Chương 11
“We don’t know what she heard.”
“She knows about Courchevel.”
Florent said, “Both of you shut up.”
His tone was unlike anything I had heard during our marriage.
Flat.
Commanding.
Then quieter, “We change the plan.”
My heart thudded.
Antoine asked, “How?”
“We don’t touch her.”
Relief came so fast my knees weakened.
Then Florent continued.
“Not unless we have to.”
Elias looked at me.
My relief vanished.
Florence asked, “And the captain?”
“He’s already contacted someone.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he wouldn’t lock the bridge otherwise.”
Antoine said, “Then what?”
Florent answered after a pause.
“We make this a medical emergency.”
I felt my skin go cold.
Florence understood before I did.
“She’s already drugged.”
“Yes.”
“We say she took them herself?”
“Yes.”
Antoine said, “That won’t explain what she heard.”
Florent replied, “She heard fragments and built a story.”
“She has pills.”
“Then we need the pills gone.”
My left foot suddenly seemed enormous.
One tablet remained beneath the insole.
Elias touched my arm and pointed toward the service passage.
We moved.
At the corner, he whispered, “They’re not planning to push you overboard now.”
“No.”
“They’re planning to make no one believe you.”
I nodded.
It should have felt safer.
It didn’t.
Murder required opportunity.
Discrediting me required only patience.
We reached my cabin.
The door stood partly open.
Elias stopped me before I entered.
He looked inside first.
“Clear.”
The suite had been searched.
Not dramatically.
Competently.
My suitcase remained closed, but the toiletries had shifted.
The nightstand drawer was not fully shut.
Florent’s blazer had disappeared.
The desk drawer was open.
My chest tightened.
“The laptop.”
I crossed the room.
Gone.
Elias swore.
I checked the charger.
Gone too.
“They took everything.”
“Maybe not.”
I dropped to my knees beside the bed.
My travel bag had been moved.
Inside the lining was a flat document pouch.
Empty.
My passport was gone.
Elias crouched beside me.
“Was that here?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Passport, backup credit card, some cash.”
“All gone?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the door.
“They’re containing you.”
My phone vibrated.
I pulled it out.
No new message.
It was a low-battery warning.
Seventeen percent.
Elias said, “We need to go.”
I stood.
Then I saw the wastebasket.
A torn strip of paper protruded beneath used tissues.
I recognized the pale blue border.
Wedding stationery.
I pulled it free.
Half a page.
Most of it had been shredded by hand.
But one line remained intact.
Beneficiary designation shall become irrevocable upon legal determination of death.
Below it was my signature.
Or something that looked exactly like my signature.
Elias stared at the page.
“You signed that?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
I looked at the looping S in my surname.
Too smooth.
I always hesitated at that letter.
My signature carried a tiny hook where the pen paused.
This one did not.
“I’m sure.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Elias reached for the radio.
The cabin door moved.
Florent stepped inside.
He saw the paper in my hand.
Then he closed the door behind him.
Florent’s eyes moved from the scrap of paper to Elias.
“You really should have stayed on the bridge.”
Elias touched the radio at his belt.
Florent saw that too.
“Don’t.”
The word was soft.
Elias’s hand remained where it was.
“What happens if I do?”
Florent leaned against the closed door.
“That depends on whether you want everyone aboard frightened for no reason.”
I looked at the paper again.
“You forged my signature.”
Florent’s mouth tightened.
“Is that what you think?”
“I know my own name.”
“You sign hundreds of documents.”
“I know my own name.”
He glanced at Elias.
“This is exactly what I was talking about.”
Elias gave him a flat look.
“Talking to who?”
“My parents.”
“About pushing her overboard?”
Florent’s face changed.
Only slightly.
Enough.
I saw it.
Elias saw it too.
“You heard that?” Florent asked.
“I heard enough downstairs.”
That was a lie.
Elias had heard nothing of the original conversation.
He was giving Florent one more person to worry about.
For a second, I loved him for it.
Florent looked between us.
Then he laughed once.
“You two have become very close very quickly.”
“Fear accelerates introductions,” Elias said.
Florent’s gaze returned to me.
“Give me the paper.”
“No.”
“It’s trash.”
“Then you don’t need it.”
His eyes hardened.
“Give it to me.”
I folded it and slid it into the front pocket of the engineering jacket.
Florent pushed away from the door.
Elias immediately stepped between us.
“Don’t.”
Florent stopped.
“You think I’m going to hit her?”
“I think you’re standing between us and the exit.”
“That’s my cabin.”
“My cabin,” I said.
He looked at me.
The correction landed harder than I expected.
For our entire marriage, I had spoken of everything as ours.
Our apartment.
Our friends.
Our plans.
Our stupid espresso machine that Florent never learned to clean.
Now the word my stood between us like a locked gate.
He looked almost wounded again.
“You’ve decided everything already.”
“You planned my death.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“No?”
“No.”
His voice lowered.
“You heard a conversation you didn’t understand.”
Elias exhaled through his nose.
Florent ignored him.
I said, “Explain it.”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try.”
He looked at the pocket holding the document scrap.
Then at my face.
“The conversation was about a scenario.”
“What scenario?”
“A contingency.”
“For what?”
“My father’s financial exposure.”
I waited.
Florent said, “He has creditors.”
“What does that have to do with drugging me?”
“You were never being drugged.”
I almost laughed.
“The pills.”
“Anti-anxiety medication.”
“Without telling me?”
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You complained you couldn’t sleep.”
“I complained the yacht made me nauseated.”
“You were panicking.”
“I was not panicking.”
“You were crying the first night.”
I stopped.
That was true.
I had cried in the bathroom after dinner.
Not from panic.
May you like
From an argument with my mother.
She had wanted us to postpone the trip because my father was still recovering from surgery.
