Chapter 5: The Port He Shouldn't Have Reached
The last port had been Valletta.
We'd docked for six hours.
I'd walked the old city with a small group from the ship, bought a jar of honey from a market stall, eaten lunch alone at a café overlooking the harbor.
Gerald had been somewhere in that city.
Watching me eat lunch.
Watching me browse the market.
Waiting for the ship to open its boarding ramp so he could step aboard with a ticket he must have purchased weeks in advance, knowing exactly where I would be.
"How did he get a cabin?" I asked.
"Late cancellation.
Deck four." Richard was already moving.
He picked up the photographs from the bed and stacked them carefully.
"We need to go to the ship's security office.
Right now, before he knows we've connected him to any of this."
"And say what?
My late husband's brother is on the same cruise?"
"We say there has been unauthorized entry to your cabin and that you have evidence." He handed me the photograph of Gerald on the dock.
"This is a starting point."
I took it.
My hand was steady, which surprised me.
"Richard." I stopped him before he reached the door.
"When you said this was supposed to be something — what did you mean?
What changed?"
He turned around.
"I was hired to watch over you.
That's all I agreed to do.
But three days in, I found the first photograph I didn't take, tucked under the edge of your cabin door.
Someone had slid it there and walked away." He paused.
"It was a photograph of you sleeping."
I said nothing.
"Taken through the balcony window.
At night." His voice was even but his eyes weren't.
"That's when I stopped reporting to Claire and started trying to figure out who else was on this ship."
"You stopped reporting to Claire."
"Yes."
"Does she know that?"
"No."
I thought about my daughter.
About three years of silence.
About a woman so frightened of losing her mother that she'd hired a stranger to follow me across the Mediterranean rather than pick up the phone.
"I need to call her," I said.
"After security.
Please."
I nodded and followed him into the corridor.
We were halfway to the staircase when a cabin door opened behind us.
I didn't turn around immediately.
I don't know why.
Some instinct made me keep walking, keep my pace even, keep my eyes forward.
Richard's hand found my elbow.
"Don't stop," he said softly.
But I heard the footsteps.
Measured.
Unhurried.
Following at exactly the distance a person would choose if they didn't want to seem like they were following.
I knew that walk.
May you like
I had heard it at Thomas's funeral, crossing the church floor toward me while I stood at the casket.
Gerald was behind us.
