Switched (16 page)

Nataniel hadn't moved since I left the room. He was still standing over Bruno's body, staring at his accomplishment or sin...whichever way he looked at it. I was grateful for his help, but I was troubled by what he did. Was it necessary to kill Bruno in order to stop him?

On one hand, I thought Bruno was a monster and determined to do anything to maintain his freedom and his secret life. Therefore, the only way to stop him was to kill him. But on the other hand, wasn't Bruno a survivor, and wouldn't he have eventually come to the conclusion he couldn't win this fight and just give up?

It wasn't the time for a discussion on the morality of murder in self-defense. Nataniel was still far away in his own head, focused entirely on Bruno. And I just wanted it to be over, to find Felicity and Maria and free them, if they were still alive.

I never wanted to see Bruno's lifeless body again. I never wanted to see blood again. I was even dreading having my period. But the police asked me to escort them to the scene of the crime, and I had.

The room was a mess. Chairs were turned over, and there was blood everywhere, making the room even more red. Nataniel held the knife in his bloody hand, still pointing it at Bruno, who lay on the shag carpet, his body stuck in a twisted, unnatural position.

The police said something in Spanish to Nataniel, and he handed them the knife, slipping it into a plastic bag, which they sealed.

"It wasn't his fault," I said, in case the police wanted to arrest Nataniel. "He saved me. Bruno was the monster. The tycoon was the monster."

I snuck a peak at Bruno again, and then my gaze traveled to the couch where I had nearly been raped and probably worse and finally I looked down at myself. I had forgotten that I was only wearing a bra, that Bruno had cut my shirt off with his knife.

With the memory, the reality of what I just experienced flooded into my psyche, filling it up and running over, making me cry in long, loud sobs. The cop patted my back and said something in Spanish.

"Gracias," I said, even though he might have been telling me to suck it up and put on a shirt.

"Oh my God!" I heard Maisey shout. Maisey and Doyle stormed into the room and stopped dead at the sight of the carnage. "What happened to you? What happened to him? Are you all right? You're
not
all right!" Maisey fired her questions off at me, her words coming at a fast clip.

"He tried--and then he--and then I--" I started but then I thought about it. "No! I guess I'm not okay!"

I blubbered like a kid. Doyle gently pushed Maisey out of the way. He took off his shirt, baring his wide, muscular chest. Kneeling down in front of me, he ripped his shirt into strips and dressed the wound on my leg, tying a strip tightly around it to stem the bleeding.

I looked down at him and watched him kneeling in front of me, his focus on alleviating my pain. He finished dressing my wound and held my leg in both of his hands. His warmth and strength felt good. It calmed me.

However, I noticed that he was shaking. He looked up at me, and our eyes locked. In a flash, something passed between us. It was deeper than attraction, need, or even tenderness.

I gasped, unsure of what to say but sure that something needed to be said. Doyle had other plans. He stood up, took me in his arms, and didn't say a word.

The stateroom had turned into an episode of CSI. Men and women dressed in white, plastic jumpsuits and paper booties over their shoes, invaded Bruno’s bedroom and went right to work, swabbing and powdering, lasering, and photoing. They paid a lot of attention to Bruno, snapping pictures of every inch of him before laying a latex-covered finger on him.

Nataniel and I stood in place because we weren't told to do anything else. Besides, we were in shock, and I had started to shiver. Just as I was about to complain about the cold, Doyle appeared at my side with a shirt he got from somewhere.

"Put it on," he instructed, and I did without looking at it. It hung to my knees, and I wondered with dread if it had belonged to Bruno or one of his henchmen. If I wasn't so cold and only dressed in my bra, I probably would have refused it.

"Is anyone looking for Felicity and Maria?" I asked the room of investigators. They didn't answer. "There are girls out there, missing! They could be hurt! They could be--" I knew what they could be, knew what they probably were. I knew that Bruno said they were dust. I had been in their shoes only minutes before, and I didn't think they made it out okay.

I sniffed.

Doyle put his arm around my shoulders. "Let them do their job, Debra. There's a process. Everybody is on your side. They’ll look for them."

