A Man Overboard (5 page)

Turning with deliberate poise, the man set his gaze on him. “
If
your wife went overboard, sir, and
if
she survived the fall, there is no way she could tread that water for three hours. I’m sorry, but we’ve resumed our normal heading.”

“You
what
?” And he thought of Stacey in the water, watching the ship fade away as he had. He struggled against the monster restraining him, flailing wildly until he was completely spent. The man then dropped him to the floor. Crumbling to his knees, Jack attempted to get a grip on himself. He didn’t
know
that Stacey went overboard. He didn’t
know
that she was…

His hands were shaking, his eyes wide with incomprehension.

“Get him some clothes,” he heard someone say. He looked down at himself. He was still naked. Under any other circumstance, he would be embarrassed. Right now, however, he couldn’t bring himself to care at all.

“You left me naked for three hours?” he seethed.

A pair of pants was tossed to him, his own from one of the dressers. “Put these on, will you?”

Once he had his pants on, the man with all the good news said, “Mr. Green, I’m Doug Bennington, head of security on this ship. We’re going to do everything we can to find out what happened to you and to locate your wife. But first, I need you to do a couple of things. One, appreciate the miracle of your being alive right now. Two, stop assaulting my men. And three,” he handed him a note, “explain
this
to me.”

Jack took the note from him and tried to calm down as the words danced all over the place in his trembling grasp. Finally, he looked up to Bennington. “Where did you find this?”

“It was on the bedside table. You didn’t write it?”

He shook his head.

“Is it your wife’s handwriting?”

He stumbled for some kind of meaning or explanation, but nothing came. It didn’t make sense. “I think so.”

Bennington sighed. “Are you still sticking with your masked men story?”

“What?” Jack’s eyes snapped upward. “You think I’m making it up? You think… What the hell do you think? You think we… You think
I
…”

“I know only three things. We fished you out of the water, your wife is missing, and there’s a suicide note that she supposedly wrote. How do
you
think it looks, Mr. Green?”

He didn’t say anything. What could he say? His mind was too busy swimming against the whirlpool of disaster for any kind of rational response.

“Well,” Bennington said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to confine you to your room for the duration of the trip.”

* * * *

A couple hours later, Jack was alone, sitting on the bed. He was running every detail he could recall over and over inside his spinning head, but they were all insignificant and offered no clue as to why masked men would want him and Stacey dead. He thought of Joseph, his little blond-haired buddy, and missed him more than he ever thought possible. But how could he return home without Stacey? How could he survive his son’s reaction to
that
news? He had to find her.

There was a knock on the door before the
beep
of an electronic card unlocked it. Bennington stepped in.

“Anything?” Jack asked, barely able to lift his head.

“We’re still looking.”

Jack thrust a hand through his hair. “So what happens now? Besides holding me prisoner?”

“It will be handled by the police force once we reach port.”

“What police force? You better mean the FBI, pal.”

“The country that holds the ship’s registration is responsible for handling these matters.”

“Excuse me?”

“I understand your frustration, but that’s the way things are,” Bennington explained.

Jack leaned forward, his eyes on fire. “You’re telling me, that since the ship is registered in the Bahamas, it’s up to the Bahamian police to investigate what happened to my wife?”

“That is correct.”

Standing, Jack began to pace, his blood boiling. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered under his breath.

“You’re a US citizen, so there is a good chance the FBI will get involved.”

“You don’t believe me, do you? You actually think that I tossed my wife off the ship.”

Bennington sighed. “Including staff, there are almost six thousand people on this ship that we are still responsible for. We have a suicide note written by your missing wife—”

“And you have my testimony that three men threw me off the damn boat!”

“There’s nothing more we can do, Mr. Green. I really am very sorry. We’ll continue to search the ship, but until we reach port and allow the proper authorities to take over, all we can do is hope she’s okay.”

