“He made you pretend to be a boy?”
Her voice grew low, and she turned away, but before she did, I saw that her eyes were bright with either sadness or anger, I couldn’t tell. “Among other things.”
I touched her arm. “I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged. “I’m happy now that I have the training.”
Natasha wandered off a bit ahead of me, saying something about finding a pink Turkish towel. I let her have her space and turned to buy an exquisite, blue glass jar of saffron.
By the time the man had given me my change, Natasha was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Thirteen
Hurts Like A Motherfucker
The rows of vendors were crowded with people huddling on each side, their dark heads pressed close together. No redhead, though.
I quickly made my way through the crowd, jostling people and standing on tiptoe to see. Natasha was gone. I was near the end of the row of stands when I saw a flash of red hair about half a block down the street.
“Natasha!” I yelled. A few people cast annoyed glances at me, but I didn’t care. I took off at a sprint toward the other end of the street in time to see a glimpse of a redheaded woman dipping into an alley.
By the time I made it to the entrance and peered down it, I couldn’t see a thing. It was a long, narrow, twisting, dark path. “Natasha?” My voice echoed. I stepped into the passage and realized that there were several small passageways that spoked off from the main alley. She could be anywhere. I reached for my phone. No service. Of course.
Wishing I had my gun, I made my way down into the dark alley, hands in front of me, ready to fight if I needed to. What the hell was Natasha doing taking off like that?
I peered down first passageway. A square of light spilled out of an open door with delicious smells. A man stepped out, threw something into a trashcan and lit a cigarette. I kept walking. The second passageway, on the opposite side of the alley was less welcoming. I squinted but couldn’t make out much beyond a few dark shapes. An eerie scratching noise filtered out of the blackness.
The scratching was replaced by a scrabbling and then silence. I waited. And then in the silence, I heard a sound. A sigh. What sounded like a woman’s mournful sigh. A familiar sigh. Casting one last glance behind me at the lights and sounds of the medina, I stepped into the passageway, holding my breath, straining to see and hear.
Halfway down the passage, my eyes adjusted, and I saw that one of the many doorways was wide open. I peered inside cautiously. The inside was dimly lit. It was a long room, but at the other end I saw another flash of red disappear through a doorway.
This time I raced inside, flinging caution aside. I wasn’t sure what Natasha was up to, but I was tired of the cat and mouse game. I ran through the room, dodging dark shapes of furniture and plowed through the doorway where she’d gone.
It opened into a small kitchen and then on the other side, an open door leading back outside to another alley. Shit.
I poked my head out, looking both ways and was about to step outside when an excruciating pain exploded in my head. I crumpled. On my knees, I reached behind me to protect myself from another attack. All sounds were blotted out by a long, horrifying scream. I gave in to gravity and curled up into a ball, clutching my head, trying to stop the pain. And then all was black.
When I woke, my head throbbed and it hurt to open my eyes. I squinted and saw Natasha above me.
“Gia!” she said. “Are you okay?”
“What happened? I was following you.”
“It was Sharon Long.”
“What was?”
“I was following her. She was trying to flee, so I chased her. She hit you.”
“She did this?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you see her do this?”
I blinked, trying to remember what happened before I was hit in the head, but nothing came back to me.
“We need to get you help,” she said.
I closed my eyes. I heard voices and footsteps. Natasha spoke to someone in French.
The next thing I knew someone had put a pillow under my head. A few minutes later, I was on a primitive-type stretcher. I bounced atop the fabric supporting me as I was carried through the teeming streets of the medina. Bright colors, blurred faces, and whiffs of fleeting scents zipped past. Natasha’s voice was close, reassuring me. “It’s okay, Gia. We’re bringing you back to the ship. We’re getting you help. You’ll be fine.”
Later, after they’d checked me out in the ship’s infirmary and brought me to Natasha’s spare bedroom, I kept replaying what happened. I’d stepped into an empty room, was distracted by an open door, then blasted in the head. Natasha screamed, apparently scaring my attacker, Sharon Long, off. But what happened after that?
I had a lot of questions and few answers.
And Natasha was nowhere to be found.
Finally, she appeared with the ship doctor who stuck out her hand for me to shake.
“I’m Dr. Mikki Ashe.” Her hair was neat and short, and she had sparkling eyes behind silver-rimmed glasses.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“How’s the head?” she asked.
“Hurts like a motherfucker, Doc.”
She chuckled. I liked her.
“I’m going to leave you with some pretty heavy duty painkillers. They will probably make you drowsy, but that’s fine. You need sleep. To rest awhile. You received a nasty blow to the head.”
Natasha stood behind her, looking worried. I was worried.
I frowned. “What’s a while?”
She pressed her lips together tightly. “Hard to say. But most people are fine after a day or two of rest. I’ll stop back tomorrow to check on her.”
“I’ll stay and care for her,” Natasha said. “That’s why I had her brought to my suite.”
The doctor turned to me. “You’re lucky to have a friend like this. Your job is to rest today. When you’re feeling up to it after a day or two, my prescription would be to relax by the pool.”
