In the Black (25 page)

“It proves a lot. Given your sudden poverty I can make a pretty good guess at why you killed her.”

Something nudged Sam’s left hand. She resisted the urge to pull away and kept her fingers still.

Daniel kept talking as she waited for the object to move closer. “You made landfall here on Branson Prime and checked your bank account like you’ve done every other time you hit a stop, your biweekly routine for as long as you’ve been on the
Belle
. But this time instead of finding a growing fat nest egg you found a big change. Your savings are practically gone, lost in a series of bad investments while you were traveling from one base to the other. Wiped out.”

Dane swallowed hard, the loud sound echoing in Sam’s ears.

Daniel continued. “Let me tell you what I think happened. You hooked up with Halley when she transferred onto the ship. All nice and friendly like, chatting her up when you got the chance. You asked her for financial advice and she turned you down, same as with anyone else on this ship. Nothing personal on her part—she was keeping to the rules.”

Sam drew a ragged breath and swallowed.

“But you kept bugging her and bugging her until she tossed you a bone. Just not one with any meat on it.” Daniel laughed. “She gave you investment advice she knew would lead you toward financial ruin. I’ve seen your account. You’ll end up working for the Guild until you’re too old for anything but the Charity ships, bent over a chair for the young kids who don’t care to stare at your old, wrinkled face.”

Dane’s grip tightened.

“Not. Helping,” Sam whispered, unsure if Daniel could hear her.

A sharp edge poked her palm. She wrapped her fingers around it, mentally drawing a picture of the item.

A plastic knife. Ridged edges, flexible blade. Left over from some meal and never properly disposed of. Floating free in the galley and bumping into her hand by some fortunate trick of fate.

Hardly the killing weapon she needed.

But better than nothing. She ran her finger along the serrated edge.

Dane chuckled in her ear. “Damned marshal’s not as dumb as he looks. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s going to let me walk out of here or there’s going to be one more dead woman.” The muscle flexed and loosened. “Figures the Guild would sell me out. Bastards don’t care about anything but the bottom line. As soon as I got that message saying someone was poking into my financials, I knew it was time to move.”

Sam held back a curse. Daniel’s investigation had inadvertently tipped Dane off and triggered the entire situation.

She’d have a few words with Grendel about the Guild’s automated systems when this was all over.

None of them for public consumption.

She felt Dane’s legs moving behind her and they drifted toward the far end of the galley.

He didn’t dare release his grip on her neck to grab the straps; he was limited to pushing off the floor with his toes. It made for an awkward trip, a slow bouncing trail to the door.

“So when did you start sneaking off the ship?” Sam rasped. “Last trip? This your first one?”

“I’ve been going at every landfall, Keller. Each and every time we landed I was going down.” He chuckled at his own joke.

“Why?”

The angry snort in her ear made her wince. “It’s all about the money, Keller. While you’re up there hawking our portfolios, I’m making my way through the crowd offering discounts if they come and see me instead of the others. Pass out a card here, give a little tug and chuckle there. Get a jumpstart on the rest of the girls by snagging and tagging potential clients in person. Putting that personal touch out there.”

She imagined the grin behind her.

“And no one ratted you out? A Guild courtesan in the middle of a crowd?”

“Hell, yeah. I’m not walking around with a neon sign, I’m picking and choosing and telling them to keep it quiet or they’ll lose the chance to be with me. I spin my web and then I get back on board when you finish your spiel. Everyone’s in their rooms making themselves look pretty and getting ready for their clients. No one’s calling me or noticing I’m gone.” He rolled his shoulders. “I clean up and then get ready for work along with the rest of those bitches.”

“The laundry chute,” Sam whispered. The lightheadedness had some benefits like allowing her mind to wander and start making connections. “You jackhole, you’re going up and down the laundry chute in your quarters. Scoot down the shaft, do your business and then climb back up against the air jets using a rope. Bet if we searched your suite we’d find rope and a damned jumpsuit like what the miners wear. Makes it easy for you to sneak around. You pay off the laundry workers to let you out of the area and then come back and shimmy up that tube again.”

“Gotta spend money to make money.” Dane laughed. “I climb back up into my quarters, clean up, kick back and watch my appointment book fill up.”

