K9 was moving around restlessly. Erin made the sign for him to stop and stay, and he was instantly still. Vic raised her eyebrow at Erin, impressed. But Erin couldn’t take credit, she wasn’t the one who had trained K9. She had just learned the proper commands from Terry. It was Erin who had been well-trained, rather than being the trainer. Otherwise, K9 would probably be just as unruly as Orange Blossom. Erin had problems being stern with her animals. She fell prey to their cuteness.
“Where is the old woman?” The other voice demanded.
There was silence for a moment while they both looked around. “I don’t know,” the gruff voice replied. “This is her pod. She should be in here. Her son said that she had finished the rooms, so she should have come right back here.”
“You think she’s wandering around the ship somewhere?”
“She’s an old woman. She’s tired. She wouldn’t be wandering around. Maybe she’s in the latrine, I’ll check.”
There were footsteps, and Erin realized that they were headed toward her and the others. The man was going to look behind the screens for the old cleaner to see if she had really finished the job that he’d sent her to do. They all instinctively backed up, looking for some route of escape. The only way out was the way they had gone in. There was no back exit. There was no way underneath or around.
Erin’s heel hit one of the buckets. She heard the liquid slosh around in it, and the movement stirred up the worst smell she had ever smelled in her life. She felt wetness hit the back of her leg and knew that it had splashed onto her and that smell was going to stay with her for the rest of her life, which wasn’t going to be very long. She clutched at her stomach.
“No, no, no…”
There was no avoiding it. The same Erin as always got sick on the class field trips or who missed out on Christmas dinner because she couldn’t stand the smell of cooking onions; she couldn’t resist her body’s reaction to the stench and the thought that the foul liquid had just soaked through her pant leg. She had to turn quickly to hit the nearest half-full bucket, letting loose a long, hot stream of vomit and coughing and choking afterward. Her stomach clenched, and she knew that wasn’t going to be the end of it. Vic and Willie were both pulling back, not wanting to stand too close to her, but unable to leave the latrine area behind the screen where they might be seen.
The footsteps stopped. The man apparently wasn’t so keen on approaching someone who was being violently ill, in the corner of a room that already featured the most horrendous smell he’d probably ever smelled.
Erin prayed that the man would not come back there and that she would not have to throw up again. She didn’t believe in God; but the words just came to her mind.
Don’t let him come back here. Don’t let me have to throw up again. Please get me out of here. Please just get me out of here.
The footsteps started again, but they were retreating rather than approaching.
“I’ll come back later,” the gruff voice declared, as if that had been his plan all along. “We’d better go check on our new guest and see how he is enjoying the captain’s quarters.”
“Best quarters on the ship,” the other voice said. “I know I’d love to make them mine!”
“You can’t just get whatever you want on a cruise like this. There’s a certain order.”
“You don’t think I know that by now? You really are an idiot, you know that? What a slipshod operation this has been. You would think that someone with your experience would be able to run things better than this.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to have to deal with these kinds of people,” the gruff voice became wheedling, almost whining. Erin was surprised at the triumph that immediately rose in her chest at the fact that he was being reprimanded and hadn’t done a good job. It served him right. After all that he’d put her through and all of the horrible things he had done, it served him right to be mocked and criticized by his boss, or his boss’s boss, or whoever had been sent to sort the situation out. “It’s not just the immigrants. The crew themselves are impossible to deal with. Always asking questions, acting superior, thinking they are ‘all that.’ And don’t get me started on the passengers, especially this Price woman.” He swore. “I can’t believe we had the bad luck to be saddled with her on this tour. She should have been kicked off the moment she started making waves. Then we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
“We didn’t know she was going to be trouble. And we didn’t know you were going to let her see you taking care of business. That was your fault, you know.”
“It wasn’t my fault. She was sleepwalking. She’d been sick and she shouldn’t have been walking around the ship like that. She should have been in bed. How am I supposed to be able to keep track of the thousands of different people on this floating tub? I know the patterns of traffic and what people are generally doing at different times of the day. No one should have seen anything. And I checked. I looked around to make sure I was alone. She just happened to be wandering past the window at the wrong time.”
“You should have been more careful.”
The gruff man swore and cussed under his breath. He clearly knew that he’d screwed up. He didn’t need to be told over and over again. He wanted to get out of there and to go check on his prisoner.
“Let’s go. We’d better check and make sure he’s nice and comfy for the night.”
They listened to the retreating footsteps. Erin looked at Vic and Willie, wondering what they were going to do. They couldn’t get in the way, and they had found out the information they had been looking for, which was that Terry was being held in the captain’s room. For the moment, Terry was safe, but that wasn’t going to last. For all Erin knew, they were just waiting for the right opportunity to throw Terry overboard just as they had the crewman who had been causing problems. They would be looking for Erin next, planning to dispose of her as well.
Willie held up his hand for silence until after the footsteps had faded away and he was convinced that the men were gone and weren’t going to return. Then he spoke in a near-whisper.
