Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Never got an invitation to date him, Deckart?”

Deckart grimaced. “You’d be surprised, man. Ain’t only women on that site. But no, nothing about a George, only a Jane.”

I pulled the knife away and wiped it on Deckart’s shirt. I admired the object and clipped it shut. Deckart’s head fell onto his chest and he began to pant. It was as if he’d given up on dignity. I removed the handcuffs and left him limp in his executive chair.

I said, “I hope you have a change of clothes, Deckart. Starting to smell bad in here.”

He looked up at me. There was real hate in his bloodshot eyes. He said, “You’re a dead man walking.”

I said, “Ain’t that the truth.”

Twenty-Four

The elevator carried me back to the first deck. The reception desk had cleared up somewhat. The guy saw me coming and looked up. Then he shifted his eyes back to the computer. I figured I didn’t look like a client. I rapped Ellie’s badge on the desk in front of him. His gaze settled briefly on the bronze badge, then crawled up to find me looking right at him.

I said, “I was speaking to a woman in the pool, wonder if you know where I can find her again. Tall, blonde, in her twenties. She was with a bunch of others about the same age.”

He didn’t need to think too hard. “I know the group you’re talking about. They’re staff. You could go down to the staff quarters, minus three, but it isn’t accessible to the public. Would you like me to call security?”

I shook my head. “Don’t bother.”

I turned and walked back in the direction of the elevator. Behind the elevator pod was a door to the stairs. I pushed through it and went down. Three flights to minus three. Out the door was another waiting area with an empty reception desk. Corridors led in all directions, but there was a map. Which manifested as a plaque mounted on the wall. A red dot marked my position. The staff quarters were located on the other side of the boat, past the medical zone and the laundry rooms.

The medical area was accessed through a door behind another reception desk. A man sat there and watched me approach. Which I did from far off, because the corridor was empty and very long. When I arrived, the guy was looking at me with frank curiosity.

“Help you, sir?”

“Staff quarters.”

He pointed down the corridor. “Just keep going, sir. Past the laundry room.”

It was another couple of minutes hike past the laundry room. No reception desk this time. Just a secure door with a fingerprint sensor and a square of toughened glass set into the middle of it. I peered through the glass. Corridors and rooms, like a high-class prison, or a hotel with no stars. I tried to imagine getting out of there in the event of an emergency. Like a ruptured hull and freezing arctic sea water pumping in under extreme pressure. I figured most people would probably drown. The ones that didn’t would have to be fast and ruthless.

Staff quarters wasn’t looking like any kind of good bet. If Chapman was on the boat, it was unlikely that I was going to run into her. The boat was just too big for that, and I wanted to get back to Ellie’s office. There were things to discuss. On the way out I passed the guy at the medical desk again. I said, “Got a lot of customers in there?”

He didn’t smile. “Never empty.”

“How many beds you got in there.”

The guy looked at me with lazy eyes. “Enough so you don’t need to worry about it.” He kept the eye contact for a little too long. The guy was a mind reader. He grinned. “Nah, I’m only messing with you. We have fifty beds. There’s an old guy in there right now with a broken toe, but that’s all.”

I said, “Is fifty beds a lot?”

He shrugged. “I think fifty’s enough.”

It felt good to get off the ship. The Emerald Allure was like an enclosed world of its own, but not a world that I would choose, that’s for damn sure. I came off the boat onto the dockside and took a deep breath of fresh air. I don’t know how they circulate the air on those cruise ships, but it wasn’t a satisfying simulation of real life, more like huffing a bag of someone else’s used breath. The Green Gremlin mini-bus was gone.

I came up Bryant Street from the waterside. Exactly where I had first seen the blond guy with the well-trimmed beard. Yesterday. Today he was dead. I wondered if the floor beneath the pool table at the Beaver Falls Lodge was stained, or if the Lodge had already sent the cleaning crew in to set up for the next batch of rich tourists.

I took a right turn after the ice cream place. The town hall and green opened up in front of me like a small gift. The espresso guy was still working the machine, with the same hissing and huffing pipes and gauges. But this time he wasn’t alone. Ellie and Smithson were waiting by the side of his cart, deep into some kind of a discussion. When I pulled up in front of them, both gave me the wary cop’s eye. I figured it was more out of habit than malice, and I’m not one to hold grudges. Ellie raised her eyebrows to me. Smithson looked away, to the coffee dripping out into yet another fresh paper cup.

I said, “So, what’s going on?”

Ellie shrugged. “Coffee time.” She looked at me blankly and raised her eyebrows again. This was some kind of cop-to-cop protocol thing, like you don’t discuss business in front of civilians. As a retired top-tier military operator, I’m not any kind of average civilian. When I saw Smithson and Ellie standing there looking back at me with