by Dale Mayer
Chapter 13
“It is really pleasant in here when it’s empty,” Berkley whispered. “I know the others will arrive soon, but it’s quite nice right now to sit and relax and to do something halfway normal.”
Denny walked over with the coffee carafe. “Romance is in the air, I see.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “Let’s just say, we’re happy to get to know each other at the moment.”
“Take the moments when you can,” he said. “They are over too damn fast.”
“Denny, I’m sorry about your history,” she said. “I’ve always been a plain talker. Please don’t feel you have to hide your past from us. Clearly you’ve turned your life around and should be really proud of that.”
He stopped, looked at her in surprise, and then slowly nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Not many people know.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think it matters to a whole lot of people. We’ve got enough ugliness going on here right now.”
“Which is why I figured everybody would be pointing the finger at me,” he said. “I’m a convicted felon and all.”
“That doesn’t mean that you killed anybody here,” she said, “or that you were involved in the rapes.”
“I wasn’t,” he said, his tone sincere.
She believed him.
“Got no truck with anybody who was either. I got into a bad spot with gangs and ended up in a real ugly scenario. I got caught for it and paid my price,” he said, “but I’ve been clear ever since.”
“Right,” she said, “I’m not sure there’s anything else we can do here.”
“Well, you can find out who the hell is killing those men,” he said. “I’m pretty damn sure it’s all related to the rapes though.”
“Got it,” she said. “The trouble is, whoever it is, why would they also do the sabotage?”
“I was thinking about that,” he said. “They’re amateur jobs, if you think about it.”
At that, Troy froze and looked at him. “You’re right because, if they wanted to take out the whole rig, they could have. If they had gone down onto the platforms, a couple C-4 discharges would have done massive damage—especially if they’d hit the drills too.”
Denny nodded. “That’s what I mean. So an amateur job means somebody who’s causing trouble but doesn’t really know how to do maximum damage.”
“And who would that be?”
“It could be any of them,” he said. “Anybody here now but hopefully not Winslow and Chucky. I’d hate to see them involved. It just wouldn’t make sense.”
“Me too,” she said. “Hopefully they aren’t.”
“I can’t see it. They’ve seen too much over the years, and I think they just want to leave this time and not come back. They are really looking forward to retiring.”
“What about Jonesy? Or Idiot.”
He laughed at that. “Jonesy. He’s always just Jonesy. I think it’s the drugs in his system. They’re supposed to do drug testing on the crew, and somehow he got free and clear this last time around. It must have killed him to stay off long enough to test clean, but he’s definitely on drugs. I’ve seen the science.”
She thought about it and said, “I don’t know the science.”
“Highs and lows,” he said. “Too happy, too shiny-eyed, and then down.”
“I get it,” Troy said, “but you’re right. These are supposed to be drug-free zones.”
“Which just means it’s underground, but it’s always there,” Denny said. He walked back to his coffeepot and replaced the carafe. “You guys eat up and enjoy. The rest of them will be up here soon enough.”
“We could hope they will be,” Troy said. “It looks like the storm has abated.”
“Maybe you guys can all get out of here today,” Denny said. “Me, I’ll stay if I can.”
“Why?”
“This is home for me,” he said. “When the next crew comes in, they’ll still need food, and I’ll be here, waiting for them.” And, with that, he added, “I’ll take a short nap and come back before the rest of the crew expects a real breakfast.”
As soon as he left, she looked at Troy. “I don’t think Denny is involved in this.”
“I don’t either,” Troy said quietly. “Like he said, this is his home. It hurts him to see people abusing it. He knows what bad is, and, in comparison, this is pretty good. He doesn’t want anything to ruin it.”
“True enough.”
The guys arrived soon afterward. Mason walked in and took one look at the treats. His eyebrows shot up, and he hurried over to the pan to snag one of the bear claws. Just as he went to grab it, Axel reached down and swooped it out from under his hand. When he glared at his big friend, Axel just chuckled with laughter.
She smiled up at them. “Glad to see you guys got some sleep.”
“We both caught a couple hours,” Mason said. “What happened to you?”
“Yeah, ask Troy about that,” she said in disgust.
Troy explained what Jonesy had done.
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, so I think we should go back to the medical clinic,” Troy said. “I want to check for something else down there.”
“Go for it,” Mason said. “Go alone if you like. Berkley can hang out with us.”
“Perfect.”
“You want to tell us what you’re looking for?” Axel asked.
“A date-rape drug,” he said. He quickly disappeared out the door.
*
Back in the medical clinic, Troy was happy to see that at least power had been restored inside the room. With the lights on, and the door locked, he quickly went through all the cabinets. Not only were they devoid of any personal things from the doctor himself but he found no sign of the date-rape drug he was looking for. He went through every drawer and every cupboard.
It wasn’t until Troy got to the guy’s computer system that he finally hit pay dirt. In the little computer desk drawer, at the very back, he spied a bottle of it. He stared at it, realizing the bottle was half empty. He swore gently.