“Hope she’s
okay
? She’s at the bottom of the ocean, you piece of—” Despair fueled his anger with hot tears that were suddenly streaking down his face. “Do I look like someone who wants to die? Like someone who came out here to jump? Like some freakin’ lunatic who wanted to get rid of some tramp of a wife?” The resolve he’d spent building over the last two hours slowly melted away beneath a whole new wave of grief. “She had
cancer
! We came here for one last good time before…” He clenched his fists. “Why the hell would she jump the first night?” He sobbed in frustration, wanting to feel the guy’s vertebrae crackle and pop in his bare hands. “And what, you think I’m making up the masked men? For what reason? Why would I do that?”

Bennington stood and calmly shrugged. “I don’t know you, so I obviously can’t answer that question. Maybe you forced her to write the letter, and then you threw her overboard, except that you slipped yourself. Or maybe
you
wrote the letter.”

“You little—” Jack almost charged the man.

“All I’m saying is that I’m ill-equipped to do anything more in this situation. It’s a matter for the police now. As soon as we reach port, the proper authorities will be here to further investigate. In the meantime, I have six thousand other passengers to look after.”

9

Jack spent the next two days sitting on a bed and staring at a blank hotel wall in Nassau while the local police force did as little investigating as possible into his wife’s disappearance and his own “alleged” abduction. He would have taken a flight home sooner had he not been so terrified of confronting Joseph with the news of his mother’s death. It was news he had gotten himself once, and he couldn’t even imagine presenting such pain to his son now. Every time he picked up the phone to call a taxi, he thought of Joseph’s face as his little mind would try to comprehend the bitter sword of truth plunging into his heart. Even now, after so many years, Jack’s own heart still bore the scars of such news. After slamming the phone back into its cradle, he could only bury his head in his hands and start sobbing all over again.

Today was different though.

Now, day three of this nightmare, he yearned desperately to hear Joseph’s voice, to see his smile. He
needed
his son if he was going to make it another week, needed to hear his voice if he was going to make it another
day
. The knowledge that they would eventually get through this and that Joseph would need him as much as he needed Joseph in order to do so was the only anchor fastening Jack to the spinning rock spiraling crazily though the galaxy. If not for his son, he would be spending the next week and a half getting as drunk as possible in preparation for the trip back to Miami—with, of course, no intention of actually reaching Miami. Without Stacey, his life would be a joke, the punch line not worth sticking around for.

So Joseph would have to fill that hole, become the sun that rose over his world every morning, the only star capable of blotting out the pain. But he needed to hear his son’s squeaky voice now, before the grief stormed back and changed his mind.

He swore, slammed the phone down, and then slammed it again for added measure. Joseph and Mother Viktoriya were failing to answer his calls. He stared at it, his mind racing through different scenarios that might prevent them from picking up the phone. Of course, there were limitless possibilities, all of which could be innocently rational. Nevertheless, he felt a bubble of concern rising in his stomach. Grabbing the phone, he called a taxi.

After arrangements were made, he walked to the bed and picked up their luggage—his and Stacey’s—before leaving the hotel room. It was time to go home. He was done waiting on the police. It was obvious, no matter how much pressure he put on them, that nothing was going to be done. And though he hated to admit it, now that they were docked, there was probably nothing they
could
do. Even if they did believe him, the men in masks were surely gone by now. With no body of evidence, nothing but his word and that damn suicide note…

The suicide note.

It chipped at his subconscious, an itch begging to be scratched, but there was still too much shock and pain engulfing him to allow for a clear and reasonable evaluation of all the facts. That was all for another time. Not now. Now, he needed to get on a plane and figure out how he was going to explain this to his son.

