by Kathi Daley
Trevor pulled out a large casserole dish from the commercial oven. He sprinkled cheese on top of the pasta dish, then returned it to the oven. He then began to assemble a prawn salad with avocado spears, pistachio nuts, and cranberries. I hoped we actually had the opportunity to enjoy the meal because it looked delicious.
“Even knowing what we do and discussing a series of events that could lead up to Evan hijacking the ship with the two men he seems to have working for him, I am still having a hard time with the idea that he couldn’t have found a much simpler way to disappear,” Ty said. “Even at the point where four people left the ship, it seems that Evan could have snuck off as well. There has to be more going on than we are aware of yet.”
I hated to admit it, but I found I agreed. “I wonder if we are still lost or if Evan’s men managed to get back on track. The ship has been rambling along at a much-reduced speed for several hours, yet nothing has happened. I really expected that something would have happened by now.”
“Personally, I’m hoping that we are still lost,” Trevor said. “I have a feeling that if Evan makes the connection he is looking for, we’ll all be considered potential witnesses and be eliminated.”
“Of course, if we are lost, we will eventually starve or, more probably, die of dehydration,” Mac said.
“We have enough food to last at least another week,” I pointed out. “We might want to start rationing water, but we should be okay for a few days at least. Hopefully, Woody will find us before then.” I looked up when Alyson appeared before me.
“I need to speak to you,” she said.
I nodded slightly, knowing that no one but me could see or hear her. “I need to visit the ladies’ room,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I followed Alyson out into the hallway. “What’s up?” I asked when we were far enough away that the others couldn’t hear me speaking to someone they couldn’t see.
“I’ve been spying on both Bret and Evan. I noticed Bret setting up the dining room for dinner, so I stayed to watch. He pushed several smaller tables together to create one larger one that will seat the entire group, including all of you, which I thought was nice before I saw him open a few wine bottles and slip a bunch of little white pills in them.”
Chapter 15
“White pills? What sort of white pills?”
“Evan walked in shortly after Bret had finished what he was doing with the pills and asked him if he’d distributed the sleeping pills as they’d discussed. Bret said he had and made a joke about not drinking the wine.”
So Bret was working with Evan all along, and they planned to drug everyone. Were they about to make the move I had been waiting for all day? The fact that they planned to drug everyone could be a good thing. It might mean that they didn’t plan to kill everyone once their task had been accomplished. I mean, why put us all to sleep if they were going to kill us? It made more sense to drug us to keep us from witnessing what I suspected was going to be a handoff of some sort. I thanked Alyson and then returned to the group in the kitchen.
“Bret and Evan were in the hallway talking when I was coming back from the ladies’ room,” I said. “I ducked into a closet so I could listen to them. It sounds as if they put sleeping pills in the wine, which will be open and sitting on the table when dinner is served.”
“So they are working together,” Ty said.
“It certainly sounds that way,” I answered.
“Should we intervene?” Mac asked. “Maybe tell everyone not to drink the wine?”
“If we do, they will know we are on to them,” I pointed out. “We have no way of getting off this vessel right now. I think we need to keep everything as homeostasis as is possible for as long as we can. Who knows what will happen if the others figure out what is going on?”
“Amanda is right,” Trevor said. “Maybe the fact that everyone is bound to turn in early is a good thing. We can pretend to drink the wine and head back to our staterooms. It might allow us a bit more leeway to move around and do whatever we need to.”
“How are we going to do pretend to drink the wine?” Mac asked.
“I have wine in our stateroom,” Trevor said. “We’ll take a couple of the bottles off the table and fill our glasses with my wine. When we go into the dining room with our glasses already filled, we can say something about grabbing a couple of bottles off the table and taking them into the kitchen to sip from while we were cooking. Hopefully, that will be accepted at face value. We can yawn and act as tired as everyone else. Then, when we head to our cabins early, no one will be the wiser.”
“Okay, I guess that could work,” Mac said, glancing at Ty.
“I think that Mac and I should move up to the stateroom next to yours. We’ll just tell everyone that we moved closer to our friends because the cabin was empty after Lucy and Lance left the ship,” Ty said.
“That’s a good idea,” I agreed. “It’ll be easier to work together that way. The two staterooms have a connecting door the same way Harris’s and Evan’s do. We won’t have to go into the hallway to move back and forth between them.”
