Hoax

  Maybe the Academy didn’t negotiate with criminals, but I wasn’t Academy.

  Sam turned to glare at me. “I didn’t think you were really dead, but I was willing to let it slide if you never showed up again. You should have stayed gone.”

  I motioned to Baldy. “He said you have a problem. Someone you want to get rid of.”

  “He’s got a big mouth,” Sam said. He put his hands on his hips. “But we were sent to get rid of you. And anyone causing trouble. Guess that’s you three.”

  “By who, exactly?” I said, holding up the sheet of paper. “Tell me, and we’ll go. No need to make a fuss.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, lips twitching. He was calculating.

  “Don’t you want to go back to what you were doing before?” I asked. “Seems really odd you’d be willing to go so far to take such big risks. Killing people is really difficult to get away with. People get reported missing, there are investigations. Your security team can’t save you if you get inspected by the Coast Guard for murder. I can make whoever is getting you to do their dirty work back off.”

  “Don’t talk like you’re the one in charge here,” he snapped at me. “I don’t know you. You come onto my ship, snooping around. You’re crazy if you think I’d believe anything you’re telling me. You’re just petty thieves trying to steal some cash. No one will miss you.”

  The investor probably had them convinced we were just here to steal what we could while aboard.

  Did the investor believe it?

  In a flash, everything that had happened the last couple of days and today stood out to me. I’d asked Mr. Smith for his account info to get him his money back. Today, he was calm, like it didn’t matter anymore.

  Tara had been worried about old Mr. Murdock, but this morning, she was hanging out by the pool.

  Mr. Cline, Mr. Jones, the others seemed so relaxed.

  Colt Baker, however, had been looking for me all day.

  Odd man out. And suddenly it made sense.

  I shook the piece of paper. “The investor. It’s Colt Baker.”

  Sam pressed his lips together tight, a silent confirmation.

  It made sense to me now as I thought back to when we’d first gotten on the ship. Mr. Smith, Tara Ward, and the others had all been told by Raven that I’d been thrown over, yet Colt was still looking for me. Why?

  Mr. Smith was worried about his money. Only the real investor might have been able to pacify his anger. The real investor would also still be in contact with old Mr. Murdock and could tell Tara all was well, or at least give her details.

  The only one left upset was Colt, because Colt knew he couldn’t let any loose ends go. He’d kept close to Axel, sure Axel would go looking for me. Colt had pretended to care so he could find me and make sure I was really dead, or make it happen if I wasn’t.

  Raven kept his eyes on the goons, glaring. Corey threw me a look, silently questioning my judgment.

  I was proving to Sam that I knew what was going on. He had been sent to get rid of us anyway. But maybe if he needed out from under Colt, he’d be willing to trust me.

  Enemy of an enemy…

  Sam narrowed his eyes at me. “You think you can stop the investor?” he asked. “He’s linked with Mr. Murdock. He’s the one in charge. He can snap his fingers and make us all lose our jobs, or turn this ship into a pile of junk. Whatever he wants.”

  “Not anymore,” I said. “Seems like someone lied to you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I took a chance that maybe being on a ship meant they didn’t get to check the news that often. “The police are on the lookout for old Mr. Murdock for kidnapping. Ethan Murdock’s the official CEO.”

  He blinked, jerked his head to the side. “So? They’re all alike.”

  “Ethan isn’t like his father. He’s got the power to shut things down, and he will. Whose side do you want to be on? Your real boss, or a criminal who’s on the run and about to get caught?”

  Sam frowned. Baldy and the other goon looked doubtful.

  “Maybe we should listen to her,” Baldy said.

  Sam stared at me for a long moment, perhaps trying to call my bluff.

  I shrugged. “We’re willing to hop off of this boat,” I said. “We have the means. We got what we came for. You can stay and tell Colt we left.”

  “He’s not going to let you just disappear,” Sam said.

  “Maybe not, but you’ll be left here with Colt, and Ethan will know which side you picked.”

  Sam shifted his weight from foot to foot, hands twitching.

  The movement tightened and loosened the material of the pants he wore, and a square shape was obvious in his front pocket. I’d also seen his back pockets before and something about the detail bugged my brain. I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to figure out why this was important.

  My brain finally clicked. “You have a cell phone in your front pocket,” I said.

  Sam raised his eyebrow. “So?”

  “There’s also one in your back pocket,” I said, recalling a slightly different shape, but still a cell phone. The difference was one was a flip, and the other one a flat smartphone. “You went to investigate the burned-up storage room, didn’t you? Did you find a cell phone? One that security was looking for, that belonged to Colt?”

  His face went from red to pale. “How could you know?”

  I had guessed, but apparently I was right. Colt’s was the only phone I had actually plucked from anyone’s pocket while on board. He was way more adamant about getting his phone back than most people. “I’m guessing there’s a reason you weren’t giving it back. Insurance, perhaps? You’ve had it for ages.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Give it to us, and you can keep your ship the way you want it.”

  He smirked, shaking his head. A loose bit of platinum blond hair danced on his head, out of place. “How do we know you won’t get Ethan to fire us all?”