“Except this time you hurt yourself on something. What was it, a jagged edge somewhere catching your leg? Explains why you came into the galley fresh from a shower with a bandaged ankle. Couldn’t go to Sean for medical help. He’d ask questions about how you got it and you knew he wouldn’t buy your bullshit.” She felt faint. “But why did you take the damned token out of the garbage? Did you know Kowal—” She coughed, the effort of speaking for so long draining her.

“Two hundred creds, sister. I wasn’t going to leave that behind.” The hoarse chuckle sent a shiver down her spine. “Idiot dumps it in the garbage right in front of me, muttering a prayer. Everyone’s watching you and the portfolios flashing on the screen, no one’s looking at anything else. Damned fool walks away and leaves me there.”

He shook his head, his nose brushing against her hair. “I wasn’t going to pass up a chance for some easy creds. Every one’s precious to me right now. Free and clear without having to give up an hour, and who the hell was going to ask where I got it from?” Dane gave her a none-too-gentle shake. “Damned bitch took everything from me. I’m fucking broke.”

A single word from her and Belle could put the gravity on full. It’d send them both crashing to the ground, not hard enough to break an ankle, but she might be able to surprise Dane.

But there was no guarantee it’d be enough to stop him from snapping her neck or at least delivering one hell of a chiropractic adjustment to her spine. She sniffled and a pair of blood drops floated by, barely within eyesight.

Her nose throbbed along with her head and she thought for a horrible second she was about to throw up.

Serve the bastard right. Barf on his arm.

A mental image flashed in front of her eyes. Vomit floating in front of her face, the zero gravity keeping it from falling to the ground.

Ugh.

She swallowed hard.

“Belle, unlock the hatch to the hallway.” Dane waited for a second, listening for the familiar sound. “I’m not kidding. I’ll rip her head right off.”

“Kill her and you have no leverage.” Daniel’s voice came from the speaker set above the hatch. “Kill her and you’re a dead man.”

“You won’t kill me,” Dane sneered. “You can’t shoot an unarmed man. Worst that happens is you tranq me and we all ride off into the sunset.”

“Watch me.” The steely response sent a shiver down Sam’s spine—whether it was pride or excitement she couldn’t tell. “Kill her and you die. No one’ll give a damn if I beat your head in, toss your body out the airlock and tell them you committed suicide. You think anyone on this base or on that ship is going to contest my story on what happened?”

A shudder went through the tense body pressed against hers.

Time to take the offensive. She wasn’t going to play the victim forever.

“He’ll do it. You know he will. Huckness’ll go along with it and you’ll be nothing more than a smear on the ship’s hull. Let me go and we’ll work things out,” Sam rasped. “I’ll call Grendel, get Sean to sign off on a mental breakdown—we’ll keep it in the Guild. Keep it in the family.”

As dysfunctional a family as you could get, that was the crew of the
Bonnie Belle
.

There was no way in hell she was going to let this guy walk with an insanity plea but he didn’t need to know that.

Dane scoffed. “You think I’m stupid? There’s no way in hell Grendel is going to let that happen. They’ll need a fall guy, someone to go down for this. There’s no easy out here.” The arm against her throat flexed. “But I’ll let you go as soon as we get away. Put you in a suit, shove you outside and your boyfriend can pick you up later.”

She couldn’t stop shivering at the mental image of floating in space, waiting to be saved.

Not again.

She was not going to leave her fate in anyone else’s hands. She was not going to let the crew of the
Bonnie Belle
down.

She wasn’t a screwed up cripple. She was Sam Keller, Captain of the
Bonnie Belle
and a survivor, and she took no crap from anyone.

Especially Dane Morris.

“No.” Daniel’s answering growl curled the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck. “No negotiations. You give her up now or else deal with the consequences.”

Dane shook his head. “Marshal, you don’t seem to be grasping the situation. I’ve got your woman here and you’ve got nothing.”

“You’re wrong.” The location of the voice shifted. “I’ve got everything.”

Sam’s world spun as Dane stretched out to touch the floor with his right foot and pivoted. She found herself facing the far wall where Bianca had been only a few hours earlier, threatening to take her own life.

