Chapter 3: What a Dead Woman Looks Like
I was already in the bed.
The moment I heard his footsteps stop outside the door, something clicked into place behind my eyes — cold and precise, cutting through the fog like a blade.
I crossed the room in four steps, dropped onto the mattress, pulled the sheet to my chin, and let my arm fall limp over the edge.
I closed my eyes.
The door opened.
Flynn stood in the frame for a long moment.
I could feel him looking at me.
I kept my breathing slow, heavy, deliberate — the way it had been for three days when the dr*gs were actually working.
His footsteps moved closer.
Stopped at the edge of the bed.
"Still out," he said quietly, to no one.
Then he did something I didn't expect.
He sat down on the edge of the mattress.
The weight of him pressed the springs down beside me.
He reached out and pushed a strand of hair off my face — gently, the way he used to do in the first weeks, when I still believed he meant it.
"You really were perfect," he said.
"I almost felt bad."
Almost.
He stood.
Walked to the safe, opened it.
I heard the rustle of paper — the power of attorney.
He was checking it.
Satisfied, he closed the safe, crossed back to the door.
"See you at midnight, sweetheart."
The door clicked shut.
I lay there for thirty seconds.
Then I opened my eyes.
My phone was under the pillow.
I had photographed the pills, the document, the safe combination.
But photographs weren't enough.
Flynn had people.
A lawyer, he'd said.
Guys waiting in the mountains.
This wasn't one man acting alone — this was a plan built over months, maybe longer, with money and patience behind it.
I needed a witness.
Someone on this yacht who wasn't part of it.
I thought about the crew.
Flynn had said they'd be inside during the squall.
But the squall wasn't until after midnight.
It was barely nine o'clock.
I thought about the captain.
Captain Reyes had been with my father for eleven years.
He'd sailed this yacht from the Azores to the Maldives and back.
He'd attended my christening.
He'd sent a card when I graduated university.
He was the only person on this vessel that Flynn had not chosen, had not vetted, had not bought.
I had to get to him without Flynn seeing me move.
I sat up slowly.
The room tilted.
The dr*gs were still in my system — not enough to put me under, but enough to make every step feel like walking through wet concrete.
I gripped the nightstand, waited for the worst of it to pass, then stood.
The porthole above the desk showed black water and the first distant flicker of lightning.
The squall was coming early.
I had less time than I thought.
I pulled on a cardigan over my nightgown, tucked my phone into the pocket, and pressed my ear to the door.
Silence in the corridor.
I eased it open, checked both directions, and moved.
The crew quarters were two decks below.
I took the service staircase — narrow, unlit, smelling of diesel and salt.
My hand dragged along the wall the whole way down.
Twice I had to stop and wait for the dizziness to pass.
The captain's cabin was at the end of a short passage.
Light under the door.
I knocked twice, soft and fast.
Footsteps.
The door opened.
Captain Reyes looked at me — at my bare feet, my nightgown, the cardigan I'd pulled on crooked — and his expression shifted immediately from surprise to something sharper.
"Miss Sterling." He hadn't called me that since before the wedding.
"Come in."
I stepped inside.
He closed the door behind me.
"I need you to listen to me," I said.
"All of it.
And I need you not to say a word to anyone on this yacht until I'm finished."
He studied my face for a moment.
Then he pulled out the chair from his desk and set it in front of me.
"Sit down," he said.
"You look like you're about to fall."
I sat.
And I told him everything.
He didn't interrupt once.
When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment, his hands flat on the desk in front of him.
"The pills," he said finally.
"You still have them?"
"Photographed.
Still in the nightstand."
"The document."
"Photographed.
Still in the safe."
He nodded slowly.
Then he reached for the radio on his desk — and stopped.
He turned to look at me.
"Flynn has someone in the coast guard," he said.
"Your father told me.
Six months ago, when he first started worrying about the marriage.
He didn't tell you because he didn't want to frighten you."
The floor seemed to shift under me.
It wasn't the ocean.
"My father knew?"
"He suspected.
He asked me to watch." Reyes's jaw tightened.
"I should have watched more carefully."
He picked up a different handset — not the ship radio.
A satellite phone, old and heavy, the kind that didn't route through any system Flynn could have touched.
"I know someone," he said.
"Outside the coast guard.
Someone your father trusts."
He dialed.
Waited.
Outside, the first real gust of the squall hit the hull.
The yacht shuddered.
The lights flickered once.
Reyes looked at me across the desk as the line connected.
"Stay in this cabin," he said quietly.
"Don't open the door for anyone but me."
Then, into the phone: "It's Reyes.
I need an emergency intercept.
International waters, Caribbean sector." A pause.
"Yes.
Tonight."
The wind screamed against the porthole.
May you like
Somewhere above us, I heard Flynn's footsteps crossing the upper deck.
He was already looking for me.
