Chapter 4: A Name from a Closed Door
His name was Gerald.
Gerald Harmon.
My husband's younger brother by six years.
The one who had stood at Thomas's funeral with dry eyes and asked me, three days later, whether Thomas had left a will.
I hadn't spoken to Gerald since the day I told him there was nothing in the estate for him.
He'd looked at me across my own kitchen table and said, very quietly, "You'll regret this, Dorothy."
That was eleven years ago.
I stared at the photograph Richard had placed on the bed.
It was Gerald on the dock.
The departure dock.
Standing in the crowd of people waving off the ship, his face turned upward, looking directly at the upper deck.
Looking directly at where I had been standing.
"He was there when you boarded," Richard said.
"He wasn't on the passenger list."
"No.
He wasn't."
"Then how did he—"
"He didn't board.
He was just watching.
Making sure you got on."
I set the photograph down.
"You've been investigating him."
"Once I found the first photograph I didn't take, yes.
I started looking." Richard pulled out his phone and turned the screen toward me.
A name.
An address.
A series of dates.
"Gerald has been in financial trouble for the past two years.
Serious trouble.
He took out loans against a property he doesn't fully own.
He owes money to people who are not patient."
"What does that have to do with me?"
Richard looked at me steadily.
"Thomas's life insurance policy.
The secondary beneficiary clause."
I felt the air go out of the room.
"That clause was never activated.
Thomas left everything to me."
"Yes.
But if you were to pass away without updating your own will—"
"Gerald would inherit nothing.
Claire would inherit everything."
"Unless," Richard said carefully, "your will was never found."
I sat very still.
"Are you telling me he came here to—"
"I'm telling you he made sure you got on this ship.
I'm telling you someone has been inside this cabin.
I'm telling you there are photographs here that neither of us took." He paused.
"I'm not telling you what he planned.
I don't know that yet.
But I know enough to be concerned."
The alarm above us cut off without warning.
The sudden silence was worse than the noise.
I looked at the photographs on the bed.
My red scarf.
My suitcase in the corridor.
"My suitcase," I said.
"Why was it outside?"
Richard's jaw tightened.
"Because someone moved it out before I could move it back in.
Someone who wanted you to follow me down here."
I understood then.
The suitcase wasn't a mistake.
It wasn't carelessness.
It was a door left open on purpose.
And I had walked straight through it.
"Where is Gerald now?" I asked.
Richard's phone buzzed in his hand.
He looked at the screen.
His face went very still.
May you like
"He's on the ship," he said.
"He boarded at the last port."
