Page 88 of Sunburned

“Excusez-moi,”I said in French, manipulating my voice as much as I could to sound like Gisèle’s.“I’m in the bathroom. Can you come back later please?”

“Oh!”I could hear the surprise in the girl’s voice.“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were here. I’ll come back.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed. I could hear her entering my cabin next door as I stepped into Gisèle’s bedroom and bent over her suitcase, quickly returning the items I’d removed to their places.

But as I restacked her T-shirts, I noticed that the bottom of the suitcase was uneven.

I removed the shirts once more and swept my hand over the nylon fabric. There was something under it, though there didn’t appear to be another packable compartment beneath. I moved her bag of swimsuits to see that the lining had been ripped at one end, the slash in the fabric hidden by clothes.

I reached my hand into the slit, and my fingers immediately struck what felt like a stack of paper bills. My jaw dropped as I removed what, according to the band around it, was €10,000.

Jackpot.

I stuck my hand back into the suitcase and extracted another, then another, and another stack of hundreds. I’d taken out twenty-five stacks—amounting to two hundred fifty thousand euros—when I heard the door to my room open and close.

There was still more money in the compartment, and I could see thefabric on the other side had a rip in it as well, but I was running out of time. I snapped a picture of the money I’d extracted, then put it all back, carefully arranging the clothes as they had been before returning the suitcase to its rightful place.

The gears in my brain turned as I stepped out of Gisèle’s room, my phone gripped tightly in my hand. The cash had to be the €500K Tyson had pulled out of the bank to give his blackmailer at the missed meeting this evening. I could think of no other reason Gisèle would have that much cash. She must have taken it to hide it from the police before they searched the boat earlier.

Which raised two questions: First, was Samira aware she’d taken it? And second, did she—or they—know what it was intended for?

I realized the answer might be on the camera feed, but I still needed to hack into the Wi-Fi and download the software to connect to the cameras, which I knew would take me more time than I could afford to spend right now.

The maid was currently in Laurent’s cabin, but she’d already done Rémy’s, which meant I was probably safe there. With a glance over my shoulder, I slunk across the hallway into Rémy’s room, quietly closing the door behind me.

On the floor of his closet I found a black-and-gray Gucci overnight bag, which seemed extravagant for a dive instructor, but this was St.Barth’s. God only knew what his going rate was. Inside were neatly folded clothes—all high-end labels—and a matching Gucci Dopp kit. But the drawers were empty, and his phone was with him at the table.

Satisfied that his room contained no answers to the pug question, I checked my watch. Shockingly, I’d been gone only seven minutes. If I took the exterior stairs up to the primary level, I might just have time to do a quick sweep of Samira’s room before I returned to the table.

I flew up the stairs to find the crew vacuuming the main deck. No one paid any attention as I exited the side door.

The sky was dark, save for the moon reflecting on the black water. I could see the gleam of St. Martin in the distance, and the twinkling lights of other boats at sea, but we were alone in our bay. Nofloodlights blazed, the side deck lit only by the path lights as I stole toward the bow, where I’d noticed an exterior staircase earlier.

Outside, I quietly ascended the stairs, past the pickleball and basketball courts on the game level to the private deck off the primary level, where I paused, listening. I could hear voices filtering up from the game room as I exited the stairwell. The lights were dim on the deck but blazed inside the office, making it easy to determine that no one was inside.

I slipped through the hatch, my heartbeat thudding in my ears as I dashed toward Samira’s room like a thief in the night, casting furtive glances over my shoulder. There was no denying I was up to something now, if I happened upon anyone. I stood still for a moment at the door straining to hear whether there was anyone inside, and when I was satisfied it was empty, placed my hand on the doorknob and turned.

Chapter 32

Luck was on my side. Samira and Tyson’s room was indeed empty.

Though the humidifier was no longer running, the faint scent of rosemary and sage lingered in the dimly lit room as if Tyson had just walked out, sending a chill up my spine. The gray silk blackout drapes over the windows were closed, the clothes Samira was wearing earlier folded neatly on a chair.

I quickly opened and closed the drawers of the bedside tables, but they were all bare, and her closet contained nothing more than a solitary dress and a few things folded on the shelves. I unzipped her Louis Vuitton overnight bag and riffled through it, finding only a black satin negligée and a change of clothes.

A noise on the other side of the closed door drew my attention and I froze, my nerves standing on end as I quickly scanned the room for a place to hide. The nearly empty closet was too risky, the bathroom too far. I gasped as the doorknob turned, and seeing no other option, darted behind the nearest set of curtains.

I held my breath as the door swung silently inward.

Praying I was out of sight, I pressed myself against the window behind me, aware that anyone who walked past outside would see meclear as day. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest so loudly, I was afraid it would be audible to whoever was standing in the entrance to the room.

Through the gap where the panels of curtains met, I watched as Allison entered, looking as guilty as I must have.

She surveyed the room, her shoulders tense, then strode toward the bed and jerked open the drawers in the bedside tables just as I had, only less carefully. She spun, moving in and out of my field of vision as she scanned the room, clearly looking for something—something specific, it seemed; something she knew should be here. Her gaze went to Samira’s empty suitcase, then to the door to her closet, then to another suitcase on the opposite side of the room, which had to be Tyson’s.

It struck me as odd that the police hadn’t taken Tyson’s bag as evidence, until Allison turned it upside down and I saw that it, too, was empty. I lost her for a moment when she entered Tyson’s closet, but she quickly reemerged empty-handed. I held my breath as she strode toward Samira’s closet and yanked open the door, not two feet from where I was hidden.

The curtains billowed with the rush of air; my nose suddenly tickled. No. I couldn’t sneeze. My eyes watered as I moved my hand noiselessly to my nose and rubbed it violently, willing the tickle to subside. Allison hastened from the closet to the bathroom, and I stifled the smallest sneeze.

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