Chapter 24
All the ruckus has finally summoned the others.
They stand fifteen feet away, illuminated by the blinding white lights, storm vanishing into the blackness outside as Carl’s body comes into grotesque, sharp relief.
The sight is ghastly, but I can’t help but be grateful that we still have access to electricity.
Whoever sabotaged the boat must not have had the time or desire to mess with the electrical and plumbing systems too. Lucky us.
Piper has her hand on the light switch. Viv and Rachel stand by the landing, gaping. Trey is on the staircase behind them, and right behind Trey is…
“Carl!” Fiona shoulders past the other girls and flings herself toward her boyfriend.
Ashley looks up, shaking with tears, and then glances down at Carl’s body.
Her jaw tightens; she’s made a decision.
Before I can move, Ashley jumps to her feet and sprints toward Fiona, intercepting her, wrapping her arms around the other girl’s torso and swinging her around so she can’t see her boyfriend’s body.
I heave myself up, ignoring my bleeding lip, a murmur of surprise warming my chest.
“Let go,” Fiona wails, flapping against Ashley’s embrace like a wounded bird.
“It’s okay,” Ashley says to her, arms squeezing tightly around Fiona’s shoulders. “You don’t want to look. Fee, don’t look.”
“He needs a doctor!” Fiona cries, still trying to turn around.
But Ashley is surprisingly strong; she keeps a firm grip on Fiona and refuses to let her go. “It’s too late, Fee. It’s too late.”
This is a level of empathy I hadn’t expected; Ashley is not only comforting her rival, but she’s keeping Fiona from seeing the man she loved in such a traumatic way.
“Rachel, help me,” Ashley calls to her sister from around Fiona, who isn’t trying to fight anymore. Fiona’s sagging against Ashley, hyperventilating.
Rachel doesn’t look any better than she did earlier, even with half a night’s sleep, but she rushes forward, studiously avoiding looking at Carl’s body. Together, the twins lead a sobbing Fiona away.
“Take her to her room,” Viv instructs, finally coming alive. She had been standing there frozen, watching everything unfold with a slightly ajar mouth and narrowed eyes. “I’ll check on you shortly.”
After they’ve disappeared downstairs, the rest of us stand in their silent wake for a moment, immobile with indecision.
“This can’t be happening,” Trey finally whispers. He’s moved from the staircase, and I can’t help but note that he must be sharing a room with one of the girls. I hadn’t seen which floor he’d come from.
Trey approaches his friend’s body, leaning over Carl, careful to not get too close. He runs a hand over his mouth, then drags it over his eyes like this is too much to handle. Viv slides over next to him, looking down and grimacing.
“What the hell happened?” she says, but her voice is low and directed solely at Trey.
“It’s like he collapsed or something,” Trey theorizes, examining the body. “It doesn’t look like he was attacked. He told me he was feeling weird, that his chest was hurting, but that doesn’t explain this. A brain aneurysm, maybe?”
“Oh, no.” The words tumble from my mouth as realization throbs through my body.
Viv and Trey look at me, distracted. “What?”
“I-I think I know what this is,” I say, putting a shaking hand to my bleeding lip.
Viv’s eyes laser in on me. “What are you talking about?”
I run a hand through my short hair, feeling the spiky pixie cut rub against my palms. “You guys remember how Carl has been coughing a lot? Wet, rattling cough? And moving weird? Like he’s lethargic?”
“Yeah,” Trey says slowly, straightening and fixing me with his full attention. “Now that you mention it, it did seem like he was getting sick or something.”
“You’ve been with him the most, Trey,” I point out. “When did that begin?”
Trey frowns. “I don’t really remember. After the party, maybe?”
“After you two had your swimming race to shore?”
Trey starts. “Actually, yeah. I think you’re right.”
“Anything happen during that?” I ask, staring down at Carl’s unmoving body.
“What does that matter?” Viv pouts, clearly annoyed at this line of questioning that doesn’t involve her at all.
Trey is catching on, though. “Shit. He went under for a bit. Got knocked sideways by a wave. We were nearly to shore, and I helped him. It was no big deal. He was fine.”
I grimace. “Dry drowning.”
“What?” Viv hisses. “Come on, you can’t be serious.”