"But they're more important than he is," I said, waving my hand in Bruno's direction. "They need to focus on them."

"I know. And they will. Right now you need to get treated, and you can give your statement at the same time. It’ll bring us closer to finding Felicity and Maria."

He gave my shoulders a little squeeze, and I understood there was an apology in it. He hadn't believed that Felicity was in danger. He thought she was just partying somewhere. And she probably was until Bruno changed it to his kind of sick party. Tears burned the backs of my eyes, and they flowed out and down my face.

We sat on the deck on a white leather couch. It was a gorgeous day. Perfect. About eighty degrees with a light wind blowing. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Off one side of the yacht was the beautiful city of Palma with its stunning cathedral, and off the other side of the yacht were the crystalline blue waters of the Mediterranean.

It was like a picture out of a travel magazine. A commercial for an idyllic vacation.

The yacht was laid out for royalty. Luxurious furniture and expensive artwork decorated the top deck. I half-expected a princess to pop up on deck with a glass of champagne in her hand. If it had been any other day in any other reality, I would have been thrilled to spend such a fabulous afternoon in such gorgeous surroundings.

Nataniel sat on one side of me and Doyle on the other. Maisey had somehow convinced law enforcement to let her shadow them at the scene of the crime, and she was busy looking over the shoulders of the detectives, soaking up their process.

"Felicity," I had heard her say. "What do you mean you don't know how to spell it? Don't cops know how to spell? Listen, we have a missing woman. She could be hurt. Snap to it!"

I smiled. It was nice to have back up, to have someone else as concerned for the girls as I was. Besides, I was tired and in pain and in shock. I wasn't making any headway in convincing them to change the focus from Bruno's death to the women’s disappearance, but I suspected that Maisey would have more luck. She had a way of convincing people of most anything.

After we sat for a minute, the paramedics arrived onboard and made a beeline for Nataniel and me. They kneeled in front of us and got straight to work. A young man gently removed Doyle's shirt off my leg and began to clean it. It stung like a son of a bitch.

"Yowza!" I yelled.

The paramedic said something in Spanish to me and kept working.

A cop pulled up a chair and took out a pad of paper and pen. "Tell me the story," he said. "All details."

I told him about Felicity and Maria, about the common thread between them: Bruno Perrier. I told him about arriving at the yacht, how Bruno had one of his henchmen take me to his bedroom and locked me inside.

I felt Doyle's gaze on me, like he was boring through my skull with his eyes. I squirmed in my seat, making the paramedic run off something to me in Spanish.

"Sorry," I said. Uncomfortable to tell my story—especially in front of so many people--I glossed over the rape and murder threats, but I made it clear my life was in danger. I talked about the knife and the things he said about fighting and escape and the other room turning to dust. And of course they found him with his pants off and my shirt cut off me.

"And then Nataniel came in and saved me," I said.

Doyle's and the cop's heads turned toward Nataniel as if they were spectators at a tennis match.

"I was locked in a room with the two large men," he explained. "Very big men."

The cop nodded. He must have seen them, already. I didn’t know exactly what happened to them, but I figured it wasn’t good.

"They told me things about their boss, that he has lured many young women to his yacht. They told me this like it was a happy thing. Proud."

I shivered, thinking back once again to the couch and Bruno's smiles as he told me liked it when women fought him.

"He lured them here," Nataniel said. "And he raped them. Tortured and then killed them. They told me he enjoyed holding them hostage and felt alive through their fear. I'm sorry," he said, cocking his head to the side and shrugging his shoulders. "He is a monster. Was a monster."

"That's fine," Doyle said. "Please continue."

"They told me that that's what he planned to do to Debra, that he was doing that right at that moment."

He glanced over at me, and I looked down at my lap. Bruno hadn't raped me, but I felt violated, nevertheless. I wondered if I would carry that feeling forever, or if it was just another wound to be healed through time.

"And they were going to kill me," Nataniel continued. "So there wouldn't be a witness, and they were going to throw my body into the deep sea tomorrow when they would leave the port. But they did not. I fought them."

