Purr (Revenge Book 3)

by Burns, Trevion

  The sight made his heart cool down and go into a boil all at once. The confusing flurry of emotions pounding him into oblivion made his chest heave. His eyes ran her body. She wore all black as well. A long-sleeved cotton top, black jeans, and black boots. Used to seeing her in bright scrubs, the dark color made her look smaller, slimmer than she already was by nature.

  “Hear me out.” She raised her eyebrows and pointed to the Celeste. “I can only assume you’re here to trespass on that ship and take something that doesn’t belong to you. Considering how many rent-a-cops are surely pervading that vessel like roaches as we speak, you’re going to need a lookout. What better lookout than the girlfriend of a Blackwater? Being the most notorious home-wrecker in all of Shadow Rock, an employee for Blackwater Cruises is much more likely to recognize me and not find my presence suspicious.”

  “Anyone on this ship at two o’clock in the morning is suspicious, Veda. Regardless whether she’s a notorious home-wrecker.”

  She looked wounded. “So you think I’m a home-wrecker?”

  “Oh, Christ. Big picture. Please.”

  “Fine.” She scoffed. “But you need me.”

  It was his turn to scoff.

  “I think you’re really underestimating the power of playing dumb.” She stood tall, pouting her lips while wrapping one of her curls around her finger. She pulled the curl, making it stretch to its true waist-grazing length, fluttering her lashes rapidly and speaking in a baby voice. “Oh my goodness, Mr. Security Officer, am I not allowed to be in here? Gosh, I just fell so in love with the last cruise ship my boyfriend, Gage Blackwater, took me on that I couldn’t resist sneaking out to see this one too. I hope I’m not breaking any rules.” She widened her eyes. “I’m not in trouble… am I?” She topped off her act with a ditzy, high-pitched giggle. The fake smile vanished from her face in the next second and she tilted her head at him, shrugging as her voice returned to normal. “I won’t be winning any Oscars anytime soon, but….”

  “Jesus.” Linc looked away again, only because he couldn’t remain appropriately angry at her so long as he was looking into those big brown—and infuriatingly naive—eyes.

  Her voice rose, and the crunch of gravel under her feet followed him when he tried to take a few steps away. “Linc, if we run into security on the boat, I can serve as a decoy, a believable distraction, while you sneak through the back door and continue doing whatever it is you need to do. But just you, alone? Some linebacker of a guy who suffers from some seriously defective social interaction skills? Nope. You’ll get caught, arrested, odds are good you’ll hit someone, and then you’ll lose your job. Is that really a risk you’re ready to take?”

  He faced her.

  Veda shrugged. “You need me. And considering the fact that I’m the person who handed that card over to you, I’d say you’re being unforgivably rude to me right now.”

  “Why don’t you seem to understand how dangerous these people are, Veda?”

  “I do understand. Which is why I want to help all the more. You keep asking me how many times you have to remind me of the danger. Well now I’m asking you how many times I have to remind you that I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid to stand up and fight the battle everyone else is too cowardly to. I’m not afraid to stand up for all the people who’ve gone missing on this island and are quickly forgotten about as if their lives don’t matter. I’m not afraid to stand up for her….”

  With that word, ‘her,’ Linc’s heartbeat sped up. His gaze left Veda again. He took a moment with his eyes slammed closed, realizing that she was right. Even if she was a colossal pain in his ass, she could serve as a hell of an asset in the event either of them got caught on the Blackwaters’ largest ship in the middle of the night.

  He turned back to her. She’d placed her own black beanie over her curls during his moment of introspection.

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  She shrugged. “It’s illegal entry, right? You had the good sense to put a hat on, to cover anything that could be traced back to you.” She turned and motioned to his blacked-out license plates. “You even covered your plates. Covered your skin and your hair. I’ve got the good sense to cover my big-ass hair too. To disguise myself.”

  He spoke slowly, like he was talking to a child. “Why do you need a disguise when you’re serving as a decoy?”

