Chapter 4: What the Crew Knew
Thirty-eight minutes.
I know because I counted.
I sat on the floor of that dark cabin and counted every one of them, with my father's voice in my ear and the communicator growing warm in my hand.
Lucas came back twice.
The first time he knocked and called my name.
The second time he didn't knock at all — just tried the handle, held it down for a long moment, and let it go.
After the second time, I heard his mother's voice in the corridor.
"She's locked it from inside," she said.
"I know." Lucas's voice was flat.
"Go back downstairs.
I'll handle it."
"The squall is almost here, Lucas.
If we don't move in the next—"
"I said go back downstairs."
A silence.
Then her footsteps retreated.
I told my father what I had heard.
He told me to stay where I was.
I already knew that.
But knowing and doing are different things when you can feel the yacht beginning to pitch in the rising water and you are alone in the dark wondering which side of the door is safer.
Then someone knocked differently.
Three short taps.
A pause.
Two more.
My father heard it through the communicator.
"Don't open it," he said immediately.
"I know," I said.
But a voice came through the door that I didn't expect.
"Mrs.
Hargrove." A woman's voice.
Quiet, careful.
"My name is Delia.
I'm one of the stewards.
I've been on this yacht for four years." A pause.
"I heard what they were planning.
I heard it two nights ago and I didn't know what to do.
I'm sorry I waited this long."
I looked at the door.
"How do I know Lucas didn't send you?" I said.
"You don't," she said.
"But I have his phone.
He left it on the bar when he went upstairs.
There are messages on it going back six weeks.
A woman named Celeste.
Photographs.
Transfers.
A conversation about the dr*g dosage." Her voice dropped even lower.
"I took photographs of the screen with my own phone.
I've already sent them to my sister onshore.
Whatever happens to me tonight, she has them."
My father's voice was sharp in my ear.
"Ask her to slide the phone under the door."
"Slide the phone under the door," I said.
A pause.
Then Lucas's phone appeared in the gap at the floor — a thin rectangle of light in the darkness.
I picked it up.
The screen was open to a message thread.
The contact name at the top was simply *C.* I read the first visible message.
*She took the full dose tonight.
By tomorrow it won't matter.*
The date was two days ago.
I read the next one.
*Roderick confirmed the captain is manageable.
He owes us from the Marseille situation.
Don't worry.*
My stomach turned over.
The captain.
I looked up at the door.
"Delia.
Is the captain involved?"
A long pause.
"I think so.
Yes."
My father had heard.
"Vivienne, I'm calling the Coast Guard back right now to update them.
This changes the boarding approach.
Do not let anyone in uniform onto that yacht until you can verify they came from the cutter, not from the bridge."
"How do I verify that?"
"The officer's name will be Reyes.
Commander Reyes.
That's who I spoke to.
Ask for that name before you open anything."
I looked at the phone in my hand.
Six weeks of messages.
A plan that had been running since before we left San Diego.
Possibly before we were married.
"Delia," I said through the door.
"How long have you known about Celeste?"
Another pause.
"Since the second day.
She came aboard in San Diego with the provisioning crew.
She has a crew badge.
She's been on this yacht the whole time."
The whole time.
I had been sick since the second day.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"With Lucas," Delia said.
"On the aft deck.
Waiting."
The yacht lurched hard to port.
May you like
The squall had arrived.
And somewhere above me, on the aft deck, my husband and his mistress were standing in the dark, waiting for a door that wasn't going to open.
