Chapter 23
I don’t want to stick around to see what happens when a bunch of stressed out, potentially homicidal hot people get blasted during a hurricane.
Apparently neither does Rachel.
“I need to lay down,” she says, and I have to admit she doesn’t look good. Rachel’s face is washed out, and her hands are trembling.
We bid goodnight to everyone else, walking down to the lower level together. We reach my door first.
“Everything will look better in the morning,” Rachel says, patting me on the shoulder. She’s offering a watery smile. “You never know, maybe we’ll wake up and the sun will be out.”
I haven’t forgotten how Rachel put my business on blast, nudged me into talking about Sage, which Viv then recorded. I wonder if Rachel did it on purpose, knowing Viv’s plan, but it doesn’t feel right to confront her now when she’s looking so scared and sickly.
Besides, it doesn’t matter. I’m not planning to stay on Empress. The thought of all that money draining away through my fingers like Tantalus trying to drink water in Tartarus stings, but there’s no other option. This place is dangerous, hurricane or no.
I fake a smile. “The sun’ll come out tomorrow. Good night, Rachel.”
“Charlie?”
“Yeah?” I stop with my hand on the doorknob to my room.
“I’m sorry the start of your…employment here has been so complicated,” Rachel says. Like Fiona, she struggles to meet my eye. “It won’t always be this way.”
It sure won’t. ’Cause I won’t be here.
“Oh, of course not. It’s okay,” I reply. And then, because maybe she’ll reveal something, I add, “If it was always like this though, it would make total sense why Elena quit.”
Rachel’s gaze snaps up, expression stark. I wonder what she would do if I said I found Elena’s bloody phone in the crew cabins.
“Elena quit to pursue other opportunities,” Rachel says. “But Charlie, give it a break, okay? We all miss her. Viv especially. They were really close. It’s hard to talk about her when she doesn’t work here anymore.”
Once again, I can’t determine who on Empress knows what. This group is locked down. And if I’m going to stay under the radar, I really need to stop asking about the missing influencer.
“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to smile. “You’re right. Have a good night, Rachel.”
Rachel gives me a strained smile and a wave and then scurries down the corridor, slipping into her room.
I sigh, stepping into my own room. After a cursory inspection, it’s clear nothing is off. No words on the mirror. No ghostly figure lurking in the corners.
I take the opportunity to shower and climb into my sleeping shorts, plugging my useless phone into its charger, in case the Wi-Fi comes back on.
I’m almost grateful for the outage. It’s like I told Fiona earlier—I can’t imagine the state of my DMs and notifications.
What about my inbox? Are people emailing me?
Will I get threats and hate mail? Knowing the internet and ASOSAS’s rabid fan base, probably.
I wrap myself in the comforter on the bed, trying to assess the current situation.
Both Fiona and Viv seem to think the recording will give me more opportunities, but I suspect it will only result in hate-follows and a long battle to find any other employment. At least Fiona helped assuage my fears about being taken to court. Small victories, I suppose.
If only there was someone to corroborate my story. But Sage and I were insulated. Close only to each other. She didn’t tell a soul when she was drafting my novel, only announcing it once the ink was dry on the contracts.
My habit of embroiling myself in tight-knit, toxic female friendships is one I’ve only been able to see in hindsight. What is it about me that makes me such an easy target for dominant, manipulative women?
The only good thing is that this final experience with Sage knocked some of the cobwebs loose in my brain.
Before, I would have been charmed and inspired by Viv and the others.
But now, after Sage’s betrayal and death, I can see the charred edges of their personalities, taste the venom in their words before they poison me.
I’m not sticking around this time. I won’t wait around hoping for someone to tell the truth and do the right thing.
The memory of my final conversation with Sage tries to crawl into the forefront of my mind, but I imagine the hurricane gales outside the boat blowing it away.
It’s too painful—the good times with Sage are files that have been moved to the trash folder in my mind but not yet permanently deleted.
The bad times… Well, those are pop-up ads that I have no control over.
Yet being here is forcing me to remember everything. Even the things I try to bury. No wonder I’m having frightening experiences onboard.
I should have been on that boat with her. In another world, we might have both drowned. It would have been poetic, in a way.
I shove my head into the pile of pillows at the top of my bed and try to focus on my breathing, listening to the whistle of the wind and the patter of rain. The comforter slowly begins to warm with my body heat, and the storm transitions into an almost-meditative lullaby.
I let myself fade away, lulled by exhaustion and regret.
* * *
I jerk awake to a series of high-pitched shrieks. They cut through the sounds of the storm, which apparently hasn’t abated at all.