I shake my head, remembering all the research I did a year and a half ago when I was starting to plot The Last Time We Drowned, before Sage stole it from me.
There’s a pivotal scene near the end of the novel where the Persephone character, Paia, tries to swim back down to the Underworld to return to her love, Hender.
He rescues her, brings her back to the surface, but the scene required an investigation into the different kinds of drowning. I wanted to write it accurately.
“It’s really rare,” I explain. “And it mostly happens to children. But it exists. Technically it’s called secondary drowning. It doesn’t develop right away; it can happen a day or two after an incident.”
I didn’t pick up on the signs earlier because I was distracted by all the ghostly sightings and drama and the damn hurricane.
My blood chills as I remember my own incident when swimming with Piper. What if I experience secondary drowning and die too? But no, I have none of the symptoms; I’m being paranoid.
“What is secondary drowning?” Trey asks.
“It’s when you inhale water and it irritates the lungs,” I reply, shivering. “Fluid builds up and causes a pulmonary edema. Same thing mountaineers can get at super high altitudes.”
“But Carl didn’t drown or anything,” Trey protests. “He seemed okay.”
“Even a small amount of water can cause it,” I say, shoulders sagging. Drowning is haunting my life lately. “And most people look and behave fine before having symptoms.”
“Like Carl?” Viv asks.
I nod. “Difficulty breathing, chest pain, coughing, lethargy.”
“This is…this is bullshit!” Trey snaps. “He died because he got a little water in his lungs? What the hell!”
“Like I said, it’s really rare. And we might have caught it if the hurricane didn’t distract us,” I tell him. “Whoever sabotaged the bridge is partly responsible. If we had gotten Carl help in time, he’d still be alive.”
“Then it becomes even more imperative that we find out who messed with the bridge,” Trey determines. “They could be charged for this.”
“Sure,” Viv agrees silkily. She appears unsurprised and unmoved by my explanation, and when she turns to me, faux sympathy is etched on her expression.
“But Char, we talked about this before, remember? When you thought you saw a drowned woman in the crew quarters?” She gives Trey a meaningful look. “And now you think Carl drowned too?”
Trey pauses, staring at me. “That’s true…”
“Come on, Trey,” Viv appeals to him. “What’s more likely? That Carl drowned standing upright or that he had some kind of heart issue we didn’t know about?” She glances at me. “Char, I know you mean well, but I think you’re stressed and tired. You’re seeing drowning everywhere.”
“No,” I protest. “This is different!”
But her words are worms that wriggle into my brain, biting away my certainty. Is Viv right? Am I projecting? Seeing drowning deaths all over the boat because of what happened to Sage?
But then I remember Carl’s wet cough and slow, strange behavior. I didn’t make those things up; they happened. I can’t let these two gaslight me into rejecting what the evidence is saying: Carl exhibited symptoms of secondary drowning.
“Listen to me.” I direct my plea to Trey, knowing Viv is a lost cause. “I’m telling you what I saw and what I know. But none of us will know for sure what happened to Carl until the police take over, so we should proceed cautiously regardless.”
Trey nods, offering a grim smile. “I definitely plan to proceed cautiously.”
Viv huffs. “Okay, well, thanks for the CSI: Drowning lesson, but you should go to your room now, Char.”
“You’re not the police, Vivienne,” I snap. I’m done playing nice with her and her bullshit. “Someone died. We have to find a way off this stupid yacht and get the authorities involved. You’re not in charge here.”
“No, she’s not. I am,” Trey replies, glancing back down at his dead friend’s body. “But I think Viv is right. We all need to go to our rooms for now. I’m going to come around and question everyone. See if we can pin down who is responsible for the bridge, and then decide our next moves.”
“And we’ll leave him here on the floor, will we?” Piper’s voice comes from behind me.
I jump—I had completely forgotten she was over there, standing by the light switch like a silent statue. “Jesus Christ, you scared me.”
She steps forward, smooth blond hair spread over her tanned shoulders. “Are we sure this death was accidental?” She smiles, and it’s hollow and bitter. “Sure no one else had a hand in this? We were all drinking so much today. Well, last night, I guess. Maybe someone poisoned him.”
“That isn’t helpful, Piper,” Viv retorts.
“Oh, you’re right,” Piper slurs. “There’s no killer here. My bad.”
