Chapter 2
The door clicked shut. I didn't move right away.
I kept my breathing slow, the way I'd been doing it when he watched me from the doorway. My eyes stayed closed until I heard his shoes on the narrow hall outside, then the faint shift of the yacht as he moved toward the stairs that led up to the deck. The engines hummed underneath me. Warm air came through the vent above the bed and smelled like wood polish.
I opened my eyes.
He'd left the glass of water on the nightstand, exactly where he'd put it when he said, "Mahal, wake up, you need some air." The two tablets were still in my palm, pressed damp against my skin. My hand had gone clammy around them.
I sat up. My bathrobe slipped off one shoulder and I pulled it back. I didn't swallow them. I hadn't. From the doorway performance I'd kept them pinched between my thumb and middle finger, my hand tucked half under the sheet like I was cold.
Adrian's suitcase was on the end of the bed where he'd left it. Dark hard-shell, scuffed at one corner. He'd told me he packed light, just the suits for dinner at El Nido and his paperwork for the foundation. It had been locked yesterday. Tonight the latches were undone.
I slid off the bed and put my feet on the cool wood floor. I listened. No footsteps coming back yet, just water against the hull and that low engine thrum.
I lifted the lid with both hands. Clothes folded too neatly to be real — a white shirt, a navy polo, his leather belt coiled like a snake on top. Underneath, the lining looked wrong. The bottom panel puffed up a half inch higher than it should have. I pressed my palm flat against it and felt it give, like there was foam underneath that didn't belong there.
My fingers found the edge. A seam that wasn't sewn shut. I worked my nails into it and pulled. The fabric peeled back with a soft velcro rip that sounded too loud.
There was a pocket underneath.
The two tablets in my hand were suddenly slick. I slipped them into that hidden space first, just to get them off my skin, and then I reached deeper.
My fingertips hit plastic. I pulled out a small blister pack, empty on one side where two pills had been punched through. Same size, same round white tablets. Behind it, folded papers. I unfolded them on my lap, my hands shaking enough that I had to press the crease with my wrist to keep it flat.
It was a printout of my prescription, but not my prescription. The dosage was doubled and the label was reprinted, crooked. Under it, a second sheet — a copy of the beneficiary form for Villanueva Pacific Logistics, with Adrian's name added in a different ink. And a handwritten note in his quick, slanted writing: 2:00 - port side. Push after second dose. Keep phone on airplane mode.
My phone was on the nightstand where I'd left it on airplane mode because he said there would be no signal between Coron and El Nido. I grabbed it, thumbed off airplane mode. One bar flickered, then disappeared, then came back. I opened the camera and my breath made the viewfinder shake.
I photographed the blister pack first, then the prescription, then the beneficiary form, then the note. Four clicks. I checked the screen — all four saved, time-stamped 11:47 p.m. I forwarded them to my attorney's email and watched the wheel spin. Sending. The bar dropped again.
Come on, I thought. Come on.
The email stalled at the bottom of the screen. Sending... The bar was gone.
I didn't wait. I opened my messages instead and sent the four photos to the same contact, no text, just the images. One showed Delivered. The others were still trying. I shoved the phone into the pocket of my bathrobe, deep where the seam would hide the outline.
Then I heard him. Shoes on the stairs, slow, coming back down. The wooden door down the hall creaked as someone brushed it.
I folded the papers the way he'd left them, exactly three folds, and pressed them back into the hidden pocket. I laid the blister pack on top, smoothed the lining down, pressed the velcro until it caught. I closed the suitcase lid, flipped the latches shut, and slid back onto the bed in one move.
I curled on my side facing the wall, pulled the sheet up to my shoulder, and let my mouth fall open a little. I slowed my breathing again, forced my hands to stay still on the pillow. My heart was hammering so hard I was sure he would hear it through the cabin door.
The door handle turned.
His shadow fell across the bed. I felt him stand there, listening.
"You still asleep, Mahal?" he said softly.
May you like
I didn't answer. I let out a small, sleepy breath through my nose and stayed limp.
His hand brushed the edge of the suitcase on the bed, straightening it a half inch. Then his fingers were gone, and the door eased shut again, but not all the way.
