “You sleep on the bed and I will sleep on the floor,” I reply.

  “Fuck you. Don’t do me any favours.”

  I lie down on the floor along the bottom of the bed. “I’m out of the bed, you have it.” It’s bloody hard on this floor, I shuffle around to try and get comfortable.

  “I would rather die than sleep in your bed,” she snaps.

  I chuckle and she kicks me hard with her foot.

  “Ouch.”

  We both lie on the cold, hard floor staring at the ceiling above.

  “I thought you were a cop,” I mutter into the darkness.

  She stays silent.

  “I saw you kick Stucco’s ass… which I loved by the way.” I add.

  Still, she says nothing.

  “I had a search done on you. I was waiting for the results tonight.”

  She sits up in an outrage. “You didn’t think to just fucking ask me?”

  “I will repeat, I thought you were a cop. I didn’t think I could trust you.”

  She flops back down onto the floor in a dramatic fashion. “You can’t.”

  “Good. You can’t trust me, either,” I reply.

  “I never did. I’m tired, so go back to Chelsea. Your jabbering is annoying.” She sighs.

  I smile broadly into the darkness and silence falls over us once more.

  “They think you committed suicide.”

  She hesitates for a moment. “I knew they would,” she whispers almost to herself.

  “Do you want me to kill him?”

  Again, a long pause.

  “I will. I can knock her off, too, if you want,” I add with a smirk.

  “Don’t tempt me.” She sighs.

  “So, you are a nurse?” I ask as I look over at her in the darkness.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a cool job.” I shrug to myself. “Must be rewarding saving lives.”

  “I save the lives that scum drug dealers like you take.”

  A swift kick to the stomach hits me.

  “I don’t deal drugs.”

  “You ship them. Same thing.”

  I think for a moment. “Who were you before you turned eighteen?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she fires back immediately.

  “Yes, you do. It came up that you had an identity change at the age of eighteen. What are you hiding?”

  She stays silent.

  “I am about to help you disappear from the planet. I deserve to know the truth.”

  “You deserve Chelsea, that’s all you deserve. Go back to her truth.”

  “I want yours.”

  “I don’t want yours, so leave me alone.”

  For ten minutes we lie in the darkness lost in our own thoughts. Mine are regrets, hers are… I don’t know what.

  Eventually, after a long silence, she speaks. “My father was bad.”

  I frown.

  “He was always a petty criminal but my mom thought she could change him. She fell pregnant with me by accident…” Her voice trails off as if she is far away.

  I lie patiently waiting for her to finish. “So she married him?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  I frown. I can tell this is hard for her to revisit.

  “When I was a little baby, he started getting into organised crime and Mom threatened to leave him.” She pauses. “He beat her so bad, she spent a week in hospital.

  The more she tells me, the colder the room becomes.

  “When I was two, he got locked up and Mom saw it as a way to escape. We ran to a country town and changed our name.”

  Silence falls again.

  “When I was five he found us.”

  I frown and she stops talking. After a long pause I ask, “What happened?”

  “He shot my mother and kidnapped me.”

  “She died?” I whisper.

&
nbsp; She shakes her head. “No. The police were somehow tipped off where he had me hidden and they got him. He went back to prison.”

  “Was your mom okay?”

  “She survived but was never good after that. We lived on the edge of fear, changing cities and names every few years. We never had any long-term friends and we were always broke. Not even our family knew where we were.”

  I can’t imagine growing up like that. For all of my flaws, my childhood was a dream.

  “Then three days before my eighteenth birthday he found us again.”

  I sit up and look over at her in the darkness. Her eyes are glazed over and her voice is faint. This is a painful memory for her. She has a distracted air about her as if many tears have been shed.

  “He tied me up so I had to watch.” She pauses and I know she is right back there as if it is happening again. “He cut her throat and let her bleed out.”

  Fuck.

  “I watched as the life drained out of her.”

  This time it is me who has no words.

  “She was so beautiful,” she whispers. “The one person who I could always trust.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I stay silent, and after about ten minutes I reply, “What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing, he just took me to get back at her for leaving him. I was taken to a hotel by two of his men.”

  I frown. “He has men?”

  “He does now. In the beginning it was just him, but now he has help. They took me to a hotel and he was going to pick me up in a few days, but fortunately for me someone got murdered in the room next door so the police came and did random searches of all the rooms. They found me and put me into the witness protection program.”

  I frown as I look over at her. God, this is not what I was expecting. “And you became Roshelle Myers?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have always been alone?”

  “Yes,” she replies, monotone. “I used to have this perfect little scenario in my head. It used to get me through the hard days.”

  “Like what?”

  She smiles. “I was out to dinner with my mom and my dad at an expensive restaurant, my Dad was a well respected doctor. He loved my mom and we lived in a fancy house. We had no worries and life was perfect.”

  I smile as I imagine the scenario she is setting.

  “This gorgeous guy would come up to us at dinner and ask Dad if he could dance with me and my dad would say no because he was too protective.”