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Slade searched frantically and desperately for Snake Man, as Snake was known to the Richmond police. A dozen Greek officers assisted him, but they came up with nothing. The man had just vanished. Poof. Gone into thin air. Slade cursed under his breath.
“He has to be around here somewhere,” Slade said angrily to anyone who would listen. “No one disappears like he did,” he insisted, but his words fell on deaf ears.
The Greek officer shrugged his shoulders and said, “I have no idea. My men will continue to search for him. We believe he must have dropped into the water. We have no record of him leaving the ship.”
“Find him,” Slade snarled as his text alarm sounded. He jerked it out of his pocket and saw a picture of a happy, but very battered Michaela. Her eye was blackened and it looked as though her face had been pistol-whipped.
“Slade. Slade, Dottie and Angel saved me,” Mic said painfully. “I’m safe and I’m going to the hospital,” she said as her green eyes sought his and her dark hair clung to the side of her face.
Dottie interrupted and said, “Stop talking, Mic. Your jaw looks bad.” Dottie grabbed the phone, “I think her jaw is broken, Slade.”
Slade’s heart warmed with joy. Michaela was going to be all right. “Thank goodness they saved you, Mic,” he said in a soft voice. “That’s the only news that’s been good the entire day. What about your stalker, Grady, or whatever the hell his name is?”
Mic’s green eyes widened, even the blackened one and she said, “Dead. Dottie shot him in the head. He won’t take me again,” she said, her speech garbled.
Slade was impressed. “The old girl got him with a headshot?” he said as his heart swelled with pride for the aging countess. “Way to go, Countess!”
“Bastard got what he deserved,” Dottie said as she shushed Mic again. “I aimed for the head.”
Slade laughed. “I hear you, Countess, and I believe you,” he said honestly.
“Damned good thing,” Dottie hissed. “Nobody can get anything done around here except for Angel and me,” she said in a biting voice. “Who have you and Jack caught?”
Slade cleared his throat, “No one, absolutely no one,” he admitted, “but it’s not for lack of trying.”
“No one? No one, Slade? What about St. Germaine?” Mic asked in a disappointed voice.
“Stop talking, Michaela,” Dottie insisted. “You’re gonna be worse.”
“Zilch. No sign of him,” Slade admitted. “We’ve looked and looked. But, Angel... how is Angel?”
Michaela leaned over to pat her dog who lay on the floor next to her feet in the ambulance. “Angel’s fine. Angel put Grady... put him on the ground and took a few bites of his wrist. Grady managed to get his gun arm out from under his body, but it was too late. Dottie had the drop on him,” she said with a small gasp as she remembered the entire incident.
Slade’s body was flooded with relief. “Mic, stop talking. I can hardly understand you. Please, just get back here where I can keep my eye on you. We’ve had too many near misses lately.”
“What do you have? Anything? You said no St. Germaine?” Dottie asked with anxiety in her voice.
Slade’s voice was disappointed. “No. Nothing on St Germaine. I assume he got away or he’s still on the ship,” Slade said. “We watched every face that got on or off the ship, food service workers, staff, ship crew, and passengers and no one got off the ship that looked like Vadim.”
Mic was quiet and she pondered Slade’s words. She struggled to speak. “Where could he be? He has to be somewhere, Slade. He couldn’t have escaped all of those law enforcement people plus you, Jack, and Stoner who know him so well,” she said, an incredible edge to her voice.
Slade was quiet for a second. “Well, the way I see it, he did. Perhaps he worked up some masterful disguise, made himself ten feet tall, had plastic surgery, but I’m here to tell you, that Vadim didn’t get off the ship today. Mark my words.”
Mic lay back against the pillows. She knew that voice and she knew she needed to back off. “Got it. I’ll be back soon. Dottie wants me to go by and see a friend of hers who is a plastic surgeon. She thinks my jaw is broken,” she said with a giggle.
“She’s had a lot of pain medicine, Slade,” Dottie said. “I think she’s gonna fall asleep.”
Slade was quiet for a second. “Do what Dottie says. You’re getting harder and harder to understand and your words are slurred,” he informed her. “I think you’re coming down from an adrenaline rush,” he continued, with a smile in his voice.
“See, I told you so,” Dottie said in the background. “How come you listen to him before you listen to me?” she asked in an irritated voice.
Mic shrugged her shoulders, nodded to Dottie, and signaled she planned to hang up. “Is there anything else, Slade?”
Slade hesitated and said, “Yeah, there is. Guess who else was on the ship?”
“I can’t imagine. Who, who else could be on that ship?”
“Snake. Snake Man from earlier this year. Tattoo boy,” Slade said angrily between compressed lips.
Mic was shocked. She could hardly speak “Snake? The guy that tried to kill me and stabbed Angel?”
“Among other things,” Slade said wryly. “Yes, him.” Mic could imagine the scowl on his face, but she couldn’t imagine why Snake would be on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea.
“Why?” She asked, shock in her voice. “Why are two men we’ve been chasing forever on the same ship with Dottie and me and a bunch of hostile pharmaceutical types in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea?”
Slade contemplated her question and said, “Well, my best guess is they work together. We think Snake and St. Germaine are killers that work for an international crime syndicate. And, I think they’re working for your favorite drug company, Blake Pharmaceutical.”
Mic was shocked. “That’s it. They do the dirty work for people. This time, it’s Blake Pharmaceutical.” She stopped, stunned for a moment, and then said, “So Blake Pharmaceutical hired Snake and Vadim to kill people who objected to Quelpro and believed it was a dirty drug.”
“That’s my best guess at the moment.”
Michaela was quiet, lost in thought as she considered a relationship between St. Germaine and Snake. Then she was riveted by a memory. “You’re right, Slade. I saw the two of them having drinks at the pool bar a few days ago.”
“You did?” Slade was surprised.
Mic gulped and said, “I didn’t realize who they were then. I missed it,” she said sadly. “Perhaps I could have saved Dr. O’Leary’s life and the senator’s life,” she said sadly.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Mic. We’ll get them and we’ll take these corporate assholes down,” Slade said in a forceful voice.
“Yeah, you’re right, Slade. We’re gonna do it... In memory of Dr. O’Leary and Senator Bostitch. And people all over the world who are taking unsafe drugs.”
A second later, Mic was fast asleep in the ambulance.