“Well, that explains that,” he said. He grabbed a pair of gloves, pulled out the bottle, and stuck it into a little baggie, which he stuffed into his pocket. They had searched the bodies last night, and there hadn’t been anything, but, once on the doctor’s computer system, Troy logged on and came to a password screen. He sat here and stared at it for a long moment, then typed in the name of the date-rape drug. Instantly the screen opened up.
He shook his head at that, wrote a text message, and sent it to Mason. And then he went through the photos. Photos and emails, all communications in and out. And his heart got sadder and sadder as he worked. The doctor was involved, and, according to this, he had given the women each a dose, though he hadn’t been the one taking the photos. As such, the one taking the photos hadn’t been administering the drugs. Then together, they had charged the men for access. When each woman woke up—broken, beaten, and bloody—of course she couldn’t remember anything.
But here the doc listed the three recent women, and unfortunately he listed two others from a couple years ago. The photos were here too, and the dates that they were raped, and then the dispersion of all the related photographs too. He quickly downloaded it all and sent everything in a file to Mason, copying himself too.
When a knock came on the door, he waited with the monitor off. The knock came again, but, when Troy heard somebody rattling the doorknob, he quickly raced to hide behind the door. He heard sounds of metal scraping metal, and then the door was pushed open. The light flicked on, and a man stepped in. The door was gently closed behind him, but he didn’t turn to see Troy standing there. He walked forward as Troy studied him from the back, unsure who it was.
But when he walked to the monitor and sat down at the computer to log in, Troy stepped forward and asked, “What are you looking for?”
The man turned and looked at him in shock.
Troy realized who it was. “Hello, Lionel.”
> Lionel’s face flushed with anger. “What the fuck do you know?” he roared, standing upright.
Then the last of the tumblers clicked in Troy’s head. “I know that you were abused,” he said gently. “I know what they did to you.”
Lionel’s eyes filled with tears, and he angrily wiped them away. “You don’t know anything. You don’t fucking know anything.” He raised his fist, as if he would fight off Troy, which was highly unlikely since Troy was at least sixty pounds heavier and another six inches taller.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Lionel.”
“Everybody on this damn rig is here to hurt me,” he said.
“Did you have anything to do with sabotaging the rig?”
“No,” Lionel said.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Is that what this is about? Haven’t enough people died already?”
“Haven’t enough people been abused already?” Troy said instantly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and he sat back down at the computer. Realizing that Troy had gotten beyond the log-on screen, he turned to look at Troy, profoundly sad. “What did you find?”
“I found a lot, and all of it makes me sick.” Troy watched him intently but from the far side of the room. Lionel was a wild card, and he’d been through a lot. “Are you okay from the drugs?”
Lionel shrugged. “Maybe,” he said.
“Where is your brother?”
“He’s fine, sleeping off the drugs I gave him,” he said. “He’s in my room, under the bunk.”
“Why would you drug your brother?” And of course they hadn’t searched Lionel’s room. There hadn’t been any need to. They’d taken a cursory look but that was all.
“It was an easy way to prevent him from stopping me.”
“What are your plans?” Troy asked, leaning his back against the door, his arms over his chest.
Lionel glared at him. “You don’t know anything,” he said. “I have a plan. At least I will have.”
“So, explain it to me,” he said. “Try me. I’m here, and I’m listening.”
“So what if you are?” Lionel said, his voice suddenly weary. “Nobody gives a shit. Nobody gave a shit all this time, and I doubt you’ll give a shit either.”
“Why, because I work for the company?”
“The company is the worst,” he said. “They’re in on it, you know?”
At that, Troy straightened. “Are they?” He wanted to keep Lionel talking, but he also didn’t want to scare him away yet. He still needed information.
“Yes,” he said. “At least some of them, probably not all.”
“Did you have anything to do with all those deaths?”
“No,” he said, and then he gave a broken sigh. “But I’m not upset at all that they’re dead.”
“Were they the ones who abused you?”
Lionel stared at him, tears once again in the corner of his eyes. “How do you know?” he asked, in a broken whisper.
Troy had his own phone on, recording the video and the audio on this discussion. However, he held up the other phone he had in his pocket, one of the managers’ phones. “Because, after figuring out what they did to the women,” he said, “it wasn’t a far leap to figure out that maybe you were next.”
“Yeah, I was next,” he said. “I didn’t have a clue about what had happened. At least not the first time. And then, after the second time, I wondered.”
“Jesus.” Troy swore several times fluently. “I’m sorry, man. That really sucks.”
Lionel started to weep. “No,” he said. “It’s more than that, more than it sucks. I wanted to die when I realized what happened.”
“But how did you figure it out?”
“You mean, besides the pain? One of the guys showed me a picture,” he said, “I was completely buck naked, and, … and they took photos.”
“Shit.” Troy couldn’t imagine the betrayal he felt. “Do you know who it was?”
“I know a bunch of them, but I don’t know all of them. And I don’t know how many people saw those photos,” he said.
