Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN BEHIND THE CAMERA
The handle stopped turning.
For one terrible second, I stood frozen in the middle of the suite, staring at the door while Ethan breathed on the other side.
“Claire?”
His voice was soft again.
Too soft.
“I know you're scared.”
I looked at the tiny camera above the mirror.
Someone was watching.
Someone had photographed me less than a minute ago.
And whoever it was knew Ethan had realized I overheard him.
My phone buzzed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
Bathroom. Vent above the bathtub. Now.
I didn't have time to decide whether the stranger was helping me.
The lock clicked.
Ethan had a key.
I grabbed a heavy crystal perfume bottle from the dresser and ran into the bathroom. The vent was above the marble tub, nearly eight feet high.
Behind me, the suite door opened.
“Claire?”
I climbed onto the edge of the tub.
My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
The vent cover had already been loosened.
Someone had prepared this.
I pulled it down, revealing a narrow maintenance passage.
Then I heard Ethan enter the bedroom.
“Sweetheart?”
The pills rattled inside a glass.
“I brought water.”
I pulled myself into the vent and dragged the cover back into place.
Seconds later, Ethan entered the bathroom.
Through the narrow slats, I saw his shoes stop beside the tub.
Silence.
Then he laughed quietly.
“You've always been terrible at pretending to be asleep.”
My blood turned cold.
He knew.
Ethan stepped away.
I crawled.
The metal passage was barely wide enough for my shoulders. Every movement sounded impossibly loud.
Then my phone vibrated again.
KEEP MOVING. DO NOT GO TO THE CAPTAIN.
I followed the arrows scratched into the metal until the passage opened behind a maintenance cabinet near the lower deck.
The engine noise thundered beneath my feet.
9:43 P.M.
Seventeen minutes until Engine Room B.
I slipped through the crew corridor, avoiding footsteps.
Twice, I heard Ethan's voice over the yacht's internal radio.
“My wife is confused from medication. If anyone sees her, bring her directly to me.”
He sounded concerned.
Loving.
Exactly like the husband everyone believed him to be.
At 9:58, I reached Engine Room B.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, a woman stood beside a wall of security monitors.
She looked about thirty, with dark hair cut to her shoulders and a scar beneath her left eye.
She raised both hands.
“My name is Mia.”
I backed toward the door.
“I don't know you.”
“No,” she said. “But you know my family.”
My stomach tightened.
Mia reached into her jacket and pulled out an old photograph.
Ethan was in it.
He looked eighteen.
Beside him stood Vanessa and his father.
And Mia.
Younger.
Smiling.
“My name is Mia Cole,” she said.
Then her voice cracked.
“But sixteen years ago, my name was Mia Harrow.”
Harrow.
Ethan's last name before he legally changed it.
I stared at her.
“You're his sister?”
She nodded.
“His older sister.”
I remembered Ethan telling me she had died in a boating accident when they were teenagers.
He had cried while telling me.
Mia watched my face.
“I didn't die in an accident, Claire.”
Above us, an alarm suddenly sounded.
Mia turned toward the monitors.
Ethan appeared on six screens at once.
He was walking toward the lower deck with two crewmen.
Mia whispered:
“They tried to kill me too.”
May you like
Then she looked directly at me.
“And your father helped them do it.”