“Why don’t the two of you go up to move your stuff now?” Trevor suggested. “Amanda and I can finish up here. And bring the wine back with you when you come,” Trevor instructed. “It is in my blue rolling suitcase.”
After they left I looked at Trevor. “I think something is going down tonight.”
“Yeah.” He huffed out a breath. “It does seem that way. I’m not sure how we can prepare for whatever is coming when we don’t know what to expect.”
“Alyson is keeping an eye on both Evan and Bret, which is how I really know about the spiked wine. Maybe she’ll overhear something. I think we should deliver dinner to the men on the bridge and then go up to send the next text while they are eating.”
“That sounds like a good idea, but do you think they will answer the door even if we say we have food?”
They had likely been instructed not to open the door under any circumstances. “If we didn’t know what was really going on, we’d be concerned about feeding the sick passengers, but because we know they are not aboard, I guess I will feign ignorance and avoid the subject. I guess we can just leave food for those men. If they are hungry enough, they’ll open the door and take it.”
“That’s fine. But if we are going to head up to the pool deck and send the text during dinner, we’ll need to make up an excuse for not joining the others to eat.”
“It might be tricky for all of us to be away. Mac and Ty can make an excuse and head upstairs while we keep an eye on things down here. Let’s discuss it with them when they get back.”
When Mac and Ty returned, we opened two of Trevor’s bottles of wine, poured the spiked wine from the bottles Mac had taken from the dining table down the sink, rinsed the bottles, and poured the untainted wine into Bret’s bottles. We poured wine from one of the bottles into four glasses, which we placed around the room. If anyone walked in, it would look as if we’d been happily sipping the drugged wine.
After a bit of discussion, we decided that Mac, Ty, and I, would deliver the food to the dining room. Then Mac would claim to have a headache and say she was heading to her cabin to lay down, and Ty would volunteer to go with her. I planned to make a joke about her drinking too much wine to further sell it. After a few minutes, Trevor would join me in the dining room, where we would keep an eye on everyone while Mac and Ty sent the message.
As soon as the plan was agreed upon, Mac, Ty, and I headed toward the dining room to put it into play. Mac feigned a headache and she and Ty left. I made a joke about the substitute cooking staff drinking too much wine, which had Bret and Evan both looking satisfied. As planned, before coming up to the dining room, Trevor had knocked on the door to the engine room and bridge to let them know that he was leaving a tray of food for them outside the door because the quarantine would not allow them to eat in any of the common areas. We just hoped they took the bait and were busy eating and not
watching the controls when the jammer went offline.
“Have you heard when we can get back to our scheduled itinerary?” Connie asked after everyone had filled their plates and were enjoying their meal. “I know it has only been one day, but I’m already getting bored.”
“From what I understand, we are currently off the coast of Vancouver Island and should receive clearance to head to Port Hardy, where we will pick up our new crew tomorrow,” Evan said. “I just need you all to be patient for one more day.”
“And after that?” Shelley asked.
“We will head south back toward Vancouver. We will visit all the scheduled stops, only in a slightly different order.”
“And Harris?” Yvonne asked. “How is he doing?”
“Not well at all. The plan is to hand him off to medical personnel in Port Hardy. I believe that Dotty plans to get off the ship with him.”
“And Lisa and Brody?” Connie asked.
“I’m not certain. It is possible that all those who are ill will be transferred to a medical facility. It is a good sign that none of you seem affected. I want to remind you once again to avoid the quarantined personnel and their staterooms. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to the bridge.”
“Wait,” I said, “before you go, Trevor has dessert.” I glanced at Trevor, hoping he did have one. I figured that Mac and Ty might need a few more minutes.
“I have a cobbler warming in the oven,” Ty confirmed. “I was going to wait to serve it, but I would be happy to get you some before you go.”
Evan’s eyes grew big. “I do love cobbler. Peach?”
“Boysenberry, with vanilla ice cream.”
“That does sound good.”
“I’ll run and get it for you,” Trevor said.
“No, I’ll go,” I volunteered. “You’ve been cooking all afternoon. Why don’t you go ahead and finish eating?”
