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“Yes,” I said. “He left Blake’s black box, though. It had been snapped off. That’s what we were tracking. It was here.”
“Blake said he fought him, but couldn’t see who it was, said he was wearing all black, including something over his face. The cord on his tracker snapped, but he couldn’t remember if it was done on purpose. Are you sure your attacker didn’t just snag it on accident, or did he reach for it?”
I tried to remember; I felt the hand at my wrist, the snap of the band. “I had picked Blake’s up before the attacker came in. Didn’t Blake have it around his neck? When I was attacked, mine was on my arm. Different place. It was deliberate,” I said. I brought the wrist to my chest and covered it with my other hand, rubbing where the band had been. “He had to have known what it was to want it.”
Brandon stared at me quietly for a moment and then lowered his head. “I don’t like this.”
I frowned. “Still points to Raven?”
He pressed his lips together tightly, staring at his feet before he went on. “Only a few people knew about those boxes and what they were. Only a handful of us knew you’d gotten one. And there’s only one of us who can’t be accounted for at that time.”
Raven.
“It wasn’t him,” I said.
“I wouldn’t believe it in a million years. It just looks really bad when he disappears and doesn’t say anything.” He lifted his gaze back to meet mine. “If it wasn’t him, though, we’ve got a very short list of who it might be, don’t we? It won’t be long until Axel figures it out.”
“Help me,” I said. “I can’t stand still and wait. There’s got to be more I can do than just sit here and guess what might have happened.”
“Believe me, I’m with you,” he said. The deep sadness I was so familiar with returned to him. He pointed to his own heart. “I’ve been over this so many times. I’ve been watching Mr. Smith, Colt, and the others, and as far as I can tell, they’re all going on as if nothing has happened. The only oddball out is Raven, but I know it wasn’t him.”
“He can’t be the only one,” I said. “If we know it wasn’t him, then there’s someone we can’t account for last night. We need to find that person.”
Brandon drew back his shoulders. “Look, we’ve already got a short list, right? There’s only so many people who would know you, or even Blake, enough. We’ve been working on a list of people Blake might have ticked off on board, or anyone that might know him. We can start with one of them.”
“Raven was working on Sam, right?” I asked. I pictured Sam, with his very bright blond hair and bony face. He was slim, and he had been a little rude the one time I talked to him. “Wasn’t he going to go make friends with him?”
Brandon’s face paled. He turned away from me, looking at the door and starting toward it. “Let’s not worry about Sam and Raven.”
“Wait,” I said, coming around and blocking the door before he could leave. “Why? Shouldn’t we be looking at him, too? Blake was following Sam when he got knocked out the first time.”
“But not the second time,” Brandon said. “And Sam wasn’t the one that knocked him out the first time. Blake was looking right at Sam when he got hit from behind, so it wasn’t Sam.”
“So what’s Sam up to? Is Raven hanging around him?”
Brandon closed his lips, staring at me. At first I suspected he might not actually know, but then, if he didn’t know, he would have said as much.
I gripped the door handle behind my back and pressed myself against it as if I could hold it closed forever. “We’ll stay here until you tell me what’s going on.”
He looked around. “I’m happy up here.”
Not enough of a threat. “I’ll go ask Corey,” I said, glaring at him.
He shrugged, undeterred. “Okay.”
Ugh. “I’ll go find Sam and kick his ass and then make him tell me directly.”
“You—I—don’t…” He frowned and shook his head. “You’re crazy enough to try.”
“Tell me what you know.”
He grumbled. “Well, Sam’s been in and out of the spa all day yesterday, last night, and this morning, but his job isn’t in the spa.”
“He’s putting in appointments for people?” I asked. “Like a concierge would do?”
“He’s real secretive about it. He also takes loads of cash from guests. Way too much for a tip.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I’m making a guess here, but maybe it wouldn’t be hard to convince a couple of the masseuse girls to do happy endings for extra cash. If he’s been on this boat for a while, he could have a good reputation for being discreet.”
Ew. I thought of old men getting off in the spa. It made me rethink the hot bath, too. I shivered and then nodded. It made sense why Mr. Smith had paid him extra cash since he’d already had an appointment for a massage. Sam might be acting as a pimp.
“Last night, I asked Raven to go make friends with Sam. Now suddenly after I went over, he’s disappeared?” I asked. “So why aren’t we checking out Sam?”
“We don’t know if he has anything to do with it, but Sam didn’t throw you over. We’ve got footage of him during that time,” Brandon said. “Corey’s been trying to talk to him without interfering with whatever is going on down there. Except Sam always has an excuse to be somewhere else.”
“Sam can’t be working alone,” I said. “If he’s running some prostitution thing on the ship, then there’s more than one person involved.”
“I’m sure someone watches out for him. Someone like that always has muscle backing him up. We need to know who that someone is. That might be who’s responsible. It could be that whoever knocked Blake out came back to finish the job, and you were the unlucky person he tossed over, too.”
“Then we should go bug Sam,” I said, more sure than ever that this was the right track. “And watch what happens when we get too nosy.”
Brandon shook his head. “You sent Raven in to do that last night, remember? And now he hasn’t come back. Corey’s sticking his neck out around Sam as best as he can and we’re watching. We also have other leads to check out.”
“Do you think Corey should be going in alone with Sam?” I asked. “Shouldn’t Axel or someone go with Corey?”
“Corey’s got someone following him. Too many new people approaching Sam might draw too much attention. We’ve got everyone else checking in on people like Mr. Cline and Mr. Smith. Fancy’s doing her best to get friendly with their friends and see if they know anything. We only have so many people.”
I grunted. “If Sam’s our most likely suspect right now, shouldn’t we be focusing on him?”
Lips tight, Brandon let a long breath out of his nose and looked around the sundeck. “We can’t assume and forget to look at anyone else. I have a feeling it has to do with Sam, but we could be wrong. All I know is, I know Raven. He wasn’t behind you going over.”
“Not his style,” I said with a smirk.
He grinned and shook his head. “No. He’d face you head-on. He’s no backstabber.”
He was right. None of them were.
Brandon sighed. “It still doesn’t look good that he disappeared. It could be really bad trouble for Raven if we had to call in the authorities, which we might need to do.”
“Why are we worried about the authorities if we’re sure he didn’t do it?” I asked. “They’ll revoke his green card?”
He studied me. “He may or may not have an actual green card. At least not one that really belongs to him.”
I made an O shape with my mouth and froze as it sank in. “You’re kidding.”
“Only we know about it,” he said. “But I trust you won’t say anything to Blake. He can’t know. If Raven pisses him off, he’d have the ammunition to get Raven sent back home. And then he’d be dead.”
“Who wants him dead?”
He took a few steps to the side, the rubber soles of his shoes squeaking on the polished deck. He g
azed out to the water and then stared at the rail. “Raven’s got a good heart, and it didn’t mesh well with the people he grew up around. He wasn’t willing to join their dark exploits, so he escaped and came here. If he goes back to Russia, he’s not going to be welcomed with open arms.”
How could he not have a green card yet? And then I realized he’d been in prison in Russia. That probably meant it would be hard—if not impossible—for him to obtain one.
Crap. If he became a prime suspect and the police got involved, he’d get sent back to Russia.
