Betrayal By The Sea

by Kathi Daley

  I nodded and then waited as Alyson disappeared. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for both Alyson and Lucy to reappear.

  “Do you know what happened to me?” Lucy asked as soon as she appeared.

  “Not exactly. Here is what we do know.” I explained everything that had occurred since the previous day. I watched as shock, followed by sorrow, brushed across her face.

  “Poor Harris,” she finally said. “If Evan is the one who stole the money and Harris found out, he must have felt so betrayed. They were friends as well as colleagues. Good friends. They went on vacations together, and their wives were close. It seemed as if they had been friends for a long time. Why would Evan do something that would destroy Harris and the company they built together?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “And I can’t even say for certain that he is the one who took the money, although given the fact that he seems to be behind the hijacking of this ship, I have to assume he is the one who embezzled the money as well. Tyson said that he’d informed Harris of the discrepancies he’d found while updating the computer system. Harris seemed to think the two fired employees were behind it.”

  Lucy nodded. “Yes. I said as much when we last spoke. At least I think I did. Everything is still fuzzy.”

  “That’s all right. Tell me again.”

  “Ty did find out that the system had been hacked, which led to the discovery of the missing money. Harris tracked the money back to two employees who swore they were innocent but appeared guilty, and were fired. At the time Harris first learned about the missing funds, he didn’t realize the extent of the embezzlement or the number of clients who had been affected. He had a plan to replace the money from his own savings. But then I found a whole lot more money missing while helping him prepare for his speech. I told Bret, and we told Harris what we knew together.”

  “Which is why he called the meeting yesterday morning,” I said.

  Lucy nodded. “I think so. I think he hoped to use the meeting to figure out who was behind the missing funds.”

  “So it was Harris’s opinion that the thief was someone on board?”

  Lucy nodded. “What I actually found was a series of fake investments made to look like real ones. I assume the embezzler did that to camouflage the theft. Harris felt that only someone familiar with our investment methods and strategy could have done such a convincing job. I think he suspected Clint, but he wasn’t sure. If it was Evan…” She stopped talking and instead just shook her head.

  “In addition to you and Lance, five others are missing from the ship, as well as the original crew.”

  “Lance is missing? Is he dead?” Lucy screeched.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “He has been missing as long as you have, but we have not found his body, nor has he shown up in ghost form. The others were seen last night but were missing by this morning. We don’t know what happened to any of them yet.”

  “Who is missing?”

  “Harris and his wife; Evan’s wife, Claudia, Lisa Long, and Brody Newsome. Do you think Evan would have hurt them?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “Can you think of anyone who would hurt them?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I can’t believe this. I don’t want to believe any of this. I was just getting used to the idea of being dead, but now Lance and Harris are missing? Harris was like a father to me and Lance…Lance was one of my very best friends.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I replied. “I wish I knew more.”

  “Amanda will figure this out,” Alyson said. “If your friends are alive, she’ll find them, and if they aren’t, she’ll figure out who killed them.”

  Lucy put her hands over her face. “This is just too much. I think I am ready to go. Wherever I am going from here, it has to be better than trying to make sense out of all this.”

  I nodded. “I understand. Alyson will get you started on your journey.”

  With that, both Alyson and Lucy disappeared. The fact that the men who’d hijacked the ship were clueless and appeared to be lost meant we had a whole new set of problems to deal with. I headed back to the seating area where Trevor, Mac, and Ty were waiting. They looked pretty grim, but I had a feeling the mood of the room was going to get a whole lot worse once I shared the information I’d just received. Once I’d explained, Ty took charge.

  “It seems that the first thing we need to do is to figure out how to get a message to someone on the outside about what is going on here. I know we are too far out at sea for cell or internet service, and it appears that our satellite phones have been blocked, but I think I can figure out a way to get around that. Mac and I will work on getting a message out one way or another.” Ty looked at Trevor. “I think that it is important to try to keep as much of this as we can from the others for as long as possible. I’m sure at some point someone is going to figure things out and chaos will reign, but for now, we need to try to keep a semblance of normalcy, which is why it would help a lot if you would continue to make meals for everyone.”

