Page 89 of No One Aboard
Day 10 at Sea
Tia leafed through the maps in the chart house. Nico would be getting off watch at midnight, which was in two hours, and she could finally get him alone, get him to talk about why he’d been distant the past day.
Tia pilfered a ruler and a small compass from the counter drawer. Plan SOS would be enacted in less than twenty-four hours. They had to be ready.
It felt surreal that she would be eighteen tomorrow. In the midst of all of this, her birthday seemed like a fake thing from another life. Her gift for Rylan—a cone snail shell from their first-ever scuba dive that she’d strung on a leather necklace—was packed securely in her suitcase. As for herself, she had snuck into her parents’ bathroom and slipped her mother’s favorite lipstick into her pocket. She’d return it after she used it for her birthday tomorrow. Not for the first time, she pictured the look on Nico’s face when he saw her wearing it.
The hatch from the cockpit to the companionway creaked, and Tia froze, fantasies evaporating. She couldn’t be caught by Francis or Alejandro in here. She pocketed the ruler and compass and slapped the light switch to douse the chart house indarkness. There was really only one place to hide—under the counter—so that’s where she crouched and held her breath.
White sneakers descended the companionway.
Alejandro.
The maps in Tia’s arms crinkled softly as she shrank back farther under the counter. When Alejandro caught Rylan and Nico poking around to get the radio, he’d been none too pleased. And she didn’t have backup.
The white sneakers walked by her, and she began to relax, but then they stopped in the middle of the room. Alejandro bent down, and Tia fought the instinct to attack him before he could attack her. But neither of them attacked. He hadn’t seen her. He was fiddling with the bilge panel on the floor, wedging his fingers into the small hole to pry it open. His other hand supported a black duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
What the hell is he doing?
Tia held still. It was so dark that even if Alejandro faced her, there was a chance he wouldn’t make out her shape under the counter, but the darkness made Tia more afraid instead of less. What reason could he have for not turning on the light?
He detached the panel from its place and set it aside, making an effort to do so quietly.
He doesn’t want anyone to see this, Tia thought. What was in that bag?
Alejandro lay flat on his belly and dangled the duffel into the pitch-black hole. He waited for a moment, then let it go, and Tia heard a thump and a splash. Was there water down there? Maybe he was hiding stolen treasure, although gold or gems would have made a bigger noise. Stacks of cash, then? But then he’d be risking it getting wet down there.
Alejandro replaced the bilge panel and climbed the companionway back to the cockpit where Nico was on watch.Quick as a cat, Alejandro vanished, leaving Tia to breathe in relief and crawl out from under the counter.
She flicked on the lights and knelt on the floor. The panel was much harder to get loose than Alejandro had made it look. It was heavy and firmly in place. The only way to pick it up was by crushing your smallest fingers into the little circle and lifting it by pure pinkie strength.
Tia almost gave up when the panel finally lifted. She leaned it against the wall and found a flashlight in one of the counter drawers to shine into the dark opening. She flicked it on, and it bathed the bilge in red light, which was the only kind of light allowed on a boat at night. It was supposed to help you see better in the dark.
A few inches of murky water flooded the bottom of the pit, which was at least a six-foot drop. The duffel bag sat in the muck, water seeping into it slowly. There was no way Tia could reach the bag, and even if she jumped down there, there was no ladder to get back up.
“Damn,” she muttered and put the panel back.
Tia headed toward her room. Before she’d even reached the hallway, she bumped right into Rylan in the salon.
“Hey,” she said awkwardly. Should she apologize for being distant? She searched his face, which looked blanched and sunken. “Ry? What... what’s going on?”
He seized her shoulders. “She’s not there, Tia. I don’t know if she ever was.”
“What? Who’s not where?”
He raised a trembling finger, pointing at the freezer, and Tia’s throat went dry. She crossed the salon in two strides to reach the galley and opened the freezer before she could think about what she was doing.
Empty.
Pirate, who had hopped onto the counter as if to get a better vantage point of the freezer, whined loudly. Tia scooped him up with one arm and grabbed Rylan’s hand.
“Come here.” She towed them to the chart house, making sure no one else was in there with them. She turned to her brother, petting Pirate to calm them both down. “I just saw Alejandro drop a black duffel bag in that bilge.”
Rylan wobbled. “You think he put her in there?”
“I don’t know. I don’tthinkit was big enough.” At least, she was pretty sure. “But why would he be putting anything in there at all? There was water at the bottom, you’re not supposed to store stuff in water. What if he’s hiding something?”
Rylan looked doubtful. Tia knelt by the bilge again.
