“Good tip.”
“Also, when she’s doing her chick stuff … like shaving her legs, plucking her eyebrows, and staring at herself in the mirror for an hour because she’s convinced there’s something wrong with her pores, tell her she looks beautiful and then give her space to do her chick stuff. That’s not always insecurity fueling the action. They just like it.”
Now it was Quinn’s turn to laugh. “That’s also a good tip.” He was silent for a beat. “Do you believe in happily ever after?”
Nick nodded. “Yeah. I’m living mine. You’re already living yours, too. You just don’t realize it yet. There will come a time when you do, and when it happens, you’ll settle into this moment of bliss that you’ll never forget. It will be the best moment of your life … until the next best moment, and that will revolve around her, too.
“The thing about finding your soul mate is that there’s no limit to best moments,” he continued. “Every second you spend together will build upon the previous one. You’ll think there’s a time when you couldn’t be happier. You’ll be wrong. There is no end to the depth of what you’ll feel with her. There is no limit to how much you can love.”
Quinn found himself unbelievably moved. “That was profound.”
“That’s what my Maddie does to me. She makes me smarter than I really am.”
“I think you’re schmaltzy, too.”
“You might want to look in the mirror when you toss around that word.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I know I’m schmaltzy, too. I’m fine with it.”
“I am, too.”
They lapsed into amiable silence for a moment, Quinn breaking it first. “We can’t tell the girls we had this conversation.”
“Absolutely not. We’ll never live it down.”
ROWAN WAS DETERMINED TO GO through her photos a third time – she and Maddie sorted through every single one together … twice – so Maddie left her to her work and headed to the deck. She didn’t have an agenda in mind and found herself wandering toward the tiki bar. When she arrived, she realized something inside of her had pointed her in that direction … and there was a reason she’d felt antsy below deck.
Ben was holding court at the bar, a trio of women – not the usual faces for a change – hanging on his every word. He had a beer bottle in his hand, a bowl of nuts handy for snacking, and he was in the middle of some outrageous story that had the patrons laughing hysterically.
“And then I found my pants in the bushes and walked home without putting them on,” he said in a booming voice. “I still can’t figure out what happened to my shoes that night.”
The closest bar patrons broke out in enthusiastic guffaws, causing Maddie to pull up short. The sight of the man was enough to turn her stomach. She had to remind herself that it was unlikely the other bar patrons were aware of the situation with his wife. Still … she wanted to hurt him. He had it coming, after all.
“It’s gross, huh?” Demarcus sidled up to Maddie, an empty tray balanced in his hand. “It makes me want to vomit.”
“You and me both.” Maddie folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t understand why he’s acting like this. If that was Nick … .” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. The mere thought was enough to shrivel her insides and turn her blood into icy fear.
“It’s not my place to judge people,” he started. “I like to mind my own business. People grieve in different ways, after all. This, though, is completely inappropriate.”
“I can think of a few meaner words. In fact … .” Maddie started in Ben’s direction. She had a few things she wanted to say to him.
Demarcus considered stopping her. She was a shy woman, sweet and demure. She was lithe, with honey blond hair that made her look like an angel. Sure, her arms were solid and he could tell she worked out … but she looked small in comparison to the bigger man. Despite that, she also looked determined. He had no doubt that she would be able to handle herself. And, if it became an issue, he would step in then.
“Hey.” Maddie pointedly tapped Ben on the shoulder to get his attention. “How’s it going?”
Slowly, Ben turned to face her. His grin was wide … until he realized who he was dealing with. Then, in the blink of an eye, his gregarious energy fled and he looked appropriately contrite. “Oh, hey, Maddie.”
She managed to contain her eye roll … but just barely. “There’s no need to pretend you’re upset,” she offered. “I’ve been watching you for five minutes. It’s a wasted effort.”
Instead of apologizing, or even blaming the alcohol, Ben went on the offensive. “You’re not my mother.” He snagged his beer bottle and took a long pull on it. “You don’t understand what I’m feeling. I don’t need you … judging … me.”
Growing up with a gift had been difficult for Maddie. She lived in fear that someone would find out and take her away from her mother, perhaps lock her up and try to use her magic for nefarious means. Sure, that was a bit theatrical, but she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t think of herself as someone who got off on judging others. She couldn’t help herself now, though.
“Are you having any luck?” she challenged, vitriol on full display. “Finding a new girlfriend, that is. You might want to tell them that your last wife turned up missing in a cruise ship tragedy. That will get you a lot of attention from sympathetic women who want to be the one to ease your broken heart.
“Of course, when you tell them you’ve been married a week and she’s been gone less than a few days, that might throw a crimp into your plan,” she added. “Hey, I know, I’ll tell them.” She jabbed her fingers in her mouth and let loose an ear-splitting whistle. “Does everyone here know that Ben’s wife is missing and he’s considered a suspect? No? Spread the word.”
