Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It was three weeks later. Three weeks that Natalie pretended things were fine.
Perfect. Normal again. Three weeks during which she waited daily for that other shoe to drop.
Waited for a report from Dean about dumping the lead vessel.
Waited for a report on the news of mysterious mass casualties on a Navy ship.
Finally over morning coffee, because that seemed to be when everything happened to her lately, a text vibrated Liam’s cell.
He glanced down at the phone and his dark brows rose. “It’s Dean.”
The one loose end. What she’d been waiting for. News from Dean. “Finally. It’s been three weeks. What took him so long?”
“Babe, it takes time to sail from Virginia to the Pacific Ocean. They probably just got there.”
“How should I know that? I’m not a sailor.”
“Neither was I but I know that it takes weeks to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
“Fine. Whatever. What did he say?”
Liam tapped the screen then smiled.
He flipped the cell to face Natalie. She read the text on the screen and let out a breath.
Dean
It’s done. And I’m not going to ask you what the hell you had in there that drained my battery every night when I stowed my cell near it in my locker. Plausible deniability. But dude you owe me!
Dean was fine. The brain was gone, all the way to the bottom of the ocean. But it had been a closer call than they or the sailors on that ship knew.
The brain ghost had been able to drain Dean’s battery. Every night. For three weeks. Even with all their precautions.
Realizing fully just how dangerous it had been to expose the crew of that Navy ship to the wrath of the brain ghost, she felt her stomach twist.
But it was gone now. It was okay. The brain had gone over the side.
Sunk.
Safely.
“We’re sure this will work?” she asked, afraid to feel relief. To believe it could really be over.
“How could it not? The Mariana Trench is the deepest point in the ocean.”
“But what if Dean missed the trench?”
“Even if he did, the ocean floor surrounding the trench is still miles deep.”
“How many miles deep?” she asked.
With a sigh, Liam consulted his cell phone and after a few moments of tapping on the screen, he said, “It ranges from two and a half to three point eight miles.” He glanced up at her. “What is the maximum distance the ghosts could travel again?”
“Three and a half miles,” she said.
She did the math. The results weren’t good. If the brain landed on the section that was only two and a half miles down, the ghost would still be able to travel above the ocean surface. A whole mile. Right into the shipping lanes.
“Liam. That’s not deep enough. Should we worry?”
“Nah. It’ll be fine. Chances are the lead vessel sunk into the trench and is safely seven miles under water right now.
Even if it didn’t, we don’t know if the maximum distance is the same when the ghost is traveling through water instead of air.
We didn’t test that. And wasn’t Alice the one helping them measure?
What are the chances they were completely accurate?
I can imagine her rounding up. I think we’re fine. ”
Natalie pictured Alice in her bedazzled biker cut coordinating the geographical test with Gabe, the other ghosts and her trike gang, all using their trike odometer to measure distance. Liam was probably right. They were fine.
But then she envisioned a Navy ship floating right above the brain ghost’s final resting place on the ocean floor.
A floor that might or might not be deep enough.
She imagined the tales told by sailors describing terrifying shipboard encounters with an entity they couldn’t identify.
Reports treated as unbelievable like those of the Navy pilots who told about their UFO sightings.
She tried to remember all Liam’s reasons why she shouldn’t worry, but couldn’t. But he had to be right. Right?
Glancing up at him, she forced a smile. “Yeah. You’re probably right. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
She said it but she wasn’t sure she believed it.