Choppy Seas (A Rowan Gray Mystery Book 5) Read online

  “I happen to like the fact that she says whatever comes to her mind.” Rowan jutted out her bottom lip and folded her arms across her chest. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  Quinn found her expression adorable. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he agreed, fighting the urge to kiss her pouty lips. “In your case it could be, though. You’re in a unique position and we both know it. Pretending otherwise isn’t going to do either of us any good.”

  “Sally would never purposely hurt me.” Rowan refused to let it go. “Maybe I should tell her what’s going on.”

  “I’m not necessarily against it.”

  “But you’re not necessarily for it either,” Rowan prompted. “You think it’s a bad idea.”

  “I think you’re in a precarious situation,” Quinn clarified. “I think that Sally would never purposely hurt you, but she has a huge mouth and often says things she doesn’t mean. I think that if the wrong person finds out what you can do that somehow he or she will try to use it against you and I don’t want that.”

  “Or try to have me locked up as a crackpot,” Rowan grumbled, pulling back a bit so she could drag a hand through her hair. “My father told me that I was never to tell anyone what I could do.”

  “You told me.”

  “I did.” A small smile played at the corner of Rowan’s lips. “Even before I did it I thought it was a bad idea. You were so calm, though, and it was as if I sensed I could trust you.”

  “You can trust me. I’ll die before I betray you.”

  “That was dramatic.”

  Quinn’s grin was lightning quick. “It was a little soap opera-ish, wasn’t it?”

  “More than a little.”

  Quinn shrugged. “I won’t ever betray you, though. I mean that.” He was deathly serious. “As for Sally, she would never purposely do it either. She might slip up, though. It’s in her nature.”

  “Yeah.” Rowan ruefully rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t know what to do. My father always told me that it would be a mistake to trust someone enough to tell the truth. I already did that when I trusted you, though, and that turned out okay.”

  “Come here.” Quinn pulled her in for a hug and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You’re dealing with way too much right now. You have an uncle you haven’t seen since you were a kid who showed up, dropped a bomb on you, and then took off again. You have a kid you’re attached to who has gone missing. You have me and even though I’m delightful I’m still a bit of work. That’s on top of the fact that everyone is sick of these kids and the warring adults who are supposed to take care of them. Oh, and your father – who you thought was dead – is probably alive and out there. That’s a lot for you to deal with.”

  “You’re leaving out the part where I see strange symbols in my camera and a new one just popped up,” Rowan mumbled, allowing Quinn to sway back and forth because the movement soothed her. “I’m a weirdo.”

  Quinn smoothed the back of her hair. “You’re my weirdo … and it’s going to be okay.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I have faith.”

  Rowan wasn’t sure she could live on faith alone. “Yeah, well, I still think maybe I should trust Sally with the big secret. I don’t want to lose her as a friend.”

  “You won’t lose her as a friend.”

  “She sounded angry.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t like being out of the loop. You won’t lose her as a friend, though. I promise you that. As for telling her, can you please hold off doing that until we’ve made it through to the other side of this mess? I can only take one crisis at a time.”

  Rowan nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. I shouldn’t make an important decision when I’m emotional and worked up.”

  “That right there is something we agree on.” Quinn pulled back so he could give her a quick kiss. “I know what I’m going to be doing this morning. What are you going to be doing?”

  “Hanging out with cheerleaders and taking photos. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Okay, well, be careful. Don’t wander off on your own if you can help it.”

  “I’m not the right age to be targeted.”

  “No, but if whoever is doing this is getting nervous, he or they might realize that grabbing you is the perfect way to get me to do what they want,” Quinn pointed out. “Don’t give them the opportunity to do that.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good. As for me, I will contact you as soon as I have any information.”

  “Just find her.” Rowan forced a smile that didn’t make it all the way to her eyes. “She’s been gone for days now. I don’t want to think about her suffering.”

  “No one does. She’s our top priority right now.”

  “I hope so. I won’t let her be forgotten.”

  “I won’t either. I promise that we won’t stop looking until we find her. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Right back at you.”

  QUINN’S MEN WERE WAITING outside his office when he arrived a few minutes later; the mood in the hallway was somber rather than playful.

  “Thanks for coming.” Quinn was grave. “We have a situation and we need to fix it.”

  “The missing girl?” Trevor Rogan, one of Quinn’s top workers, asked with a dark expression. “She still hasn’t turned up, has she?”

  “She most definitely hasn’t turned up and I’m worried we’re dealing with human trafficking here,” Quinn replied. “We all know what that means … and that we’re running out of time. We land in Bermuda in a little over twenty-four hours. That means we need to find Gabby Fisher before then.

  “Whoever has her isn’t going to risk leaving the ship with her alive because it’s obvious we understand what’s going on now,” he continued. “That means we need to find her … and as soon as possible … if we want a good outcome.”

  “How can we be certain we will have a good outcome?” one of the men asked from the back of the group. Quinn couldn’t quite make out who asked the question.

