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“Blake?” I said louder.
“What?” Axel asked.
There was a faint whisper. I put a hand out to Axel, a gesture of silence, and then covered my open ear so I could concentrate. “Blake? Say it again. Are you okay?”
“Fourth floor day room,” he said, quiet, gasping.
Alarm struck through me, right into my bones. Blake was in trouble.
I barreled right at Axel, who was blocking the door. “What’s going on?”
“We need to get to Blake,” I said. Panic forced adrenaline through my veins. I couldn’t hear anything now except for muffled movement. Something was very wrong. “He’s hurt. Or something.” My stomach tightened. Maybe the nausea had been stress, because I was totally freaking out.
Axel hesitated, reaching back to fiddle with the door handle. “We should get Corey or Raven...”
How could he just stand there? If any one of them were hurt, he’d never hesitate like this. I didn’t know what was wrong with Blake and who knew where Raven or Corey was and how long that would take to get them to go. We were close. “Axel!” I cried. “Get away from that door or I’ll rip you apart.” We didn’t have time for his indecision.
Axel’s head rocked back, but his hand shifted and he opened the door.
I didn’t look back. I bolted down the hallway, walking when I came to hallways where there might be other people. Axel followed by my side, quiet, my shadow. No more protesting. He must have caught on to how serious the situation was.
My stomach continued to twist the whole way, but the medicine must have still been kicking in, as nausea was kept to a minimum.
I followed one of the maps until we were on the fourth floor. I hurried, scuffling as well as I could with my badly-fitting loafers. I found a door marked Day Room and went for the handle.
“Wait,” Axel said. He pushed me out of the way, and then put his ear to the door.
“Axel,” I said. “You...”
“You don’t know who might be in there,” he said. He put his finger to his lips. And then smiled widely, and started to laugh before he opened the door. “And then I said to him...I said...”
He was playing the tourist. I gritted my teeth and forced a smile.
The day room was just a large lounge with a lot of chairs and one wall that was a wide window with an unobstructed view of the outside. Right now, that view was the river.
Blake was in one of the lounge chairs. He was crumpled up on his side, his back to us, and not moving. Someone stumbling on him might have thought he was taking a nap.
I didn’t see anyone else in the room. I walked slowly toward Blake. Axel moved ahead of me, checking behind each of the lounge chairs and then opened a single closet door in the room, finding only a stack of extra pillows that matched the chairs.
I hovered over Blake. His eyes were closed. His blond hair was stained red at the nape of his neck. Horror struck through my heart, and my stomach tightened more. This was my fault. I had told him to go after the blond man. Had he gotten caught?
I bent down, touching his forehead gently, checking for other injuries. “Blake,” I said.
Nothing.
I shook his arm. “Blake!”
He shifted, breathing, but not totally waking up. As his head moved, I spotted more blood dripping along his neck and pooling at his shoulder. It stained the white mat of the lounge and his grey shirt. I gasped. Was he dying?
Axel materialized next to me. He eased me aside, checked Blake’s pulse and then lifted his hair, revealing the deep cut and developing bruise. “Knocked out.” He turned Blake’s head gently and shook his arm. “Blake! Wake up.”
There was a moan from Blake, a cough and then groaning. His eyes fluttered.
My heart exploded, and then washed over in relief that he’d woken up. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Peachy,” Blake said, his voice rough. He groaned again and then stopped short to cough. He lifted his hand to his hair. “Please tell me I’m not ugly now.”
“Someone hit you on the head,” Axel said. He stood up, looking around the room. “This place is clean. Did you start out in here?”
Blake opened his eyes, the gold flecks fuzzy and out of focus at first and then he spotted me and his attention zeroed in. “Where am I?”
“The day room,” I said. “You said to come here.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. He breathed in heavily and then out again. “No, I was brought in here.” He reached out for my arm, I thought just to get my attention but then he pulled on me, leveraging against me to sit up.
“Wait,” I said, putting my hand around his wrist, encouraging him to stop. The blood was worrying me the most. It looked like there was a lot. “Shouldn’t you like lay down? Do we need a doctor?”
“There’s a hospital on the ship,” he said. He continued to sit up and then steadied himself with one hand on the lounge cushion as the other tenderly touched his head, close to the injury. “What I need is a strong dose of Tylenol. My head is killer.”
“Who hit you?” Axel asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The blond crewman might know though. I don’t know. What’s his name...”
“You were following him,” I said. “He did this?”
“He couldn’t have done it,” Blake said. “He was standing in front of me when it happened. I was watching him go into one of the spas and then he walked out a few minutes later. I don’t think he saw me.” He pulled his hand away from his head and then unbuttoned the shirt he was wearing and took it off, exposing a white tank underneath. The gray shirt was stained. He balled it in his hand and held it to his head. “I could use some ice.”
“Can you move?” I asked.
“I’m just trying not to throw up right now,” Blake said.
“Then we do need to get you to the doctor,” Axel said. He touched his ear. “Corey, we need someone in the fourth floor day room. Take Blake to the hospital on the ship.”
“We can take him,” I said.
“We need to get away from him,” Axel said. “Someone attacked him.
We need to pretend we were never here.”
“But...” I couldn’t just leave Blake like this. That he’d gotten hurt felt like my fault. Whatever was going on, they didn’t want anyone else knowing about it. They were willing to attack Blake for it. Who would do such a thing? We’d just gotten started.
Axel came to me, and grabbed my elbow, pulling me away. “Kayli,” he said. “If you want to get anything done while we’re here, you need to stay away from Blake for now. If you want a reputation of being a fund manager and you want this to work, then you and I need to go make an appearance and give no indication we know what’s going on. He’s got an enemy onboard and we need to show we’re not acquainted or we’ll become targets.”
“Go,” Blake said. He waved me off. “He’s right. You need to keep yourself visible as much as possible to the people we’re here to talk to. I’ll spread your little rumor. I’ll give you a background and reputation. I can do it without us being friends, so whoever attacked me won’t get to you.”
This was so wrong. What was I doing? I was in way over my head. Was this what Blake was going to try to do alone if I hadn’t been around or had refused to join him? I had already been questioning my sanity in even agreeing. Axel had been right. They were dangerous men. The boat hadn’t even taken off yet and he’d already been attacked. “We should have been more careful,” I said. “We should take this slower.”
“We will,” Blake said, waving at me again before pressing the shirt harder against his head. “Now go away. Just give me a bit. I’ll be back on my feet.”
Axel tugged at my arm and I followed reluctantly. I wished we could have stayed until someone got there. I didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone.
Blake said nothing, just nodded at me as I was leaving. His gaze on my face told me to keep going, he’d be fine.
I trailed Axel slowly out into the hallway. Why had they just knocked him out and left him?
And why the need to knock him out in the first place? Blake hadn’t said a word to anyone, he hadn’t talked to any of the guests yet. The only potential witness was the blond man, and that’s if he’d seen anything at all. Was he working with whoever had knocked Blake out?
