Chapter 17
Seventeen
Chloe could see everything that was happening.
She could hear every little bit of noise around her.
She could smell day-old food, the chemicals in the air-conditioning and almost taste every little nuance of the air.
She could even feel the floor beneath her.
Her senses were vibrantly alive.
What she couldn’t do was move. Every step of the way, she had felt more and more as if she was turning to stone. She hadn’t thought that she’d been hit
hard enough for much of anything to get into her system!
And yet, she had come along. She had come along because of the blade of the knife that was positioned right between Edward
Thompson’s ribs by his heart. And she had come along because . . .
While there was breath, there was hope.
Of course, they had long suspected that more than one person had to be involved for the deaths to occur in more than one place, and in the end, to more than one or two people at a time.
But all the while they’d investigated, she hadn’t seen this combo clearly. Perhaps she should have. She’d imagined things
the other way, perhaps. Daniel McClintock and Jeff Henderson working together, the two men who were lower on their individual
totem poles, resentful, determined to take control.
But no . . .
There they had been playing bocce ball when she had suddenly seen Daniel and Broderick get into an argument, then the two
walk away and Daniel sink down into one of the lounges, looking away from his brother.
Meantime, she’d heard Gina let out an “Ouch!” The woman thought that she’d been bitten by a flying bug.
And as Daniel sank into the chair and Gina gasped, Chloe had heard Edward let out a strangled sound as well and she looked
over to see that Sally was white as a sheet. Broderick was next to Edward, standing as if he just had an arm around the man,
but . . .
His other hand was on the man’s chest, the knife all but hidden by the fall of Edward’s casual jacket.
She’d seen Jeff’s look of stunned horror as he stared at his wife and heard her warning to him that he could die if he didn’t
shut the hell up as she jabbed something into his arm.
Her 3D-printed gun was in her bag, on one of the chairs. With the right manipulation, she might have gotten to it. And she
had. Of course, Broderick had stared at her and warned that she’d be the one to kill Edward if she didn’t go along with what
they were doing. She’d felt Celia Henderson behind her and she thought that she’d twisted enough to avoid the full thrust
of the needle into her arm.
She’d heard Broderick whispering to Celia, letting her know that Amelia was ahead of them; she’d called. She’d taken care of the doctor and George and even the guard who had come in to help when she’d called out in distress.
Doctor Kilbride had been left behind, but she’d coerced George and the security guard down with her.
They were flat out on the ground, just as Gina, Sally, Edward and Jeff were—right along with her, right in the place where
they separated waste before either recycling it or sending it out into the sea.
But Wes would know! He had gone to the hospital, she knew. He had gone to check on George and Amelia.
He’ll know! He’d known when Amelia had managed to get out of the brig that she was planning something. And, of course, one
of them would have gotten into the ship’s computers and made sure that the cameras were down.
But Wes was out there, somewhere. Somewhere close.
And still . . .
Since she’d been a little kid, she’d always been taught to be independent. To take care of herself—and to help others when
they couldn’t take care of themselves.
But she had been hit with the needle.
Still, she’d known what it was, and she’d twisted; she couldn’t have gotten the full dose intended for her. In fact, she could
still feel the wetness where the liquid in Celia’s syringe had failed to reach its target.
Wes was out there on the ship somewhere!
Was he close?
Did he know?
She listened to Broderick, who seemed to have gone into a full-throttle psychotic break. He wasn’t going to shoot this group.
He was going to send them paralyzed into the water, let them drown.
She had to do something! She had grabbed her bag as she’d nodded, agreeing to go along with whatever they were doing. Because at first, of course, he’d made it sound like they’d live if they just obey.
“With Edward out of the way, along with my hanger-on brother and Celia’s pathetic excuse for a husband, Celia, Amelia and
I will reign, we’ll reign supreme! We will eventually own the entire cloud!”
“Not just the cloud!” Amelia added, smiling. “We’ll own the world, no, the universe!” She was as pleased with herself as could
be. But then she grew serious. “Come on. Let’s get to work. Find the disposal shaft. Don’t forget, the security offices are
just down the hall past all the bins up in the aft area! We’ve got to move! Oh, and trust me! This time I will take care of
Sally.”