Ben’s eyes flashed with an emotion Maddie couldn’t quite identify. It was either hatred or shame. There was a fine line between the two. “That was completely unnecessary,” he murmured when the people who had been grouping around him began to disperse. His ego deflated in time with his sagging shoulders. “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you … except maybe a little common decency. Your wife is missing.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” he snapped, his fury returning with a vengeance. “Why do you think I’m here? Why do you think I’m doing … this?”
“I have no idea why you’re doing this,” Maddie admitted. “I don’t understand how you can sit here while she’s somewhere out there and make an ass out of yourself rather than be looking for her.”
“How am I supposed to look for her?” he snarled. “I have no jurisdiction. It’s not like I can drive to her favorite park and find her. It’s not like I can ask friends and family where she is. She has no friends on this ship. She only has me … and she’s gone.
“I know that I’m acting like a jerk,” he continued. “I know that I’m being a complete and total jackass. I know she would be totally disappointed in me.” His voice cracked. “I can’t sit in that room and do nothing, though. I don’t know where to look. I’m so afraid that she’s gone – and gone forever – that I can barely breathe. I don’t know what to do other than this.
“So, I’m sorry if I’m an utter disappointment to you.” A lone tear slid down his cheek, touching Maddie’s heart. “I’m sorry that I’m a disappointment to her. I’m so very sorry … and I don’t know what to do.”
He ended the diatribe on a sob and buried his face in his hands.
“Oh, well, geez.” Maddie glanced at Demarcus for help and found he looked just as stricken as she felt. “I’m now one of the mean girls I hated in high school.”
Demarcus pressed his lips together, genuinely amused. “I don’t think it was that bad.” He heaved out a sigh and then grabbed Ben by the arm, leading him back to the bar area. “Take a seat, buddy.” He snagged the beer Ben was about to drink from and carried it behind the bar. “How about we switch over to water, huh?”
Ben nodded numbly, h
is eyes red-rimmed and puffy.
“I’m sorry,” Maddie offered lamely. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you that way. I just … I was upset and I took it out on you. It wasn’t fair.”
“Don’t apologize.” Ben rubbed his forehead. “I had it coming. I am being a jerk – like the biggest jerk imaginable – and I deserved everything you said. I just … hate this.” He dropped his head onto his arm and started crying, his shoulders shaking.
“Oh, man.” Maddie rubbed her cheek and shifted her eyes back to Demarcus. “What should we do?”
He was incredulous. “Are you seriously asking me? You’re the one who did this.”
“You encouraged me to do it.”
“I did not.”
“Maybe not with your mouth, but you were thinking it.”
“Oh, so now you’re a mind reader?”
“You would be surprised.” Maddie tentatively reached out to touch Ben’s shoulder, which only made him cry more. Frustrated, she swiveled toward the door, internally debating if she should make a break for it.
“Don’t even think about it,” Demarcus warned.
Luckily, she didn’t have to. Nick and Quinn picked that moment to join the fray, and she’d never been so happy to see someone in her entire life. “Nicky.” She threw her arms around her husband’s neck. “I did a bad thing.”
Since Nick was used to her moods, he was convinced she was overreacting. Instead of asking what she’d done, he rubbed his hands up and down her back and kissed her neck. “We can take a break for lunch and do another bad thing if you want.”
Maddie’s mouth dropped open as she leaned back to stare in his eyes. “That was really perverted.”
“I can’t help it. I missed you.”
“We were apart for three hours.”
“It was the longest three hours of my life.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She patted his arm before turning her attention to Quinn. He had what looked to be a folder in his hand. “Anything?”
“Well, just one thing.” Quinn slowly tracked his gaze to Ben, who was busy throwing a pity party for one on the bar. “How long has he been like that? I thought he was partying it up.”
“Oh, he was,” Demarcus replied. “Then Maddie here went off on him about what a jerk he was being and he started crying. He hasn’t stopped since. I think she broke him.”
Nick’s eyebrows hopped. “You did this to him, Mad?”
She shrugged. “I lost my temper. I thought he was being a jerk. Now I think he was just putting on an act, because if he allowed himself to admit there was something wrong, he would cease functioning. Well … now he’s ceased functioning.”
“Thanks for that,” Quinn said dryly.
“You’re welcome.” She wiped the back of her hand against her forehead. “It really was an accident. I didn’t mean to blow up at him like I did. I just … lost it.”
“It’s okay.” Nick moved his hand to the back of her neck and gave it a light squeeze. “I like it when you go badass.”
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.
Despite himself, Quinn was amused. “You guys are hilarious.” He gave Ben a wide berth as he circled to the opposite side of the man and sat. “As for us, we finished searching Dylan’s room. There was no sign of Lindsey – or anything to suggest he attacked anyone – but we still have no idea where he’s hiding.”
“Why would you be worried about Dylan?” Ben queried, stirring.
“Do you even know who we’re talking about?” Quinn asked.
“Dylan Winchester, right?”
Quinn furrowed his brow and shook his head. “No. Dylan Benton.”
“Oh. I don’t know who that is.”
Something niggled at the back of Quinn’s brain. “Hold on a second.” He pulled up his phone and searched for the image that Rowan had sent him when they started the search for Dylan. “Is this the man you were talking about?” He held the phone out to Ben.