A beat passes as the two women stare at each other, a wordless game of chicken.
Trey, so distracted by our predicament that he is oblivious, doesn’t seem to notice.
“I’ll need to talk to everyone separately,” Trey decides.
A thoughtful expression crosses his face, but then he shakes his head and becomes somber once again.
“And then I’ll go back to the bridge. I locked it for the night.
I’ll work on the sat phone until the sun comes up if I have to. I’ll get us out of here, don’t worry.”
I should not provoke anyone, but I can’t help it. The impulse is too strong. “All due respect, but you didn’t really take our situation seriously before, and Carl paid for it.” I pause, gaze darting between Piper, Viv, and Trey. “This is a whole mess.”
Gone is the chill, easygoing bookworm who wants to recommend a good novel to her followers. It’s a relief to let my real self shove through the ill-fitting costume of my social media personality, the one I was wearing around these people for the past few days. There’s no one to impress anymore.
“I understand you’re upset,” Trey says calmly.
He’s recovered rather quickly from his initial shock over finding his friend’s body on the floor.
“But we’re still in the midst of a hurricane, if you haven’t noticed.
I’m doing my best to keep us all safe. All we can do for now is try to get help and figure out who destroyed the bridge.
And with the absence of legal authority on this yacht, I am in charge, so that falls to me. ”
I don’t like this. I don’t like the way he’s talking; I don’t like the words he’s saying. He views himself as some sort of king, but as far as I know we’re not in international waters and he’s not allowed to conduct some weird rich-dude investigation.
“We should cordon off this area,” I insist. I glance at Piper. “Maybe Piper’s right. I suspect it’s secondary drowning, but you never know. It could be alcohol poisoning, heart condition—anything. And if this is…not an accident, we need to make sure no one touches anything. Leave Carl be.”
Piper bares her teeth. “Someone is finally talking sense. My money is on poison.”
I don’t think Carl was poisoned. I’m fairly certain I’m right, but I’m not a doctor or a cop.
It feels risky to make an assumption about how he died when I believe someone on board killed Elena, and I know someone on board made damn sure we’d all be trapped here.
Yes, maybe it was secondary drowning like I guessed, but who’s to say Elena’s killer wasn’t involved?
We won’t know what happened to Carl until someone opens him up on an autopsy table.
“We can’t leave him here like this,” Viv says exasperatedly. She, like Trey, has adjusted quickly to this new reality—the dead man on the ground.
“Well, what do you suggest?” Trey asks.
I interrupt before Viv can answer. “We should lock ourselves in our respective rooms with an equal distribution of the food we have left and wait for the storm to blow over so we can call the police.”
Viv and Trey exchange a look, and my stomach clenches.
“You know, that’s not a bad idea,” Trey says, but his voice is placating in a way I don’t trust. “But I still want to talk to everyone about what happened. And then in the morning when we’ve all calmed down, we can discuss next steps. Come on. Please.”
Fighting with Trey isn’t going to get me off Empress faster, nor is it going to solve the mystery of what happened to Elena and who sabotaged the bridge. I can’t keep challenging him. Not while I’m stuck here with a potential murderer and no idea who it is.
“Fine,” I finally say, gritting my back teeth together. “I’ll go to my room.” I immediately hate how childish it sounds coming out of my mouth. Like I’m a kid being punished for misbehaving.
“I know this is crazy,” Viv says to me, abandoning her staring match with Piper and getting close to my face, putting a hand on my shoulder. Her face crinkles with what she must think looks like sympathy. “I know this isn’t what you signed up for. But I promise, we’ll get everything taken care of.”
“Viv, Piper, Charlie, please go to your rooms. I’ll finish up here. I’ll cover him. Out of respect.” Trey’s voice is dazed, unstructured, like he’s thinking out loud.
“But Trey—” Viv starts.
Trey interrupts, his attention snapping to her. His tone grows stern. “Viv, please, do it.”
Her face darkens, but she nods at Piper. The two of them head back upstairs and I, after glancing once more at Carl’s body, slink down to my room.
When I’m back in my bathroom, staring at my split lip, the mirror is clear. But when I dab the cut with a tissue, cold air blooms against the back of my neck, and the shower begins to gently drip water on the tile floor.