  It was a delicate situation. We were dealing with not just three thugs, but potentially the entire ship’s crew—if not active criminals, then people willing to look the other way. We could negotiate, or we could try to fight them off, but I didn’t think we could actually fight all of them.

  Still, I wasn’t about to show my hand. “Do you do anything against people’s will?” I asked. “Do all the girls provide your ‘spa services’ voluntarily?”

  “We run a clean business here.”

  “No kids involved?” I asked.

  “No.”

  If they were all consenting adults, who cared if there was money exchanged? None of our business. Ethan could choose to clean house later, from a safe distance. “If we hear of any kids, any exploitation—”

  “I have standards,” Sam said.

  “Then no one else cares what you do,” I said. “We never saw a thing.”

  Sam looked over his shoulder at his goons and then back at us again. “I need proof. I didn’t get this far without making absolutely sure.”

  “What do you need?”

  He lifted the cell phone out of his front pocket and showed it to me. It was the one I’d stolen from Colt. “First, tell me one thing. Are you planning to confront Colt now?”

  “We don’t have to,” I said. “We can leave, and we’ll take care of him once we’re back on shore.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t wait,” Sam said. “Get him off our backs before you go. We don’t need him here turning our whole ship upside down after you disappear.”

  “We’ll see what we can do.”

  “Two, if Ethan’s the new boss, then I want you to tell him I’m good enough to be in charge of this ship.”

  Raven snorted. “You want to be captain?”

  “No,” Sam snapped. “Idiot.”

  Raven growled. “No,” Corey grumbled, putting a hand on Raven’s chest.

  Raven pressed his lips together and quieted. Th
ey’d been so quiet, but I remembered that Henry had said they weren’t allowed to negotiate with criminals. I, however, could do what I wanted. They were letting me handle things.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I want to be cruise director. That access would give me control of the computers upstairs, and we can stop having to report to…questionable people.”

  Someone in a position of authority probably didn’t like him running his ring. “I can make a request,” I said.

  He nodded, a little too quickly. “We can’t cross Colt,” he said. “But we can stop looking for you, and get out of your way.”

  He snapped his fingers and Baldy opened the door. “I want to be there when you tell Ethan about us,” he said. “Now.”

  An Unhappy Alliance

  Ethan didn’t seem the type to want to work with a prostitution ring on his ship; this was the type of thing he would want to clean up.

  Making the next conversation a tricky one.

  Sam kept Baldy with him but sent the other goon on to the security office to call off the manhunt. They said they would also get a location on Colt for me.

  I didn’t want to mention Blake, just in case. If they hadn’t run into him yet, better to pretend he wasn’t here.

  Raven, Corey, Sam, Baldy, and I made our way to an elevator. No point in trying to avoid people now. We got looks for being a big group. Henry wouldn’t like this, but he wasn’t here to tell us no.

  Sam managed to get word to Avery that Kitty Lane was on the way to meet with Ethan.

  We found our way to the conference room without running into anyone on the way.

  Inside, Ethan Murdock sat at the head of the table, his palms flat on the surface. His hair was windblown, his skin tanned, but red around his nose and cheeks. Dark circles under his eyes matched his dour expression.

  Poor guy is having a really stressful day.

  Avery stood by his side, asking me questions with his eyes.

  I wondered if Axel somehow knew what we were up to and had gotten word to Ethan. Or if Avery had somehow managed to stay in contact after the communication lines went down and knew something was going on.

  “What is this all about?” Ethan asked. His expression was friendly to me, but when he looked to Sam, he clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed slightly.

  He didn’t like Sam. I couldn’t blame him.

  At least he hadn’t used my real name.

  Would Ethan think I’d betrayed him if I revealed I had sided with Sam? Would he trust me?

  “We just need to talk,” I said. I checked around the room again, looking at Baldy and Sam, Corey and Raven, and then back at Avery and Ethan. “We know who the investor is, but we have to make a deal.”

  Ethan perked up at this. “Oh?”

  “I need you to approve Sam as future cruise director.”

  “Mr. Ethan,” Sam said quickly. He skirted around the conference table with a greasy smile on his face, offering Ethan his hand. “I know we’ve talked, but I hear you need our help.”

  Ethan stared at him and then reluctantly took Sam’s hand and shook it. “Do I?”

  Ethan was a heart-on-his-sleeve type of guy. Hiding his disgust at Sam wasn’t going to happen.

  “Ethan,” I said, “Sam says he can help us out. He wants to know if you can do him a favor, too.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. “We already have a director.”

  “You do,” Sam said. He planted a thumb against his own chest. “But I’m better. I’ll make this ship sing.”

  Ethan opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “And in exchange, he’ll help us with our other problem.”

  Avery placed a hand on Ethan’s arm and leaned into him, whispering something.

  Ethan nodded and addressed us. “I understand,” he said. He looked at Sam. “It won’t be done quickly, as we need to honor our current director’s contract, but if you’ll give me time to put in the paperwork…”

  “I’d like to see some paperwork before we get back to shore, at the least,” Sam said. “But otherwise, I’m willing to give it some time.”

  Ethan’s jaw clenched. “Is this all you needed?”