“Terry is in the captain’s quarters. He will be guarded, but we can’t just wait for them to deal with him. We need to go there, and we need to get him out.”
Erin nodded. “Yes.”
“They don’t have any compunctions about killing. It’s just what’s most convenient. We need to get Terry out of there before it becomes convenient for them to eliminate him.”
Erin wanted to get to Terry as soon as she could. She didn’t know how they would do it, but she needed to get there and confirm to herself that he was okay.
“Do you know where the captain’s quarters are?”
Willie nodded. “Terry and I were talking about it earlier, so I know where everything is.”
“Why was he talking about it to you when it was confidential?” Erin demanded. “He wouldn’t talk to me about it!”
“He still probably told you more than he ought to,” Willie said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “And you’re a civilian.”
“So are you.”
He considered this. “True… but he needed someone who could help him out. I may not be police, but I have training.”
It was a far cry from the past when Terry had been suspicious of Willie’s motives. Erin shook her head at the hypocrisy. “What were you going to do? What did he expect from you?”
“Tactical advice. Organizational skills. Getting volunteers organized. I don’t know. We didn’t really get that far with the details. But those are things that I have experience in, and he was all alone on this cruise, as far as having tactical information went. Of course he had you, and even Vic as a friend, but that’s not the same as being able to stand up to an attack by terrorists. You don’t have experience dealing with criminals.” He reconsidered and raised his eyebrows. “Not in a tactical situation, anyway.”
“So he told you that the captain was poisoned.”
“Possibly poisoned. Yes. And that, combined
with your story about someone being thrown overboard, meant that there is some kind of criminal conspiracy on this ship.” He motioned to the immigrants on their sleeping mats. “As we can now see. They are using slave labor, and that is illegal in most places in the world, not just in the USA. They don’t want to get caught and they are doing whatever they can to protect themselves.”
Erin nodded. As a group, they slowly walked to the end of the screens and peeked out, looking for any sign of the men. They saw only the immigrants who were sleeping there, most of whom were studiously ignoring them. The little boy who had been so enamored with K9 was sitting with his mother, cuddled close. She was not going to let him go and talk to Erin and K9 again. If they didn’t know before that Erin and her friends were targets of the men who were controlling them, they knew now. They had seen Erin, Vic, and Willie run and hide.
“Well, I’m not sure what we’re going to do, but we should at least reconnoiter.”
Erin let Willie lead the way, since he knew where the captain’s quarters were. She would have had to study the deck maps and ask questions of the crew, and they needed to get there with as few people seeing them as possible. Willie didn’t make conversation along the way. Vic and Erin followed his lead. K9 stayed at Erin’s side, alert, his eyes forward. Did he know that Terry was in trouble? Or was he merely curious or interested by his surroundings?
They used the stairs rather than risking the elevator, hoping to stay out of sight for longer. Erin tried to fathom how they were going to do anything to help Terry. They didn’t have any weapons or anyone to back them up. But they were free, and Terry was not.
Willie stopped and peeked around the corner.
“Okay. I only see one guard. I don’t see the men we heard downstairs, so they must be inside with Terry. We don’t know how many men might be in that room.”
“You want one of us to distract the guard?” Vic asked.
Erin swallowed. That might work on TV, but would it really have any effect in real life? The guard was there to make sure that no one got in. He wasn’t going to be talked into a wild goose chase. Some flimsy excuse for a conversation or to lure him away from the door.
“No,” Willie said immediately. “I don’t want either one of you to do anything risky. I’m wondering about letting K9 either take him down or lure him away.”
Erin put her hand on K9 protectively. “I don’t want him to get hurt either. He’s part of our family.”
“He’s not part of the family. He’s not even a pet. He’s a police dog.”
“I don’t want him doing anything dangerous.”
“I don’t plan to make him do anything dangerous. But I want to act wisely here. If it’s K9 or Terry, who would you choose?”
Erin stared at him. If she had to choose between the two of them? She wanted to reiterate to Willie just how important K9 was to them, but she already knew the answer to his question. If it was a matter of saving Terry or K9, she would have to pick Terry. But that wasn’t what she wanted to do, and she wasn’t about to tell Willie that.
“I just don’t want you putting him into a dangerous situation.”
“We’re spending too much time talking,” Vic interrupted. “Who knows what they’re doing in there. We might not have the time to debate it. We’re all going to put ourselves at risk. So let’s get to it.”
Willie motioned to K9. “Tell him to take down the guard.”
“I’m not his handler,” Erin said, “I don’t know if he’ll do that for me.”
“He listens to other commands from you. If he won’t, he won’t, but let’s try.”
Erin stroked K9’s head, worried. “What if they hurt him?”
“The man guarding the door doesn’t appear to be armed. An unarmed man is not equipped against fangs. Let’s get this done quickly.”
Erin took a deep breath. She looked at K9 and gave him the ‘attend’ command. His body language changed from curious but relaxed to alert, his muscles bunched for action. Erin pointed at the intersecting hallway and gave the ‘attack’ command. She wasn’t sure whether K9 hesitated, or whether it just took a second or two for him to process what it was that she wanted. Then he ran around the corner and was only out of sight for a few seconds when they could hear the scuffle with the guard and his yell of alarm or pain.