10

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t take his eyes off the water below. An image of Stacey floating face down somewhere out there, bobbing up and down, would not leave him. The empty seat beside him just sat there laughing, taunting his inability to process the sudden, horrifying turn of events. As he finally managed to peel his eyes off the ocean, he wondered again if leaving Nassau translated into giving up on Stacey. What if she was there? What if she had been kidnapped, and she was actually on the islands he just left? But even if she was, what could he do about it? He wasn’t familiar with the Bahamas, didn’t know a single person who could help him. He wasn’t one of the characters in a movie that always seemed to have the necessary background needed to go on a solo rescue mission—as if this sort of thing only happened to ex-intelligence officers or army veterans. He was a salesman from Philadelphia. Any chance he’d have at finding his wife would come via the FBI or Interpol or some agency that knew how to find US citizens abroad. Because he sure as hell didn’t.

“Excuse me, sir, can I get you anything?” a stewardess asked, leaning over.

He rolled his heavy eyes to the young lady. “Something strong…please.”

“Would you like—”

“Anything. The strongest you have.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “And as much as you can.”

“Sir, I—”

“Listen, Kati,” he said, his eyes focusing on her nametag, “my wife is somewhere out there…floating.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder at the window.

Her brow furrowed.

“We were on a cruise,” he said, and his voice matched the flatness in his eyes.

Her hand went to her mouth as if the surprise might physically jump out of it. “Oh, I am so sorry, sir… I…”

He nodded. “Something strong. Please.”

* * * *

Two hours later, he was pretty much drunk. But somehow, in his drunkenness, he was able to find thoughts unimpeded by the anguish that had for three days prevented any kind of analytical process. Reaching into the seatback in front of him, he extracted a magazine. He opened up to the emptiest page he could find and started making notes.

—
men in black masks

—suicide note

Unfortunately, that was as far as he got. There were no other pieces to include. So, emerging from the depths of drunken stupor was the conclusion that the whole thing must have been a case of mistaken identity. It was the only thing that made sense. Someone got a room number mixed up.
Drugs
… They’d mistaken him for some dealer that crossed his supplier. Had to be. But then what would they do with Stacey…
to
Stacey? He didn’t want to think about that now, not while his brain was actually emotionally numb enough to process the thought.

He leaned back against the headrest and massaged his temples.
So think, damn it.
When he got home, he would contact the FBI himself. The police in the Bahamas, along with the security people from the boat, assured him that they had reported the incident to the FBI, but Jack didn’t necessarily believe that. Their whole approach had been to do nothing at all, choosing to disbelieve his story rather than to do anything worthwhile about it. It was infuriating. As soon as he could, he would get on a computer and search for more options, see who had jurisdiction and who might be able to help.

As soon as he could
…

The guy sitting in front of him was sound asleep, his laptop open on the empty seat beside him.

Beyond the point of caring, Jack reached around the seat and quietly took the man’s computer. After taking another reassuring peek at the man’s tanned eyelids, he placed a finger on the touchpad and brought the screen to life. Thankfully, there was a portable Wi-Fi device plugged into one of the USB ports, and the computer was already logged onto the internet. The man’s Facebook status was up, and judging from the pictures he’d just uploaded, his time in the Bahamas had been a little on the wild side. Jack minimized the page and opened a new one.

Half an hour later, the man still asleep in front of him, he had found enough information on cruise ship crime to infuriate him all over again. In his searching for some kind of direction, he’d come across a dozen sites dedicated to cruise victims. Hundreds of stories were documented. Drug trafficking, rape, theft, missing children, murder… The accounts of negligence, cover-ups, and lies by the cruise lines in these instances were maddening, provoking one congressman to declare there being no better place to commit a crime than on a cruise ship. You were almost guaranteed to get away with it. In one instance that Jack read about, a woman had gone missing—the crew packing away her possessions and failing to inform anyone that she’d even disappeared! The police were never contacted nor was her family. Not until her father reported her missing was anything done. And even then, it took the cruise ship company three days to confirm that she was even a passenger on the ship! The number of disappearances over the years was staggering, from little children to crew members. It was even estimated that a person went overboard every
two
weeks
!