Chapter Eighteen
Present: Day Five at Sea
“Are you sure you checked everywhere?” Gigi asks through the darkness.
Adam swings his flashlight beam toward the sound of Gigi’s panicked confusion.
“I don’t understand,” I say, gripping the doorframe beside me as the boat pitches forward at a sickening angle.
“Nojan was so adamant about our safety . . . How could this happen?” An image of Courtney emerging from a stowage compartment invades my mind, her long red hair swirling in the wind as she pushes Nojan over the side.
A strange tightness coils around my chest as I tell myself that’s impossible.
“Wasn’t he wearing a tether?” Emma asks.
Adam shines his flashlight on Emma. “There weren’t any tether lines in the water. That’s why I came below, hoping he was down here.”
There’s a tremor in his voice. A cold, slithering shiver works its way down my spine. He’s panicked.
“How long has he been missing?” Gigi asks.
Adam runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure. I went to bed four hours ago, at the start of Nojan’s watch. The last entry he made in the logbook was right after that, even though we’re supposed to make a log every hour we’re on watch.”
Four hours. My heart sinks, recalling Gigi coughing up water, pale and exhausted, shivering with cold, when we pulled her onto the boat after being in the ocean only ten minutes.
“Shit.” Panic permeates Beth’s voice as she lifts a hand to her forehead. “What the hell are we going to do? We’re going to die out here. Oh my—”
The floor tilts in the opposite direction as it did a moment ago.
Beth falls into me, sandwiching me between her and the wall.
It feels like we’re inside a washing machine moving up and down, side to side, and front to back, sometimes all at once.
Gigi shrieks as Adam stumbles, his flashlight beam illuminating a wave pummeling the window above her head.
“We’re not going to die. We still have Adam,” Gigi says, her voice firm. “He can sail us out of this.”
“Adam? You mean this guy you hired for his looks?” Emma scoffs.
“He might be a chef, but he’s no sailor.
Beth’s right. We’re in deep shit, and this is all your fault, Gigi.
” Emma jabs her finger through the air as Adam’s flashlight beam swings toward Gigi.
“You risked all of our lives by bringing us out here with a photogenic male deckhand who doesn’t know the stern from the bow. ”
I don’t have to see Emma’s face to know that she’s fuming.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gigi balks, shooting Adam a blank look.
Adam raises a palm toward Emma. “Right now, everyone needs to stay calm. I know how to sail.”
Despite his attempt to sound confident, there’s a tremor in his tone.
“And I wasn’t hired for my looks,” he adds.
Emma crosses her arms, keeping her gaze fixed on Gigi as the flashlight’s beam illuminates her face. “Whatever the reason, he’s incompetent. We need to get the power back on so we can call for help. Doesn’t this boat have a generator?”
“This is a brand-new boat. It’s not equipped with any extras yet.
” Ignoring Emma’s accusations, Adam regains his footing after the boat heels to the other side.
“I need to man the helm. But I’m going to need some help.
This storm’s getting dangerous. And we’re sailing blind with no lights and no radar. ”
“Is there anywhere else the captain could be?” Beth asks. “You checked the bathrooms?”
“Nojan!” Gigi yells.
“Yes, I checked the bathrooms. He’s not here.”
My shoulders relax slightly. If Adam has checked everywhere, that means Courtney can’t be here either. Unless she’s hiding somewhere she knows we won’t look. I shake that last thought from my mind. Courtney’s not here. She died in that forest twenty years ago.
“I’ll help you,” Emma says. “Just let me grab my life jacket.” She disappears into her stateroom for a moment before following Adam toward the companionway door. “I sailed with my grandparents a lot as a kid. And I’m going to check the tether lines again.”
“I’m coming too,” I say, praying we’ll find Nojan asleep on the deck somewhere Adam overlooked. Or maybe Nojan hit his head and is lying unconscious somewhere on the boat.
“Is there another flashlight?” Beth asks.
Adam turns around when he reaches the stairs. “Not that I could find.”
“I’ll get my phone.” Beth turns for our room.
“I want everyone to clip a tether line to their life vest before getting on deck.” Adam turns to Emma before opening the companionway door. “I’ll clip my tether and hand you one to clip on before you come on deck.”
“Wait for us,” I spin around and run smack into Beth as she emerges from our cabin with her phone’s flashlight illuminated.
“We need our life jackets,” I tell her.
“Oh, right.”
She follows me into our cabin, illuminating the small space with her phone while I grab our PDFs and sling them over each of our heads.
“I’m coming up too,” Gigi calls from her stateroom while Beth and I move through the dinette.
When Adam opens the door, wind rushes into the interior cabin with a fierce, howling roar.
The door flies out of his hand and flaps against the wall until he manages to lock it in place.
