Chapter 3: The Papers She Signed
Flynn’s hand stayed in his pocket, where my phone had disappeared.
For a moment, neither of us moved. His smile was gentle enough to belong to the man who’d carried me aboard this yacht, who’d promised that the ocean would make our honeymoon unforgettable. I couldn’t tell which version had been a performance.
Then the knock came again.
Flynn glanced at the door. “I’ll see what Ellis needs.”
“I thought it was a crew issue.”
“It is.” His eyes returned to mine. “Try to rest.”
He left without giving me the phone. The lock clicked behind him.
I waited until his footsteps faded, then pressed my palm against the place where he’d taken it. My recording, if it still existed, was in his pocket now. The idea of him finding it made my stomach tighten; the idea of losing the only proof made it worse.
The napkin with the two pills lay beside the water glass. I tucked it into my sleeve and crossed to my suitcase, keeping one hand on the furniture whenever the yacht shifted beneath me. My knees felt soft, but they held. That was something.
I needed more than something.
In the zip pocket of my travel bag, beneath the itinerary and copies of our passports, I found the papers Flynn had asked me to sign before the wedding. I’d told myself I would read them later. Then there had been flowers to choose, family to thank, a dress to fit into—and Flynn, with a pen ready and a warm hand at my back, telling me not to worry about the details.
The pages were a scanned copy, printed on thin paper. My signature appeared at the bottom of the first one.
I leaned closer. The small type swam, then steadied. The document was called an emergency account authorization. It gave Flynn access to certain accounts if I became “temporarily unable to manage my financial affairs.”
My pulse thudded behind my ears. I read the phrase again, then the line beneath it. The authorization was not proof that he’d taken anything. It was proof that he had prepared a way to ask.
The next page was worse.
A statement, written in the first person, described me as anxious, dependent on Flynn’s judgment, and prone to confusion under stress. It said I had asked him to handle important decisions on my behalf. At the bottom, beneath a blank line for a witness, was my name typed neatly into the space reserved for the person making the statement.
I had never said those things.
A sharp roll of the yacht sent the pages sliding. I caught them against the dresser, crushing the thin paper in my fist. The room smelled of salt and the sweet, medicinal trace of the water Flynn had brought me.
He had turned my signature into a door. He meant to walk through it wearing my voice.
My throat tightened. I could still remember his face when I’d signed: patient, amused, loving. I remembered believing that trust meant I didn’t have to ask what every page was for.
The ache that came wasn’t only fear. It was grief for the woman who had signed those papers without imagining what her husband might do with them.
I smoothed the pages against the dresser.
He could write whatever he wanted about me. He could carry my phone and tell other people I was confused. But he didn’t get to make his story true just because he’d prepared it in advance.
I folded the papers twice and slid them beneath the loose lining of my suitcase. Then I unfolded the napkin and tucked the pills beside them, careful not to let them spill. The lining sagged slightly over the hidden bundle. I pressed it flat.
Footsteps sounded in the passage.
I had just pushed the suitcase beneath the bed when the lock turned.
Flynn stepped inside, bringing a gust of damp air with him. His eyes moved from the dresser to the bed, then settled on my face.
“You should be lying down.”
“I was looking for my passport copies.”
“Did you find them?”
“Yes.”
His gaze lingered a beat too long. I tried to keep my hands loose at my sides, though my fingers wanted to curl into fists.
“Are you feeling worse?” he asked.
“I’m tired.”
“That makes sense.” He came closer, not quite touching me. “You’ve had a difficult evening.”
The words sounded soft. His eyes didn’t.
A muffled voice came from beyond the suite door. I couldn’t make out the first words, only the change in Flynn’s posture—his attention turning toward the passage, his expression sharpening.
He opened the door a few inches.
“She’s too sick to make decisions,” he told someone outside.
May you like
My skin went cold.
Flynn lowered his voice, but not enough. “Just handle it the way we discussed.”
