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I couldn’t find Brandon anywhere, but I did find Corey. The only way I could tell the difference between him and his brother was remembering what Brandon had been wearing. I also knew that that Brandon was probably remaining hidden for now until he could get back here.
Corey, however, was in a public area, wearing another geek shirt and shorts. He was pretending to read on a bench, his eyes darting up every so often. I clicked on his video feed, trying to see what he might be watching. Had he found Raven? Whoever he was watching, the camera was at the wrong angle to show me.
I also found Tara Ward. She spoke with a couple of older gentlemen who had brought a little ankle-biter dog. She cooed at the dog and then left them and went to the pool. She wore a sundress and shades. She stretched herself out on a lounger and pulled a book from her bag to read.
She seemed relaxed. Oddly relaxed. Yesterday she had been dead set on finding old Mr. Murdock. Today she seemed at ease. Had she thrown me overboard? Did she think she had gotten rid of her competition?
Wait, we’d just figured out the guy who’d thrown me over, hadn’t we? We knew who he was, at least.
My stomach growled. Maybe my lack of focus was because I was hungry.
Marc eventually came over and took Liam’s chair. He sat beside me, and once he was done playing telephone check-in with everyone, he set the mic aside. He put the control pad in his lap, leaning back in the chair.
“If I get someone to bring food up, do you want some? I haven’t eaten yet and could use some coffee. The coffee hasn’t been too bad so far. Kind of weak, but drinkable.”
“I’d kill for a hamburger,” I said. I looked for the time, but the videos didn’t have time stamps, or if they did, I didn’t know the button to push to bring them up. I shook the mouse around the screen, clicking, but it wouldn’t bring up a task bar. Doyle must have had it set up so I couldn’t break whatever program was running. “Is it noon yet? Time for lunch?”
“Not noon yet, but I’m sure the kitchen can make a hamburger.” He put a request in on the line, asking Avery to bring up some food for us.
When he was done, he put the keypad down again and leaned back, stretching, his broad shoulders tightening the shirt across his chest. He looked down at his clothes, unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. He wore a black T-shirt underneath, which he untucked it from his pants. “I don’t need this right now,” he said, picking up the shirt he’d removed. He crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into Doyle’s cot.
While the tight shirt revealed the dimensions of his chest and abdomen, I pictured the skin underneath, the scars from his bad boy past. He’d been in a gang but had gotten out and now worked for the good guys. He still carried that devil-may-care smirk and could always tell when I told a lie.
Thinking of his marked skin reminded me that his knee was also scarred, and that had come from me. Like I’d done to Blake, I’d shot him in the leg, only with a nail instead of a bullet. I’d forever feel guilty about that.
It had been a completely reckless moment.
Those were a bad habit for me.
So was getting distracted. I turned my head to focus on the monitors. I kept Corey’s image enlarged to keep an eye on him as I hunted on the two other monitors for more of our people. “Once Brandon gets here, are you going to stay?” I asked.
“Someone has to make sure you don’t go running around,” he said with a smile. “Apparently Brandon can’t.”
“It’s a minor concussion,” I said. “He said to rest, not to keep myself contained to a bed. I don’t need to be babied.”
“You hurt your brain,” he said. “And he did say to keep yourself in bed as much as possible, especially right now. Seems like it’s already hurting your memory. There’s no way we can send you out for anything anyway. Your judgment was already shitty as all hell.” He chuckled and then leaned over, making his mismatched eyes big and showing me a coy smile. “I can’t imagine where it might be at now.”
I rolled my eyes, but that caused a flash of pain in my head. I closed my eyes and covered them with my palms. “Be serious.”
“This is serious. Any more excessive shaking around, and you could get some serious brain damage. You know, more than normal.”
It frustrated me he was making jokes, but I was angrier that he was right. It kind of scared me that I had failed the doctor’s memory tests and that I couldn’t remember why I felt Marc should be angry with me.
I aimed a fist at his knee, intending to punch, but just a little.
He dodged and then went to chop me on the head, made light contact with my scalp, and then stopped and dropped his hand, his mouth falling open. “Oh shit,” he said and leaned in, dropping the keypad on the floor as he hovered over my head, examining where he had touched me. “Did I hit you? I’m sorry. It’s a habit…”
“Stop,” I said, swatting away his hands. It was bugging me more that he was babying me. “You didn’t do anything.”
He sighed and then bent to pick up his keypad. “Let me sit on my hands so I don’t try again.”
“You don’t have to baby me,” I said.
“You just said that. I get it.”