Tears still drying on his cheeks, Ben studied the image for a beat and then nodded. “Yeah. That’s Dylan Winchester.”
Nick stirred. “Who is Dylan Winchester?”
“Lindsey’s ex-boyfriend. He was a total stalker. She had a restraining order against him. Wait … are you saying he’s on this ship?”
Nick and Quinn exchanged a weighted look. They were finally getting somewhere … although they’d traveled a twisted route to get here.
“I think we’re going to need to start from the beginning,” Quinn prodded. “We need to know everything. Don’t leave anything out.”
“Okay, but … are you going to tell me what’s going on after this?”
“We’re going to tell you what we can. We need information first.”
“Okay. You asked for it, though.”
Fifteen
It took Ben a few minutes to get comfortable once the small group moved to a booth, but when he started his story, he seemed level-headed and concise.
“When I met Lindsey she was skittish,” he started. “At first, I thought that was simply the way she was. There are people out there who are afraid because they can’t help themselves, even if there’s nothing to be afraid of. There are other people who have something to be afraid about.”
Nick, understanding better than he might’ve before Maddie came back into his life, nodded. “I get that. For clarification’s sake, though, are you saying she jumped at noises? Was she constantly looking over her shoulder? Did she try to keep people from knowing where she lived?”
Ben bobbed his head. “All of that. It was a good two months before I realized I hadn’t seen her apartment. I thought she was simply being careful. If I was a woman, I wouldn’t invite men back to my place either. You don’t know about people.”
“You certainly don’t,” Quinn agreed. “You must’ve asked her about it ... at least eventually.”
“I did.” Ben rubbed his cheek, as if trying to wake himself up. “I knew right away with her. She was funny and sweet. She didn’t give me grief when I wanted to hang out with my friends, to the point where I realized I preferred hanging around with her because she wasn’t demanding. She wasn’t exactly standoffish as much as ... cautious. I wanted to get the truth out of her, but I needed to take my time.
“She didn’t start confiding in me until we were six months deep in our relationship,” he continued. “She basically said she had a crazy ex-boyfriend, a guy who claimed to love her and then terrorized her. She didn’t give me a lot of details at that time. They basically slipped out over the year we were dating.
“We didn’t live together, although we spent almost every night together. One day when I arrived at her apartment with dinner, I found her packing. She was absolutely melting down. She said she had to find a new place, maybe even a new city. I was crushed at the thought of her leaving and demanded she tell me the truth. If she was going to break my heart, I wanted to know why.”
Maddie reached over and rested her hand on top of his. She could tell he was struggling to go back in time. The simple act of having something to do was dragging him out of his fog, though. That was a good thing. “Did she tell you?”
“She told me ... and it was a horrible story.” He licked his lips and then launched into the tale. “She met Dylan when she was in college. She was a freshman and he was a junior. She liked that he was older, thought that meant he believed she was mature. In truth, he selected her because he thought he could mold her, make her do his bidding.
“The first few weeks were fine and then he lost it one day when she waved at a guy she knew from a class in the university center,” he continued, adopting a far-off expression. “He berated her, called her stupid, said she was a slut. She was horrified. She said, at the time, she thought she was falling in love with him.
“After he calmed down, he apologized for yelling at her, but he still blamed her at the same time. He said if she wasn’t so slutty and hungry for attention from other men, he wouldn’t have acted that way. She actually believed it
was her fault.”
Quinn shifted on his chair, uncomfortable. “That’s classic controlling behavior. I very much doubt she was the first woman he tried to exert so much control over. He would’ve honed his craft at that point, made his flubs in high school.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ben replied. “I just know she stayed with him even though she recognized the red flags. She said her parents met him at one point and realized what he was and tried to get her to break up with him. She was convinced she loved him, that they were destined to be together, and pulled away from her parents. She needed their support to find the strength to leave him, but he’d beaten her down to the point where she assumed everything was an outside attack. It was a vicious cycle.”
“That’s also normal when it comes to these guys,” Quinn noted. “They’re operators.”
“This went on for years,” Ben continued, escaping into his story. Maddie realized that the simple act of feeling as if he was contributing in some way was enough to snap him out of his doldrums. “He graduated before her but didn’t leave town. He tried to get her to drop out, get engaged and let him take care of her, but she insisted on graduating. He didn’t like it, but she was smart that way.
“After graduation, he started getting more and more obsessive. When she would leave for a job interview, he would have to okay her outfit to make sure she wasn’t dressed like a whore. He told her that anyone who would want to hire a whore wasn’t going to be a good boss.”
Maddie felt vaguely ill as she fidgeted. “He sounds lovely ... and not at all like the guy I met.”
“You met a guy who was putting on an act,” Quinn pointed out as Nick slid his arm around Maddie’s shoulders to offer comfort. “He wanted to be seen as a victim, a guy who couldn’t possibly be guilty of anything but being boring. That’s what he chose to do.” He rolled his neck as he considered what to do. “He had this planned for a long time.”
Grave Seas: A Maddie Graves and Rowan Gray Mystery Page 14