“Not going to get me that way, Marshal.” Dane chuckled. “I’m no fool. I heard about how you grabbed Bianca before. No sneaking through the vents and popping up like a jack-in-the-box behind me.”

Sam’s heart sank. This wasn’t going to be a replay of the situation with Bianca. Dane wasn’t a hysterical young woman open to the idea of being disarmed.

He was a killer who wouldn’t mind adding to his count.

“Open the hallway door, Belle. And turn the gravity on, slowly.” Dane moved toward the hatch, dragging her along with him. His right hand pressed against her cheek. “One hint of gas, one whiff of anything, and I snap her neck.”

“I think she got the memo,” Sam whispered.

The thick metal door swung open.

Sam looked down the narrow hallway leading to the landing bay. Her feet became heavy as the gravity increased bit by bit, building up to regular.

“Guild is going to charge you for that,” she joked.

“I’ll have them put it on my tab,” Dane deadpanned, his grip still firm. Having full gravity gave him the advantage if it came down to a brawl. She never thought she’d be on the business side of those hands.

His right leg sagged a fraction behind her, enough to alert her to his injury again. It was more than a scrape. Maybe it was infected.

It was a trade-off—he’d have more power with the gravity on, keeping his threat valid to kill Sam. But his injury gave him vulnerability, which Sam hoped she’d be able to exploit.

“You didn’t mean to kill her, did you?” she whispered. “You didn’t mean to kill Halley. It was an accident.”

The sudden intake of air next to her ear told her she’d struck gold.

“It was an accident,” Sam repeated. “You lost control, didn’t you? You didn’t plan it. It was a mistake.”

“Stupid bitch,” Dane growled. “Right after we made landfall I checked my finances and found the fucking account screwed up. Called the bank twice to check and there was nothing there. A handful of creds, barely enough for a good steak dinner.” There was a note of panic in his words. “It was almost all gone. Automated selling dumped the stocks when they got too low, put one out of ten credits back in my account.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You made those investments based on her advice, her bad advice.” Sam ran her thumb over the plastic serrated edge. “Can’t blame you for being pissed. I’d be blowing a gasket myself. Lose everything and it’s not even your fault.”

“Had a few minutes between clients, a short break. I went over to see her. She was getting changed, told me we could talk while she got undressed—nothing I hadn’t seen before.” The arm across her windpipe flexed again. “Told her she’d given me bad info and lost me a shitload of cash. She laughed.” Dane gave Sam a shake. “She laughed at me.”

“She screwed you twice over. Halley knew you couldn’t complain to the Guild about her advice because it was illegal for you to have made the investments based on her suggestions in the first place, not without paying her the Guild fee first. You wanted free info and she gave it to you—bad info. She did it on purpose, to teach you a lesson.” Sam coughed, trying to keep the dizziness at bay. “You’re standing there pissed off and she’s laughing, she’s giggling at you. So you got mad and you grabbed her. Wanted to show her you were serious, you weren’t going to be jacked around anymore.”

“I just wanted to scare her.” Dane sounded like a petulant child. “I caught her and told her to give me some companies, some good stocks to get back what I’d lost. Make back what I’d lost and a bit more, that’s all.” The hissing noise in her ear increased. “She wouldn’t stop laughing at me.”

“And in your anger you choked her.” Sam took the silence to be confirmation. “She went limp and you realized she wasn’t breathing, that you’d held on too long. You let go and she still wasn’t breathing, just floated there in front of you. You check for a pulse and there’s nothing.” She paced her sentences, using her limited air to its maximum. “You panic, you know this isn’t fixable. You’ve got to hide the evidence that you were there, make it look like something other than murder.”

The silence behind her confirmed her scenario.

“You go to the galley and get a knife, race back to her room and slit her throat to hide the bruises. Suicide. Happens all the time out here in the black, people lose it and kill themselves.”

She heard something like a whimper. “Idiot. Stupid fucking idiot.”

She wasn’t sure if Dane was talking about Halley or himself.

“And the token?” Sam asked. “When did you think of that?”

A hissing came from between Dane’s clenched teeth. “Got it from my quarters same trip as the knife. Tossed it out so you’d arrest the old fool.”