Chapter 5: The Captain’s Test
“Rusk is assigned to the aft camera controls,” Reyes said. “He has access.”
The words settled between us. Through the bridge glass, Flynn stood in the corridor with his hands loose at his sides, waiting as if this were a misunderstanding he could smooth over with a smile.
“What else did you hear?” Reyes asked.
I kept the phone in my palm. “He said he’d take me to the back deck before midnight. He said I’d be too weak to stand.”
“Did you hear him name a time?”
“By midnight.” My mouth had gone dry. “The camera was supposed to go dark at eleven forty-five. You heard that part.”
Reyes’s gaze held mine. “I did.”
She didn’t ask me to play it again. Somehow that small restraint made it easier to keep talking.
“I heard his parents, too. His father asked about the money. Flynn said he’d get control of what he needed after I was declared dead.” I swallowed. “He also said my parents wouldn’t be asking questions for long.”
Reyes’s expression tightened, but her voice stayed even.
“Did you hear what he planned to do to them?”
“No.”
“Then we won’t pretend we know. We’ll treat it as a threat and act on what we can verify.”
A knock sounded behind us. One of the bridge crew opened the door just far enough to admit a steward carrying a silver tray. Steam curled from a bowl of soup. Beside it sat two small white pills.
My stomach clenched.
“Mr. Shaw asked me to bring this up for Mrs. Shaw,” the steward said. “He said she hadn’t eaten.”
The captain glanced at me. I made myself look tired rather than frightened.
“Thank you,” I said, and took the tray.
The steward watched me settle it on the chart table. The pills were the same size, the same chalky white as the ones Flynn had handed me night after night. They rested beside the soup as casually as a pair of breath mints.
“Please leave it,” Reyes told the steward.
He hesitated, then nodded and withdrew.
The door clicked shut. I looked at the bowl. A thin skin had begun to form across its surface.
“He sent it,” I whispered.
“Did you see him put anything in it?”
“No. But he told his family he’d added extra to my soup today.” I forced my hands to remain at my sides. “And those are the pills he’s been giving me.”
Reyes leaned over the table without touching the tray. Her attention moved from the pills to my face.
“You haven’t taken either?”
“No.”
“Good.”
It wasn’t comfort. It was a fact, clean and solid enough to stand on.
Reyes turned toward the crewman at the far console. “No one clears this tray. No one touches the pills or the bowl.”
The crewman looked to the captain, then nodded.
I stared at the soup. Flynn had sent it up expecting me to be grateful. Maybe he thought I would swallow it because he’d taught me to trust the hand that brought it. The thought stung more than the smell of it—salt, cream, and herbs, all of it suddenly spoiled.
Reyes stepped between me and the door.
“Stay behind me.”
A moment later, the handle turned.
Flynn came onto the bridge without waiting to be invited. His eyes found me first, then the tray. The faint concern he’d worn all evening disappeared so quickly I might have imagined it.
“Claire,” he said. “There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere.”
“You were told to wait outside,” Reyes said.
“I’m her husband.”
“And I’m the captain. You’ll wait where I tell you.”
Flynn’s jaw flexed. He looked at me, softening his voice as if the captain weren’t there.
“Come on, sweetheart. You’re exhausted. Let’s go back to the suite.”
“No.”
The word came out small, but it came out.
His eyes sharpened. “You’re frightening yourself with half-heard conversations.”
“I heard you.”
“You’re sick. You’ve been seasick since dinner, and now you’re imagining things.”
“I heard your father ask if I was weak enough.”
For one breath, Flynn’s face went empty. Then the smile returned, stretched thin across it.
“Captain, she’s been confused all night. You can see that for yourself.”
“I can see that you’re trying to take her somewhere she doesn’t want to go,” Reyes replied.
He glanced at the tray again. “What is this supposed to prove? She needed medicine.”
“You brought her pills after she told you she was afraid of being drugged?” Reyes asked.
“I didn’t drug her.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Flynn’s gaze slid toward the crewman at the console. The young man looked down at his instruments, but his shoulders had stiffened.
“Claire,” Flynn said, quieter now. “You don’t want to turn this into something you can’t take back.”
I felt the phone’s hard edge against my palm. “You already did.”
A gust shuddered through the yacht. The bridge lights trembled, then steadied. Outside, black water blurred against the windows, and the storm pressed in like something alive.
Reyes moved closer to the doorway, barring it with her body.
“Mr. Shaw, you will remain here under observation. You will not approach your wife, and you will not interfere with my crew.”
Flynn gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“That’s my responsibility to judge.”
“No,” he said. “Your responsibility is to remember who pays for this boat.”
May you like
His eyes settled on the captain, cold now, his courteous mask finally gone.
“Claire’s father owns this yacht. He can have you dismissed before sunrise.”