Willie didn’t give Vic or Erin any instructions as to what they should do, but bolted around the corner himself, moving as quickly as he could with the cast on his leg. Erin didn’t put any thought into a plan of attack. She and Vic acted as one, following close behind him.
They saw K9 wrestling with the crewman guarding the captain’s room, his jaws clamped around the man’s forearm. The man was yelling and trying to pull away, but K9 didn’t release him. Willie rushed forward. At the same time, two men burst out of the cabin.
For a moment, time froze; Erin wasn’t sure whether everybody actually stopped to consider the situation, or whether time only ceased for her, as she considered the tableau. One of the men was the first mate, and the other was clearly the gruff-voiced, broad-shouldered man Erin had seen throw the other man overboard. Erin had probably seen him around the ship, but it wasn’t until then that she could identify him as the killer.
Erin had exchanged greetings with the first mate more than once, and he had had always been courteous and pleasant toward her. Nothing like the expression on his face as he looked at them from the doorway of the captain’s cabin.
He looked murderous.
Chapter Thirty-Three
W
illie went after the broad-shouldered killer. K9 was wrestling the guard. That left Vic and Erin to deal with the first mate. They both stood there frozen, blocking the narrow hallway, waiting for him to make a move.
The first mate muttered an oath under his breath. He was transformed from the man Erin had thought she knew.
“Where’s Terry?” she demanded.
The mate didn’t answer her. They already knew where he was. She wasn’t even sure why she had asked; it was just the first thing that had come to her lips.
“It’s over,” Vic told him. “We know everything. You can’t get away with it anymore.”
“This is my ship,” the man said, “you have no jurisdiction over me here.”
“It’s not your ship. It belongs to the cruise line, and I don’t think they’d be too happy that you were using slave labor to run it.”
“You think they don’t know?” the mate scoffed. His eyes went back and forth. “All they care about is the bottom line. They don’t care how we increase profits as long as we do. One of the easiest ways to lower the costs to run this ship is to find the cheapest labor possible. That’s all we’ve done here.”
Erin thought he was just going to stand there and talk. Vic had engaged him, and he was responding. K9 and Willie were doing their best to subdue the other two men. In a few minutes, it would all be over, and peace would be restored.
But then the mate bolted. He ran straight toward them, leaping over K9 and the guard wrestling on the floor. Erin held up her hands to protect herself and to try to stop him from getting by. She couldn’t see what Vic was doing, other than to mirror Erin’s defensive motion. The mate aimed for the space between them and, after a very brief struggle, he managed to force his way through. The arm that Erin had thought she had a good purchase on slipped out of her hands, the rough buttons and braids on his uniform scraped over her skin, and he was pounding down the hall away from them. Erin turned to go after him, but she knew it was impossible. He was too big and too strong for her to do anything about, even if she managed to catch up with him. Even she and Vic together were not going to be able to control him, especially with one of Vic’s arms out of commission. Vic stared after the man, her face as white as a sheet. She looked at Erin.
“Terry,” she said.
They both fought their way toward the cabin door. K9 was still wrestling the guard on the floor, but seemed to have him under control, the man crying and flopping li
ke a beached fish, his struggles slowing. It was harder to get by Willie and the gruff-voiced killer, who were both still on their feet and kept bouncing off of the walls as they struggled, yelling at each other but neither able to gain the upper hand.
Erin and Vic managed to push by them, picking up a few more bruises on the way. They squeezed into the captain’s cabin, popping free like a cork.
Erin was overwhelmed by the opulence of the quarters. The killer had said he would have liked to live there, and she had no doubt that the captain’s quarters were highly coveted. The carpet was thick plush, the furnishings heavy, dark wood. The lighting sparkled through crystal chandeliers and jeweled lamps. There were paintings of past captains or officers displayed on the walls, as well as award plaques, vintage maps, and old astronomical and seafaring equipment.
“Wow,” Vic murmured.
That was an understatement. But despite her initial distraction, Erin had eyes only for Terry, who was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. He had a duct tape gag. Not like on TV where the captive would have one small rectangle of tape sealing his mouth shut, but layers of tape wrapped all the way around his head, between his jaws to form a gag and then over the planes of his face to immobilize his mouth. Likewise, multiple layers of tape wound around each arm and leg to secure his limbs to the captain’s chair he sat in.
Erin darted forward to release him. If it were TV, then a couple of rips of the tape and yelps from the hostage, and he would be free, but Terry’s captors had been very thorough. Erin used her nails to try to get purchase under an edge and to rip it off, but it was the industrial-strength dinosaur-brand tape that Erin had been known to use for car repairs in the past. She could barely get her nails into it. Erin looked around.
“Scissors. Do you see any scissors?”
Vic hurried over to a heavy antique desk. There were only a couple of drawers to check. Vic came up with a pair of scissors and a boxcutter.
Vegan Baked Alaska (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 9) Page 20