The floor shifts when Beth and I move past the galley.
Water spills through the hatch when I mount the stairs behind Emma.
Adam swears and heads out to tether himself.
I stand on the lowest step and grip the handle on the wall.
More water spills over my feet. The shock of cold causes me to suck in a breath of salty air.
My heart leaps to my throat as wind slaps at my cheeks.
Emma presses her hand against the wall to steady herself while Adam hooks a tether line to her vest.
“Everyone, make sure you’re tethered before stepping on deck,” Adam shouts over the wind.
Emma turns to me as Adam unsteadily heads toward the helm. “Stay here. I’ll get your tether line,” she says.
After she hooks a line to my life vest, I step onto the wet cockpit floor and tell Beth to wait. “I need your phone light,” I add.
She hands me her phone, and I reach for a tether from the pile of ropes Emma is sorting through on the cockpit floor.
“Emma,” Adam calls from one of the steering wheels. “Hold this flashlight for me while I see if I can get the navigation electronics back on.”
Emma drops the lines to help Adam. Hand trembling, it takes me two tries to get the hook around the loop on Beth’s life vest. As soon as I secure the tether to her vest, a wave pounds the starboard side. I fall backward onto the wet cockpit floor as salt water sprays over the boat.
“Palmer!” Beth shouts. She crawls toward me on her hands and knees. “Are you okay?”
I sit up as the floor rocks beneath us. “I’m fine.” I hand Beth her phone. “Help Gigi get a tether on, and then we’ll make sure there are no lines in the water.”
I know Adam said he already checked them all, but what if he missed one? My throat clenches around my trachea as I imagine Nojan getting dragged underwater behind the boat.
For a split second, a streak of lightning illuminates the sky.
Despite the cockpit cover, cold rain lashes my face, stinging like needles in the wind.
I grab onto the bench beside me for support as we roll to the side.
Fear rises to the back of my throat. How the hell are we going to survive this without a captain?
I get to my knees and turn toward the helm, where rain beats on Emma as she shines the flashlight on the side of the navigation displays while Adam looks to be trying to remove a panel.
“Are you sure you looked everywhere on deck for Nojan?” I ask him.
“I’m sure,” Adam calls.
I hear a click behind me as Beth secures a tether to Gigi’s life vest.
“What about the engine room?” Beth asks. “Adam, did you check there?”
Adam shakes his head. “No, you can check it.”
I feel a spark of hope, thinking of the small room beneath the companionway stairs, right below us. We’d all watched Nojan lift the stairs and check the engine room during our first dinner on our voyage.
Beth grabs my arm and swings her phone light between me and Gigi. “What if Nojan went down there to try and fix the power outage and got knocked unconscious?”
“I’ll go check.” Gigi starts down the steps. “Beth, shine your light down here while I pull down these stairs.”
I kneel beside Beth and hold my breath as Gigi pulls the stairs out.
Above us, thunderclaps.
“Well.” Beth leans her head through the companionway door, shining her light into the engine room. “Do you see him?”
Gigi leans forward. “No. He’s not here,” she shouts up.
I sit back and settle my gaze on the pile of tether lines, straining my eyes to adjust to the dark. I can’t fathom Nojan not wearing a tether, especially in this storm. I look up at the sound of the mainsail flapping violently in the wind above the cockpit.
“Beth, shine your phone on these tethers.”
I start to sort through them, running my hand along each line as Beth illuminates them with her phone flashlight.
There’s still a chance Nojan could be connected to one.
Nojan made it clear at the start of our trip that there would always be several tether lines connected to the ship—enough for each of us to hook onto our life vests.
I find each tether that’s connected to the five of us on board and move them aside. Then, I run my hand through one more rope until I find the metal hook at the end.
“Have you found him?” Gigi pokes her head out of the companionway.
“No,” Emma responds as she and Adam reach the cockpit, “but the radio mic is missing from the helm.”
“Are you kidding me?” Gigi cries.
“Check the radio inside,” Adam tells her. “Is the microphone still attached?”
Gigi ducks inside, and the four of us wait in silence.
“It’s gone,” she yells, coming back up the steps.
I swivel toward Adam. “What about the life raft? Doesn’t it have its own communication equipment?”
“Yes, that’s right, it does.” He steps onto the cockpit’s bench and grips a shroud before moving toward the bow.
I crouch down and lift the last rope tether and run my hand along it until it slips through my grip. I pick it up again and hold it up to the light. Beth gasps, staring at the end.
“The life raft’s gone,” Adam says, returning to the cockpit.
“Nojan abandoned us?” Gigi exclaims from the companionway.
“Guys!” I lift the end of the rope. “I think I found Nojan’s tether.” Beth shines a light on the cleanly frayed end. “It looks like someone cut it.”