Anchors Aweigh - 6 (10 page)
My family remained with me throughout my delightful meal. I tried to act like someone who’d just lost her memory might act. You know, someone hesitant to make eye contact. Quiet. (A challenge for me in and of itself.) A little vague. A little nervous. A lot vulnerable. Since I’d never been a student of drama, I was basically winging it. Still, I’d picked up a thing or two from soap operas myself.
It was an uncomfortable breakfast—six pairs of probing eyes fixed on little ol’…what was my name again? Oh, yes. Tressa.
Once I’d finished every bite—remember, I was starvin’, Marvin—I decided I needed some alone time, some time to figure out what in God’s name I’d been thinking when I began this soap scam. I put my head back on my pillow and shut my eyes. Ever the observant physician, Dr. Baker, shooed my family members out of the room, citing my need for rest and quiet. They reluctantly agreed and, one by one, they kissed my cheek or squeezed my hand and left. My father was the last to go. Not normally a demonstrative guy—we sort of share that trait—he put a hand to my forehead and gently pushed the hair back from my face and smiled down at me.
“We’ll talk later,” he promised, which surprised me, too. My dad isn’t the chatty type.
Once they left, I mulled over my options. I could take my chances with a nice, long nap and, if I woke up, I could discover my memory had returned. Of course, when I did, I’d have to watch my back for the remainder of the cruise—meaning less time to watch the back of a wife in peril and more time devoted to dodging Aunt Mo and questions I wasn’t ready to answer concerning the sudden “breakup” with Manny. Still, it would take considerable skill to pull this ruse off. And while I knew I wasn’t the ditzy dumb blonde I’d made myself out to be for the better part of my life, I wasn’t at all certain I was ready for a prime-time role as an amnesiac.
I supposed I could play it by ear, row with the flow, see how it went and hope I’d know when the time was right to drop the act. Plus, the side benefit of being able to thumb my nose—oh so innocently—at Wedding Wrangler Mo was nigh on to irresistible.
Drowsiness overtook me and, despite Taylor’s warning about falling asleep, I slept nonetheless.
I was dreaming. I was swimming laps, back and forth, back and forth in the gloriously inviting waters of
The Epiphany’s
pool, my body buoyant and alive. I got to the end of a lap and started to shove myself up out of the water to take a long, deep breath, but for some reason I couldn’t break the plane of the water’s surface. Flailing about with my hands, I tried to propel my head out of the water to suck in restorative air, but it was as if there was a cover over the entire pool. My lungs began to burn, heavy and tight in my torso. I tried to cry out for help but found the pressure too intense to produce more than a squeak.
It took a few more seconds before I came fully awake and it took a few additional seconds for me to realize that, rather than a pool cover, there was a pillow over my face. I needed an additional ten count to realize someone was pressing down on the pillow. Hard. Add several more seconds to the clock before I realized this meant that someone was trying to kill me.
Okay, okay. This was your basic bona fide blonde moment here. What can I say? I was in a weak, vulnerable state.
Pain shot through my head as the knot on my skull was pressed hard against the bed. I reached out above me in an attempt to grab something, anything, to fend off my attacker. Hair. A nose. An eyeball. I wasn’t picky. Instead, when I reached out, I caught hold of fabric rather than hair or skin. I pulled. I felt my strength faltering and knew I had to do something quick before Taylor was proven right—again—and I fell into a permanent sleep.
I started to throw myself back and forth on the bed, hoping to dislodge the hands on the pillow or maybe tip the bed over. I’d kind of forgotten I was on a boat and the bed was probably bolted down. The best I could manage was to tip myself off the bed and onto the floor, bringing my bed-sheets and blanket with me. Running footsteps reached me beneath my blanket tent as I fought to escape the bed linens. Too late I freed myself, and by the time I could see and breathe again, my assailant had beamed out of sickbay.
I got unsteadily to my feet, dragging the bedclothes up around me. Something floated to the floor. I bent over to pick it up. I frowned. It looked like a buff. Like the cloth kerchiefs they wear on
Survivor
to identify each tribe member. This buff was black and red, with white skulls and crossbones. This buff was one-size-fits-all. And this buff had come from the head of one very real threat. It was a buff that represented the ultimate challenge.
