Chapter 3 - MY FATHER HAD LEFT ME ONE LAST SECRETAt 10:43 p.m., Maya Torres led me through a narrow service passage behind the yacht's laundry room.
I had walked aboard the Celestine hundreds of times.
I never knew the passage existed.
"My father built this?"
"Not exactly."
Maya moved ahead with a flashlight covered by a towel to soften the beam.
"After somebody tried to rob him off Sardinia eight years ago, he renovated the security system."
I remembered the incident.
Dad had dismissed it as drunken thieves approaching from a speedboat.
Apparently he'd left out a few details.
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"He probably thought you were safer not knowing."
"That strategy isn't aging well."
Maya almost smiled.
Almost.
We stopped at what looked like a decorative teak panel.
She pressed two invisible catches.
A section of wall opened.
Behind it sat an old-fashioned communications console.
A backup VHF radio.
A satellite handset.
Two monitors.
And a small safe.
I stared.
"How did Mercer miss this?"
"Your father paid for the installation personally. It isn't in the yacht's official schematics."
I grabbed the satellite phone.
No power.
"Maya."
"Battery."
She opened a cabinet and removed one.
My hands trembled as I installed it.
The phone illuminated.
Signal searching.
Searching.
Searching.
Then two bars appeared.
I almost sobbed.
"Who do you call?" Maya asked.
The police?
Coast Guard?
My attorney?
The problem was our location.
We were somewhere northeast of the Turks and Caicos, moving through international waters. If I made an emergency call and Adrian discovered it before help arrived, he could kill me immediately.
I needed someone who would understand both the danger and the money.
Then I knew.
David Chen.
My father's longtime attorney and trustee.
I dialed.
Three rings.
"Hello?"
"David."
A pause.
"Claire?"
His voice instantly sharpened.
"Where are you calling from?"
"My father's emergency satellite phone aboard the Celestine."
"What happened?"
"My husband is planning to murder me tonight."
Silence.
Then David said calmly, "Tell me everything."
I gave him the facts.
The pills.
Adrian.
Mercer.
Vanessa.
The planned fall overboard.
The supposed inheritance amendment.
David interrupted me.
"Claire, listen carefully. Adrian does not inherit three hundred million dollars if you die."
I froze.
"What?"
"Your father's primary trust is protected. Your personal assets are distributed under your estate plan."
"Then why does Adrian think—"
"The amendment."
My stomach twisted.
"I signed something after the rehearsal dinner."
"What exactly?"
"I don't know."
David swore softly.
He almost never swore.
"Claire, I need you to find it."
"I can't exactly ask my murderer for a copy."
"If Adrian believes it grants him control, we need to know what it says."
Maya touched my arm.
"Someone's coming."
I whispered into the phone, "David, call authorities. Give them our vessel coordinates if you can track them."
"I already have the yacht's AIS."
"Mercer could disable it."
"Then keep this phone active whenever possible. I'll contact the Coast Guard and maritime security."
A bang echoed somewhere above us.
Maya flinched.
"I need to go."
"Claire."
"Yes?"
"Do not confront Adrian."
I almost laughed.
"Wasn't planning to."
"Stay alive. Everything else can be repaired."
My throat tightened.
Those were exactly the words my father might have said.
I ended the call.
Maya returned the phone to the hidden compartment but kept the radio powered.
Then she turned toward the safe.
"Your father told me this was for you if anything happened aboard."
"You've had access all this time?"
"He gave me the combination after his heart attack."
Dad's first heart attack had occurred a year before his death.
Maya entered six digits.
The safe clicked.
Inside was an envelope.
My name was written across it in my father's handwriting.
I forgot about Adrian for three seconds.
Forgot the murder plot.
Forgot the yacht.
I simply stared at my father's handwriting.
Maya looked away.
I opened it.
Inside was a letter and a USB drive.
The first line read:
Claire, if you're reading this because somebody aboard Celestine has betrayed you, trust the ship before you trust the people on it.
I felt my eyes sting.
Below that, Dad had written instructions.
A hidden recording system.
Independent power.
Three emergency overrides.
A lockout mechanism capable of disabling interior access to the bridge.
And one line underlined twice.
Every camera aboard records continuously to a protected server, even when the bridge display says OFF.
I looked at Maya.
"Mercer thinks he's shutting down the cameras."
"He's only shutting down what he can see."
A strange calm settled over me.
Evidence.
Adrian's plan might already be recorded.
Everything he and Vanessa said in the yacht office.
Maybe even the conversation with Mercer.
We opened the console.
Security feeds appeared.
Hallways.
Deck.
Engine room.
Bridge.
Salon.
Then Maya clicked archive.
Audio available.
I nearly stopped breathing.
We navigated backward twenty minutes.
There was Adrian.
Vanessa.
The conversation I had overheard.
Clear sound.
Clear faces.
Clear conspiracy.
Maya copied the footage to the USB drive.
"What now?" she asked.
"Now we make sure they can't erase it."
I called David again.
He instructed me to upload the footage using the satellite console.
The connection crawled.
Eight percent.
Twelve.
Nineteen.
Then the lights went out.
Everything vanished.
Darkness swallowed us.
"What happened?"
Maya grabbed my wrist.
"Power failure."
A second later, red emergency lights flickered on.
From somewhere above, an alarm chirped once.
Then stopped.
The satellite console remained black.
Someone had cut power to this section of the vessel.
"Maya?"
"I don't like this."
Footsteps sounded outside the secret compartment.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Someone tried the laundry-room door.
Locked.
Then Captain Mercer's voice came through.
"Maya?"
We stared at each other.
"Maya, open the door."
She didn't move.
The handle rattled.
Then Mercer said something that made my blood turn to ice.
"Claire isn't in her cabin."
Silence.
"Adrian wants to know where his wife went."
Maya quietly removed the USB drive.
She handed it to me.
"Hide this."
I slid it inside my bra.
The pounding began.
"Maya!"
Wood cracked.
"We need another exit," I whispered.
"There is one."
"Where?"
She pointed upward.
A narrow maintenance hatch.
I stared.
"You first."
"No. You."
The door cracked again.
Maya helped me climb.
I pulled myself into the maintenance shaft as the laundry-room lock splintered.
Below me, Maya climbed onto the shelf.
Then the door burst open.
Captain Mercer entered.
He looked around.
"Maya?"
She froze halfway inside the hatch.
Mercer walked closer.
I reached down.
Caught her wrist.
Pulled.
His flashlight beam swept upward.
"Stop!"
Maya shoved herself into the shaft.
A hand grabbed her ankle.
She screamed.
I grabbed both of her arms.
Mercer pulled.
I pulled harder.
For three terrible seconds, Maya's body became a rope in a human tug-of-war.
Then she kicked backward.
Her heel hit Mercer in the face.
He cursed.
His grip released.
Maya tumbled into the shaft.
We crawled.
Fast.
Behind us, Mercer shouted.
"Adrian!"
We had been discovered.
The plan had changed.
They weren't waiting until midnight anymore.
And according to the digital clock glowing at the far end of the passage...
It was only 11:06 p.m.
May you like
We now had more than an hour until rescue could possibly reach us.
And Adrian knew I was running.
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