  If her skin weren’t so dark, he was positive her cheeks would be cherry apple red. “Oh yeah,” she said, sheepishly pulling the hat off her head and smoothing her hair.

  “Not feeling very confident in you right now.”

  “I’ve gotten us this far, haven’t I?” She held her arms out at her sides, smiling. Playing the hat between her fingers, she nodded toward him. “What is it that you want so badly, anyway?”

  “None of your business.”

  “As your partner I’d say it definitely is my business.”

  “You are not my partner.”

  “I beg to differ, Detective.” When he sighed, she threw her hands out at her sides again. “Look, I’m here now, all right? There’s nothing you can do about it. And you know damn well that I can be an asset to you in there. Now you can be stubborn and call this whole thing off, but like you said—” She motioned to the Celeste. “—that bad boy is gone for twenty-three days once it sets sail tomorrow. Are you really ready to wait that long to get your hands on information that could help you find out what happened to Lisa?”

  He stilled, instantly regretting the moment he’d told her his wife’s name. He went to argue further, but that name. That name had already filled his brain to the brim and trickled down to invade his pounding heart. Lisa. Lisa’s face followed right on the heels of her name as it always did, infiltrating every inch of his body until his skin tingled from head to toe, rendering him motionless. Speechless.

  “I didn’t think so,” Veda said, lowering her voice to a whisper before pushing past him and making her way to the dock where the Celeste floated in wait. She looked over her shoulder when she didn’t hear the crunch of Linc’s boots behind her, raising her eyebrows. “You coming or what?”

  Linc watched her go, desperate to tell her that he most certainly was not coming. That he’d warned her to stay away. That the last thing he wanted was for her to end up like Lisa.

  But he’d also told Veda how much she reminded him of Lisa. How she had a heart way too big for her petite body. How she was stubborn to a fault. How she would eventually end up just like Lisa because she refused to listen. How much danger she put herself in by choosing to remain connected to him.

  Everything connected to him eventually ended up destroyed.

  He went to call after her. To stop her. To refuse to allow her to endure the same fate.

  But instead, when she smiled over her shoulder at him and wagged those inviting eyebrows, he took a step forward, hesitated, and then continued after her, cursing under his breath the whole way.

  24

  “Why is your gun drawn?” Veda whispered, clutching Linc’s arm, letting its hardness center her even as her heart slammed against her ribcage. “Planning on shooting anyone tonight?”

  Linc stopped in mid-step, leaning one shoulder against the wall of the pitch-black hallway on the ship’s lower deck. He kept the pistol in his hands primed in front of his body, proving he was equally as nervous about the narrow hallway they were perusing. He shot her a sour look over his shoulder, green eyes gleaming against the lone light flickering on the ceiling.

  “Shut up,” he mouthed.

  And Veda did just that, pressing her lips together and clapping both hands around his bicep when he started back down the hall.

  She’d been cool at first. After sneaking past the guard who’d been playing Candy Crush in the security stand outside the ship, the guard who’d been sleeping at the entry door to the ship, and the guard who’d been on a bathroom break at the entry to the lower deck, she’d found herself wondering if it was really going to be this
easy.

  The karmic gods hadn’t hesitated in screaming, “Hell no.” Because the instant they’d stepped into the dark halls of that lower deck, lined with doors to dozens of offices, they’d both hesitated. Linc knew the ship inside and out from the many maps he’d been obsessed with since his wife had gone missing, but even that hadn’t stopped him from whipping out his gun.

  Veda still had no idea what the hell that gun was for.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat, blinking when the darkness began to make her vision blurry. She prayed Linc knew where he was going. She’d have to trust that he did.

  The silence in the hall dominated, filled only by the quiet shuffle of their feet, the rustle of their clothes from where their shoulders were huddled against the wall, and their breathing, which picked up every second.

  When the stomp of boots filled the hall, stomps that didn’t belong to either of them, Linc quietly seized Veda’s arm and yanked her backward, pulling her into a crook in the wall that hid them from view.

