Chương 2
His jacket stayed around his mother.
“What happened to the cup?” he asked.
Margaret glanced down as though she had forgotten it.
“She brought water.”
“Vanessa brought it?”
Margaret nodded.
“Before or after she closed the door?”
“Before.”
The deck officer looked up briefly but said nothing.
Damian took the cup by its rim and placed it on top of a gray electrical housing, away from the pipes and the medic’s bag. He did not know whether it mattered. He only knew it should not disappear.
Margaret watched him.
“You always did that,” she said weakly.
“Did what?”
“Clean up before you let yourself feel anything.”
The remark was so ordinary, so perfectly her, that it made the compartment tilt beneath him.
He touched the back of her head, careful not to disturb her hair.
“I’m going upstairs.”
“No.”
“I need to speak to Vanessa.”
Margaret caught his wrist. Her grip was weaker than he expected and more desperate.
“Don’t go up angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
She held his gaze.
Neither of them believed him.
When Damian returned to the salon, Vanessa remained in her chair. The older silver-haired man, Martin Vale, had set his glass down. Claire Baines, dark-haired and severe in a black-and-white dress, held her hands together beneath the table. Sabrina Holt had removed her dark glasses and placed them beside her plate.
No one was eating.
Vanessa looked toward the doorway behind Damian, perhaps expecting Margaret to appear.
“She’s alive,” Damian said.
Vanessa’s shoulders lowered by a fraction.
It was the first unguarded movement he had seen from her.
“Of course she is.”
“Of course?”
Vanessa glanced at the others, not pleading for help exactly, but measuring the room.
“She went below deck because she was upset.”
“The door was locked from the outside.”
“I closed it because of the noise.”
“You engaged the secondary latch.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You used a key.”
“No.” She shook her head once. “Damian, I didn’t.”
He walked to the table and stopped behind his mother’s empty chair. Her shoes were still beneath it. Vanessa followed his gaze.
For the first time, the composure in her face thinned.
“She took them off because her feet hurt,” Vanessa said.
No one had asked.
Martin Vale cleared his throat. “Perhaps this is something the two of you should discuss privately.”
Damian turned to him.
Martin was sixty-three and had spent thirty years making suggestions that sounded like courtesies and functioned like orders. He chaired two boards, owned pieces of several hotels, and had introduced Damian to Vanessa at a museum benefit eighteen months earlier.
“Did you see my mother go below deck?” Damian asked.
“No.”
“Did you see Vanessa leave the table?”
Martin hesitated.
Claire answered for him. “She left after Margaret.”
Vanessa’s eyes moved toward Claire.
“To check on her,” Vanessa said.
“How long were you gone?” Damian asked.
“A few minutes.”
“Seventeen,” Sabrina said.
Everyone looked at her.
Sabrina touched the stem of her glass. “I checked the time because the chef was waiting to serve the second course. It may have been sixteen. I don’t know.”
“It was not seventeen,” Vanessa said.
Sabrina’s mouth tightened. “All right.”
Damian had known Sabrina for years. She could turn a charity luncheon into a hostage negotiation over a seating chart, but she rarely corrected herself when certain.
“Did my mother return with Vanessa?” he asked.
“No,” Claire said.
Vanessa placed both hands flat on the table.
“Margaret told me she wanted to be alone. I thought she had gone to her cabin.”
“You told me she wanted privacy.”
“She did.”
“In an engine compartment?”
“I didn’t know she was in there.”
“She says you brought her water.”
Vanessa’s eyes changed. Not dramatically. The pupils seemed to hold still.
“She was overheated.”
“In the corridor?”
“Yes.”
“Then you watched her enter the machinery space.”
“She walked in herself.”
“And you locked the door.”
“I closed it.”
“You latched it.”
“I closed it, Damian.”
The repetition made Claire shift in her seat.
Damian took the radio from his belt and set it beside the white napkins. Its speaker crackled with an update from the captain. A Coast Guard cutter had been notified. A helicopter was not necessary unless Margaret’s condition worsened. They were changing course toward the nearest suitable marina.
Vanessa stared at the radio.
“You called the Coast Guard?”
“My mother was locked below deck with injuries.”
“She fell. I didn’t hurt her.”
“You haven’t asked how badly.”
A faint flush rose above the neckline of Vanessa’s emerald dress.
“I can see you’re standing here. I assumed she’s conscious.”
“You assumed.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Taking every word and turning it until it sounds monstrous.”
Martin stood, smoothing the front of his charcoal suit. “Damian, everyone is shocked. Vanessa should have counsel before this continues.”
The yacht rolled through the wake of another vessel. Crystal glasses shifted against the table.
Damian looked at Martin. “Why are you worried about her counsel?”
“I’m worried about all of you.”
“Then sit down.”
Martin did not.
Damian did not repeat himself. The two men faced each other across the seafood stand while the engine vibration passed up through the floor.
Martin sat.
Vanessa closed her eyes briefly. “You don’t speak to people like that.”
“I just did.”
“And that should frighten me?”
“No. The fact that it doesn’t should.”
Claire looked down.
The salon door opened, and the medic appeared.
“Mr. Cross, your mother should be taken to a hospital. Her vital signs are stable, but she may have a concussion, and she’s complaining of pain along the left side of her ribs.”
Damian nodded. “We’re returning.”
“The captain has already changed course.”
“Thank you.”
The medic glanced toward Vanessa, then away.
May you like
“Margaret asked for you.”
Damian picked up the radio but left the table otherwise untouched. Vanessa’s folded napkin remained precisely centered over her knees. The silver seafood stand still held crushed ice and open shells beginning to lose their shine.
