by Barbara Arthur
Disclaimer can be found in part one.
Comments welcome at Barbart@globalsite.net
He shrugged. "Well, Janet didn't like me much in the beginning, if you
recall."
"If by in the beginning, you mean all of those years ago in Florida,
we both know she didn't.
She was afraid for me to be around you, afraid you'd ruin me. But, Rick,
that was all over by the
time we were all in San Diego together, when you and I were working
together."
"Yes," he admitted. "But what about when you guys decided to get
married? How did she feel
about me, then? And how did Janet feel about my book?"
He was asking for honesty, asking me to be honest with him as well as
myself. And I knew I
needed to be. The thought of Janet being mixed up in this made me want
to vomit again. And
yet--"She didn't like your book any better than I did, of course. Janet
loves, er, loved me, she
didn't like to see the one she loved being made to look like a buffoon."
"No, I suppose not," Rick mumbled. "So, did she ever make threatening
comments about me?"
I was confused. "Rick, it's me that was given something, if I was, and
if Janet did it. It must be
me she wanted to hurt not-----"
My brother gave me that look he had, that look that said he knew I had
thought of something,
something he already had in his mind. "It could be both of us, Kid," he
said softly. "Janet could
have decided to use you to get at me, that way we would both be
punished."
"No, I won't believe it," I said, stubborn.
"How dirty was your break up with her?"
Rick---
A.J. wanted to discount what I was saying, but he couldn't do it. And
I hated to say it. I had
always liked Janet. Maybe, to be honest, I had more than liked her at
different times in the span
of years I'd known her. When I first met her in Florida, she and my
brother were shacking up
together on his boat, and he worked for her father. That's when she
thought I was a very bad
apple indeed, and tried desperately to keep A.J. away from me.
Later, when we all went back to San Diego, and even though they, A.J.
and Janet, broke off
their engagement, she worked in the D.A.'s office, we were all friends.
Throughout, I thought a
lot of her, maybe even loved her on occasion, although, because of the
relationship she'd had
with A.J., I kept it under wraps.
He finally got around to answering me. "It wasn't pretty, I guess."
"You guess?" I said to him. "Was it ugly enough to cause her to want
us both in deep do do?"
He got up off of the bed and began pacing. "I wouldn't have thought
so. We----"
"What? A.J., you need to think this through real careful."
"I know," he said. "We were angry with each other, sure. And your book
had a lot to do with
it."
"How so?" I probed.
"Well, it changed me, of course. I was angry and always disgruntled.
She couldn't take it. I
really didn't blame her."
"Ah, hah," I responded. "So, she was mad at me. Mad because you were
so mad you couldn't
live a normal life with her. After all those years of waiting to marry
you, and even though I was
far away, something I'd done was ruining your life."
He stopped pacing. "Yes, Damn it! Yes, you ruined my marriage! Janet
was angrier than I was,
really, about the way you portrayed me."
I had a nasty thought. "Angrier than you? Could it be she put it in
your head to be angry in the
first place? Isn't that about the time you got back together with her,
A.J.?"
His back to me when I started to explore a new avenue of thought, my
brother reeled around
quickly. "No, Rick! Don't even think such a thing! If that's true----"
"If that's true, then what, Kid?"
"Then maybe she's responsible for my being so upset all along,
maybe---"
"Yea, maybe," I mumbled, "but is she capable of such a thing?"
He put his hands over his eyes. He was in very real pain, I could see.
"A.J., you okay?" I asked
him. "You'd better take it easy on this----"
"I can't believe this, Rick, I just can't believe it. I know what
she's done to me. I know!"
His pain got to me. I moved to him. "Come on, Kid, sit down and tell
me what you're talkin'
about. Have you remembered something?"
"Yes." he said, so low I barely heard him. "Vitamins, Rick."
"Vitamins?"
"I've been taking vitamins she recommended just after we got back
together. And when we met
in San Diego, yes, I just remembered the meeting, she gave me a new
supply."
"Oh," I said.
I took him by the arm and led him back to the bed. He looked like he
could faint any minute.
The statements he'd made bounced around in my head. If it was remotely
true what he'd come
up with as a theory, then it would be difficult for me to accept. Yet,
it was feasible. I needed to
know more. I helped him sit down. He laid down immediately. "A.J.,
listen, I need you to
expand on this for me. About the vitamins, I mean. Can you do that? I
mean, it's not that I don't
believe you, it's just that it's so unlike Janet, you know, I mean,
don't you think so?"
