Page 87 of Uncharted

And now I’m trying to forget the crush I had on the actress who starred in the remake on some cable show.

“Take good notes for me,” Zane calls out from under a pipe.

“I will,” Haley says.

And we’re out in the corridor. “Where do you want to start?”

“Shayla’s cabin. So I can prove to you she has nothing to do with it.” Haley’s down the crew hall to the crew mess. From out of a cubby next to the crew day board, she takes a notebook. “My list of things to do. Look...” She shows it to me. “Find somewhere to store the extra box of horse statues Shayla found in the back of Emily’s closet.”

“I’m guessing Sam already found something to do with them.”

“Yeah, they’re trotting with the fishes.” She laughs.

“Notebook found. Shayla’s cabin?”

Haley nods. The place is immaculate, and the bed hardly looks slept in. Haley pulls open the first drawer and picks through the carefully folded clothes.

“What if she’s stuffed something in between them?”

Haley glances at me and frowns. “Right.” She pulls each piece of clothing out, shaking it. There’s not much to be found but a box of melted candy bars hidden in the bottom drawer under her jeans. No photos or much personal stuff. But that’s the thing with working on a yacht. The more you work, the less you bring. Only the most important stuff comes with you. Because it’s a bitch when you have to leave. It set me up for van life. For the stint I did a few years ago.

“Across the hall or next door?”

“I’m next door. I mean, if you think you need to search my room, go ahead.” She holds out her arm like a game show assistant.

“I think we’re good. My cabin’s next to yours. Do you want to shake out my drawers?” I grab her around her waist.

“Dante?” She laughs, but her soft lips hit mine. My dick hardens in my pants, and I’m thinking I don’t care about who might have done anything to the ship. But Sassy pulls away. “We need to keep looking.”

“Right.”

“Over here?”

“Let’s do it.” This cabin is a pigsty. It looks like someone has already searched it. But then I remember walking past it when we were on board, and it was kind of like this.

“Oliver and Cruz.” She picks up a few pieces of clothes and puts them on the top of the empty dresser. It’s hard to tell whose things are whose. “They both sure are slobs.”

“Yes. But other than clothes, a collection of colognes that together probably total more than five gallons, protein powder, and enough vapes to last a year, there isn’t much else.” I lift the mattresses.

“Oh, that’s good. I didn’t even think to do that,” Haley says.

“All right, next cabin. Who lives here?”

Her blue eyes shine at me. “Zane and Luke. We should wait to do that with Zane.”

“All right. Last cabin on this side is Anders and Calvin.” That I knew. “You want to wait for Calvin too?”

“I think that would be polite. Let’s go back down the other side of the hall.”

I point to the next one. I didn’t have much time to figure things out on board before we abandoned ship. I was still trying to learn the galley and praying we had enough provisions until we got to the next port. But Haley had done a good job of ordering things for me.

“I’m not sure about these two cabins. Mitch, Waldo, Ryder, and Daxton were here, but they were switching around. Waldo snored, and there was some argument. So I have no idea who ended up in which cabin.”

“I’ll take the top bunk while you take the lower berth.”

“I thought I would be able to figure out who was sleeping in which room by looking at the clothes. But I don’t think anyone had moved their clothes yet.” This drawer has a mixture of differently labeled crew shirt from Daxton, Mitch, Ryder, and Waldo.

“Ryder was the quiet deckhand with the pointy ears, right?”

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