Chapter 5: Celeste
The storm hit the yacht like a flat hand.
The hull groaned.
Something in the corridor outside fell and rolled.
I braced my back against the bed frame and kept the communicator pressed to my ear while the floor tilted and steadied and tilted again.
"Dad."
"Still here.
Coast Guard is twenty minutes out.
They're running fast given the weather.
Reyes said to tell you — stay low, stay locked, and if anyone tries to force that door, make as much noise as you can."
"The crew—"
"Delia is the only one you trust right now.
Anyone else, you don't know."
I looked at the phone in my hand.
The message thread with Celeste was still open.
I scrolled up.
Six weeks of planning.
The dr*g dosage discussed like a recipe.
The paperwork celebrated like a business deal.
And then, near the top of the thread, something that made me go very still.
*She doesn't know about the first wife.*
I read it twice.
*She doesn't know about the first wife.
Keep it that way until after.*
I put the phone face-down on the floor.
"Dad," I said slowly.
"Was Lucas married before?"
Silence.
"Dad."
"We found a record," he said.
"Three years ago.
A woman named Petra Voss.
The marriage was annulled after eight months.
Her family said she had a breakdown.
We couldn't find her to speak with her directly."
"Did you look?"
"Our attorneys looked.
She had moved and left no forwarding address.
We flagged it as a concern but couldn't prove anything." A pause.
"I should have told you that too."
The door handle moved again.
This time it didn't stop.
It rattled, hard, back and forth, and then there was a sound I hadn't heard before — metal on metal, something being worked against the lock from outside.
"They're trying to get in," I said.
"How long until the bolt gives?"
"I don't know."
"Get to the far corner.
Away from the door."
I moved.
The rattling continued.
Then Lucas's voice came through the door, and it was nothing like the voice that had brushed the hair from my forehead that morning.
"Vivienne.
Open this door right now or I will tell the captain you've become a danger to yourself.
He will authorize a welfare entry.
You will not be able to stop it."
I said nothing.
"I know you heard us on the stairs.
I know you're frightened.
But you don't understand the full situation.
There are things about your father's business that you don't know.
Things that would change how you see all of this." His voice dropped, turned almost gentle.
"Open the door and we can talk.
Just the two of us."
I looked at the phone on the floor.
*She doesn't know about the first wife.*
"Lucas," I said clearly, loud enough to carry through the door.
"I have your phone."
Silence.
"I've read the messages with Celeste.
All of them.
I know about the dosage.
I know about the captain.
And I know about Petra Voss."
Nothing from the other side of the door for a long moment.
Then a different voice.
A woman's voice.
Closer than I expected, as if she had been standing just beside him the whole time.
"It doesn't matter what she knows." Celeste's voice was calm and flat and completely without feeling.
"The captain has already filed a wellness report.
The moment that door opens, it's over."
"The door isn't opening," I said.
"Then we wait," she said.
"The squall will pass.
The crew will clear the decks.
And eventually, Vivienne, you will need to come out."
My father's voice came through the communicator, barely a breath.
"Fifteen minutes."
I looked at the brass bolt above the door.
Still holding.
May you like
Outside, the storm pressed against the hull, and Celeste waited, and I thought about a woman named Petra Voss who had moved away and left no forwarding address, and I understood, with a cold and total clarity, that I was not the first.
But I was going to be the last.