"Yes, it's unlike her," he agreed. "But I recall the meeting now, the
dinner at Mom's and
everything. It's coming back, I don't know why."
"How long since you took a vitamin?" I asked.
"I forgot them," he said. "I mean, not really."
"Not really?"
"I had thought they gave me headaches, especially since I'd been
taking the ones Janet brought
to San Diego to give me."
I fought the urge to shudder. "Look, Kid, this is heavy stuff we're
talkin' here."
"Yes," he readily agreed, "And we've completely forgotten about Brenda
and what part she
might have played in this."
I stared at him. "Hey! If Janet did this, then Brenda's innocent.
There's no connection between
them."
He shook his head. "I doubt if there is, but I don't know. And what
about the guy I shot? The
man who was going to shoot you?"
"Yea," I said. "What about him?"
We fell quiet. A.J. shut his eyes. There was room for me on the bed,
so I laid down beside him.
I was harboring a man in my cabin who was supposed to be locked in the
holding tank. I
couldn't put off doing something and fairly soon. "Are you awake?" I
asked.
"Yes."
"Maybe you should go back to the holding tank, let me handle this. If
they catch you out, and
with me, we'll both be in trouble. I can explain away posing as a guard.
I can say I just wanted to
talk to you, but if they catch you out---"
He sat up abruptly. "Rick, have you noticed anything funny about this
ship?"
A tad aggravated that he didn't seem willing to listen to me, I
answered kind of sharply. "Well,
I evidently was the target of two different people on it. If that's
funny, then---"
"No, that's not what I mean!" He said, loud.
"What, then?"
"Rick, I'm surprised you haven't noticed, surprised I haven't, unless
it just happened."
As far as I was concerned, he was talking off the wall. "What the hell
are you talkin' about?"
"I think we're anchored."
A retort on the tip of my tongue, I bit it back. "What makes you think
so?"
"You know what makes me think so. The same thing that makes you think
so, now that you've
thought about it."
I grinned at him. "I bet you can't say that again."
"Oh yea, how much you wanta bet?" he said, returning my grin in kind.
"Never mind," I said. "And, yea, now that I've thought about it, I
know what you mean. Every
once in a while, the ship rocks wildly and then it's quiet, just like I
said a while ago."
"Only a while ago, we didn't either one think we were anchored."
"We're not supposed to be," I told him. "What do you suppose is goin'
on?"
"Maybe it was so rough, Gethers took it to shore somewhere. It was
rough for a while.
Remember what happened to us in the holding tank?"
"Yea," I said. "It could be you're right, and it could be you're
wrong."
A.J.---
I got up from the bed and then looked back at him. "That makes a lot
of sense, Rick. I'm either
right or wrong, no question about that."
"Well, you could be somewhere in between," he told me.
"Rick, we're either anchored or we're not!"
"Yea, but we may not be anchored at shore," he said. "We may be out in
a harbor somewhere."
"Sure," I agreed. "Why don't you go see?"
"Good idea," he went along with my idea. "But I'm not goin' alone."
Only a short time before, he had said I should go back to the holding
tank. I thought that's what
he was getting ready to repeat. "Rick, I don't want to go back to the
tank. I mean, there must be
something else we can do."
"I didn't mean for you to," he said, grinning at me. "You're comin'
with me. We might have to
swim, Kid, get off of this boat. I want you with me. Maybe you meant me
harm, maybe you're
lyin' to me now, but I don't think so. I don't like the way the powers
that be on here accepted
Brenda's word, accepted mine. They didn't consider your credibility at
all."
I had a lump in my throat, but I said, "Well, I was using an alias."
"Right, but they didn't question you enough. I think it's a setup, a
setup of both of us. You
ready to try to escape?"
"I am," I said. "But, Rick, where does that leave the Janet theory?"
"That's what we need to find out," he scowled. "They may all be hooked
together. We may
never get out of this alive, but I'm willin' to try."
"I am too," I told him. "But if we run into someone, if they're
waiting for us, what? I mean,
what if the Captain and everyone is in on it?"
"I don't know what we'll do, A.J. We don't have guns. I'm just hopin'
we can swim to shore,
hopin' we're anchored not far out. If we can just do that, we'll have a
chance."