  Trevor nodded. “I can do that.”

  Ty turned to me. “If you have a way to get a peek behind the curtain, I think that is the most important thing you can do. We may need to come up with a plan to overpower Evan and those men. The only reason I don’t think we should do that immediately is because we are unarmed, and we have no idea what sort of weapons the men may have stashed in the engine room. If at all possible, I’d like to get out of this without anyone getting hurt.”

  I nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out, and I’ll help Trevor with the food. In fact, I think that Trev and I should wander down to the dining deck in case anyone has decided that staying in their room, as Evan suggested, is just a bit too claustrophobic.”

  Ty nodded. “Okay. We all know what we need to do. We’ll meet back in the dining room at one o’clock for lunch.”

  After Mac and Ty left, I said to Trevor, “I really like him.”

  “Yeah. Ty is a good guy.”

  “He didn’t freak out when I told him I could see ghosts, and he was willing to jump right in to the fray as soon as he understood the situation. Of all the men Mac could have hooked up with, she chose the best. I think he will make a good addition to our group. I hope things work out between the two of them.”

  “Agreed,” Trevor said, lending me a hand and pulling me to my feet. “Should we let everyone know that we plan to provide a lunch buffet?”

  I nodded. “Let’s head to the dining room to see if anyone is around. If we find someone who works for the company, we’ll ask them to get the word out to the others. In the meantime, I think we should take a look around to see if we can find evidence of anyone else, dead or alive, on board.”

  “That sounds like a plan.” Trevor walked over to the sliding door. He peered out at the vast sea. “I hope Mac and Ty can figure out a way to let someone know what’s happening here. If we are lost, we’ll eventually run out of food, water, and fuel. We are a small ship in a huge ocean. The chance of being found before we run out of everything probably isn’t all that great.”

  Chapter 11

  Trevor and I headed down to the dining deck, where we found Bret and Clint in the bar. It was a bit early to be hitting the hard stuff, but given the circumstances, I guess I couldn’t blame them.

  “I see you decided to ignore Evan’s advice to stay in your cabins,” I said, sliding onto a barstool next to Bret.

  “Cynthia is driving me crazy,” Bret said. “She is sure we are all going to die of some horrific, flesh-eating bacteria or spore-causing virus that will ruin her perfect complexion for all eternity.”

  Clint chuckled. “Leave it to Cynthia to worry about how she is going to look in her final moments when there are so many better things to worry about.”

  “I’m not sure there is a transmittable virus on board, despite what Evan suggested,” I said. “At least not one that is airborne. Trevor and I have been talking about it, and we realized that if there is a virus, we’ve probab
ly already been affected by it. If we’re going to come down with it, it’s too late to worry about it. If we continue to feel fine, we thought we’d try to maintain a semblance of normalcy. Trevor has volunteered to make the meals when the time comes, and I’ll do what I can to try to ensure that everyone is made as comfortable as possible.”

  “And Clint and I will hold down the fort here in the bar.” Bret chuckled.

  “We’ll serve a buffet lunch at one,” Trevor added. “Do you know if the others are in their staterooms?”

  “Connie, Shelley, and Yvonne are all in the gym. Cynthia is in our cabin, but I’ll let her know,” Bret answered.

  “Jason and Vinnie were heading toward the theater with a bottle of whiskey the last time I saw them,” Clint offered. “I’ll let them know about lunch.”

  “That would be helpful,” I said. “Trevor and I are going to the kitchen to get started.”

  When we were far enough away so as not to be heard, Trevor asked the question that had been at the forefront of my own mind. “I wonder if Evan is still in the engine room, and if he isn’t, I wonder where he might have gone.”