I stuck it on my head, tying it in the back, taking care to avoid harsh contact with the knot on my skull.
Outwit.
Outlast.
Outplay.
Outlive.
That had just become the new theme of this ultimate Custom Cruise experience.
I was just about to jot a quick thank-you note to Bones Baker, to explain I was feeling much better and needed some fresh air and was checking myself out of the sickbay, when a noise in the outer office brought my chin up sharply. Pray, what was this—a villain returned to finish said dastardly deed?
I switched the light off and held my breath. I looked at the rumpled bed sheets and scurried over to place the pillows underneath the bedding, picking up the covers and throwing them over the pillows to make it look like someone was in the bed. I’ve seen this in the movies a million times and I still have to wonder how anyone can mistake pillows for a person. I looked around the room for something—anything—I could use as a weapon, just in case my opponent was returning for round two of his pillow fight.
My eyes settled on a reflex hammer and I shook my head. Too wimpy. I saw a big jar of cotton swabs, but it was plastic. Where was a cold, ruthless, stainless steel speculum when you needed one? I grabbed the plastic cotton ball container, not wanting to be empty-handed, and scurried to stand in the corner near the door.
“Knock, knock.” The whispered words reached me, eliciting a shiver by bringing to mind the whispered words by the would-be murderer on his cell phone and in the stairwell. Then I frowned. What kind of premeditated murderer prefaced his dirty deed with a knock-knock joke?
“Hello? Miss Turner?”
I raised the plastic jar over my head as the door opened. A shadow fell into the room. My fingers tightened around my pathetic weapon.
A tall, dark head appeared around the door. The figure walked slowly to the bed, standing over it before a hand reached out to pull back the sheets. A fraction of a second before I brought the plastic jar down on the dark head, I recognized Sam Davenport’s horseshoe ring on the hand grasping a pillow. The identification came too late to call off the hit entirely, but I managed to alter the force and path of my impromptu weapon somewhat. Instead of a full-strength blow to the head, Davenport’s shoulder bore the brunt of my downward heave.
“Ooomph!” Davenport pivoted, his hands striking a macho martial arts pose that meant business.
I gulped. I was toast.
“Hold it!” I yelled, putting my hands up. “I give up!”
Security Chief Davenport froze. His eyes widened in surprise. “Miss Turner? What are you doing out of bed? What are you doing period?” he asked.
“I think it’s called defending myself,” I said, remembering my amnesiac role. I put some distance between me and the security chief. “Who are you?” I asked.
“You don’t remember me?” he asked, and I hesitated.
“No. But I’m guessing you’re not a blood relative.”
He gave me a long look. “When Dr. Baker briefed me, he said you had residual memory issues. I was hoping he was mistaken,” he said.
“Briefed you? Are you the captain?” I asked. “Should I, like, salute?”
He shook his head and reached a hand out in my direction, wincing as he rotated his arm a couple of times before taking my hand. “I’m in charge of security on
The Epiphany,”
he said. “We met yesterday. You came to my office to report a security concern.”
“I did?” I said, shaking his hand with a weak, limp grip of my own.
“You have no memory of that meeting either?” he asked, and I shook my head, thinking that bold-faced lying was becoming easier and easier all the time. Hmm. Maybe I had a future in politics.
“Everything’s still a bit of a blank,” I said, “but Dr. Baker assures me it’s just temporary. What kind of security concern did I have?” I asked him. “Hopefully not leaky lifeboat issues or terrorism terrors,” I said.
A slight smile crossed his lips. “No, nothing like that,” he said. “And it’s not important, Miss Turner. I was able to assuage your anxieties, I believe,” he told me.
I smiled.
Right.
“Dr. Baker did mention that you told him you believed someone might have pushed you down the stairs causing your injuries,” he went on. “Is that correct? Do you believe someone pushed you?” he pressed.
I debated telling Sam Davenport the entire truth here, spilling my guts about the fake amnesia, grabbing hold of him and shaking him silly as I assured him that, yes! Yes! Someone had shoved me down those stairs! And yes! Yes! Lives were in peril aboard the
Epiphany,
but something held me back.
