Chương 7
Nathan followed my gaze.
“I don’t know.”
“That worries you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus Hale is many things.”
Nathan paused.
“But careless is not one of them.”
A few minutes later, Captain Reynolds returned.
His face told us something had changed.
“What happened?” Nathan asked.
“We contacted the boat.”
“And?”
“They refused to identify themselves.”
“That is not surprising.”
“No.”
The captain handed Nathan the tablet.
“There is more.”
Nathan read the message.
His expression hardened.
“What?”
I asked.
He handed me the tablet.
The message was from an unknown number.
It contained one sentence.
STOP LOOKING FOR THE CARD.
I looked at Nathan.
“That is not very subtle.”
“No.”
“Whoever sent this wants us to know they are watching.”
Nathan nodded.
“And they want us to know they are close.”
The captain cleared his throat.
“There is another thing.”
I almost laughed.
Apparently, on that yacht, every answer came with another problem attached.
“What now?”
“We searched the upper deck.”
“And?”
“We found this.”
He placed a small plastic evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a torn piece of paper.
At first, it looked ordinary.
Then I saw the writing.
My name was on it.
Elena Carter.
My stomach tightened.
“When was this found?”
“Near the railing.”
The same railing.
The place where Veronica pushed me.
Nathan picked up the bag carefully.
“Who found it?”
“One of the crew members.”
“Did anyone touch it?”
“No.”
Nathan looked at the captain.
“Preserve everything.”
The captain nodded.
I stared at the paper.
There was no reason my name should have been written there.
No reason anyone should have had it.
Unless someone had planned around me before I ever stepped onto the yacht.
“What does it say?” I asked.
Nathan turned the bag over.
The back was blank.
“The writing is only on the front.”
“Can we read it?”
“Not without damaging it.”
I looked closer.
There was something familiar about the handwriting.
Not the letters.
The pressure.
The way the ink moved.
I had seen it before.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at me.
I pointed at the paper.
“I know this handwriting.”
Nathan’s expression changed.
“Whose?”
I did not answer immediately.
Because the person I was thinking of made no sense.
It could not be.
My mind searched through years of documents, notes, contracts, and personal messages.
Then I remembered.
A birthday card.
A handwritten note.
A signature on a legal document.
“No,” I whispered.
Nathan stepped closer.
“Elena.”
I looked at him.
“The handwriting belongs to my father.”
The room became silent.
My father had been dead for eleven years.
And for the first time since I saw the paper, I felt something worse than fear.
Confusion.
My father had never met Nathan.
He had never been involved with his company.
He had never stepped onto the Aurelia VII.
He had been a high school history teacher who spent weekends repairing old furniture and complaining that modern coffee shops charged too much for drinks.
He was not connected to billionaires.
He was not connected to corporate battles.
He was not connected to anything happening tonight.
At least, that was what I believed.
Nathan looked at me carefully.
“You are sure?”
“Yes.”
“Could someone have copied it?”
“Maybe.”
But my voice lacked confidence.
Because I knew my father’s handwriting.
I knew the way he crossed his T’s too high.
I knew the slight angle of his letters.
Small things you only notice when someone is gone.
Nathan sat down slowly.
“What was your father’s name?”
I looked at him.
“You know his name.”
“I know what you told me.”
The answer confused me.
“My father was Robert Bennett.”
Nathan looked at the paper again.
Then at David, who had just returned.
“David.”
The older man stopped.
Nathan held up the evidence bag.
“Do you recognize this name?”
David looked at it.
Then his face changed.
Not dramatically.
Not like someone seeing a ghost.
Like someone seeing a mistake from twenty years ago return.
“Where did you get that?”
Nathan stepped forward.
“That is not an answer.”
David looked at me.
And I knew before he spoke that whatever came next would change something.
“I knew your father.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I stared at him.
“What?”
David swallowed.
“I knew Robert Bennett.”
“How?”
He looked away.
That was the first time all night I saw him afraid.
“Because before Nathan Carter built his company, before there was a board, before there was a yacht, your father was the person who helped create the foundation everything was built on.”
I could not speak.
Because that was impossible.
My father had been a teacher.
A quiet man who drove the same car for fifteen years.
A man who fixed broken chairs instead of replacing them.
A man who never talked about business.
But David looked at me like he was looking at someone who had just discovered a door in their own house that they never knew existed.
And suddenly the mystery was no longer about who wanted the card.
It was about why my father had one first.
And suddenly the mystery was no longer about who wanted the card.
It was about why my father had one first.
I looked at David Mercer and waited for him to explain.
He did not.
That scared me more than if he had immediately started talking.
People who are lying usually rush to build a story.
People who are remembering something painful often struggle to decide where the truth begins.
“My father helped build what?” I asked.
David looked at Nathan.
Nathan looked back at him.
There was a silent conversation between them that I hated being excluded from.
I stepped forward.
“No.”
Both of them looked at me.
“Whatever happened twenty years ago, I am standing here now.”
I pointed toward the evidence bag.
“My name is on a piece of paper found next to a place where I was pushed into the ocean.”
May you like
My voice became sharper.
“I think I deserve to know why.”
