Chapter 4: The Captain's Silence
A knock.
Two sharp raps, not Flynn's lazy single tap.
I shoved the burner phone into my robe pocket and called out, "Who is it?"
"Housekeeping, ma'am.
Turndown service."
The voice was male.
Clipped.
Not the accent of any crew member who had spoken to me before.
"No thank you," I said.
"I'm resting."
A pause.
Then: "Mr.
Flynn asked us to check on you personally, ma'am."
My hand went to the deadbolt.
"I'm fine.
Please don't disturb me again."
Silence.
Then the footsteps moved away — but slowly, reluctantly, the way a person moves when they are listening for something rather than leaving.
I waited a full two minutes before I moved.
The burner phone.
*Captain R.* I didn't know what that meant — whether the captain was part of this, or whether Flynn had simply stored the number to use against him.
Either way, I couldn't risk it.
I needed a different way.
My own phone was on the nightstand where I'd left it all week, barely touched because the signal out here was nearly nonexistent.
I picked it up.
One bar.
Flickering.
I opened the emergency satellite messaging app my father had installed before the trip — the one I had laughed at, calling him overprotective.
The one I had never expected to use.
*Dad.
Don't go to the mountains next week.
Don't tell anyone I said this.
Trust no one around you until you hear from me directly.
I love you.*
I hit send and watched the progress bar crawl.
Forty percent.
Sixty.
The bar disappeared.
Failed.
I tried again.
The single bar vanished entirely.
I pressed my back against the wall and closed my eyes for three seconds — not to rest, but to think.
The yacht had a communications room.
Every vessel this size did.
It was two decks down, near the crew quarters.
I had walked past it on the first day when Flynn was giving me the grand tour, proud as a man showing off something he already considered his.
To get there, I would have to pass the lower deck.
Where Flynn, Aidan, and Fiona were drinking.
I looked at the clock.
9:47 p.m.
Two hours and thirteen minutes until midnight.
I changed out of my robe into dark clothes, moving quietly.
I tucked the burner phone into my waistband.
At the door, I pressed my ear to the wood and listened.
Nothing.
I eased it open.
The corridor was empty.
The yacht swayed gently as the first outer bands of the squall began to push against the hull.
I moved toward the staircase, keeping close to the wall, stepping on the outer edges of each stair where the wood was less likely to creak.
I was four steps from the bottom when a door opened below me.
Aidan stepped out into the lower corridor.
He was holding a glass.
He hadn't seen me yet — his back was turned, and he was speaking to someone still inside the room.
"She'll be under by ten-thirty at the latest," he said.
"Flynn's certain."
I pressed myself flat against the wall and stopped breathing.
"And if she's not?" The second voice was one I didn't recognize.
Not Fiona.
Not Flynn.
"Then we adjust," Aidan said simply.
"We didn't come this far to adjust."
He turned and walked in the opposite direction.
I waited until the corridor was silent.
Then I descended the last four steps and turned toward the crew quarters — and nearly walked directly into a young woman in a white uniform, carrying a stack of folded towels.
She stopped.
I stopped.
Her name tag read *MARA — GUEST SERVICES.*
We stared at each other for one suspended second.
"Please," I whispered.
"I need help."
Her eyes moved to the corridor where Aidan had just disappeared.
Then back to me.
May you like
She didn't speak.
But she shifted the towels to one arm, reached into her pocket, and pressed a small brass key into my hand.