Had I said it twice? I pressed fingers to the bridge of my nose, squeezing. “Is this normal?”
“It’s one of a few symptoms you might experience. You really, really need to be careful right now. Any further damage to your brain could be fatal, or make this memory issue permanent. The doctor said bedrest and sun-lounging were the only things you should be doing. Obviously, we can’t allow you to go out and sunbathe unless it’s on a private balcony. You probably should go back to Fancy’s…”
“Nope,” I said quickly.
“Figured you’d want to come here instead.”
Not like I could be of any help anywhere else. Hiding wasn’t my forte.
I tapped my fingers on the table, noticing my fingernails were kind of long and some were ragged. “If we can’t get out there and kick some ass, then we could at least do something.”
“You can do whatever you want within this room,” Marc said. “Or I’ll go fetch you whatever. How about a movie on a laptop? Or a book to read?”
I waved my hand at him in refusal. I still had the USB key and Brandon’s phone, so I pulled those out of my pockets. “We did collect some data from the spa. Did you not get a copy of the files on that computer before? He had me use this USB thingie…”
Marc took the USB drive from my hands and examined it. “Yeah, I got a copy before. The spa computer isn’t connected to the ship’s computers except once a day. And then it’s just to upload the financial transactions, not everything. I’m wondering if Sam didn’t have it rigged like that for some reason.” He got up, putting the headset on his head and clipping the keypad to his belt loop. He searched the shelves for a laptop, selected one, and pulled it down.
“So why did Brandon want to get another copy?” I asked.
He took the USB key, slid it into the laptop port and waited for it to load. “Sometimes you can see if they did anything different from the day before. It might tell us how things are operating down there without having to stick our neck out like Raven.”
“Raven…” I said, and something bugged me about it. I snapped my fingers and sat up. “We’ve got the goon who threw over Blake and me, right? We’re just watching and waiting for a chance to catch him?”
“This goon is most likely the one who knocked Blake out in the first place,” Marc said. “We’ll see if he or his friends try following Brandon, or maybe they’ll even try to throw him over.”
“So is Raven not the prime suspect anymore?”
“He’s not totally in the clear yet,” Marc said. “We only know this guard knocked you out. We don’t know for sure if he threw you over or how many of his buddies are involved. It does look better for Raven, though.” Sighing, he looked up from the laptop, and focused on me. “I just wish he’d let us know if he’s still here. I feel lik
e he is. If he got thrown over, he’d be in contact by now.”
He’d be back with guns blazing if anyone had managed to throw him over. Subtle wasn’t exactly his forte.
Knowing that made me more nervous about not hearing from him.
Marc shifted his chair to sit very close to me, allowing me to look at his screen while he checked the USB drive.
I could only look over at what he was doing every couple of minutes, as I was watching the monitors. I still had Corey loaded up, and was watching for anyone else.
Marc went through the files. He was quiet for a long time, his eyes on the spreadsheets and other data he was sifting through.
I studied his face. He seemed alert, not totally angry or frustrated like I was feeling.
Wasn’t he mad at Blake? Or was I mad at Blake? Where was Blake?
I blinked rapidly, trying to remember. Failing.
I needed food. Maybe a nap. I needed to get my brain working again. I tapped on the desk, irritated when I realized I could be seeing all kinds of stuff on the monitors but wouldn’t be able to remember enough of it.
I clicked randomly on different videos, hoping if I’d missed anything, maybe I’d catch it a second time and could alert Marc. Something told me it was unlikely. I’d probably been given this job because they didn’t expect much to happen just now. Why else would they have me sitting here?
“I still don’t see how this attack on me, or even throwing me over, is connected to the accounts I was supposed to be investigating,” I said.
“Might be nothing.”
“Huh?”
“There’s no telling if you being tossed over had anything at all to do with that,” he said, his eyes critical as he scanned the account books on the laptop. “If Sam and his people were worried we were suspicious of their prostitution ring, attacking you and Blake might have simply been sending clear warnings to back off. That’s all.”
I twisted back and forth in the office chair, restless. “Why are we working so hard on this?”
“Because someone threw you overboard.” He lifted his mismatched eyes to watch me swivel in the chair. “Remember? With Coaltar? You do remember that part, right?”
“Blake,” I grumbled, tired of hearing his last name said like a suspect instead of someone we were working with. “His name is Blake.”
The corner of Marc’s mouth twitched. “Blake,” he repeated slowly, then continued at his normal pace. “He watched Mr. Smith give Sam money, remember?”
“Yup. Yesterday.”
