Chapter 21 #3
The page is mostly blank.
For a man who made his career with words, he was always good at getting directly to the point:
If you’re reading this, it’s over for me.
Don’t overlook the one who looks most innocent of all.
Nash Eyre
“Madam.”
A voice behind me makes me scream.
I look up, clutching the letter to my chest.
It’s Oliver, bowing deeply and looking entirely apologetic for startling me. “My biggest apologies,” he says through at least
another two bows. “I just wanted to inquire about your preferences. We have a quality dark, nutty Peruvian and a bold Costa
Rican.”
At least two more bows follow.
What is he asking?
“The Peruvian,” I say quickly.
“Excellent choice. Tremendous. Excellent.”
Three more bows, and he whisks himself away.
I look around. No Nash in sight.
Crystal is on her way through another loop around the ship.
Gordon’s probably off at the movie theater.
Ricky’s downstairs. I feel a chill run up my spine, remembering Ricky’s freak appearance in the wingback chair, and add to
myself, I mean, of course he is. Vampires can’t come up to the main decks during the day.
Neena looks as unhinged and cheery as ever. But Jackie?
Jackie’s eyes are like slits watching me above her cards.
Our eyes catch and hers drop down.
What am I going to do?
Nash is going to be here any moment.
I need to go back to the room. I need to get there when Nash isn’t, the only moment we’re not together, and do a thorough look through his things for clues. It just . . . seems so impossible.
And there’s a dread that hangs over me.
A thud deep in my chest.
It just . . . can’t be true.
But what motive could he have had?
I flip over the note, hoping for some more words, some more clues, but there are none.
I gently slip it back into its envelope and tuck it into my blazer. This needs to get added for evidence.
I look around.
This is my moment, maybe my only moment, to sneak away.
Waders are still in the pool. Some people lie on lounge chairs, books in hand.
Crystal has just swung by again on her hoverboard, with a trail of pleading staff. Ladies are still at the card tables. Neena’s
still clutching her pearls, thrilled. Jackie, for the moment, at least, is distracted by a waiter’s question.
I feel bad for bailing on Oliver’s kind offer of espresso, but this is my moment.
Run.
I start slow until I make it to the hallway, and then I fly.
I dart down the hall, my steps ultralight, until I’m at my door.
Cautiously I unlock it and then, with one last look left and right, step inside.
I turn the lock.
Flick on the lights.
Look around the tattered mess of a room I left behind this morning.
Quickly, Penelope. The goal here isn’t to find something. It’s the hope you DON’T.
I only have moments here before I need to get back.
What will Nash do if he finds I’m gone?
What excuse will I give?
Do I have that much time? Can I check the room that quickly?
Nash’s laptop bag is sitting by the floor lamp, and I crouch down. Carefully I pull back the leather flaps.
Nothing is out of the ordinary. A couple of pens in their pen holes. A thin sleeve of laptop. A small Moleskine notebook.
A couple of well-worn paperbacks.
The notebook is mostly empty. The first few pages are riddled with book ideas of various locations, descriptions of the sky,
descriptions of the plains. Random names of antique companies and random information about cattle. A mysterious phone number
I type into the internet browser on my phone that leads to a dead end; it’s just an auction company for horses out in Alvarado.
My eyes pause and hover over a journal entry dated just two weeks ago. I read:
The sun was slow setting on the horizon tonight, lingering as its golden sunbeams dallied on jagged mountain peaks, like a child’s cry of delight as he climbs up and slides down, pleading for a few more minutes on the playground.
It’s a lovely thought.
A sunset playing on the swoops and ridges of mountains like a child does a slide on a playground.
The kind of thought lovers have, not killers.
And I both hate myself for even questioning him and feel the unwinding knot of relief.
Nash is innocent.
He’s more than innocent.
He’s giving and he’s kind and he paints pictures of sunsets using playground imagery and a child’s cry of delight.
He GETS the beauty of humanity.
And people who GET the beauty of humanity don’t kill people.
You could make that point in court.
As I tuck the notebook back inside the bag, I slip out the laptop on principle. I open the lid and try a handful of password
guesses. I even blush as I try my name. Nope. Let’s pretend I never did that. Time to move on.
I check inside his coat pockets but get nothing but the scent of woods and the brush of leather on my fingertips.
I move at last to his bag. His weekender bag.
My bottom lip is pulsing from being clenched so fiercely through all of this. Which is better than passing out again, at least.
Do not pass out.
I summon my courage with the mental reminder that this is not betrayal (though it looks an awful lot like betrayal) but due diligence, and unsnap the straps of the bag.
Nash carries few items with him.
A couple of identical pairs of jeans.
A few folded flannel shirts.