  “We can’t be certain. As long as there is a chance she’s alive, though, I refuse to give up on her. Now, the front desk has provided me with a list of rooms that have turned down cleaning service since Gabby went missing. While it’s not a foregone conclusion Gabby is in one of these rooms, it is a place to start.”

  “So let’s get moving,” Trevor said, his bravado on full display. “She’s waiting for us to find her.”

  “She is … and we’re going to find her.”

  ROWAN HEADED TO THE dining room rather than the deck when she separated with Quinn. Even though she knew he believed she was being ridiculous when it came to Sally’s reaction, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to talk to the woman … so that’s exactly what she did.

  Rowan found Sally sitting at a tiny table in the back corner of her kitchen when she entered. The room was quiet – the bulk of the workers having left after the breakfast rush – and Rowan took advantage of the situation to give Sally a long once-over. She looked tired. More than that, she looked beaten down. Rowan didn’t like seeing either emotion weighing down her flamboyant friend.

  “Hey.”

  Sally jolted, lifting her chin in surprise as she tore her gaze away from the catalog she perused. “Hey. I … um … what are you doing down here?”

  “I came to see you,” Rowan answered simply as she took a seat next to the surprised woman. “What are you looking at?”

  “Food catalogs. I’m doing some ordering. I have to do it every week.”

  “Right.” Now that they were face-to-face, Rowan wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. “So … um … .”

  “I’m sorry about what I said to you earlier,” Sally offered hurriedly, her cheeks turning crimson. “It wasn’t fair. You don’t have to tell me what’s going on. I was out of place.”

  “It’s not that. It’s not even that something is going on. Okay, a lot of things are goin
g on. It’s just … I don’t know what you expect me to say to you. I’m not even sure why you feel the way you do.”

  “Well, for starters, you’re not a very good actress,” Sally supplied. “I can tell you’re nervous. The thing is, you’ve been a bit fidgety since you landed on the ship. At first I thought it was simply because you were uneasy about being in a new place, but now I’m not so certain. Something is clearly going on with you.”

  “Something is going on with me, but I’m not sure how much I should say.”

  “Does it have to do with Nick Green?”

  The question caught Rowan off guard. “Why would you ask that?”

  “I saw you with him when he was here and you were a lot more intense than normal when you were talking to him.” Sally opted for honesty. “Quinn seemed even more irritated than normal and I watched him one day on the deck. You were sitting at the tiki bar with Nick, and Quinn kind of raced over to you guys and it looked like some arguing was going on.

  “After that, you settled a bit, but you were still agitated,” she continued. “You guys went to dinner – just the three of you – when we were at port. That wasn’t exactly normal behavior for either of you.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize you noticed all that.”

  “I did. You’ve been distant ever since, too. I kind of wondered if I did something to upset you but I’ve given it a lot of thought – and had a number of heart-to-hearts with Demarcus – and he thinks something is going on, too. If you don’t want to tell me what it is, I will have to deal with it. You’re under no obligation to spill your guts.”

  “Yeah.” Rowan wrinkled her nose as she scratched an invisible itch. “The thing is, Nick is part of what’s going on, but it’s not something that can be spread around.”

  “Do you think I would spread your gossip?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “But on accident, you think it’s a possibility,” Sally mused, her expression unreadable. “I guess that’s fair. I do have a big mouth.”

  “You also have a big heart and I like talking to you. It’s just … it’s a big deal and we still don’t know what it means or what’s going to happen.”

  “Okay, well, when you’re ready to talk … .”

  “Nick Green is my uncle.” Rowan blurted it out before she took the time to consider what she was doing. Once the words escaped she understood it was too late to go back in time and reverse her decision so she opted to finish it out. “I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid so I didn’t recognize him right away. Something felt familiar about him, though, and he knew who I was so he kept doing things that could’ve been misconstrued as creepy so he could talk to me.”

  “Oh.” Whatever she was expecting, that wasn’t it. Sally was legitimately flabbergasted by the admission. “Nick Green is your uncle. On your mother or father’s side?”

  “He’s my dad’s brother.”

  “Which probably upset you because he never showed up when your father disappeared and left you alone to deal with things even though you were still basically a kid,” Sally figured. “I guess that explains the tension.”

  “It’s more than that,” Rowan admitted. “You see, my father and Nick had a falling out when I was a kid and Nick was never around. That’s why I didn’t really remember his face. I was young the last time I saw him.”

  “Did he have an excuse for abandoning you when you needed him most?”

  “He was afraid.”

  Sally let loose with a derisive snort. “That’s not much of an excuse.”

  “No, and he admits that. There’s a lot going on – including the fact that he made sure I had enough money to get through college without telling me – but it’s been hard for me to deal with. I think he did his best at the time, that he’s generally a good person, but maybe a little weak.”

  “Are you going to keep seeing him?”