"It could be we're wrong about everything except Janet," I said. "I
hope we are."
"Yea, but that guy you shot," Rick said. "It's just all too much of a
coincidence."
I nodded. "Well, I'm ready. Good luck to us."
He grinned broadly, then hugged me in a tight embrace. "We've got good
years left in us, Kid,
but we've gotta get off of this tub to enjoy them. Let's go."
We left Rick's cabin cautiously, much more cautiously than we'd left
the holding tank earlier.
As we crept along the wall for a time, I though back to that walk we'd
made to my brother's
quarters. We had not seen a single soul. Had the boat been anchored
then? Was everyone else
aboard in on a conspiracy against Rick and me? He was ahead of me. I
reached out and grabbed
his arm, causing him to turn to me. "Maybe they're all gone," I said.
"Who?"
"Everyone who was on this ship. Maybe they're laying in wait for us
somewhere."
I could see a multitude of ideas were passing through Rick's mind. The
expression in his eyes
kept changing, revealing he'd had a new thought. "Wow!" he said. "You're
still a P.I., A.J. Your
mind still works like one, anyway."
"I can't tell whether you think I'm right or wrong," I said.
"I can't tell whether I think you're right or wrong either, but you
could be right."
"How would everyone have left the ship without our knowing it?" I
asked him. "Surely, they
had to make an announcement or something."
"Yea, you would have thought so," Rick said, "But maybe they have a
way of not broadcasting
to individual cabins."
I looked at him. "So, you think they know we left the holding tank?
Know you were there in the
first place?"
"I think so. Don't you?"
I sighed. "Yes. Now what?"
"We keep movin', find out if we're right about this, find out where
we're anchored, find out
who's waitin' for us and where, then we make a decision."
"Let's go," I said.
And so we kept walking along the ship's corridor. We came to no place
where another human
being could be seen. It was eerie. My skin crawled with each passing
step. My brother and I did
not speak for quite some time. He was the one to break the silence.
"This is weird as hell, A.J.," said Rick.
"I'll say it is. I feel like there are ghosts coming out of the
walls."
He laughed his short way of expressing mirth. "Might as well check out
the Captain's quarters.
We're close to it."
"You think Gethers is lying in wait for us?" I asked him.
"No time like the present to find out."
We came to the door behind which we'd all been taken after the
shooting incident in the dining
room. Rick pulled out a credit card. I made eye contact with him, as I
moved over to the side of
the door. "Still opening doors the hard way, I see."
"Actually, I haven't done it in years," he frowned. "But guess I still
know how."
"I wouldn't be surprised," I said, as the door opened in front of us.
We both took a peek inside. It was dark. "He might be up at the
controls," Rick told me.
"No one seems to be here," I said.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Rick said. "Watch the door, I'll look
around."
Rick---
Moving very carefully, I walked around Gethers' humble home at sea. I
could see nothing
which would tell us anything one way or another. Certainly, I didn't see
Captain Gethers or
anyone else. A light had been left on, though, making me wonder if
Gethers intended to return
soon. A.J. watched me from the door. I felt naked without a weapon in
that situation and felt
sure my brother did as well. What I was looking for, beyond a human
being, I didn't know. Until
I found it. "A.J., get your rear over here!"
He came immediately into the small area where Gethers slept. There was
a bunk and there were
some shelves. On the shelves, in plain view, was a book. My book. "He's
been reading my
book," I said.
A.J. questioned me. "So? Lots of people read your book."
"And take it on cruises with them? And keep it on the shelf in their
quarters? And then act like
my name was one he'd never heard before?"
The last part got through to my brother. "He did say he wasn't
familiar with your book or the
movie."
"Yes, he did," I agreed, remembering how, during the first few minutes
of the question and
answer period, Gethers had asked my name. I'd told him who I was and
that he might know me
from my book or the movie made from it. Totally straightfaced, he said
Rick Simon rang no bell
with him. He had lied, evidently. "I smell a rat," I said.
"A whole ship full of rats, maybe," A.J. frowned at me. "But does
Janet have anything to do
with it? How would she know Gethers, maybe the guy I shot. How, Rick?"
I touched him on the arm. "Take it easy, Kid. We're gettin' somewhere
now, let's not panic."
He took a deep breath. "Well, there may be some other clues here.
Let's look around some
more."
