Chapter Three
Gavin
“It’s about time,” I muttered to myself.
I could finally see the cruise ship in the distance and let out a long sigh of relief, but also of dread knowing that even though I saw the ship ahead my work for the night was far from over. In fact, seeing the ship was just the signal that the real effort was about to start, and it wasn’t going to be fun. It felt like I had been traveling through the open water aimlessly trying to follow the convoluted directions that had been given to me. At this point I couldn’t tell if the instructions were really that horrible, or if the cruise liner was just that far off schedule. Either way, I was already exhausted and didn’t feel like going through with this anymore. Now that the moon was high and illuminating the top of the water, and I could see the imposing silhouette of the ship against the sky, it was a relief and I felt a little boost of motivation to get this over with and collect my pay. Now all I had to do was wait.
The boat drifted slightly closer to the ship and I killed the engine so that anyone who might be on the deck wouldn’t hear it and alert any of the crew to my presence. That was really the last thing that I needed. I hadn’t come up with a story to explain why I was there, and if the situation arose that I was going to have to, I didn’t really see myself coming up with anything particularly convincing. My eyes scanned the rail as I looked for any indication that the time for action had come. The ship seemed surprisingly calm. I hadn’t ever been on a cruise, but when I imagined it, what came to mind was images of couples strolling together along the decks, singles on the prowl hoping to land that night’s conquest, and possibly the occasional child screaming, confirming to the others that they wanted to stay childless for the rest of their lives. What I was looking at, though, was a ship that seemed largely empty. The hulking vessel seemed quiet and still. There were lights glowing in the windows so I knew that it hadn’t been abandoned, but I didn’t see or hear any of the signs of a lively cruise that I had anticipated.
Suddenly I saw two dark figures appear at the rail of one of the lower decks. I tightened my grip on the wheel and straightened, keeping my eyes locked on the people who were moving swiftly along the side of the ship as if at once trying to get away from something and trying to figure out what they were going to do next. The figures paused and they seemed locked in an argument for a brief moment before the larger of the two reached down and released one of the lifeboats from the side of the ship. Another shadowy form appeared several yards away and started running toward them, confirming to me that their speed was because they were trying to escape pursuit. I couldn’t tell who it was that might have been chasing them. They looked pretty frantic to get away, but for all I knew they could have smuggled the pistachios and a couple tiny bottles of liquor out of a room refrigerator and be trying to duck security.
I watched as the larger of the first two figures released the other side of the lifeboat so that it fell into the water below, then scooped the smaller figure up and tossed it over the rail into the water. The scream that I heard told him that the person flailing down toward the water was a woman and she was less than pleased about how this course of events was unfolding.
That was most certainly not the action of someone who didn’t want to pony up for their cabin snacks.
The larger person jumped down after her and they both scrambled to get into the lifeboat as the third figure leaned over the rail above them, shouting something indiscernible. The lifeboat started moving and I realized that it was moving directly toward me. A few moments later it bumped into my boat and I heard the soft metallic clang as the two people clambered up the ladder hanging from the side. I ran to the other end of the boat and watched as a small woman caught her foot on the top of the ladder and stumbled onto the deck. A man followed seconds later, catching her before she fell.
"What the fuck just happened?!" I asked, dumbfounded. “Who the hell are you?”
"We need to get away from this ship. Now!" the man demanded.
I shook my head looking, between the two. This wasn’t happening. I didn’t have time for this shit. I had somebody to find and I wasn’t going to be able to do it if I was playing Junior Coast Guard with these two. The longer that I looked at them, though, the more I knew that I couldn’t just pitch them off of the deck into the cold water and go about my business. The woman's wet clothing clung to her and her hair stuck wildly over her face and her arms. She was barefoot and her makeup was running, but by the look on her face I was sure it was more than just the unintended swim that had caused her to be so disheveled. Despite all of that, it was evident that she was one of those women who only got better with age and now that she had tipped the calendar over into her forties, she had a confident, well-polished beauty about her. At least, she would when she wasn’t dripping saltwater onto the ground around her. She was obviously going through something difficult and I had the immediate human compulsion to help her in any way that I could. I’d figure out what to do about the job later.
I turned back to the angry-looking man who accompanied her. He had looked much larger than the woman when he tossed her over the rail into the water, but now that I was seeing him this close, I realized that he was an average-sized man. Glasses had somehow miraculously remained perched on his nose during the ordeal and he glared at me through them with an intensity that looked as though he somehow thought that I was responsible for the other man who had been chasing them on the cruise ship.
"Who are you?" I asked again. "What are you doing on my boat?"
I heard the muttering of voices that were dulled by the wind around us and looked back up at the ship. I saw that several more people had gathered at the railing, one with a large light that they were trying to set up so that they could shine it down on the water, and a shot of panic went through me. I couldn't risk someone seeing me and possibly being able to recognize me later.
"I'm Hunter," the man in glasses said as if it were some kind of password that would instantly make me willing to help him. "Now get us out of here."
I didn't move and Hunter took two long strides toward me, shoving past me toward the wheel.
"Get the fuck out of my way," he said, "I'll do it myself."
I followed, grabbing at Hunter's shirt as he started the engine again and forced the boat in a sharp turn away from the ship. The turn went smoothly, but I had the distinct impression that he was not well-versed in the ways of steering a ship. Considering we were far away from shore and the only other vessel that I had seen capable of providing us with any type of assistance should he capsize us or destroy the equipment was the very ship that he had just escaped from, this didn’t bode well for any of us aboard.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked, stepping up to him.
Hunter reared back to shove me away from him and accelerated the boat even faster. I grabbed at him again and he turned to me, reaching out and grabbing me by the front of my shirt with a ferocity that I wouldn’t have expected to come from someone who looked like him. This man should be in an office somewhere or hunched behind a desk in a library, not jumping into the ocean off of a cruise ship and playing Pirates of the Caribbean stealing other people’s boats.
"This woman is about two minutes away from becoming the topic of a Dateline Special Edition about mysterious disappearances at sea. If you don’t cooperate with this, they’re going to be rolling credits on you, too, and some struggling actor who looks nothing like you is going to be playing your corpse. If you don’t want that to happen, I suggest you get off of me and let me get us away from that ship."
I felt like someone had punched me in the chest. I turned away from Hunter and toward the woman, who was now sitting on the deck, her knees pulled up and her head rested against them. I crossed to her and crouched down beside her.
"What's your name?" I asked.
She looked up at me.
"Eleanor," she said softly, her voice sounding weak and exhausted.
Shit. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I drew in a breath. I didn't know what to do. I had no idea who the man now driving my boat was or why he was here, but I did know who this terrified woman was – and that she was the one I was after.