  The instant he had her in that crook, pressing the back of his gun clad hand into her stomach to keep her there, a flash of light beamed down the hallway. The stomp of boots came to a halt. That beam of light danced all over for several moments before freezing.

  Veda’s eyes shot down. The tips of their boots were slightly illuminated, visible under the sharp beam of light.

  Her heart stopped cold.

  Silence.

  Then the light was gone. Darkness. The stomp of the boots recommenced, growing quieter and quieter as the guard moved away.

  Linc waited until the stomps were gone completely, until the hallway was dead silent again, before he stepped out of the valley in the wall.

  Veda followed, his arm locked under her unrelenting grip once more.

  She almost screamed with relief when Linc stopped at a door. He faced it and she sealed her body to his from behind, proving once more what a worthless decoy she was.

  He swiped the keycard, waited for the red indicator light to blink green, granting entry, and stepped into the office.

  With her arms still locked around his waist, they almost tripped over each other’s feet as they moved inside the office. With a frustrated face, Linc unlatched her arms and gave her a look of disbelief as he eased the door quietly shut behind him. He made sure to rotate the handle so it wouldn’t click as it closed, and engaged the lock once it was.

  Veda tried to flick on the light, but he caught her wrist just before she did and shook his head.

  She understood. Even if the darkness was making her dizzy, they couldn’t risk a single wisp of light sneaking under the doorway and alerting security to their presence.

  “Stay here,” Linc mouthed before crossing the room to the computer and flicking it on.

  Veda leaned against the door, able to take in only subtle hints of the furniture in the room due to the gentle shadows and shapes they cast in the darkness. A desk. A couple chairs. A few filing cabinets.

  The computer’s monitor blinked on and illuminated Linc’s face, making his eyes look a softer green than she’d ever seen them. She dug her nails into the door and tried to ignore her heartbeat, praying that the screen’s glare wasn’t enough to sneak under the doorway.

  After a few minutes of quickly clicking at the keyboard, Linc went into his pocket, produced a USB, and put it into the computer.

  Veda’s heartbeat picked up, wondering how long this could take.

  What felt like a lifetime but was probably less than a minute later, he’d ripped the USB from the computer and shut it down. Hurrying back across the office, he seized her arm. Only when he pulled her behind him and she had his bicep locked in her hands once more did her heartbeat slow.

  Why, oh why had she gotten herself into this? She didn’t want to be a decoy anymore. It would be a miracle if she made it off that boat without going into cardiac arrest.

  Linc managed to open the door as quietly as he’d closed it. Only after looking both ways did he step back out into the hallway.

  The guard who’d been on a ‘bathroom break’ twenty minutes earlier was still gone. Veda didn’t want to imagine the chronic case of diarrhea he must’ve been suffering from to have been gone so long. She’d never been so happy to be the beneficiary of someone else’s bad luck.

  Their luck continued all the way back up to the deck, avoiding any and all security, breezing past the guard who was still napping in the booth next to the ship’s entry door.

  It wasn’t until they made it to the security stand at the end of the dock, where the young guard who’d been playing Candy Crush an hour earlier was now on full alert, that they found themselves faced with their last hurdle.

  The guard had abandoned his phone, leaning back in the bright booth with his legs propped up on the table, crossed at the ankle, feet bobbing through the air. His back was facing them, but with glass windows on every wall, and a guard who was now watching the dock like a hawk, there was no way for them to pass that booth without being spotted.

  “Decoy time,” Veda whispered, shaking Linc.

  Linc could only roll his eyes, clearly annoyed that she was finally getting her chance to prove her worth now that the hardest part was over.

  She left him and raced up to the booth. She circled to the opposite side so that when she knocked on the glass the guard would be forced to turn his back to the dock’s exit, giving Linc time to sneak by.

