CHAPTER - JACK AND CARL

"Wait up," Jack ordered when he caught up to Elizabeth who was determined to confront their roommate about the accidents on the ship. Jack put his arm around her waist as they kept walking. "We can't just accuse Carl."

"I know. I'm planning on going through his belongings", Elizabeth said matter-of-factly.

"I already did. There's nothing there."

Elizabeth stopped in her tracks. "You looked through his belongings?" she hissed in surprise.

"I'm investigating a crime."

"Don't you need a warrant?"

Jack looked at her incredulously. "We are in a spaceship hurtling through space! Where the heck am I going to get a search warrant?!"

"Good point."

"Besides, I don't need one. We all gave up our right to privacy when we became passengers. It was in the fine print in the flight orders."

"And you didn't find anything when you searched his stuff?"

Jack shook his head and they began walking again. "Nothing. But think about it, we don't exactly get to have a lot of things on this ship. His clothes and his computer were it."

"Thanks for agreeing to us confronting him together."

"I didn't," Jack said tersely as he kept his hand securely on her waist.

"But you're letting me help," Elizabeth argued.

"Honestly, at this point. I think you're the one actually letting me help you," he said in exasperated defeat. "You, Elizabeth my dear, are a force to be reckoned with."

"Is that a good thing?" Elizabeth tried to suppress the small smile forming.

"What do you think?" Jack replied. He tried to remain stern, but Elizabeth heard the laughter behind his words.

The couple was still forty feet away from their living quarters when Jack noticed something out of the ordinary.

"What's stuck in our doorway?" he asked in confusion as he looked into the distance. "Something's keeping our door from closing all the way."

Elizabeth noticed it too but it was impossible to make out the object from the far side view.

The door to the room was opening and closing; unable to completely close due to something stuck in its path. The automatic metal door moved rhythmically back and forth. Hitting whatever was in its path.

"Did you drop something when you left our place?" Elizabeth asked.

Before he could reply, one of the doors which lined the hallway slid open. More than two dozen crew members began pouring into the corridor. Blocking the couple's view of their living quarters.

Jack and Elizabeth were quickly over-run by the throng of talkative uniformed men and women. The closest thing to a traffic jam on the transporter.

The crew members, relieved to be finished with a monotonous meeting, were jostling and crowding into the four-foot wide corridor. Jack sighed in frustration but could do nothing about it. He and Elizabeth were slowed to a pace of barely moving.

Within another second, the casual conversational sounds in the narrow space were replaced by murmurs of concern and anxious yells.

"Get the doctor!"

"Someone get the doctor."

Jack let go of Elizabeth's waist and pushed through the crowd. Unwilling to be left back, she grabbed ahold of the back of shirt and followed after him.

Someone hurriedly moved past Elizabeth in the opposite direction. Bumping into her arm as he quickly went to get the doctor.

When she got to their living quarters, Elizabeth barely noticed the woman who was now holding open the automatic door to keep it from hitting the out-of-place object. Instead, her attention was drawn to the floor.

Carl was laying sprawled on the low-pile carpet. His unmoving foot across the threshold.

His brown shoe was dented on the side where it had been hit numerous times by the door. But it wasn't his foot that was drawing everyone's attention. It was the blood pouring from his head wound.

"Move out of the way. Stand back," Jack ordered.

"He's barely conscious," a crew member kneeling by Carl's head said as he moved away to give Jack access to the injured man.

Jack knelt down next to his roommate. Making sure to avoid the blood on the carpet. He noticed the weapon a few inches away but focused on Carl's pale face with its dazed eyes. He seemed to still be somewhat responsive but Jack wasn't sure how long it would last.

"Carl, what happened? Who did this?"

Jack's brow furrowed in puzzlement when he heard Carl's mumbled answer. Thinking he had heard incorrectly or that Carl had misunderstood the question, Jack asked again.

"Carl, Yes, it's me, Jack. I'm here. I need you to tell me who did this to you. Who hit you?"

Carl took a gasp of breath and looked Jack in the eye. "You," he said and then paused to look over Jack's shoulder at Elizabeth. "Jack" he said once again as if giving her a final warning before he passed out. There was no mistake. Despite his head wound, with his last second of clarity, he had clearly said Jack.

Jack watched Carl's eyes close and then he looked up and around the small room. Their living quarters were crowded with crew members and passengers. Crouched on the berths. Standing on the ladders to get better views. Milling outside the doorway. He saw the look of utter bafflement on Elizabeth's face.

It seemed that everyone was frozen in place by Carl's words. And then the murmuring and anxious looks in Jack's direction started.

"He said Jack."