I took in everything she said. I didn’t like any of it.
But I liked her. I smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” I did a half-assed salute.
She placed a prescription bottle on the nightstand beside me.
“We gave you a shot in the infirmary to ease the pain, but it’s probably time to take a pill. If you stay on top of the painkillers, you will avoid a lot of unnecessary discomfort.”
Natasha was immediately at my side. She tapped out a pill and handed them to me with a glass of water.
“I’m at extension thirty-two,” the doctor said. “Call if you need anything or if you start to feel worse. But I think with a few days rest you’re going to be just fine, Miss Santella.”
I swallowed the water and pills. “Thank you so much.”
Natasha walked the doctor to the door. By the time the door clicked closed, my eyes were heavy. I gave in and fell into the darkness of sleep.
In the night, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Natasha.
“Gia, it’s time for your medicine.”
I lifted my head and gratefully took the pills Natasha offered to me and gulped down the water in the glass she held to my lips.
In no time, I was out again.
With the light of the morning sunrise came a splitting headache. I wasn’t sure what time Natasha had given me the pills in the night, but based on my pain, I was certain I was due for another dose. But they made me feel so out of it. Even as I thought this, my eyelids grew heavy and I drifted off to sleep again.
When I came to, Natasha was cradling my head, lifting it for me to take more pills.
I tried to fight her off, but I was weak. My arms seemed useless. My head throbbed.
Something I couldn’t quite grasp teased at the edge of my memory. Something dangerous. “No,” I finally got the word out.
“Shhh, Gia. Swallow. This will help.”
I didn’t want to, but didn’t have the energy to resist. A
ll I wanted to do was lie back down and close my eyes. She slipped the pills between my lips and then held the glass to my mouth. It was easier to give in. Besides, my thinking was fuzzy. Why didn’t I want the medicine again?
I relented and Natasha let my head fall to the pillow.
After a few short moments, blissful blackness drifted over me like a warm, comforting blanket.
When I woke later, I was alone. In the dark.
The room twisted and writhed, and my stomach protested with an empty lurch. I closed my eyes until the vertigo subsided. My head pounded and pulsed like a jackhammer, worse than any migraine. I knew I was extraordinarily sick.
The pills.
It took a supreme amount of effort to turn my head and lift it a little. In the light streaming in from the hall I could see the pill bottle on the nightstand. I swung my arm in that direction, even though it felt like it weighed a million pounds.
As my fingers opened and closed, I realized the bottle was out of reach.
However, my hand grazed the phone. I grasped the receiver and brought it to my ear. Silence. The cord easily threaded through my hands. The phone had been disconnected.
I didn’t know where my cell phone was. Or my bag.
There was something terribly wrong with me. I didn’t know what it was, but I did know it had to do with Natasha. And those pills.
Just then I heard her in the other room talking to herself. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she was angry.
I quickly pushed the phone cord back onto the nightstand and leaned my head back, closing my eyes and listening. I heard the thud of her feet hitting the ground and the padding of her footsteps. I pretended to still be asleep.
“Thank God,” she said in a low whisper. Then in a louder voice she called my name.
I mumbled and shifted my head a little.
She flicked on the overhead light.
“Gia?” she repeated. “It’s time for your medicine.”
I blinked, fluttering my eyes.
“Do you want your medicine?”
I nodded and closed my eyes again.
She fumbled with the bottle on the nightstand. I held my breath, waiting to see if she’d notice that the phone had been moved.
“Open your mouth.”
I did obediently. But this time when she put the pills in my mouth, I surreptitiously slipped them under my tongue. She didn’t seem to notice, I heard her pouring water in a glass.
“Okay. Here’s the water to wash them down.” She placed her palm beneath my neck and lifted my head.
I opened my mouth eagerly and swallowed, keeping the pills firmly under my tongue.
Letting go of all muscle control, I let my head tilt to the side and began breathing heavily as if I’d fallen asleep.
“Gia?”
I waited in silence.
“Gia?”
I maintained my slow, steady breathing.
Then with a whoosh of air, she was gone.
I waited until I heard her in the kitchen before I slipped the pills out from under my tongue and hid them under my pillow. I managed to get myself propped up on one arm and stretched my fingers toward the small, brown bottle. I fumbled with the cap, trying to keep the pills inside from rattling around and giving me away. After what seemed like an eternity, the cap fell onto the sheets beside me, and I peered into the bottle. The pills were round and bright blue. I pushed the cap back onto the bottle and put it back on the table.
I reached for the phone on the nightstand. But when I held the receiver to my ear, there was no sound and I remembered it was disconnected. I set the receiver down and closed my eyes. The effort had exhausted me for some reason. And soon I was asleep again.
Chapter Fourteen
We Have A Problem
The sound of voices woke me later.
“She seems fine. Just sleepy.” Natasha. “Doctor Ashe said she shouldn’t be disturbed. I think she’s planning to check in on her tomorrow.”
