“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.
CHAPTER 4
“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 res
tricted 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 slipped back into my dress while Toby stumbled over to the phone and dialed. “This is Toby in the surveillance room. I need to talk to the captain.” There was some chatter on the other end of the line and then Toby said, “I don’t care if he’s asleep. Wake him up—now!”
CHAPTER 5
I sat in a plain room with white paneling on all four walls and looked out the six foot windows at the lush green mountains of Jamaica. Mountains I’d hoped to explore, along with a nice, wet hike up Dunn’s River Falls in my skivvies. Sadly, it was not to be. At the moment I was stuck with a bunch of men whose only interest was my role in the mysterious events that took place the night before.
The captain, upon learning a man had gone overboard, turned the ship around. He muttered something about how it was their obligation to return to the site and do a search and rescue. Because of the timestamp on the video surveillance camera, it didn’t take long to make it back to the exact spot, but of course, there was no sign of Doug anywhere. And at that point, all kinds of red tape came into play. The way Giovanni explained it to me, because we were on the high seas and not on American soil or in American waters, it was hard to say what type of investigation would take place, and since the ship departed from a US port, special maritime jurisdiction applied. The only problem was, it often took a lot of finagling before anyone got anywhere.
“Jamaica can wait. This can’t,” the captain said. “Now…I want you to tell me again how you ended up in my surveillance room and why you wanted to see that footage.”
He said the word my like a polygamist referenced one of his many wives.
“We’ve been over this,” I said. “Twice. My story won’t be any different now than it was fifteen minutes ago. I’ve told you everything.”
“I still don’t think you’re giving me all of it. So let’s go over it again,” the captain said.
Giovanni, who sat back in the chair next to me with his arms crossed, leaned forward and chimed in. “I’ve allowed this to go on long enough. We have both complied with your repeated requests and your questions. Any further questioning is unnecessary at this point. We’ve done nothing wrong, and you have neither the right to question us or the authority to detain us any longer.”
The captain bent over Giovanni’s chair until he was mere inches from his face. “We’ll sit here all day, but you will tell me whatever part of the story you two have left out.”
I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and say: I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
Giovanni remained calm. He pushed the captain away from him with his hand and said, “I need to ma
ke a call.”
The captain threw his hands in the air. “This isn’t jail. You don’t get your one phone call. My boat, my rules.”
Giovanni looked at me and said, “Say nothing more.”
So I didn’t. And aside from my stomach’s disapproval of me skipping a nutritious breakfast, we sat in silence for the next twenty minutes.
When it was clear the captain’s patience was spent, he said, “You two are behaving like you’re waiting to get a lollipop from your mommy. Stop wasting my time. You’re not getting a phone call.”
In unison we shrugged our shoulders and continued to offer up the silent treatment. If he was going to ruin our day, the least we could do was return the favor. While we put up a united front, I played a mental list of songs inside my head to pass the time starting with Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” and ending with Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” By then, the captains face was so red it looked like one of his blood vessels was about to burst from his body, shoot across the room and smack both of us in the face multiple times.
With a great deal of reluctance, the captain looked at Giovanni and gestured to a phone on a desk. Giovanni clutched it in his hand and made his one phone call. He paused a moment and waited for the call to go through and then said, “Agent Luciana, please.”
The captain’s brow raised, but he said nothing.
Another pause and then, “How are you, Carlo? Yes, we’ve had a great time. I need your help with something.”
From there, the details were explained to Carlo in a different language which I perceived to be Italian, and then Giovanni handed the phone to the captain. “He would like to speak with you.”
The captain rolled his eyes, snatched the phone and positioned it over his ear. “Captain Manning here. Who’s this?”
Those were the only words he got in before going mute for the next two minutes. Before he ended the call he said, “Yes, I understand.” The phone was placed back on the receiver and the captain turned to Giovanni and frowned. “You could have told me your brother was FBI.”
Giovanni smirked. “You didn’t ask.”
Sloane Monroe Series Boxed Set (Books 1-3) Page 40