“Probably thought it would shut us up,” said Chip. “Shut us down, right? Keep us from going after the mermaids. Plus we’d stop asking annoying questions about her whereabouts sooner or later, if we thought she was done for. Right?”
“They took my cell records, my email, contact info, the signed paperwork from the excursion,” said Nancy. “And Riley’s digital video? Listen to this. See, Riley was my only visitor, other than the food guys. He felt a little guilty so he asked to see me, but his conscience didn’t go too deep. He talked to me, though, so I do know what happened. He sold it to them. Just outright sold it.”
“He had a contract with us!” said Chip. “With you!”
Nancy shrugged. “He sold it.”
“I thought they stole it,” I said.
“First,” said Nancy. “But then they actually watched it. And decided they needed to own it. So they just made him an offer.”
“We still don’t know who they even are,” said Rick slowly. “Do we, Nancy?”
She shook her head.
“We know who some of them are,” added Raleigh. “But we don’t know how far up the chain it goes.”
“They just arrested two of them,” I said. “We saw it! On the ship. The woman and the guy with the really dark tan. Arrested. The cops came in a police cutter and arrested them.”
“Scapegoats,” said Thompson solemnly.
“Sacrificial lambs,” agreed Rick.
“Thrown under the bus,” said Chip.
I thought how much I disliked the non-Mormon and the Mike Chance guy: I felt an instinctive distaste for both of them, and had from the get-go. Still, distaste or not, they hadn’t seemed like criminal masterminds. They seemed more like consultants, maybe sales reps.
“Were they acting alone?” I asked no one in particular. “Or was management pulling the strings?”
“I think the point is we can’t know,” said Rick. “Kidnapping Nancy—and you too, Deb, for sure—that, for one, they’re going to want to pin on the PR people. At least, that’s what I’m suspecting.”
“Our orders, which they called a ‘request for emergency assistance,’ came from the suit on the beach,” said Raleigh. “He’s the GM who runs the resort. Reports to the regional veep. I’m gonna make a call, find out what’s going down.”
As he turned away the rest of us fell upon Nancy like a flock of chattering parakeets, trying to pull out strings of explanation with our curved little beaks. How could it even be that Annette had just walked up and unlocked the door, patrolling on her fifteen-minute break, using a ring of keys from the pegboard in the staff break room? (Ronnie.) Why didn’t the company guard its prisoners? (Rick.) Especially when I’d escaped, too? (Me.) Wasn’t she pissed that Riley had turned out to be a Judas? (Thompson.) He’d seemed so cool at first, hadn’t he? (Chip.) And (closely related) how much had they paid him? (Ellis.) Was she starving? (Janeane.) Didn’t she need a shower? (Janeane.) Where were her belongings? (Janeane.) Did she want to go back to her cabana and try to get them? (Janeane.)
Wait. Very important. Did she have legal counsel yet? (Gina.)
Prof. Simonoff, the doctor and Thompson announced their intention to make a sortie to Paradise Bay to reclaim Nancy’s personal items. Thompson, I could tell, was spoiling for a fight, even if it had to be over nothing more epic than a biologist’s toiletries. The three of them, all men of a certain age, went out to the Hummer and roar/chugged away. Gina wanted to debrief her brother on the litigation possibilities, and Ellis wanted to cloyingly massage her shoulders while she did so. Miyoko assented to yet another video interview, Janeane made a midnight snack, etc.
But Nancy had only one objective, amid the hustle and bustle. Grass didn’t grow beneath her feet, the solid feet of that kidnapped parrotfish expert; she waved away the questions, she splashed cold water on her face, she shoved handfuls of salted peanuts into her mouth without even taking a seat. Then she ushered a bunch of us outside, so she could breathe the trade-wind breeze in more limited company. The rooms had gotten claustrophobic.
Once out there, standing beneath some rustling fronds beside the pool, she asked Raleigh for a full report on the status of the Venture of Marvels.
“Here’s what I’m being told,” said Raleigh. “The general manager’s claiming he had no knowledge of your kidnapping. He says he, too, was told you’d drowned. That he wasn’t in on that bullshit. He’s helming up the Venture, of course, that much he’s copped to—he’s taking ownership of that part of it. But where the backstory’s concerned, his version is: Mike and Liza brought him the mermaid video. He had no idea they’d taken it from Riley, he thought you’d just drowned and the tape and other mermaid-related texts, excursion records, and all that shit was in your personal effects. In a nutshell, he’s doing his best to avoid criminal liability over what happened to you, Nancy.”
“Why’d they bother with that meeting? Where we first met, uh, Liza?” I asked.
“That was to get everyone’s contact info,” said Raleigh. “That was part of our briefing a couple days ago. They had a manifest from the boat trip, that’s how they knew some of the people to invite, but they needed everyone’s names, emails, and cells. Hadda make sure everyone came under their umbrella, ideally came over to work for them. At that point they only had Riley on board.”
“Sleazebags,” said Chip.
“But they never got you guys signed up, so the plan was, instead, to round you up, lock you up, and shut you up. Like with Nancy,” said Raleigh, looking at me. “Mostly, I get the feeling, they screwed up. They had some miscommunications. There were a couple power struggles, with them and the Keystone cops—a lack of unity, some confusion. So honestly? You lucked out.”
“How about the search?” asked Nancy. “And my colleague from Berkeley, what’s happening with him?”
While Chip talked to her I
