Chapter Forty-Eight
Present: Day Six at Sea
My stomach grumbles as I look across at Emma perched on the opposite side of the cockpit.
Beyond her, the sun sinks toward the horizon.
Earlier, Russell insisted we eat a proper meal, even though neither Emma nor I could stomach much of anything.
Russell pan-fried rib eye steaks before they went bad with no power to the fridge.
Russell ate his steak down to the bone, while I picked apart a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Emma pushed around the meat on her plate.
Now, Russell yawns at the helm. I twist toward him, relieved to see that he looks like he can barely keep his eyes open. Beth’s four Dramamines I crushed into his glass of wine at dinner must be kicking in.
“I can take the helm and keep watch with Emma if you need to get some rest.”
Russell looks warily between Emma and me.
None of us have spoken much since searching the boat for Russell’s gun, and we’ve all been maintaining a safe distance from each other.
I’ve been careful not to turn my back on either of them—even though it’s Russell I’m more concerned about—or go near the edge of the boat.
“Yeah, okay.” Russell stifles a second yawn. “I could use some sleep.”
I stand, and he steps aside for me to take his place. My shoulders brush his as I slide past. His tired eyes lock with mine, and I hold his gaze, imagining him striking Beth with the meat tenderizer he used to patch the broken window.
“Thanks.” He turns away, swaying slightly, and adds, “I’ll set my watch alarm for four hours.”
“Don’t worry about the alarm,” I tell him. “We’ll wake you when we need a rest.”
Emma casts me a curious glance before she studies Russell unsteadily disappearing below deck, shutting the companionway door behind him. She doesn’t know about the Dramamine, since I couldn’t risk telling her without Russell overhearing.
A heavy silence fills the sea air once Emma and I are alone.
She fixes her gaze on the surrounding waters as my mind becomes consumed with thoughts of Beth.
Why hadn’t she ever told me about Courtney pretending to be Russell?
Was she too devastated or embarrassed to tell even her best friend?
My throat swells at the sight of Beth’s blood on the foredeck.
Did Beth really think I’m a murderer? That I killed Courtney, and Nojan and Gigi, in cold blood?
“Beth never told you about Courtney catfishing her?”
Emma stares at me, as if reading my thoughts.
I shake my head, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“No.” Then I remember the thing I never got to tell Beth.
“Yesterday, before I fell asleep on the couch, I smelled Courtney’s perfume.
Ocean Dream, that same perfume that was on the note.
It was like she was . . .” I lift my gaze to the mainsail, debating whether to say it out loud. “Here. On this boat.”
“That’s just your mind playing tricks on you,” Emma says. “It happened to me too. When we were searching for the captain, I thought Gigi was Courtney. For a moment, I swear her hair looked red from behind. But it wasn’t. Obviously.”
Emma turns back to the open waters, and I assess her tight blond curls blowing in the wind.
“Being out here all alone, the captain dying, then Gigi, and now Beth—it’s messing with our heads,” Emma adds.
I open my mouth to tell her about the Dramamine I slipped Russell but then pause. What if I’m wrong, and I incapacitated the wrong person?
It was unlike Emma to have forgiven me so easily for my part in causing her broken ankle, and for lying about it all this time. The girl I knew would’ve never let something like that go so quickly.
Like the rest of us, Emma had a motive for wanting Courtney dead, especially with her out-of-control temper. Had Emma heard more of Courtney’s and my fight outside our tent than she let on? If Emma did hear that Courtney planted the dish soap, she might’ve wanted to kill her.
But I took care of that. A familiar drudge of heaviness weighs down my chest as I recall the thing that’s haunted me for twenty years.
What about Beth? Had Emma woken in the night and come up here to accuse Beth of drugging her? I’d seen Emma’s temper in action enough that it wasn’t hard to imagine her attacking Beth in a fit of rage.
Emma was the first one to smell Courtney’s perfume on the note.
I think back to nearly touching my nose to the paper before I smelled the faint but distinct scent.
Had Emma really smelled Courtney’s perfume, or had she been the one to spray it on the note, forging Courtney’s handwriting to make us think Courtney was here?
“Can I ask you something?” Emma says, interrupting my thoughts.
I turn toward her. “Sure.”
“The dish soap. Why did you and Courtney do it?”
I exhale as my gaze drops to the floor. “It was Courtney’s idea, but I take full responsibility for going along with it. We thought you’d just slip, and it would be funny. We didn’t mean to—”
“I lost my scholarship.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry.” I meet her wounded gaze, hating myself for lying all this time. “I should’ve told the truth a long time ago.”
“Yeah, you should’ve.” Emma’s eyes appraise mine. “It makes me wonder what you’re still lying about.”
I shake my head. “I’m not lying anymore.”
Emma stares out at the surrounding waters, leaving me unsure whether she believed my last statement.
