Eventually I just stopped trying to talk. Never talk to the police. That had been drilled into my head for ages. Good advice. I clammed up and hummed aimless tunes, whatever I could think of while staring into the distance. Acting crazy had worked for Malcolm. Maybe it could work for me too.
Then Felicia came to my rescue.
It didn't even take her twelve hours to get to Turkey and take me home. She had probably been en route even before I knew that my time with Malcolm had come to an end. Money can do a lot of things, and when she showed up with a small army of lawyers, my release was quick and painless.
She didn't say anything. Just hugged me and handed me a bundle of my clothes, brought straight from my apartment, and I dressed myself before we left for the airport. The old familiar feel of jeans and a t-shirt and one of my comfortable old hoodies sliding over my arms and hiding my face from the world calmed me, and I finally stopped crying.
I hadn't been wracked with enormous sobs the entire time, although that I certainly had been completely incoherent with depressing regularity, but even when I was speaking or humming or forcing myself to think about something else entirely—such as how the orange blankets the Coast Guard had given me totally clashed with my skin tone—huge tears had welled up and spilled down my face. It was only when I was wrapped up in my own clothes, with my best friend, in her private car heading for home that the tears finally slowed to a stop.
A tense silence descended as I wiped my face vigorously. I could hear the horrible rattling sound my chest made every time I took a breath.
Felicia sat next to me in the back seat and watched me, her face full of sympathy and concern. I hate to be worried about. I knew she was waiting for me to say something.
I sniffled and wiped my nose on my hoodie sleeve. A disgusting smear of snot shone on the cuff when I took my hand away. I didn't give a fuck.
"Well," I said at last. "That sucked."
Felicia sighed and shook her head. "Which part? The kidnapping or the international interrogation?"
I didn't even have the energy to shoot her a glare. "There was no kidnapping," I said wearily. "I wanted to be on that boat. You think anyone could make me do something I didn't want to?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, Sadie. Knowing you... no. But everyone has a breaking point. I thought... I thought, what if he really was crazy? What if he pulled a... a weapon on you?"
A knife. The words hovered above us. He could have pulled a gun, yeah. But that was never what I feared the most. Felicia knew my past. She knew me before all my scars had been hidden. Tattoos cost a lot of money. She'd helped me pay for some of them.
“No weapons,” I said with a sigh. None except emotion. “But it was... intense.”
She regarded me for a moment. “Yes, I see that. So... you went on his boat, without telling anyone, and sailed around aimlessly in international waters for shits and giggles.”
I was so tired I could hardly think straight. “No, it was to get away from the police.”
Her intake of breath was so sharp it hurt my ears. “So... you knew about the embezzlement and fraud when you agreed to get on his boat with him?”
I started to feel like I was being interrogated all the more. “Yes,” I snapped. “I mean... no. It's not like that. Malcolm's being framed. He's not embezzling his company, and he's not committing fraud, and he definitely didn't kidnap me."
For a moment I thought she was going to shut me down completely, but then she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I believe you," she said. "At least, I believe you believe him."
I made a frustrated noise. "It's his personal assistant. Or secretary. Or whatever. That guy is the one defrauding the company. Don Cardall. Malcolm said he had proof."
“I see. If he had proof, why doesn't he just hand it over?"
"Because!" I said, annoyed. "He doesn't want to betray Don. Supposedly he's like a brother to him. He was just planning on getting caught by the feds and then killing himself instead of turning Don over. Don's the one who's framing him."
It had made sense when Malcolm had explained it to me. Perfect sense. But as I watched Felicia's face, I realized that it was just as crazy as I had first thought.
Was Malcolm crazy? Really crazy? Paranoid, or... or bipolar or sociopathic or something? He had to have been telling me the truth... right? He had no reason to lie.
Had he really been betrayed... or was Don the one telling the truth, exposing his corrupt boss to the world in the name of justice? And if they were like brothers why Don was only Malcolm's secretary?
I was so tired. I'd believed Malcolm when we were together... why was doubt creeping in now?