Page 93 of Uncharted

“Yes, it does seem like you were targeted. I agree. But Shayla got stuck before you were on board. This is bigger than just an on-board sabotage. I think we can say that for sure.” Haley’s holding the photo of the girl on the coat next to Ryder’s passport photo. Not that anyone looks like their passport photo.

I don’t blame Easton. I’m raging about this, but he was the direct target. It’s got to hit even harder.

Haley takes the pictures. She holds them up to the waning light. “There are some bumps on here. Look.” She passes the photo to me.

“There is. It’s writing.” I angle the sheen of the photo left and right, but I can’t make anything out.

I ran the sequences and letters in my head as I lay on my back in the muck of the engine room, trying to sand away by hand the corrosion the saltwater left behind, while we figured out how to make the power tools run. There’s a pattern, I can feel it, just out of reach, but I haven’t been able to touch it. It’s proper annoying.

“There’s something seriously wrong with those photos,” Sam says. His hands are inside the wall. “They’re not photos you bring to work with you.”

“Not unless you’re seriously fucked up.” Calvin hands Sam a pair of pliers. When I hand back the photos to Haley, she’s smiling.

“Oh, he’s right. I’m just glad Calvin’s sitting.” Little Bird holds them up again. “I can’t make anything out. But you know, I think both this and the blurred mess on the card might match. And it’s not printing but cursive.”

“So then, who did it? Has to be someone older.” Easton’s got the diamonds in his hands and is moving them around the table like he’s going to play three-card monte.

My eyebrows shoot up. “Why?”

“Because they don’t teach cursive in schools anymore,” Haley says.

“In America.” I shake my head. “That’s why all of you have handwriting like doctors. In Britain, we get a proper education.” I’m poking the beast.

Dante throws his hands up in the air. “You’re not wrong.”

“True,” Easton says.

“So the saboteur is someone from Europe or older...” It feels wrong coming off my tongue. “Or the person in charge of the sabotage is older.” I turn to Haley, and she nods.

“Well, that doesn’t help us narrow down the list.” Haley’s staring at the photos again. “I just feel like I know this building. Look at this part here. I think it’s a university. It has a plaque to the right of the door. And this girl is not the one the camera’s focused on. But this one here, to the side, she’s wearing a midriff shirt. There can’t be many high schools that allow that. What do you think that plaque says? It’s too small to read.”

“Hold on.” Sam strides across the main salon, past us in the dining room, with Penny at his side. The dog flops down at the edge of the room, stares at the wall and barks. Sam stops and turns back to us in exasperation. “It’s gone, Penny. There was a spider there like a month ago, and she won’t stop barking at the wall.” In a minute, Sam’s back with the map magnifier. “This should help.” He hands it to Haley.

“Thanks!” She hovers it over the photo of the girl outside the school building. “Holy shoot! Does that say Clapp, Langley?” She pushes the photo and lens toward me. “Right there?” She points to the plaque.

A guy with short hair stands in front of a plaque, and I can make out the C L A and then the next word starts L A N G before it runs behind him. “It could?”

“This is the biology department building at the University of Pittsburgh. I spent way too many hours in it. Yes, this is definitely Pitt, my alma mater.” Haley taps the table next to the photo. “East coast university. I don’t know if that helps narrow things down? I mean, people come from around the world. But really, most of the kids are from the east coast.”

“It might.” Easton’s pacing now, the diamonds in his hand. If he starts juggling them... I guess he can do whatever he wants with them. They are his family’s, or at least the real one is.

“On the other raft were Emily, Rocky, Brick, and Shayla. I think we can rule out all of them knowing how to mess with the stabilizers, the fuel, and electrical.” Haley writes their names down in a column on her notepad. “Then we have the two engineers, Waldo and Mitch. Anders, the first officer.” She writes their names on the other side. She turns to me and bites her lips. “Cruz, Luke, Ollie... Help me out, Zane.”

“Daxton and Ryder. Luke’s from Australia and, if I remember right, an only child who’s never been to the states.” Haley puts an X next to his name. “Oliver’s from England, and Cruz is from Santa Barbara. I don’t remember them talking about family.” I squint and stare at Little Bird’s neat printing of Daxton and Ryder’s names. “Daxton’s from New York City. He had a lot of siblings. Luke and Cruz’s cabin was a pigsty. Wait, Cruz did say he had a sister, I think? And Ryder is from New Hampshire. But I also don’t remember anything from him. Let me stew on it. Something might bubble up.” Bubble up? That’s an expression my Nan used to use.

“What about Waldo and Mitch?” Haley leans back to look at Calvin.

“I didn’t talk to them about family. This is a job, not a social club,” Green says. Which isn’t shocking.

“They both have sisters. Waldo was born in Youngstown, Ohio, and Mitch is from Erie.” Sam ducks his head around the corner. I raise my eyebrows at him. He wasn’t the sort of captain who hung with us around the galley table. “Waldo was leaning on his radio, and a conversation came through.”

Little Bird has drawn a question mark next to Daxton, Ryder, Waldo, and Mitch. “It’s the same four the pictures could belong to.”

Dante’s flipping through Waldo’s address book. “The phone number in the front is Maine.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s where he lived before coming out. Honestly, he’s the only person around my age I know with a paper address book,” I say.

Dante doesn’t look up. “There’s been more than one time in yachting when my phone was dead or didn’t have service and I would have loved to have been able to look up a phone number. This one time in the Maldives when I wanted to call my aunt to see if she would... Never mind, that’s a story for another time. The point is, I didn’t know her number. So maybe it’s not that strange. But there’s no numbers from Ohio or Western Pennsylvania. Not that area codes mean much anymore with cellphones. But everything in here has area codes from New England and New York City.” Dante tosses the book in with the rest of the clues.

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