“I never thought I’d say it, but looking back, I can see how everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
If I hadn’t been so miserable at community college, I never would’ve moved to California and majored in interior design.
And I love what I do now, wouldn’t trade it for anything.
If I’d gone to UW on that scholarship, I would’ve majored in accounting.
I would’ve ended up hating it, but I probably wouldn’t have realized it until after I graduated and got some shit job, locked in a cubicle, crunching numbers all day. ”
I study Emma’s pensive profile, taking in what she said. She’s built a full life for herself and is on the brink of more success with her housewares line. Why would she jeopardize all that to try and kill us all?
The killer on board has to be Russell, I think. He lied about who he was, then wrote that fake note from Courtney. He’s here for revenge. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
I stare at the seemingly endless choppy seas beyond the bow and pray that Emma’s right about us reaching land tomorrow.
I look down below to where Russell is sleeping.
Then why hasn’t he killed us already? So we can help him sail back?
If Russell killed the others, he can’t be planning on letting Emma and me live.
Whatever the reason, hopefully those pills will keep him too subdued to hurt us before we reach land.
I wonder if we could lock him in his room if we stacked all of our bags in front of his door.
Probably not, I reason, then remember Gigi’s body in the adjacent stateroom.
Maybe with her added weight, we could keep him from—
“Palmer.” Emma stands. “Do you see that?”
I look in the direction of Emma’s extended arm. My jaw drops with relief at the faint lights in the distance. There’s just enough waning daylight paired with tonight’s full moon to make out the silhouette of a large ship.
“It must be a cruise ship.” Emma speaks fast, excited at the possibility of being rescued.
I move beside her. “Which way is it heading?”
“It looks like it’s heading north, coming toward us. We need to send off a flare.”
I look around the cockpit. “Where are they?”
Emma turns. “I’m not sure. Ask Russell. I’ll start checking these rear stowage compartments.”
Without unhooking my tether, I hurry below and grab the pair of binoculars hanging from a hook beside the navigation desk. I sling them around my neck as I bang on Russell’s door.
“Russell, wake up!” I pound again. “There’s a ship in the distance. Wake up. We need to send off a flare, and we don’t know where they are.”
He swings open his door, wearing only boxers.
As he squints to make out my figure in the poor lighting, his expression seems vacant and confused.
My heart drops into my stomach at the stupidity of what I’ve done.
I back away until I ram into the kitchen counter.
Russell steps toward me, and I tighten my grip around the binoculars, prepared to use them as a weapon if I have to.
If Russell killed the others, there’s no way he’ll let Emma and me live to testify about the trip.
“There’s a flare gun in the stowage compartment behind the starboard-side steering wheel. It’s orange and should have four rounds.” He turns. “I’ll throw on some shorts and be right up.”
He disappears into his cabin, and I hurry up the steps. The bow dips before I get to the top, and my head smacks the ceiling.
“Not there,” I tell Emma when I reach the cockpit, ignoring the throb in my skull. I point to the opposite side of the bench where she’s searching. “There should be an orange flare gun inside the bench behind that wheel.”
As Emma rushes toward the other end of the wood-slatted bench, I step out from beneath the cockpit toward the lifeline.
The sky has grown visibly darker in the few moments I was below, making the lights of the distant ship more visible.
At the stern, Emma lifts the bench seat and starts searching through the compartment’s contents.
I duck beneath the mainsail and step onto the foredeck to get an unobstructed view of the distant ship. I step over the blood smear on the deck as I lift the binoculars. My throat tightens at the thought of Beth not being among us getting rescued.
I stagger sideways as we roll over a swell. The side of my leg bumps into the dinghy, which has come loose from the middle of the ship and now leans against the lifelines beside me. I turn, scanning the deck for how it could’ve come untied.
Something small and metal slides across the deck, hitting the side of my shoe. I look down. A pocketknife. The blade is extended and stained with blood nearly the same shade of red as the handle. My stomach twists. It has to be the weapon used to kill Beth.
A flash of movement near the stern catches my eye. I whirl toward it, hoping Emma has found the flare gun. Instead, I spot a female figure creeping toward Emma on the other side of the boat. My heart lurches into my throat. Courtney? Was it possible?
Emma still has her head down, frantically searching the compartment as the figure moves closer to her. It’s then that I recognize the figure’s silhouette. Her dark waves blowing in the wind. The dinghy hadn’t come loose on the foredeck. Beth had been hiding under it this whole time.
Beth raises her arm toward Emma’s back. I freeze when I spot Russell’s gun in her grip. I’m too far away to stop her. Russell comes up from below, but even he’s too far away to stop Beth in time.
Beth says something to Emma that makes her stand up and turn around, and I see the orange flare gun in Emma’s hand.
“Emma! Watch out!” I yell, but the blast from the gunshot muffles my warning.