“Let’s hope!” Broderick said. “You messed it up pretty badly before.”
“Two times!” Celia told her. “Let’s hope—”
“I’m out here and I brought everything necessary, right?” Amelia snapped back.
Chloe didn’t know if she did or didn’t blink; she could only feel the heaviness of her own body, as if she was frozen in time
and space.
But she knew everything that was going on; she could see the horror of what was happening around her.
She could watch. Yes, she could see clearly.
And . . . she discovered she could blink. And she had to do more. Much more.
The horror that had claimed others, the terror that haunted those on shipboard, would eventually come to her—and she’d be
expelled to drown right along with those she was sworn to protect.
All she could do was hope, pray and believe that she and Wesley had followed the right steps . . .
And that there just might be a miracle.
Step by step. Her mind was active; she had to think back, back to the very beginning and determine just how she had gotten
to be where she was . . .
And how the hell was she going to get out of the situation.
She couldn’t even open her mouth to scream . . .
Or can I?
Then she heard it. The softest whisper.
“As you wish!”
She realized then that, miraculously, somehow, Wes was there; he was inching toward her, coming around the giant green recycling
tank that sat just by her position. And she heard him whisper, “Oh, and another quote from my favorite movie: ‘Your friend
here is only mostly dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead!’”
She realized that she could smile. Wes had known that she would have avoided the full thrust of a needle—the full dosage needed
to absolutely incapacitate her—if she could.
And he might have acted; she knew that he had his 3D-printed weapon. But he was watching as well for what weapons their captors
were holding over them, preparing to use on them, Chloe imagined.
Wes . . .
Her smile grew. Even now, caught up in the deadly tail end of their investigation, he would ease her mind with jokes about
The Princess Bride, since he’d been teased over the name “Westley” since they arrived on the ship.
The second he’d caught on to what was happening, his determination had been to save her and the others.
But he also knew that she would also do everything in her power as well, not just to save herself, but to save those who were around them in the same position.
She also knew why he was waiting.
Just as she hadn’t known until the last several minutes who was involved and who might be innocent, he had to know, as well.
And now . . .
Now it was time to do something.
And she had been able to blink. She’d even been able to smile and she knew as well that she’d be able to talk, give Wes exactly
what he needed, though he might know everything already—two of their suspects were flat on the floor while the other three . . .
“They’ll catch you! The only thing you’ll ever rule is a jail cell!” she warned as loudly as she could, which was barely more
than a whisper.
Okay, her voice was pathetic, but . . .
Broderick was by the disposal shaft. But Amelia and Celia were still standing halfway between their victims and Broderick’s
position by the hull as he studied the mechanism to achieve his desired goal.
“I screwed up!” Amelia snapped at Celia. “But you did a hell of a job with this one!”
“Hey, I did amazingly well! I got them all down here before they became deadweight!” Celia snapped back.
And that was it. Wes’s chance to move.
He leaped up from the shadows, 3D-printed gun pointed at the two women.
“I’d say that you both screwed up,” Wes informed them. “Drop your weapons, drop them now. I’m sure you have secreted a few
knives on you and that you may even have a few 3D-printed weapons, as well.”
Amelia swiftly drew her own weapon. “Celia, damn it! He can’t shoot both of us!”
But by then, Chloe had discovered that she could roll, that she could move and her determination was so strong that she could reach her bag and draw her own weapon, aim it Celia and warn, “Don’t do it!”
“We can take them!” Amelia cried, pointing her gun at Chloe.
Chloe didn’t want to kill the woman. She wanted her put away; she wanted justice for those who had died and for a woman like
Amelia, life without the possibility of parole would be hell on earth.
But Amelia was taking aim to shoot her. She and Wes fired at the same time; the gun went flying from Amelia’s hand as she
screamed and fell, her wrist blown to hell along with her left knee.
Celia evidently didn’t want to die.
She was surrendering even as five of the ship’s security officers came around the bins, ready to take her into custody.
But they heard a resounding curse and looked to the hull.
Broderick McClintock had maneuvered the disposal hatch.
And he was gone.
“Can he survive that?” one of the security officers murmured.
“Yeah, possibly,” another answered him, glancing up as he set Celia Henderson’s wrists into a pair of cuffs.