Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Gone
Navarro talked them into moving the intercept up by ninety minutes. That still left a gap. A window between when Bennett would want me on the stern deck and when the authorities would reach us. Forty minutes, maybe less if the storm slowed them down. Forty minutes where anything could happen and nobody off this boat would know.
"He'll go to the suite first," Navarro said. "When he finds Rosa, he's got maybe thirty seconds of confusion before he understands something's wrong. That's when we move you."
"Move me where?"
"The bridge. Locks from the inside. Steel door." A beat. "And I'll be with you."
"What about Rosa?"
"Rosa gets out the second he opens that door. She's quicker than she looks."
I almost said something useless. Instead I said, "Okay."
We moved at eleven forty. Navarro went first, checked the passage, waved me through. We took the service stairs up — the same ones I'd come down hours earlier in the dark with the drug heavy in my blood. Going up now, the dizziness was thinner. Almost manageable. Replaced by something that felt close to clear.
The bridge sat one level under the stern deck. Through the forward windows I could see the storm — right on top of us now, the sea running in long black hills, the horizon just gone.
Behind and above us, the stern deck was a rectangle of pale light. Bennett was up there. I could see the shape of him at the rail.
Navarro locked the bridge door and took the helm. He kept the lights down low.
"Don't look up at him," he said quietly. "Let him come to us."
We didn't wait long. At eleven fifty-two, the suite intercom crackled. Bennett's voice came through — and the smoothness was gone.
"Navarro. Where is she."
Not a question.
Navarro pressed the button. "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Bennett."
"Don't." A pause. The sound of him moving. "I know she's not in the suite. I know Rosa was in that bed. Where is my wife."
"Sir, I'd suggest you calm down—"
"Open the bridge."
"I can't do that during a weather event. Maritime regulation—"
"Open the door, Navarro, or I'll have your license pulled before we even dock. I know people. You know I know people."
Navarro looked at me. I nodded.
He pressed the button again. "Mr. Bennett. You should know I made a call tonight. To people who outrank the ones you know."
Silence.
Then: "What did you do."
"My job," Navarro said. "The one Mr. Wexford hired me to do."
The silence after that one had weight to it.
Through the forward windows I watched Bennett's shape move along the stern rail until he was standing over the bridge, looking straight down at us.
Then he moved fast. Off the stern deck, down the outside stairs, straight at the bridge door.
He hit it hard. The steel rang.
"Open this door." Every trace of the lazy warmth was gone now. What was under it was something I'd never heard from him — flat, exact, and very, very cold. "Open it right now, or I promise you, neither one of you sees port."
I stepped up to the intercom myself. "Bennett."
A pause. "Camille." My name in his mouth. He was resetting. I could almost hear the gears. "Sweetheart, I don't know what Navarro's been telling you, but—"
"I heard you," I said. "On the lower deck. All three of you. The pills. The power of attorney. The mountain pass." A pause. "My parents are safe, Bennett. The intercept team is twenty minutes out. And everything in that safe has been photographed and sent."
Nothing. Not a sound on the other side of the steel.
Then: "You can't prove any of it."
"The pills are still in the nightstand," I said. "The document is still in the safe. And Navarro recorded your voice on the intercom just now." I looked at Navarro. He held up the recorder — small, digital, running since Bennett's first word. "You just threatened to kill us both. On tape. In international waters."
The door handle moved. Stopped.
"Camille." His voice dropped. Went soft. The performance of soft. "Think about what you're doing here. Think about your father's name. A scandal like this touches everyone — you, him, the whole family. I can make it disappear. All of it. No charges, no press, no strangers reading about you at breakfast. Just—"
"Just what?" I said. "Just pretend I didn't hear you plan to throw me off the back of this boat?"
Silence.
"Walk away, Bennett. Go sit down somewhere and wait. It's finished."
He didn't walk away. He hit the door one more time, hard, and then his footsteps went back up the outside stairs to the stern deck. I watched his shape return to the rail. He stood there a long time, looking out at the water.
Navarro touched my arm. "Twelve minutes."
Then Roland's voice came up from somewhere below — fast, hissed. "Bennett. Bennett, get down here. Something's wrong."
Bennett turned from the rail. Looked down at the bridge windows one more time. Then he was gone from the deck.
Navarro picked up the satellite phone. "They need to know Bennett's moving," I said.
"Already dialing." Then, into the phone: "Subjects are mobile. All three. Intercept needs to come in fast."
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I put my back against the console and looked out at the black water ahead.
Eleven minutes.