  “Excuse me?” Veda knocked, beaming when the guard swirled in his seat with a stunned look on his face. She pressed her forehead to the glass as the young security guard frowned at her, obviously confused by what the hell she was doing there at that time of night. Behind the guard’s back, Linc raced up to the booth, bending down and out of sight just as the guard swirled around in his seat, his eyes slightly frantic as they searched the dock, clearly wondering which direction Veda had come from.

  His eyes returned to her, slightly perplexed, but not accusatory. “Where the hell did you come from?”

  “Sorry, I have a tendency to sneak up on people,” Veda said, speaking into the microphone bolted into the glass. From the corner of her eye, she saw Linc peeking in from where he was still crouching down. When he saw the guard had turned his back, facing Veda once more, Linc stood and raced away. “My grandma used to call me turtle,” Veda continued. “’Cause I’m like a Ninja. You know….” Her words slowed when the guard’s face grew bored. “Like Teenage Mutant Ninja—”

  “I get it.” The guard nodded rapidly with a roll of his eyes, clearly already out of patience.

  “I know it’s late.” Still locked on Linc from the corner of her eye, Veda waited until he’d disappeared into the dark night and across the port to his truck before she continued. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but I was out with some friends tonight and right in the middle of the dance floor, it hit me!” she beamed.

  The guard raised a bored eyebrow.

  “My favorite bracelet! I left it on the cruise ship I took last week.” She touched her naked wrist with fear in her eyes, her gaze darting across the street just as the headlights of Linc’s truck blinked on. “It’s my grandmother’s bracelet, and it means the absolute world to me. I won’t sleep tonight until I know whether or not it’s been found and turned in.”

  As the security guard retrieved a huge white folder from the countertop, declaring that if it were found he’d have it somewhere in that gargantuan folder, Veda breathed a sigh of relief because it was official.

  She was officially the best goddamn decoy in the history of the world.

  ——

  “Worst goddamn decoy in the history of the world,” Linc grumbled.

  “Excuse me. Did you not get what you came for? Did you not escape by the skin of your teeth because of my superb acting skills at the security booth back there?” Veda snapped, peeking across the truck at Linc later that night, parked on the edge of one of her favorite rocky black cliffs. The cliff didn’t just have a stunning view of the ocean but of the
entire island, from the sprawling mansions on the right to the numerous shacks that reminded her of the slums of Rio to the left. Even if Shadow Rock was the island where she’d experienced the worst night of her life, she could never deny its unbelievable beauty and uniqueness. She couldn’t deny that there wasn’t a single place on Earth quite like it.

  Maxwell’s “Pretty Wings” floated quietly through the speakers, aligning beautifully with the rolling waves below and the seagulls that looked black as night as they floated in the cloudy sky.

  Veda continued. “Did you not get everything you were hoping for tonight, all thanks to me?”

  Eyes riveted to the white moon, its luminous cast making them sparkle, Linc’s deep voice filled the truck, giving in. “Enough to make a warrant impossible to deny, yeah. Think so.”

  “See? I’m fucking awesome. A rare bird. A legend among men.”

  “Let’s not get too excited.”

  “What did you get?” she asked after her playful smile had calmed itself down.

  “Their books. Their route map.”

  “What are you trying to find?” she pressed.

  He sighed. “I’m trying to find out why they go where they go. Why they sail primarily to destinations with the highest instances of sex trafficking in the world. Why the amount of money they’re pulling in doesn’t line up with their exorbitant incomes. Where all that money is coming from and why.”

  “Will a judge grant you a warrant based off stolen evidence?”

  He shot her an amused look. “Why don’t you let me worry about that?”

  She smiled, looking away with a shrug.

  “Honestly, warrant or no warrant, you were a terrible decoy. All the way up until the end, I mean. That guard in the booth saved your decoy life.”

  “I was so terrified,” she finally admitted, letting her embarrassed laughter join his and fill the truck. “I knew it would be nerve-racking to be on that ship in the dead of night, but I was honestly scared to death. It’s a miracle I didn’t throw up.”