Page 31 of An Epic Voyage (The Epic Beauty Salon Files #1)

I ndigo pretended to be meek and frightened as she hobbled to the elevator. Being in an enclosed space with Benedict Van Houten, thief, traitor, and now cold-blooded murderer, wasn’t ideal, but she’d faced more challenging tasks.

“Don’t be frightened of me, Indigo. I will not hurt you.”

“B-but, Jinger . . .” She let the sentence hang.

He tsked. “It’s unfortunate that you had to witness that encounter. I’m not usually so impulsive, but she drove me to it. It’d been building for days, weeks. Her whining finally got to me, and I snapped. What can I say?”

That you just murdered your adoring girlfriend.

The doors opened, and he led her to his suite. His bodyguards weren’t around, or if they were, they were keeping a low profile.

“Where are the scary men?”

“Scary . . . oh, you mean my security detail.” He chuckled. “They’re in another room. We have complete privacy.”

“Isn’t there anyone else on the yacht with us?”

“Besides the three bodyguards, it’s just you and me.”

And Griffin and Jordy. And Jinger’s rotting corpse. He surely hadn’t forgotten about them.

“What about the person who drives the boat? What do you call him? A pilot?” Hopefully, she wasn’t taking the dumb blonde act too far.

“Captain, and I sent the crew away.” He leaned close and whispered, “You can be as loud as you want. No one will hear you.”

Ew, gross.

It would seem odd if she didn’t at least mention Griffin. “What are you going to do with Griffin?”

Van Houten’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not seeing him, are you? If so, I might have to kill him.”

Indigo’s heart skipped a beat. She should’ve kept her big mouth shut. “No, not at all, but he saved me from the hurricane.”

“And for that, I owe him a debt of gratitude. He’ll be free to go after the meeting tomorrow.”

And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. He really must think she was an idiot.

“I’m going to unlock your cuffs, Indigo. You aren’t going to try to get away, are you?”

At the very first opportunity . “Where would I go?”

“Atta girl. We’ll have fun tonight, and then I want you to meet a friend of mine tomorrow. He loves beautiful things. Having you on my arm will impress the hell out of him.”

Indy glanced down at her outfit. “I’m not dressed for meeting people.”

Van Houten waved a hand. “There’s a suite across the hall with gowns and everything you’ll need.”

How convenient. She wondered if it had been stocked with Jinger in mind or other women. Or her. Ugh. Might as well find out. “Why are there clothes for me?”

Van Houten sighed. “I’d planned on letting Jinger go with my friend, but that obviously isn’t happening now.”

She tried to inject the right amount of fear into her voice. “Do you plan on sending me with him?”

He reached out and stroked a finger down her cheek. She almost bit it.

“No, Indigo. I’m keeping you for myself. I’ll buy you pretty things, take you places you’ve never seen. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

And then, when I’m through with you, I’ll simply fire a bullet through your frontal lobe. Did he forget she’d seen him blow Jinger’s head off? She needed to appear meek, but not a pushover. “I have a career that I enjoy.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll quit it. Your full-time job will be as my lover.”

Not in this lifetime, buddy.

Indy perched on the edge of a chair—bypassing the sofa so he couldn’t sit next to her—and scanned the room for the case containing the nuke while he walked to a bar and poured two glasses of wine.

If she could find it, it would make things so much easier.

She could grab it, free Griffin and Jordy, and they could speed away in the boat used to bring them to the yacht.

Having done this job for a long time, she knew things never worked out that easily.

“You have an interesting background, Indigo.”

He handed her a glass filled with red liquid and sat in the chair beside her.

“Oh? How do you know so much about me?”

He studied her over the rim of the glass. “I had you checked out.”

“Why?”

“You should realize by now that I’m very intrigued by you, Indigo. Definitely interested. I wanted to know everything about you. When I want something, I get it.”

“Well, that’s flattering,” and psychotic, “but I’m just a beautician from Massachusetts. Nothing special.”

“I beg to differ.” Van Houten’s cell buzzed. He took it from his pocket and frowned. “Excuse me a moment. I need to take this.”

“No problem.”

He walked into the adjoining room and closed the door. If she didn’t have a nuke to recover and a lover to rescue, she’d bolt out the open sliding glass door and dive overboard. Or eavesdrop on his conversation.

Van Houten returned a few minutes later, looking anxious.

“Is something wrong?”

He retook his seat and downed a chug of wine. “Nothing to worry about. Tell me, Indigo, what makes you happy?”

“Oh, well, that’s easy. I love puppies and sunsets and walks along the beach.” She almost rolled her eyes at herself and her online dating profile answers.