The shame in his tone ripped at Troy’s heart. “Lionel, it’s not your fault. You know? They’re abusers. These guys, they’re just abusers who get off on power trips like this, knowing they can do something to you while you can’t do anything about it.”
“It wouldn’t have been so bad, not knowing and all,” Lionel said, “until I saw the photos. And then they started to show people the photos. They started taking money for the next time.”
Troy swallowed hard. “The next time? Any idea how many times?”
“No. I never knew when it would happen. I didn’t know if it was in my food or my coffee. I didn’t know if it was in my water. For all I know, I got shot up with it too.”
“So you have no idea if it was more than three or four times?”
“No, but the last time I woke up, … bleeding,” he said. “More than the other times. It was brutal. I could hardly even move. I managed to get to the doctor, and that’s when I realized he was part of it.”
“How did you find that out?”
“Because he wasn’t even surprised. He said, ‘They shouldn’t have …’ and then stopped talking.” Lionel was too choked up to continue.
“Jesus,” Troy said, “I’m sorry. The doctor is dead now.”
“Yep, he is,” Lionel said, standing up. “And what will you do about it?”
“I’m not doing anything about it,” Troy said. “When daylight comes, I’m getting on a helicopter, and I’m leaving this place.”
“You better take her with you.”
“Why is that?”
“She was next,” he said. “I heard them talking about it. I was trying to figure out what to do for myself, when I heard them saying that they wanted a woman again, and they wanted her.”
“Do you know if they still have any plans for her?”
“Well, the four managers are dead, and I don’t know who else is involved,” he said. “But I can guarantee you, it will be at least one of the guys who’s still here.”
“Maybe,” Troy said, “I hope not. But I don’t have a problem taking them out either. The ocean can have them, for all I care. Sick bastards.” Troy stared solemn-eyed at the young man who’d been so painfully abused by the people he worked with. “But, Lionel, I need you to stop punishing them.”
“I didn’t kill them,” he said quietly. “I applaud whoever did, but I didn’t do it.”
“Seriously?” Troy felt the shock all the way through his bones.
“Yeah, seriously. I came here looking for evidence to prove what had happened, because I’m going after the company for millions. This happened on their watch, under their atmosphere of assault and abuse, and they turned a blind eye,” he said. “All I need is evidence to get money for help to get over all this,” he said. “I don’t even know if I’ll be okay ever again. The doc couldn’t do very much, and I’m still bleeding.”
“Why didn’t you run when the explosion happened? Why didn’t you take your chance to get off?”
“I wanted to,” he said, “and then I realized that, with everybody gone, I’d have a better chance of finding out who all was behind this. I’ve got one of the managers’ phones, and that told me a lot. It’s bad news, all of it. Those three women and me, and now I know they’ve been stalking Berkley.” He pulled a phone from his pants pocket. “Look at this.” Quickly he opened several photos, and they were all of Berkley. Unfortunately they were from her office, outside her door, and even in the bathroom.
“Damn it,” Troy said. “Is there any of her in her bedroom?”
Lionel nodded, switched to another set of photos, finding a picture of her bed, Berkley lying in it. And Troy knew that meant somebody could quite possibly have seen him with Berkley last night.
She was in more danger than ever.
Chapter 14
“And how are things going between you and Troy?” Axel asked.
She beamed up at him. “Great,” she said. “He’s a good guy.”
“That he is,” Axel said.
Mason nodded, a knowing grin on his face; then he looked down at his phone and swore. He bolted to his feet. “You two stay together, okay?”
“Will do,” Axel said and watched Mason disappear.
“Where is he going?”
“Either Troy or Nelson must have texted him,” Axel said. He got up and walked over to the pan of bear claws and grabbed another one. “Do you think Denny will mind if we eat them all before breakfast?”
“Well, since he’s not here to stop us, he’ll probably be upset, but, at the same time, he’ll be thrilled,” she said. “It’s one of those cases where you want people to enjoy them, but you don’t want them to enjoy them so much that you don’t have enough for everyone else.”
“Good point,” he said, yet he still grabbed another one. He sat back down with her, but she stared at him nervously.
“Do you think Troy is okay?”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” Axel said.
“Just the way that Mason bolted out of here.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he said, as he took a big bite. “There’s a lot of bolting in our world.”
She looked around the empty dining area. “Where is everybody?”
He stopped, looked around the room, then back at her, and said, “Do you really think something has happened to all of them?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Like I really don’t know.”
“Shit,” he said. “You really know how to ruin a treat, don’t you?” But she stared at him nervously. “Okay, what do you want to do?” He picked up his phone.
She grabbed hers and sent Troy a text, asking if he was okay. The response came right back. “Well, Troy says he’s okay.” With a smile, she texted back. Good. I was just checking.
At that, a little heart emoji came right back. She chuckled.
“I’ll say again that everything is good with Troy and me,” she said.
“Make sure you take some time to get to know him,” Axel said.
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Like we’ve had a whole lot of time, haven’t we?”