Maybe it was the way he’d whispered my name outside the door. Maybe it was the way he’d crept to the side of the bed. Maybe it was the way he’d looked at me when I’d jumped out from behind the door and beaned him. All I knew was that I didn’t know enough to trust him. Or to not trust him, really, but I couldn’t risk sharing confidences with no one else in earshot.
“It was really more of an impression than a recollection,” I explained, trying to choose my words carefully. “I’d just regained consciousness when Dr. Baker started questioning me and the thing that stood out in my mind was the helpless feeling of being propelled backwards by some external force and a feeling that I wasn’t alone. So that’s what I told him.”
Davenport hesitated. “I see. You don’t recall any specifics of your fall, just a sense that you were pushed rather than having tripped and fallen. Right?” he asked.
“I guess,” I said, putting a hand to my back of the head in a
Poor, pitiful me
gesture. “Everything’s still confused.”
He nodded. “I’m sure that’s true.” He looked at the bed and frowned. “You must still think someone is out to get you or you wouldn’t have staged the bed scene and hidden in wait behind the door,” he pointed out.
The guy was smart, I’d give him that. Now, how to respond?
“Falling down a flight of stairs and then waking up with a killer headache and not really recognizing anything or anybody is pretty unsettling,” I pointed out. “I hope I can be forgiven for some level of paranoia,” I added.
Davenport raised an eyebrow. “Of course, Miss Turner. Much can be forgiven and explained by your experience,” he agreed. “But I’m glad to see you appear to be holding up well despite your ordeal. It is also part of my job to make sure you are receiving the care and support you require. You were planning to check out of our little hospital here?” he asked, nodding at the bed.
“Yes. I dozed for a while and felt much better and thought I could use some fresh air,” I told him. “I was just getting ready to write a thank-you note to Dr. Baker and take my leave.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t remain here for one night? Let the doctor monitor you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think hospitals, doctors and I jell too well,” I said. “I can always come back if I begin to feel worse or relapse. What I think I need right now is to get back to a regular routine and see if that helps in the memory department.”
“Sounds reasonable,” he said.
See? I can do reasonable.
I scratched off a hasty note to Dr. Baker, telling him I couldn’t take it anymore and I was outta here, and thanking him for everything. I clipped the note to my medical chart and grabbed my book bag and left the health and medical offices. Davenport was waiting for me. After the darkness of the sickroom, the bright sunshine blinded me. I put a hand up to block the rays and fished sunglasses out of my bag.
“Interesting bag,” Davenport observed. “One of a kind, I imagine. Where’d you get it?”
I was about to launch into a description of the historic Titan Hotel near the rim of the Grand Canyon where I’d found the bag, and indulge in a diatribe about the ten-year-old Townsend terror who’d ruined my original rucksack, but caught myself just in time.
“I wondered about the bag myself. My…father tells me I bought it at a gift shop in a hotel in Arizona. Apparently I go for function over form,” I added.
“I see,” Davenport remarked. “And the kerchief?” He nodded at my buff. “I believe they’re using them in the team competitions. How’d you wrangle that one?” he asked.
“Someone left it for me,” was all I said.
He saw me down to the main deck and left me after gaining my promise to come to him if I recalled anything relating to the incident on the stairs—or anything else that might be helpful. As if.
It was a little after two, a warm and breezy afternoon, the sky above as blue as the ocean that surrounded us. I sucked in the invigorating scent of sea breeze, and my head lost some of its fuzziness. Passengers of a certain size and shape garbed in stretchy shorts paired with wifebeater shirts, tank or sports bra tops were clustered in various groups, chatting and sipping pastel-colored drinks.
“Tressa! Tressa Turner! Over here!” I spotted Courtney Kayser waving me over. As she moved in my direction with her best bud, Sherri, in tow, I noticed she’d been with the group from the Stardust. Huddled together, they got my full attention when I noticed the buffs they sported were identical to the one my visitor had left behind in the sickbay. Coincidence? I wasn’t a big believer.
“Yay! I see you’re one of us!” Courtney squealed, coming up to me and pointing at the buff on my head. “Some of us got together from the Stardust the other night and decided it would be fun if we made up our own team. I’m so glad you’re with us. Aren’t these buffs cool? What a fun idea! We’re calling ourselves the Scallywags. Cute, huh?”