“What about children?”

She answered truthfully. “I’m not around kids very much.”

“I’ve been thinking of settling down and starting a family.”

Funny thing to say when he’d just blown his girlfriend away, not to mention that he already had a slew of children with several women.

“What . . . ah, oh.” Van Houten slapped a hand against his mouth.

She blinked innocently. “Is something the matter?”

“I fear that bothersome stomach bug is back—excuse me.”

“Take your time,” she muttered as he dashed for the bathroom.

She jumped to her feet and picked up the glasses, tossing them out the open sliding glass doors and over the balcony railing.

Thank goodness the supplies she’d stashed in her pockets weren’t confiscated.

She poured more of the wine into two more goblets and retook her seat.

While she waited, she glanced around again. Did she have time to search the suite?

She spun around and reached automatically for her gun, never mind that it wasn’t there, as the door burst open and Van Houten’s bodyguards came rushing inside.

Drats , she wouldn’t get the chance now.

They filed into the bathroom. Through the open door, Indigo heard Van Houten puking. Yuck . Better them than her.

Her neck prickled when Bruiser One, Gordon, came back out with a feral grin.

“Boss wants me to show you to the suite where you can stay until he feels better.”

She stood and followed him, keeping a respectable distance between them, down the hall to another room on the opposite side of the walkway.

He gripped the handle and turned. A warm breeze ruffled her hair from the open sliding glass doors leading to a balcony like the one in Van Houten’s suite. “Here you go.”

Her nose wrinkled from the stench of cigarette smoke as she passed him. She turned to thank him but had to shuffle backward when Gordon forced himself inside and closed the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Keeping you company.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need it. You can leave.”

He shook his head and stalked forward, letting his gaze travel down her body. She was wearing nothing flattering or revealing. He grabbed his crotch. “We’re going to have some fun first.”

She dropped the passive persona. “Touch me and die.”

He scoffed. “What do you think you are going to do about it?” He reached for her.

“This.”

She grabbed his arm and twisted, flipping him onto his back. He might be bigger than her, but he was overweight and stupid.

He shoved to his feet, his face beet red. “You’re going to regret that.” He charged her. She bent at the waist so his momentum carried him over her back, and he slammed to the floor again.

“You bitch!”

He scrambled to his feet and reached his right hand under his left arm.

“Looking for this?”

She held his gun with one finger.

“Give me that.”

She spun it and gripped the handle. Before she could aim it at him, he grabbed the edge of the rug and jerked. Indy went flying, as did the gun. She hit the ground on her back, and then what she assumed was two hundred and eighty pounds landed on top of her, driving the air from her lungs.

“You are a bitch.” He smashed his meaty paw into her face, snapping it violently to the side. “I’m going to take you right here on the floor.”

She could feel his arousal as she struggled to breathe.

Her cheek throbbed, but she didn’t think it was broken.

He gripped her shoulders, leaving her hand free.

She reached into her pocket, flicked the protective covering off her comb, stabbed the sharp metal spikes into his fleshy side, and jerked upward.

“Ah!”

He released her to grip his bleeding wound.

While he was distracted, she slammed the heel of her hand into his nose, breaking it. She barely rolled out of the way as blood poured. Then she sprang to her feet and looked for the gun. It was over by the sliding doors leading to the deck. She dove for it and grunted when he landed on top of her.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“You’re welcome to try.”

She smashed the back of her head into his already broken nose, causing him to howl in pain.

It wasn’t easy crawling out from under his crushing weight, but she did and scrambled for the gun.

When she turned, he was charging at her again, his face a bloody, mangled mess.

She waited until he was close and then side-stepped.

His momentum carried him onto the balcony, and his bulk took him over the railing with a high-pitched scream.

Indy sprang forward to watch as he hit the water below. His head popped up once as he gasped for air and flailed, but he went under again and didn’t resurface. With all that blood, it wouldn’t be long before ocean predators arrived.

Indigo inhaled deeply to calm her racing heart.

They’d made a lot of noise during the struggle, but with the others on the opposite side of the yacht, they must not have been able to hear.

She felt sympathy for Gordon’s family, if he had one, but it was either her or him.

Plus, she hadn’t killed him. He done it to himself.

She would need to clean up the blood and herself.

He’d dripped all over her. Thankfully, most of the mess was contained to the rug he’d used to jerk her off her feet.

She rolled it up and tossed it over the side.

Man, she was doing a lot of ocean littering.

She’d have to volunteer at a shore clean-up when she got home to make up for it.