  “What you are really wondering is if it is safe to snoop. I’ve been trying to decide the same thing.”

  “No one was in Harris’s cabin when Alyson checked earlier, and I have a feeling that, in addition to Evan’s stateroom, it might not be a bad place to start. We can try breaking in.”

  “I’ll see if Alyson is finished helping Lucy move on. If she is, we can have her scout things out and then keep watch while we’re inside.”

  We headed to the kitchen first, stopping along the way to check on the status of the door which led to the engine room and bridge. If it was unlocked, we planned to wander in, acting as if we were lost. But the door was still locked, so we continued on. We would need a tool of some sort to try to pry open the doors to the staterooms, so we planned to see what we could find among the kitchen utensils.

  “Hang on,” I said as we neared the kitchen. I continued down the narrow hallway, with Trevor following. When we arrived at a door I remembered to be a storage room when we were searching for Lucy’s body, I tried the door. It opened. Trevor and I let ourselves inside, closing the door behind us.

  “Why are we in a storage room?” Trevor asked.

  “The maids’ cart is kept in here. I’m hoping there might be a master key left behind. It would save us having to break into the cabins, which could get tricky.”

  “Good idea,” Trevor said as he began to sift through the items stacked on shelves and in drawers. The cart itself was empty, but that didn’t mean the maid hadn’t emptied it at the end of her last shift.

  It took more than ten minutes of searching, but eventually, I found a box with key cards. None stood out as being a master key, so I assumed they were old cards that had been left in the rooms, or new ones that were never coded. There were too many for us to randomly start trying cards on Evan’s door.

  “I think I have something,” Trevor said. He held up a bag that looked like one you would tie to the outside edge of the cart. It had been filled with various items, including mini soaps, tiny shampoos, replacement toothbrushes, and what could very well be a master key.

  “Okay, grab it. It may not be active, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. Let’s stop in the kitchen and come up with a plan for the lunch we just agreed to make. While we are there, I’ll see if I can contact Alyson. Our plan is much too dangerous to put into play without her to scout out rooms before we enter them.”

  As we walked toward the kitchen, we chatted about keeping lunch simple and then maybe doing something nicer for dinner. There were supplies to make deli sandwiches, so we started with that. I found pickles, olives, and mini tomatoes, and diced broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots that would make for a good veggie tray. Trevor decided to make an Italian pasta salad because he’d found everything he needed for it, and it would be easy to prepare yet filling and somewhat elegant. Dessert was a bit trickier, but Trevor found ingredients for brownies, and there was ice cream in the freezer, so we settled on that.

  I called to Alyson while Trevor was making the pasta salad, but she didn’t answer. I supposed she might still be busy with Lucy, so I assembled the sandwiches and planned to try again afterward. By the time the food was ready to take up to the dining deck, I still hadn’t gotten ahold of her, so we decided to go ahead and serve the meal and try again later in the afternoon. I wasn’t sure about Evan’s current location, and I wanted to be careful until I was. While things were tense, everyone seemed to be dealing with the situation fairly well. I was afraid if Evan realized we were on to him, things would get a whole lot worse.

  Once one o’clock rolled around, everyone who was still on board assembled in the dining room. Most of them had been drinking, so things were a lot more pleasant than they might have been.

  “I appreciate that we seem to have unlimited free booze, but I am disappointed that the spa personnel won’t be coming aboard as planned,” Cynthia said. “I had a massage and a salt scrub scheduled for today.”

  “And I’d planned to have a manicure and a seaweed wrap. What’s up with the entire crew being on lock down?” Shelley asked. “I can see where protocol might require those who are sick to stay in their cabins, but the entire crew? It seems unlikely that all of them are ill.”

  “I think there is something going on other than a virus,” Clint said.

  “Like what?” Cynthia asked.

  “After Harris’s emergency meeting yesterday, I had the feeling the company was in financial trouble,” Clint explained. “Maybe Harris’s check bounced and the crew decided that if they weren’t going to get paid, they weren’t going to work.”