  “That was the plan, but he disappeared not long after we left him to deal with the fallout of that dive thing,” Rowan replied. “He was supposed to get in touch when he got back to Florida, but we haven’t heard from him and he’s stopped returning emails and calls.”

  “What a jerk.” Sympathy washed over Sally as she patted Rowan’s hand. “I’m sorry that happened. It doesn’t seem fair because he’s the only family you’ve got, isn’t he?”

  Rowan felt caught at the question. Still, she’d come this far and it was something of a compromise so she decided to finish it out. She could talk about her father but leave out the omen stuff and it would still constitute as sharing. That would have to be enough … at least for now.

  “He let something slip while we were in the submersible.” Rowan took a moment to gather her courage. “He said my father was alive and he was in contact with him. He said he would answer our questions as soon as he dealt with what happened at the shipwreck site. Then he just disappeared.”

  Sally’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

  Rowan swallowed hard and nodded. “I don’t know what to make of it. I’m antsy and restless. I was busy thinking about it nonstop when Quinn suggested we go to the bar the other night and then there was that whole human-trafficking thing they thought we managed to stop. I guess I just haven’t been able to settle.”

  “I don’t blame you.” Sally’s surprise turned into righteous indignation. “I cannot believe he would tell you that and then run away. What kind of person does that? He’d better hope I don’t see him again because I’ll give him a good kick in the nuts to get the part of his brain that’s supposed to be logical to start working.”

  Rowan cracked a smile, Sally’s fury lessening some of the invisible weight resting on her shoulders. “I look forward to seeing that.”

  “Oh, you poor thing.” Sally shifted her chair so she was closer to Rowan and could put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “You’ve been dealing with a lot, huh? I don’t even see how you’re on your feet given all that.”

  “It’s a matter of prioritizing. Right now, Gabby Fisher is the one who is in immediate danger. She has to be my main focus.”

  “And we have absolutely no idea what happened to her, right?”

  “No. Quinn said the cameras caught her leaving the dining room but lost her in a crowd on the deck. She just disappeared after that. No one can find her on the cameras.”

  “We have pitiful equipment for such an expensive ride.” Sally stroked her chin as she considered the problem. “If she is alive … .”

  “She has to be alive. We would’ve found her already if she was dead and someone dumped her body.”

  “Unless she was tossed overboard.”

  Despite Sally’s sincere reaction to the news about her father, Rowan recognized it was a bad idea to add the omen – er, omens – to the mix. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Traffickers want money for merchandise. You don’t get money for a dead girl.

  “As of last night they were trying to grab a second girl,” she continued. “They failed. I don’t think Gabby is safe, but I don’t think she’s dead either. If the people who have her panic, though, she could end up dead.”

  “So we have to find her.”

  “We definitely have to find her.”

  “Then we’ll look.” Sally appeared determined as she got to her feet. “I have an idea on that. Let me check with Michael to make sure it’s an option and then I’ll be in contact with you and Quinn. I know he’s checking the rooms that have cut off housekeeping, but I don’t think that’s going to be enough. My idea is better. I just need to make sure it can happen.”

  16

  Sixteen

  With nothing better to do than her actual job, Rowan found herself in the practice area after accepting a hug from Sally and promising to keep her updated when information became available.

  The aft deck was packed with people when she arrived so Rowan immediately set about taking photographs. It didn’t take her long to realize that only members of Leighann’s crew were present and she was naturally suspicious ab
out the development.

  “Where are the other girls?” she asked Leighann when the woman made her presence known.

  “What other girls?”

  Rowan couldn’t decide if Leighann was purposely being obnoxious or really didn’t understand the question so she forced herself to remain pleasant. “Claire’s girls. I thought they were supposed to be practicing today, too.”

  “Oh, I’m not up on their schedules.” Leighann was dismissive. “They’re not my responsibility.”

  “No, I guess they’re not.” Rowan ran her tongue over her teeth before snapping another couple of photos. “Still, I would think you’d know about the practice schedule. You have your finger on the pulse of everything when it comes to this competition.”

  Leighann brightened a bit. “I am an excellent organizer.”

  “You are.” Rowan decided to play with Leighann’s rather obvious vanity problem. “I’ve been amazed at how you’ve managed to keep everything straight. It’s a testament to your organizational skills.”

  “Thank you.” This time the smile Leighann let loose was so wide it split her face. “As for the practice schedule, things have been switched a bit. Apparently Claire’s girls don’t want to practice this morning. They’re too busy whining about life not going their way.”

  Rowan bit back a hot retort and regrouped. “Whining?”

  “They’re convinced the world – and more precisely, me – is plotting against them because their captain went missing,” Leighann explained. “I’ve tried telling them that the girl is probably looking for attention and is hiding, but they don’t want to hear it. I’ve even thought perhaps that she is merely embarrassed because she knows my girls are going to mop the floor with her squad and she doesn’t want to compete, but you can’t say things like that to those people because they always take it the wrong way.”