He’s the living picture of a man with a capsule wardrobe.
I slip my hand inside the various pockets around the bag.
Socks.
Deodorant.
I dig to the bottom of the bag and feel a bump under the flap at the bottom.
Freeze.
My fingers then curve slowly around the handle of something large and distinct.
Knife.
Slowly I pull it out, eyes widening until my fears are confirmed. A bloodied, caramel-colored cloth encapsulates a large knife.
The type of hunting knife you might use to separate muscle from bone on a deer. The kind of knife that just might kill a person,
or two, in the middle of the night.
It’s plain to see.
One knife for Hugh. A second for Carragan.
Hugh’s note directing us to beware of Nash. The knife in his room.
And it explains the Carragan murder. Perhaps he killed him and hid him under the bed while I slept. And then when he came
back with me into the room, he stepped in first under the guise of “checking the place out,” unrolled the body, and—bam—he has an alibi.
He just walked in with me, practically at the same time.
Airtight alibi.
And then throw a knife in Crystal’s room for good measure and . . .
My heart feels like it lets out a deep, guttural groan of despair and I sink my head forward.
Despair for what was happening between us that will never happen. For a future together that will be no more.
And we were so. Close.
I was so. So. So. Close to such happiness.
I drop the knife in the bag rapidly, push it down until it’s drowned in flannel, and snap the bag back exactly as it was before.
The whole way I’m running back upstairs, my hand is heavy at my side. An anchor at my side. Desperate to be scrubbed clean,
but there’s no time.
I skid to a stop as I near the corner and peek around it.
Nash is frowning, nervousness etched on his face, tea in hand. He scans the area.
And what I earlier assumed was worry for my safety shifts now as I see it with a pang of fear. What if he’s nervous for other
reasons? What’s the saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
Quickly I move to the railing just out of view and drape my elbows over it. Staring out to sea and focusing everything in
me on catching my breath.
Calming myself.
Settle down.
Calm.
My hand still pulses, and I look at it.
No sign of blood.
Yet still impure.
The salty wind whips at my face, quickly lapping up moisture that keeps rising in my tear ducts.
What are we going to do?
What can I do now?
I can’t think about it.
Any thoughts just give way to a series of new fears, and those fears threaten to overwhelm me.
Don’t. Think.
Just take it one step at a time.
Breathe.
Look at the horizon.
Breathe.
Focus solely on calming yourself down now, because you’re about to give the most important lie of your life.
“Hey. There you are.” Nash steps up to me. “Where did you go?”
I listen to the concern, bordering on frustration, in his voice.
Or is that anger?
Or is that . . . suspicion?
Focus, Pip.
I smile lightly as I turn to face him. He’s holding out the tea for me. “I needed to walk. I needed to move around and clear
my head.”
“I searched the whole top floor for you.”
“We must’ve been just missing each other.” I motion to the circular loop around us and try to change the subject. “Did you
run into Crystal on her hoverboard?”
“No.”
I nod as though this sums it up then. “Yeah. Well, I was hoverboard side. You must’ve been on the opposite side as we went.”
Nash’s eyes are squinting at me, scrutinizing me as though he doesn’t believe what I’m saying. “Okay,” he says at last.
And it’s over maybe.
The question is over.
This is my story.
He holds out the tea. “You want it?”
I feel myself hesitate, a foreign urge to resist taking anything from him at the moment. What if it’s poisoned? What if . . . ?
But . . . to give him reason to have any more suspicion is unacceptable.
“Thank you.” I take it and hold it to my chest.
The cup is warm, burning hot, I realize, against my fingers that are cold as ice.
“So. One more, then.”
“Hmm?” I say.
“One more interview.”
“Oh, right. Gordon. Yes.” My eyes dance around as though expecting to land on him any moment. Suddenly the fact that Gordon
is the sole beneficiary of Hugh’s will matters little. It feels tedious to even talk to him now. But he’s the last one on
the list. “I probably ought to do that now before the evening session.”
I hold the cup in one hand and pull out my phone with the other.
Nash frowns further. “Are you sure you have enough energy for this? Maybe you should go lie down—”
“No,” I say, then feel a rush as I realize, Nash sleeps in my room.
How am I going to pretend I have no suspicions of him when I tell him I need to be alone in my room tonight?
Do I try to bunk with Neena?
Somehow the thought of her purple-sashed arms gives me a mental sense of warmth.
That’s what I’ll do.
I’ll sleep on the floor of Neena’s room. I don’t know how a sixty-eight-year-old woman can protect me, but I have to believe
her unbridled, temporarily insane joy will cover me.
Let’s just focus on the now, Pip.
Those are trials to come.
Right now, it’s time to talk to Gordon.