“They make equipment for hospitals,” Addie interrupted. She handed him the oar and stretched out her arms. “And some pharmaceutical stuff. See? I actually do know what my dad does for a living.”
Shy didn’t understand why a company that made hospital equipment needed to be on a remote island. Seemed kind of sketchy.
“For a while,” Addie continued, “I honestly thought he wanted us to go on a vacation together. I mean, he usually takes a private jet to the island, straight from the Santa Monica Airport, which is close to our house. But that last night on the ship, Cassie and I overheard something we weren’t supposed to.”
“What?” Shy asked, more curious now. He sensed that she was moving toward something important.
“I guess like a week ago,” she said, “someone from his company committed suicide on the ship.”
Shy froze. The comb-over man worked for the same company as her dad?
“I’m pretty sure my dad’s real motivation for being on the ship had nothing to do with me. I think he wanted to find out what happened for himself.” Addie looked Shy right in the eyes. “So, were you working that trip? It was going to Mexico.”
Shy pushed off the side of the boat, said: “Hell yeah, I was working. I’m the one who saw the guy jump.”
“Wait, really?” Addie said, but she didn’t look that surprised. He wondered how much she already knew.
“I grabbed him before he fell,” Shy told her. “He died because I wasn’t strong enough to hang on to him. Your old man tell you that, too?”
“He didn’t tell me anything,” Addie said. “I swear. We only found out about the suicide because we overheard one of my dad’s security people questioning the maitre d’. And me and Cassie started talking after we saw you outside the gym. I mean, it seemed really random for him to just invite you to dinner like that.”
“Yeah, what was that about?”
Addie shrugged. “It’s one of the reasons we decided to do a little snooping.”
Right then everything came together for Shy. “Do you know a guy named Bill?” he asked her out of the blue.
“I know a lot of guys named Bill.”
“On the ship, I mean. Curly black hair. Always wears a black suit.” Earlier Shy was unable to picture his own mom’s face, but the suit guy was burned into his memory. “He had a mole on his nose.”
“Oh yeah,” Addie said. “That’s one of my dad’s security people. I didn’t know his name was Bill, though. Why?”
“He asked me all kinds of questions about the suicide. Right after you and your friend left the Honeymoon Deck.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said.
“You’re not?”
“They seemed really paranoid about what happened. The guy who jumped was named David Williamson—”
“Yeah, exactly,” Shy interrupted. “He told me right before he jumped.”
“He was one of the top guys in the company.”
Shy thought back to his brief conversation with the comb-over man, or David Williamson. At the time he thought it was just some drunk rich guy rambling. Little did he know he’d be analyzing every word a week later while stranded at sea.
“Know what’s strange?” Addie said. “He used to come over for dinner when I was little. He and my dad were friends.” She shook her head. “I remember he seemed so normal. Don’t you have to be a little unbalanced to jump off a ship?”
“He was definitely unbalanced when I talked to him on the Honeymoon Deck. He kept saying all this crazy shit about corruption and how he was hiding from people.” It occurred to Shy that this was the most he’d ever shared about that conversation to anyone. Including his own family.
“I wonder what happened to him,” Addie said.
“I wonder why your old man was so paranoid about it.” Shy looked up at the moon, amazed at how everything now seemed to connect. The suit guy stalking him and his room being trashed and Addie’s dad asking him to dinner—all of it went back to the suicide on his first voyage. And now him and this girl in the boat. “Hey, Addie,” he said, wiping a hand down his face, “I still need to ask you about—”
“The picture my dad had,” she said, finishing his sentence. “Right?”
“Uh, yeah, actually.”
Addie reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a folded photo and held it out to Shy. “You mean this one?”
Shy took it from her and unfolded it, stunned. The picture was wet and creased, but he could clearly see himself sitting alone beside his grandma’s grave back in Otay Mesa.
“I took it from my dad’s room,” she said. “Never got a chance to put it back.”
“How’d you get it?” Shy said, looking up at her.
“He left a key to his cabin with us,” Addie said. “So we could have two showers. When they made us all leave the dining room early because of the storm, me and Cassie ditched my dad’s security people and snuck into his cabin to look around.” She pointed at the picture in his hand. “We found it just lying on top of his safe. You can understand why I was so weirded out when I saw you during the storm, right?”
Shy looked down at the picture again and the memory of that moment came flooding back. It was the night before this second voyage. He’d ridden his bike across town and through the cemetery gates to lean a sunflower against his grandma’s small headstone. Her favorite flower. Then he’d just sat there, thinking about the last few hours of her battle with Romero Disease, and about his family’s future. Not only had a great person been stolen from their lives, his grandma also paid half the bills. He had no idea how they were going to make it without her.
It made Shy sick knowing there was someone watching him that night, spying on his mourning.
He looked up at Addie, remembering what Supervisor Franco had said just before Shy went out into the storm to help clear the Lido Deck. “Does your dad by any chance work for a company called LasoTech?”
“Does my dad work for LasoTech?” she said, repeating the question. She scoffed a little. “More like my dad owns LasoTech.”
34
Mr. Henry’s Strange Request
They talked a while longer—about the company and what they were hoping to find out about Shy’s conversation with the guy who jumped off the boat, David Williamson, and why everyone seemed so concerned about a guy who was already dead—and then Addie said if she didn’t sit down she was going to pass out standing up.
“Go rest,” he said. “We can talk more about it tomorrow.”
She nodded. “Time to go freeze my ass off,” she told him as she started over to her side of the boat. After she sat down she called to him: “Hey, Shy.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really sorry you got mixed up in all this.”
She seemed like she genuinely meant it. “Same with you,” he told her.
Shy moved over to Mr. Henry, who was sound asleep. He put his hand under his nose to make sure he was still breathing, then went to his own spot against the side of the boat. He sat down in the ankle-high water, leaned his head back and thought some more about everything he and Addie had just talked about.
Shy was so cold and hungry he had trouble falling asleep. He stared up into the star-filled night, letting his mind go wherever it wanted.
He pictured the man in the black suit cornering him in the Luxury Lounge. Pointing as Shy made his escape down the stairs. He pictured the look on Addie’s dad’s face when he stepped up to Shy’s pool stand, offered to toss the foul-mouthed Muppet kid off the ship. Maybe that was some kind of vague reference to the comb-over man’s suicide. Maybe he thought Shy was to blame. He pictured his grandma opening her scrapbook in the hall, pointing to the article about sharks. Then Shy found himself picturing something else, the sliver of Carmen undressing he’d seen through her bathroom door.