Chapter 15
The yacht bumped the fender at El Nido and the engines cut. That sudden quiet felt louder than the water. I sat on the edge of the bed in the cabin and stared at the white linens where I'd spent the night pretending to sleep. The two small round tablets were no longer in my palm. They were in a clear plastic bag in the pocket of my bathrobe, and the bag was zipped shut.
My name is Mara Villanueva. That morning I stopped holding my breath.
There were voices on the dock before I saw anyone. Rope thudding against wood, a captain calling out in Tagalog, then a different voice, flat and official, asking permission to board. I had heard Adrian on the deck above me, trying to sound relaxed, saying something about a honeymoon delay and a seasick wife. I didn't move until the cabin door opened and a woman in a Coast Guard uniform stepped inside.
"Mrs. Villanueva?" she said. She kept her hand low, not reaching for me, just letting me see her. "I'm Petty Officer Reyes. There are officers here with your attorney on the phone. You're safe to come out when you're ready. We need to collect what you have."
I stood. My legs shook once and then held. I handed her the bag with the two tablets. "He gave me these last night," I said. "He said they were for seasickness."
She nodded and slipped the bag into a larger evidence envelope. She wrote the time on it in front of me and asked me to initial the seal. Behind her, two Philippine National Police officers entered the cabin with gloves on. One went straight to the dark hard-shell suitcase on the bed.
I had left it exactly as it was, the hidden compartment halfway open where I'd found it. The officer pressed along the seam the way I had, felt the false bottom give, and lifted it. Inside was the blister pack the tablets had been cut from, a folded printout of a bank transfer instruction referencing Villanueva Pacific Logistics, and a small zip drive.
"That's the compartment," I said. My voice sounded thin to me. "I didn't take anything else out."
On deck, Adrian's voice got louder. "This is absurd. My wife is ill. You can't just —" Then another voice, calm, lawyer-steady, cut through on speakerphone. It was Attorney Dela Cruz. He'd been on the line since we'd regained signal near the port. "Adrian, do not touch the suitcase. Officers, my client Mara Villanueva is the complainant. She has a recording that is time-stamped last night. Please secure all devices."
They brought Adrian down the narrow stairs with an officer on each arm. He still wore his linen shirt from the night before. His eyes found me and he tried to smile. "Mahal, tell them," he said. "Tell them you were confused. You need air, you need rest."
Petty Officer Reyes stepped between us just enough that I could breathe. I looked at Adrian and didn't answer with endearment. I answered with the timeline I had practiced in my head for hours while pretending to sleep.
An hour later I sat at the small table in the cabin with a police investigator and a Coast Guard report form. The table that had held the water glass now held three evidence bags and my phone. Attorney Dela Cruz stayed on speaker, his voice clear.
I gave the statement in order, the way they'd asked. I said that at approximately 11:40 p.m. the night before, while still awake in the cabin, I heard Adrian on a call near the door say, "Today at 2:00, we'll push him into the sea." I said I realized he meant me, and that the plan was to make it look like an accidental drowning so he could claim the PHP 16 billion inheritance held through Villanueva Pacific Logistics.
The investigator repeated it back word for word and I confirmed. Then I played the second line, my own voice from the recording I'd made at 11:47 p.m., shaking but audible: "This is not anti-seasickness, attorney. I plan to kill Adrian tonight." I told them exactly what I meant by it. It wasn't a plan. It was a trap line. I'd said it out loud to get it on record so Attorney Dela Cruz would know the pills weren't what Adrian claimed and would keep the line open. I told them I never swallowed the tablets and never intended to harm Adrian, only to create a record that would force a lab test.
Then I told them about the third line, the one Adrian had used at 12:03 a.m. when he came back into the cabin and touched my shoulder while I lay on my side feigning sleep. "Mahal, wake up, you need some air." I said he said it while trying to move me toward the deck and the rail. I said I kept my eyes closed and breathed slowly, and he waited, then left the door ajar with a figure visible outside.
The investigator wrote each time down and asked me to sign each page. Reyes placed the evidence bags in a lockbox: the two tablets for laboratory analysis, the suitcase with its hidden compartment photographed from three angles, the zip drive and my phone with the recording.
On the dock, they walked Adrian and the deckhand he'd recruited off separately in handcuffs. I watched through the small cabin window. Adrian didn't look up at me again. The accomplice kept his head down. One of the officers read the charges loud enough for the captain to hear: attempted murder and conspiracy.
May you like
When the cabin emptied, Attorney Dela Cruz asked if I wanted to step onto the dock. I said I needed a minute. I sat back on the bed and put my hands on the white sheets. The warm dim light in the wood-paneled cabin hadn't changed, but the air had. I thought about how long I'd held that slow, shallow breathing, how silence had been the only thing that kept me from being lifted and carried to the rail at 2 a.m.
I still had the inheritance. That hadn't been the point, but it mattered. It meant I could go home and decide what to do next without anyone else deciding for me. I stood, tightened the belt of my bathrobe once, and walked out onto the deck on my own. The officers were waiting, but they didn't rush me. I took one real breath, deep and even, and gave it to myself.
