Chapter 5: The Key and the Communications Room
The key was warm from her pocket.
Mara's fingers closed briefly around mine before she let go.
"Communications room," she said under her breath.
"End of the crew corridor.
Don't use the main radio — the channel logs to the bridge.
Use the secondary handset.
It's mounted on the left wall.
Channel 16."
"How do you know—"
"I've been watching your husband since day one." Her jaw was tight.
"He bribed two crew members to keep you isolated.
The chef.
And the man who knocked on your door an hour ago." She glanced down the corridor again.
"Go now.
I'll make sure no one comes that way for the next fifteen minutes."
She walked away before I could thank her.
I moved.
The crew corridor was narrow and low-lit, smelling of engine oil and salt.
The brass key fit the communications room lock on the first try.
I slipped inside and closed the door behind me.
The room was small — a desk, a wall of equipment, two monitors.
The secondary handset was exactly where Mara had said.
I lifted it, switched to channel 16, and pressed the transmit button.
"Mayday.
Mayday.
Mayday." My voice came out steadier than I expected.
"This is a passenger aboard the private vessel *Celestine*, currently in international waters, Caribbean Sea.
I am in immediate danger.
I require urgent contact with the United States Coast Guard and law enforcement.
Please respond."
Static.
Then a crackle.
*"Vessel Celestine, this is USCG Sector Key West.
We read you.
Please state the nature of your emergency."*
I told them.
All of it.
I spoke quietly and fast — the dr*gs, the conversation I'd overheard, the burner phone, the power of attorney, the plan for my parents.
The voice on the other end asked three clarifying questions, calm and professional, and I answered each one.
*"Ma'am, I need you to stay on this channel.
Do not return to your cabin.
Can you secure yourself in that room?"*
"There's a lock on the door."
*"Use it.
We are contacting the vessel's flag authority and coordinating with maritime law enforcement.
Do not engage with any of the individuals you've named.
Help is coming."*
I locked the door.
Then I sat on the floor with my back against it, the handset in my lap, and I finally let my hands shake.
Forty minutes passed.
The squall was building outside — I could hear it in the groan of the hull, feel it in the slight list of the deck.
At some point, the lights in the corridor outside flickered.
Then came the knock.
Not two sharp raps this time.
Flynn's knock — one lazy tap, then his voice, and for the first time all week, the warmth was entirely gone from it.
"I know you're in there." A pause.
"Open the door, Vivienne."
It was the first time he had used my full name since the wedding.
I pressed the transmit button.
"He's outside the door," I said quietly.
*"Copy that.
Do not open it.
How long ago did you lock it?"*
"Forty minutes."
*"We have a maritime enforcement vessel eleven minutes out.
Stay on the line."*
Flynn's voice came again, lower now, closer to the door frame.
"Vivienne.
I'm not angry.
I just want to talk.
Whatever you think you heard — you were half asleep, you were confused.
The dr*gs can do that.
Make you hear things."
I said nothing.
"I love you." The words landed flat, like stones dropped into still water.
"Open the door."
I looked at the handset in my lap.
"He's still there," I said.
*"Eleven minutes, ma'am.
You're doing well."*
A long silence from the other side of the door.
Then Flynn's voice dropped to something I had never heard from him before — something stripped of all performance.
"How much did you hear?"
I didn't answer.
"Vivienne." A sound — his fist, flat against the door, not a knock but a pressure.
"How.
Much."
The hull shuddered as the squall hit broadside.
May you like
Somewhere above us, a door banged open.
Eight minutes.