I sit bolt upright, noting that the lights in my room are on and there’s vapor pouring from the bathroom. I check my phone—still no service, and apparently, it’s three in the morning.
I swing my feet off the bed and slip from the cocoon of the comforter, staggering over to the bathroom. It’s empty, but the tiny space is damp and humid, steam quickly dissipating as if someone recently turned off the shower. Broken pipe again, maybe?
The scream comes again, and my heart sputters. I thought I dreamed it the first time.
I stumble out of the steamy bathroom and unlock my bedroom door. No one else is in the hallway. Am I the only one who heard screams?
This is a bad idea. I should go back to my room. Someone on this boat smashed up the bridge, intentionally trying to doom us in a storm. I shouldn’t be wandering around alone. But someone is screaming. Someone needs help.
My pulse hammers in my throat as I run up the staircase, toes pressing against the cold floor. The rest of the yacht is dark and empty; the storm is a constant backdrop, so persistent and familiar by this point that I almost don’t notice it.
The landing at the main level stretches out ahead of me; it’s like I’m looking in the wrong end of a telescope. My hands are sweating and the perspective of everything looks slightly off. I pause on the landing, glancing over at the wide-open space of the living area.
“Oh, no.” My voice is a little punctuation mark in a gap in the storm.
Someone is lying crumpled in the middle of the floor between the kitchen and the couches, easily visible from the staircase.
The lights are off; the only illumination is coming from the backsplash lighting in the kitchen, casting a cool, dim glow on the body.
My feet move on their own, bringing me close enough to see who is lying there: Carl Mumford.
Ashley stands over him, hands clasped against her mouth, eyes wide, magnetized to the body. She’s so fixated, she doesn’t even notice me approach.
“What happened?” I whispered.
Ashley jumps about a foot in the air, looking at me and gasping. “Carl,” she moans. “Oh my God, Carl.”
Only a few feet away now, I get a better look at him.
He’s toppled over on his side. His legs are askew, as if he hadn’t had a chance to try to catch himself as he fell.
There’s nothing else near him. No blood.
No murder weapon. It’s like he just dropped dead.
His eyes are glassy and open, staring at the back of the leather couch.
His beautiful face is rigid, and his skin is flaky and dry.
“Carl!” Ashley screams again, louder this time. “Carl, wake up!” She drops to her knees beside him and shakes his shoulders.
“Hang on, don’t touch him!” I warn her, crouching down next to her and trying to drag her hands away. Up close, I can see plainly that Carl isn’t breathing, but I have no idea what killed him.
“Get away from me!” She throws my hands off her.
“Ashley,” I croak, as she grabs at Carl again. “Ashley, he’s gone.”
“Shut up!”
“Ashley? Did you… Did something happen?” I’m eyeing Carl’s body, but there are no signs of a broken neck or strangulation. No defensive wounds on his hands. No cuts or scrapes.
She whips around, eyes wet, snot collecting at the base of her nostrils. She looks at me with stiff shoulders and scrunched brows. “I didn’t… I’d never—”
“What happened?” I ask, getting my knees beneath me, hands shaking.
“I found him like this!” she wails. “He was supposed to meet me in my room at two, after Fee fell asleep. He didn’t show up. He was wasted when I went down, so I thought maybe he passed out on one of the couches up here. I came up to check. And I found…I found—”
I don’t want to, but I move closer to her again, shuffling forward on my knees. Ashley and I aren’t friends, but no one should have to see someone they care about looking like this. And she’s so upset, so genuinely distraught. I don’t think she did this to him. Whatever “this” is.
She still could have destroyed the bridge though, I think.
“I’m sorry, Ashley, but you can’t keep touching him,” I murmur, gently pulling her arms away from Carl. “The police will need to check for evidence.”
“Police?” Ashley yanks away from me, twisting her arms at the same time. Her elbow arches up to my face and before I can jerk back or shield myself, it smashes into my mouth.
“Damn!” I scuttle back again, automatically bringing a hand up to my lips when I taste hot salty liquid; Ashley’s elbow has split my bottom lip.
“Oh, shit, my bad,” Ashley says, eyes wide as she falls back on her butt. “I…”
She bursts into tears next to her ex-boyfriend’s cooling body.
I am frozen, blood dribbling down my lips and pooling on my tongue. I want to spit it out, but I can’t. Having my blood on the floor near a potential crime scene is probably a bad idea. I swallow the liquid instead. It’s metallic and hot.
Panic swirls in my head, consuming me, latching on with hungry teeth until I’m no longer certain I’m awake. Maybe this is all a very fucked-up dream. Another hallucination.
A fire begins to build in my chest, ruthless and blazing, and when the lights flicker on, I can’t help but scream.