  Cynthia narrowed her gaze. “If that were true, it seems the ship would have turned around and headed back to Seattle.”

  “I agree with Cynthia. If the crew realized they weren’t going to be paid, they would have headed back to their home port rather than continuing on. I have no idea where we are now, but I’m pretty sure we are nowhere near Seattle,” Connie added.

  “And what’s the deal with the internet and cell service?” Yvonne asked. “I need to check in with my babysitter. I can’t be without cell service. I specifically asked about it when Harris decided to add the stop in Vancouver, and I was assured we’d have adequate service during the entire cruise.”

  “Has anyone checked on Harris and the others?” Connie asked. “If there really are people on board who have contracted some virus, I have to wonder if we shouldn’t be heading to a port with a good hospital rather than farther out to sea.”

  “I spoke to Evan earlier,” Bret said. “He told me that he has made arrangements to have a doctor brought aboard. I think he’s supposed to be at the next port, with the new crew.”

  Okay, that was interesting. I had no doubt that Evan might have planned to have someone brought aboard, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a doctor.

  “And what port is that?” Connie asked. “I think it is strange that Evan is being so vague.”

  Everyone started talking at once. I could see that things could very easily spiral out of control. It was best to try to keep on top of things, so I spoke up. “I’m sure we’ll get our answers soon,” I said as soothingly as I could. “In the meantime, I say that we should eke as much enjoyment out of this cruise as we can. The spa treatments you were looking forward to have been put on hold, but there is a heated pool, a sauna, and all the booze you can drink.”

  “That does sound like a better way to spend the day than just sitting around worrying about whatever is really going on,” Yvonne agreed.

  “Trevor has plans to make a fantastic dinner,” I added. “I suggest that you all plan to relax this afternoon and we’ll meet up here at seven. Maybe by then we will have the answers we need too.”

  I could sense that the mood in the room as a whole was cooling down a bit, and I had just glanced at Trevor, who was chatting with Vinnie, when Mac and Ty walked in. He e
xcused himself, and the two of us followed them back out into the hallway.

  “Were you able to get off a message?” I asked.

  Ty shook his head. “I know what we need to do, though. The signal is being blocked by a commercial jammer that I suspect has been mounted somewhere on the top deck. If we can find it, we can disable it long enough to send off a message. We’ll need to be quick about it, though, because I can only assume the jammer is being monitored. I’m hoping we can send the message and get the jammer back online before anyone notices that it has been tampered with. Mac and I are going to head back up and look for it.”

  “After we grab something to eat,” Mac added. “I’m starving.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Trevor and I are about done here. We’ll go up with you to help you look for the device,” I offered. “Everyone on board with the exception of the four of us and Evan and his new crew are pretty hammered. If I had to guess, most of them will be napping this afternoon.”

  Leaving cleanup until later, Trevor and I grabbed a quick bite, then followed Ty and Mac up to the top deck. Ty had described the item we were looking for, and we broke up and headed in different directions. Unfortunately, the device probably wasn’t all that large and there were a lot of places to have hidden it on this deck, so finding it wasn’t going to be easy.

  The temperature had dropped quite a bit from the mildness of the previous day. I was curious to know how far north we’d already traveled. The ship was moving along at a brisk pace, but from what Alyson had said, it seemed as if Evan was hurrying to get nowhere at this point in time. If I were in charge and I realized I was lost, I’d slow things down until I could figure out a way to get back on track.

  “I found it,” Mac said, waving her arm.

  Trevor, Ty, and I headed in her direction.

  “Can you disable it?” Trevor asked Ty.

  “I can.”

  “Let’s type out the text we want to send first, so that we have it just right,” I suggested. “Once the jammer goes offline, someone is bound to notice. At least eventually. It’ll be quicker if the text is already typed out before we take it offline.”