Chapter 8 - TWO MOTHERS, ONE LIE
Vanessa didn't look afraid.
She slowly placed the champagne glass down.
“Hello, Laura.”
My mother appeared older than the woman I remembered.
Her hair was shorter.
There were lines around her eyes.
But she was alive.
Alive.
Eight years of grief disappeared and returned as anger so violent I could barely breathe.
“Mom!”
Her eyes flicked toward the camera.
“Claire.”
That single word nearly destroyed me.
Vanessa smiled.
“Touching.”
Laura pressed the gun closer.
“Stop the fuel purge.”
“I can't.”
“Then tell Mia how.”
Vanessa looked into the camera.
“Mia knows.”
Mia rushed to the control panel inside Suite 3.
“No. The purge is locked from the bridge.”
“Correct.”
Laura grabbed Vanessa's shoulder.
“Then unlock it.”
Vanessa finally laughed.
“You still don't understand. I wanted you here too.”
Laura froze.
Vanessa turned slowly.
“You thought you followed me onto this yacht.”
Her smile widened.
“I brought you.”
My mother's face drained of color.
Vanessa reached beneath the console.
Laura moved too late.
A hidden compartment opened.
Vanessa pulled out a second gun.
The screen jolted.
A gunshot exploded through the speakers.
Then darkness.
“Mom!”
No answer.
The countdown continued.
00:14:42
Ethan forced open an electrical access panel with Harris.
Mia searched the maintenance schematics.
My father simply stood near the window.
Thinking.
Calculating.
Even now.
I turned on him.
“You knew Mom was alive.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Seven years.”
The answer hit harder than anything else.
“You let me grieve her.”
“She asked me to.”
Laura had lied.
Charles had lied.
Ethan had lied.
Vanessa had lied.
Love in my family was apparently just another word for control.
Mia suddenly pointed at the schematic.
“There.”
A manual cutoff valve existed below the aft deck.
Someone had to close it physically.
“Where?” Ethan asked.
“Exterior maintenance platform.”
“In this storm?”
“Yes.”
Ethan grabbed a safety harness.
I stared at him.
“You're going?”
He looked at me.
“I was supposed to kill you tonight.”
“At least you're self-aware.”
His mouth twisted.
“But I'm not going to let my mother burn you alive.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
“You shouldn't.”
He clipped the harness around his waist.
“But believe actions.”
He disappeared through the emergency hatch.
Mia followed his movement on the schematic while Harris forced the suite door.
Twelve minutes.
Eleven.
Ten.
Then my phone buzzed.
A video file.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
I opened it.
Laura appeared.
Recorded earlier.
“If you're watching this, Claire, something has gone wrong.”
My throat tightened.
She continued.
“There is one truth no one aboard the yacht knows except me.”
The camera shifted.
Behind her was a DNA report.
“I lied to Charles about Jonathan.”
I stopped breathing.
“Jonathan Whitmore was not your biological father.”
My father stared at the phone.
“What?”
Laura continued.
“I needed Charles to believe you carried Whitmore blood so he would protect you.”
Charles stepped toward me.
“Turn that off.”
I backed away.
The recording continued.
“Your biological father was Nathan Cole.”
Mia made a small sound.
The room seemed to tilt.
Nathan.
Her father.
Vanessa's first husband.
I looked at Mia.
She looked at me.
Laura's voice broke.
“Claire, Mia is your half-sister.”
Ethan's face appeared suddenly on the external camera outside.
He had reached the fuel valve.
But Mia wasn't watching anymore.
Neither was I.
We were staring at each other.
Two women from opposite sides of a thirty-year war.
Sisters.
May you like
Then Laura's recording delivered one final line.
“And Vanessa has known since the day you were born.”