"You fought them," Doyle repeated in his cop voice. "They were twice your size, but you left them in a bloody heap. They didn't even take their guns out of their holsters."

"Yes, this is a good point," the police officer said. "How did you do this?"

Nataniel raised an eyebrow. "Because I was half their size. That is why. They didn't think of me as a threat. They didn't take me seriously as a man. So, they didn't think they needed their guns. It was a foolish mistake on their part. Because I am a man. I am a man."

"So you sliced and diced them," Doyle said.

"What is sliced and diced?"

"The thing you did with the knife."

For the first time, I saw Nataniel grow a little uncomfortable, bordering on upset. "I survived," he said. "And Debra survived."

That seemed to say it all, and Doyle was satisfied with the answer. So was the cop.

"Bruno more or less confessed to me, too," I said. "He said they always tried to escape and he liked when the women fought him. I fought him," I added.

"I'm sure you did," Doyle said.

The paramedic finished dressing my wounds and gave me a shot in my hip and some pills to take for a week. Nataniel's wounds were more extensive, and it took longer to fix him up. While they were finishing with him, Doyle took me to the other side of the deck.

"Are you okay?" he asked me in a low voice.

Was I okay? Hell no, I wasn't okay. I wasn't anywhere close to okay. I had almost been raped and murdered, and I just heard "sliced and diced" used in a conversation.

"Yes, I'm okay," I told him. "No permanent damage." At least I hoped there wasn’t any permanent damage.

"What really happened? I thought I’d lost you when the police called me."

I thought I was hearing things when his voice choked up. But there were tears in his eyes to prove that my hearing was just fine.

"Lost me?" I asked. Did he ever have me? Did he want to have me?

He didn't have time to answer because it was over. Our part of Bruno’s demise was over. The boat was being sealed off for the authorities, and that was our cue to get off and go home. The police filed out with the crew in handcuffs, their heads down in shame or distress, I didn’t know.

"Do you know where Felicity and Maria are?" I asked them as they walked by, not wanting to miss the opportunity to get information about the missing women. But it was pointless. They were more concerned with their own fates and didn't bother to answer me.

"The cops will do their jobs," Doyle repeated. "You need to rest."

He wasn't wrong. I needed to rest. I could have slept for days.

Down on the dock, I thanked Nataniel for saving my life.

"It's not every day that someone saves my life," I said to him. "You were so brave. I'll never forget you or what you've done."

I hugged him tightly, and he hugged me back. He was my hero, wholly unselfish and unconcerned for his own safety in the face of trying to help me. How many people are like that in the world? How many are true heroes like Nataniel?

"Then please allow me to make dinner for you tonight," he said, catching me totally off guard.

"Dinner? Tonight?"

"Yes, come to the exchange house, and I will give you dinner, and you can finally pick up your luggage. It would give me great pleasure to provide you with a good dinner."

I had no appetite, and I was completely exhausted, and besides, I never wanted to go back into the mice house again. But how does someone refuse a kind offer from the man who saved their life? I couldn't think of a way.

"The mice house?" I asked.

"There are no mice there, now. I promise," he said.

"There's no mice there, now," I repeated to the universe. "Sure, okay. I would love to come."

It wasn't clear if Doyle was invited, too, and I suspected he wasn't, but Doyle jumped in, anyway. "We would love to," he told Nataniel. “Sounds perfect. Nine o'clock?”

It was a date. Sort of. Maisey decided to stay in Palma and come home later. She was still taking an active interest in the investigation, and I was grateful for that.

"Come on, Debra," Doyle said, slipping his arm around my waist. "Let me take you home. Let me take care of you."

Nothing sounded better than that. I dropped my head against his shoulder and let him walk me to his car.

I opened the car window for the hour-long car ride back to Doyle's cafe. The salty air blew on my face, and I closed my eyes, allowing it to wash over me. I hoped it had healing powers, that the further I got away from Bruno's yacht, the better I would feel and the trauma I endured inside and out would soften and blow away in the sea breeze.