I heard a gruff, lower voice—on the edge of a rumble. The voice was faint, but I recognized it as belonging to the detective. I tried to sit up and scream for help, but when I lifted my head, the room jerked and spun wildly again, leaving me dizzy. My voice came out as nothing more than a scratchy creak.
The voices grew quieter and then were gone entirely.
After a few seconds, I heard Natasha’s panicked voice from the other room. “Fuck. Fuck. What am I going to do?”
I didn’t quite manage to close my eyes before the lights in the room came on.
“You’re awake?”
I moaned as if I’d just woken up.
“Sit up,” she said. She yanked my head up and put two more pillows underneath it, propping me up.
“No more pills for you. You’re going back to your own cabin. I’m going to have to enact Plan B.”
“What?” My throat was dry, the words came out in a garbled scratchy mess. I hid my relief. Back to my own room. I would live. But what was Plan B? I watched as she grabbed the pill bottle and slipped it into the pocket of her loose linen pants.
“The doctor is going to be here any minute. We need to get you ready. You need to go back to your own cabin.”
“Okay,” I said. I sat up and threw my legs over the side of the bed. The effort made me feel slightly dizzy. Natasha made no move to help me. I stood and gripping the mattress made my way to the small bathroom. When I was done, Natasha was still standing in the same spot.
She narrowed her eyes at me, and her brow creased. “How do you feel?” she asked in an accusatory tone.
I felt like shit, which is the only reason I wasn’t up kicking her ass. I needed to use my brains. I needed to be smart. I needed to prove she was drugging me. I needed to keep her off-guard until I could do something about her. Because right then I remembered what had been on the edge of my consciousness the whole time I was drugged.
Now I just needed more evidence to prove it.
The ding of the elevator sent Natasha toward the door, but it looked like she was reluctant to leave me. I perched on the edge of the bed. There was no way I was getting back under the covers unless it was in my own suite. Something was wrong and I needed space and to clear my head.
After a few seconds, I heard voices in the main room.
“She doesn’t seem to be getting better as fast as you’d hoped. And, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can be nurse anymore.”
“I understand. But I’m concerned. She should be improving by now. Perhaps we should take her ashore to the hospital in Lisbon,” Dr. Ashe said as she walked into the room alone.
“Doctor, I think maybe Natasha was giving me the wrong pills. Were they supposed to be blue?”
Dr. Ashe’s forehead creased. “No. Hold on.” She looked around. “Where are they?”
“I think she took them.”
“Natasha?” the doctor called out.
Natasha poked her head in the doorway.
“The pills for Miss Santella? Can you bring me the bottle?”
“Of course,” she said and disappeared.
The doctor looked at me uncertainly. I could tell she thought I might be a little confused.
Natasha reappeared and handed the doctor the bottle. Dr. Ashe looked at the label, nodded, then twisted the cap and peered inside. She held the bottle out to me so I could see. Little white pills.
“That’s not what she was giving me.”
I reached underneath my pillow. There was nothing there.
The doctor’s forehead scrunched up. Natasha wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“I think once we arrive in Lisbon, you should get checked out at the hospital there,” Dr. Ashe said. “Your concussion appears to be worse than I thought, and I’d prefer you get checked out at a state-of-the-art facility.”
Natasha, who was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, watched me with narrowed eyes.
Just then the elevator door dinged and Detective Solange stepped out. She glanced uncertainly from me to
Natasha to the doctor.
“Would it be possible for me to speak to Mrs. Ainsley alone?” she said. Dr. Ashe said her goodbyes and stepped into the elevator. I didn’t budge.
The elevator door slid closed.
I spotted my bag on the couch. I grabbed it and started toward the elevator, but then turned back to Natasha. “Natasha, I’m a little fuzzy still. Can you go over again what happened in Tangier? I’m still trying to make sense of it. Where were you when I was attacked?”
She crossed her arms and, for a brief second, an annoyed look flashed across her face. It was so quick I almost wondered if I had imagined it.
With an exaggerated sigh, she blew out a puff of air that made her thick fringe of red bangs flutter. “I already told you. I was looking in a back bedroom for Sharon Long. I’d followed her down the alley. I was hoping to talk to her. She’d made some comment when I ran into her at the medina. She’d said something like, ‘Ask your new friend how Henry died.’ And then she took off down the alley.”
I froze. Was she fucking kidding? She’d never told me this. I stared at her, waiting for her to look away. Instead, she met my gaze steadily for a few seconds then turned to look at Solange.
“It shouldn’t be my job to do your investigating. This is your fault. Gia has a head injury because of you, really, when it comes down to it.”
Her defense of me rang hollow.
The detective looked from one of us to the other without saying a word.
“We have a problem,” Solange finally said.
“Yes?” Natasha stood erect, tense.
“We can’t seem to locate Sharon Long.”
“Figures,” Natasha said, and turned to pour herself a drink. I watched as, with her back to us, she downed a shot of vodka.
“What do you mean you can’t locate her?” I asked.
“We know she went ashore in Tangier, but she never reboarded the ship.”
“She killed Henry,” Natasha shrieked the words. “Oh, my God. I told you. She fled because she knew we were on to her.”
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