"Yea, good idea." I said, and hoped sincerely we could find something
else to go on.
We looked in all nooks and crannies of Gethers' quarters, but found
nothing more. I was
beginning to wonder about something, when A.J. echoed my thoughts. "How
will we ever piece
this together without more to go on?"
"I don't know." I replied, being as honest as I'd ever been in my
life.
"He can always say it meant nothing, his having your book, I mean. He
could say he hadn't read
it yet, didn't even know where he got it, that he'd read it, but hadn't
paid any attention to the
author's name."
I grinned at him. "You remember every excuse we ever heard in the
business, don't you?"
He smiled at me. A.J. Simon has the most beautiful smile in the world.
It warmed my heart to
see it. He said, "I've missed being a P.I., Rick. Have you?"
I shrugged, but my eyes told him all he needed to know. I said, "Some,
I guess, although I don't
like to be thrown back into the game this way without the proper tools."
"I wonder if they took my gun with them when they left," A.J. said.
"We could take a look see," I suggested. "Where do you think they left
it, if they left it?"
"Probably in the office of the security guys."
"Where's that?"
He rolled his eyes. "How would I know? Maybe we can see a name on a
door."
"Let's go, then," I said, and we quickly left the Captain's quarters.
I returned my book to his
shelf before I departed.
A.J.---
Rick and I again walked through what I now thought of as a ghost ship.
Not that I wasn't leery
that someone would suddenly appear, someone we wouldn't be glad to see.
I didn't have much
hope we would find any weapons, mine or otherwise, if and when we
located the security office.
Wondering if we shouldn't have checked on the status of the ship,
whether not we were
anchored or docked, I mentioned it to my brother. "Maybe we should go
top side, see where we
are."
"Maybe, but we might be seen then," he said. "I'm sure they're just
playin' us along, lettin' us
think we've got a chance, but no use to go out in what might be plain
view so soon."
"Okay," I agreed. "Hey!"
"Yea?"
"Here's the security office?"
"So it says, anyway. Should we knock?"
"You'll never change, Rick," I said.
"You thought I had," he responded, as he once again used his credit
card to open the door. I
wondered briefly if that card was any good now that he was broke.
"Yes, I thought you had, but I was drugged. That's one thing I'm sure
of. I feel so different
now."
"Let's be grateful for that and see if we can find your gun and maybe
one for me."
"Okay."
We entered the security office slowly. There was a light on there,
just as there had been in the
Captain's quarters. And just as in Gethers' domain, there was no one
about. We began to search
for weapons.
"If they left guns here, they are probably behind locked doors," I
noted. "There are several
cabinets."
"Yea," he acknowledged. "Let's see if any of them will open."
We began opening cabinets and drawers. Some of them were locked, some
were not. We found
no weapons. When we'd opened everything in sight, I said, "Well, looks
like we struck out."
"I guess," Rick said, and then his eye was caught by something shiny
under one of the cabinets.
"Unless---"
"Unless what?"
"Unless there are guns in that secret compartment," he finished.
"What secret compartment?" I wanted to know, following his gaze and
seeing nothing but a
huge storage cabinet.
"That one," he said, pointing. "It looks like it's built in, but it
isn't. See, there's space around
it."
I moved closer. "You're right, it's portable."
We both knelt down to examine our find. There seemed to be no opening.
Lost in concentration
we did not hear the door open. When we did, we both reeled around.
Before I knew what was
happening, Rick pushed me down and then got between me and the man who
had entered the
security office. It flashed through my mind that this was typical
behavior for my brother. Even
when we were at our best at P.I. work, and I was able to fend for myself
very well, instinct
caused him to protect his younger sibling.
I leaned out around Rick to see who had joined us. It was Hawthorne,
the man who had
questioned me in the Captain's quarters earlier. "So," he said, pointing
a pistol at us. "I see you
two have chosen to reunite."
"You knew we would, didn't you, Hawthorne?" Rick asked him.
"Yes, we were pretty sure. That's why we left you to your own devices
for a while."
I shoved out to where I was facing him as squarely as my brother was.
"Would you mind telling
us what this is all about, Mr. Hawthorne?"
"Yes, I would mind," he said. "At least, I don't care to tell you now.
Instead, I want you to
come with me. Move slowly in front of me, both of you, and then out the
door. We're going for a
walk."
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