"I heard him. He said Jack did it."

"Did he say Jack did this?"

"His own roommate attacked him?"

"He warned Elizabeth just before he died."

"He's not dead!" Elizabeth said disagreeably. "He's just unconscious."

Jack ignored the voices and looked around the room. Any evidence, other than the weapon, had been trampled on by the crowd.

"Whose spiral gadgetor is that by his head?" someone called out.

Jack looked at the metal instrument which was covered in blood and had obviously inflicted the head injury. It weighed no more than two pounds but could still do considerable damage when wielded at a man's head. Engraved into the gadgetor were the initials J.T.

Jack Thornton.

In case there was any doubt as to the identity of the weapon's owner, the initials after J.T. settled the question. NADF.

North America Defense Force.

"It's mine," Jack spoke up. "I need everyone to clear out of the room. Line up in the hallway. I'll need statements from everyone."

A few people started moving. Jumping down from an upper berth but then everyone froze again when Wayne spoke up.

"He assaulted me too. You all can't forget about that," the engineer reminded the crowd. The nervous men and women stood around Jack staring suspiciously at him while Wayne spoke. "Jack beat me up for no reason."

Elizabeth scowled. "That was totally different. And Jack did not attack Carl."

Jack couldn't help but feel his heart warm a little that Elizabeth was so quickly defending him. In fact, it was the only thing that made sense about this entire situation. That she was defending him.

"How do you know?" Wayne challenged. "Of course you'd defend him. He's your boyfriend."

"I would not defend him if he did something wrong. Stop being an idiot. He did not do this."

"You paid me to keep silent after he attacked me", a snarky Wayne declared. It was clear that Wayne was still not over the indignation of being bested by Jack.

"I didn't pay you!"

Elizabeth heard the whispers as people started talking about her family's wealth.

"I didn't pay him!" she yelled out. "It was water minutes! That's all!"

"Can you vouch for him tonight?" someone piped up.

"Yes. I was with him. At dinner. He couldn't have done this," Elizabeth replied in an exasperated voice.

"No, you weren't", Bud spoke up. "Sorry, Elizabeth, " he said with an apologetic shrug. "I like Jack. But you weren't with him. Jack came to dinner late tonight. You were almost finished by the time he got there."

With a start, Elizabeth realized that Bud was right. Jack usually arrived at the Cafeteria at the same time as she did, or they actually went together to eat. But tonight was one of the few times that he showed up later than her. Much later.

"Anyone could have come in here and done it", someone volunteered. Trying to be helpful to Jack.

Just then the crowd separated to allow the doctor into the room. Two crew-members pushing a wheeled stretcher – which would never fit in the narrow space between the berths - remained outside.

Everyone stayed quiet as Carl was briefly examined and then gently lifted up and carried into the corridor.

"Anyone could have come in. The doors open automatically on our rooms . . . unless we change the sensor to allow for only assigned occupants to be able to buzz in," the girl who had spoken up before announced. "People come and go into other people's rooms all the time."

Heads swiveled to look at Elizabeth and Jack, who both stared at each other.

"I changed ours after the incident with Ally crawling into my bed when she was drunk. Only assigned occupants could buzz in," Elizabeth admitted reluctantly.

Two hours later, Elizabeth sat on her berth. Looking at the blood stain a few feet away.

Seth sat on his own berth staring at her. Neither one said anything. They didn't know what to say.

Four friends and roommates. One unconscious in the infirmary. One in the Captain's quarters trying to explain the situation. Two sitting on their berths wondering whom to trust.

"Do you trust him completely?" Seth finally spoke up.

"I do."

Seth let out a deep sigh. "I guess that's good enough for me."

"Thank you", Elizabeth said quietly.

"Try to get some sleep. Jack won't be allowed back here tonight. He's going to be staying under guard. We'll figure out everything in the morning." Seth lay down, zippered his blanket around his body, and turned off the light over his bed before pulling his curtain closed. "Good night, Elizabeth."

"Good night, Seth."

The room seemed empty with two of its occupants missing.

Across the transporter, Jack was thinking similar thoughts as Elizabeth. Getting the same answers to questions about the possible assailant.

Jack was one of only four people who had access to their living quarters.

Jack had a history of assaulting another passenger.

Jack had been late coming to dinner.

Jack's service-issued gadgetor had been the weapon.

And most damning. . . The victim, Carl, had identified Jack as his assailant.

Elizabeth had to admit that this was definitely putting a glitch in her relationship with Jack.

Up Next: Chapter 21

P.S. Here's a question for reader S. Thornton – How did you get lucky enough to get your last name? :) 🙂