  I spoke, “Might be better if you stay in very public places for a while. Places where you will be seen, witnesses.”

  Ethan shot me a confused look but silently agreed.

  Ethan and Avery said they were heading to the pool and then left.

  “So you were telling the truth,” Sam said. “This could work out to be something sweet.”

  I didn’t think I could like Sam less than I had, but I realized I’d been wrong. “Now you have to give us space,” I said. “And tell me where to find Colt.”

  Sam nodded to Baldy, who took a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and called in for a location on Colt Baker.

  We waited.

  And waited.

  “Not sure,” came the voice on the radio. “He’s not in his room, not in public areas that we can see. Do you want us to search for him?”

  Sam checked in with me. I shook my head. No need to stir him up before we found him.

  “Nope,” Baldy said into the radio. “Don’t worry about it. Business as usual for now.”

  Uncomfortable Alliances

  Sam left us in the conference room. I dropped into one of the office chairs, trying to figure out our next move.

  Colt was probably walking around looking for me.

  The windows looking outside across the water showed me we didn’t have much time before sunset. We might not have time to confront Colt.

  And what would we do if we did? Sing “neener-neener, we found him”?

  “Sam’s an idiot if he thinks Ethan will keep his word,” Raven said. “I’d never believe it.”

  “You’re right.” My fingers traced the edge of the leather on the armrest. It had been a little too easy to get Sam to agree to our deal—one he should have been able to see through. What was the deal there?

  “At least now we can roam the ship,” Corey said. He took off his black button-down and untucked the Zelda T-shirt underneath, tossing the discarded shirt onto the table.

  “I could use some clothes,” I said to Corey. I unzipped the jumpsuit a little, displaying cleavage, but just to show I was without other clothing.

  His eyes followed my fingers as the zipper went down, enjoying the show. I grinned and unzipped a tiny bit more, his eyes following.

  Raven popped me lightly on my shoulder. “Stop teasing him.”

  Corey shook himself out of his daze, cheeks turning red.

  I was way more amused than I should have been, but this thing with Corey was so new, it was hard not to want to play.

  “Anyway,” Corey said, looking at the wall, “if they aren’t on the hunt for us, I think it’s safe to go back to the old rooms. We might run into our people there.”

  Since Raven and I were still in our maintenance getups, we took a long way around to get to the old cabins. We did pass by employees this time, but none looked our way. The hunt was off.

  The two adjoining rooms were empty when we got there, but our stuff was inside. I found underwear and jeans and borrowed a T-shirt from Corey. I kicked them out of the bathroom and locked the door, needing a little privacy.

  Unfortunately, things downstairs were pretty bad. The pad had leaked and I was mortified. One bright blotch of blood on the jumpsuit. Great. I crumpled it and threw it into the corner. It was going to stay on board anyway.

  Tension wedged itself into my muscles and I began breathing heavily.

  Something was wrong with me, all right. I’d bleed out before the week was done at this rate.

  Was I being overdramatic? I didn’t think so.

  My mother had had problems with her cycles right before she’d learned she had cancer.

  I couldn’t think like that. Not now. I wasn’t even in my twenties yet. My mother had been approaching her forties.

  This was
n’t cancer. I couldn’t keep scaring myself. She’d had other problems, too, and I had none of the symptoms she had shown.

  I did my thing in the bathroom and then washed my face and hands. My hair was behaving, thanks to the braid. Needed a wash but I’d wait until tonight.

  Maybe by tonight, we’d be home.

  Maybe tonight, I’d finally feel like I could really relax.

  By the time I left the bathroom, Raven was sitting on the corner of the bed, waiting. He’d found another black T-shirt to wear, the tattoos on his arms obvious. He’d put the lip ring back in, too. He wasn’t hiding who he was anymore.

  Corey wasn’t there.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked.

  He nodded toward the door. “Checking public areas for Axel and the others. He can take on Colt if he runs into any problems with him.”

  Had Raven really sent him off on his own? I still didn’t like the idea, even after the search had been called off. Color me paranoid.

  I sighed and sat on the bed next to him, close enough that our thighs touched. I pressed my cheek to his shoulder. “What do you think? Should we talk to Colt before we leave?”

  He dropped his mouth to the top of my head, pressing his lips to my hair. “You were right before. We got what we needed. We don’t know what we’re dealing with from him.”

  “He’s the investor we’re looking for.”

  “He’s also the son of a governor. Or a mayor. Something. I forget.” He kissed my hair. “He might be untouchable.”

  I’d forgotten, too. I recalled something in Blake’s files saying he was related to someone important. “Might be how Mr. Murdock is getting away with investing large funds into secret accounts. They get away with it because his investor is important.”

  “Politic sandals,” he grumbled.

  “Scandals.”

  “Same. Not really what we do.”

  I pulled myself away to flop down and stretch out on the bed. It’d been a really long day. My head was spinning a little. The fog in my brain was thick. I wanted a nap. “I’m still trying to figure out what we do.”

  He lay back on the bed next to me and rolled to his side, propping himself up with an elbow. He placed a hand on my lower back, close to my butt. “For now, we go home. We let someone else investigate Colt. We’ve got more important things to worry about.”