I jogged up to the top deck as fast as I could to let Mac know that Evan had finished eating and was planning to return to the bridge. I met her and Ty on their way down. They had completed their task, so I jogged back downstairs and grabbed the cobbler. Once I delivered it, I said something about how tired I was, and that when the leftovers were put away, I’d probably head up to my stateroom. The rest of the group, with the exception of Evan and Bret, looked exhausted as well, which most likely meant the drugged wine was kicking in.
As soon as the passengers had retired for the evening, and Bret and Evan were back in the engine room and bridge area, Trevor, Mac, Ty, and I set to work, coming up with another plan.
“I let Woody know in the last text that it looked as if something might be going down as soon as tonight,” Ty informed us. “I also said we would try to send an update and retrieve his reply in a couple of hours rather than waiting four, as we did before.”
“Did he send us a text in this exchange?” I asked after I’d curled up on the sofa next to Mac.
Ty nodded. “Yes. He informed us that Lisa, Brody, Claudia, and Dotty were all found alive and well in a hotel in Port Townsend. Dotty and Claudia had been heavily drugged and are receiving medical attention. Lisa and Brody aren’t talking. Or, at least, they aren’t telling the truth. They told law enforcement that they had come ashore with the two older women when they came down sick, but as far as they knew, there was nothing nefarious happening on the ship.”
“I wonder if Dotty, or anyone else, for that matter, knows that Harris is dead,” I said.
“I don’t know. I’ll ask that question in my next text. I also plan to include the GPS coordinates we found in Evan’s room,” Ty said. “I’m hoping that Woody can use them to figure out where we are heading, or at least where Evan planned to go before he got lost.”
“What else did Woody say?” Trevor asked.
“Just that they are still looking for us but haven’t managed to figure out where exactly we are yet. Maybe the coordinates we found will help them focus in. I also plan to let him know that the men piloting the ship appear to be lost, so who knows where we actually ended up.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Just that the news is out about the embezzlement of investor funds at Hamilton Investments. As predicted, the panic Harris was trying to avoid is a very real thing and the missing money is all over the news. Hamilton Investments has been closed down and the employees who were in the office are being interviewed.”
“What a huge mess,” Mac said, shaking her head.
“I feel bad for the employees whose lives and livelihood will be interrupted because of one man’s greed,” Trevor agreed.
Ty continued. “Woody closed by assuring us that he and everyone else involved is working around the clock to find us. In the meantime, we need to keep our heads and maintain a low profile so as not to call attention to what we are doing.”
I paused before responding. “Okay, we need to figure out our next move. We told Woody we’d try another update in a couple of hours, so we need to do that, but beyond that, I’m just not sure what is possible. I feel as if we have an idea of what is going on; we just need to figure out how to proceed.”
“If Evan’s plan is to meet up with whoever he is trying to connect with and leave the ship with everyone on board to fend for themselves after he is gone, I’d say let him go,” Mac said. “If, however, his plan is to eliminate any potential witnesses, we need to go on the offensive.”
“Prior to Bret drugging everyone, I was sure that Evan planned to kill everyone on board, but now I’m not so sure,” I said. “And Mac is right. If Evan’s plan is to simply slip away, I don’t think we should try to stop him. It is not our job to do so. The safety of every person on board seems to me to be a lot more important.”
“I guess because we don’t actually know what is going to happen, all we can do is what we’ve been doing,” Trevor said. “We’ll continue to communicate with Woody, and if the situation isn’t resolved by tomorrow morning, we’ll make everyone breakfast and act as if nothing is going on other than the virus Evan told us about. Beyond that, I think it would be reckless to take any sort of assertive action unless we find out that lives are definitely at stake.”
“I agree,” I said.
“I just wish we knew what he was planning,” Ty said.
I glanced at Mac. She was looking directly at me. I shrugged. Eventually, she turned to Ty.
“We can and do know what is happening for the most part,” Mac said. “Not right at this moment, but we can find out.”
“How?”
“Well,” she hedged, “you know how Amanda can see ghosts? She sort of has a ghost who helps her. Her name is Alyson.”
Ty frowned. “Amanda has a ghost here on this ship?”
“She’s more of a close friend,” I said. “She has been with me for a long time and is able to connect with me at will. She is the reason we know most of what we do. Even the sleeping pills. I never actually overheard a conversation. Alyson told me about them.”
“And where is she now?” Ty asked.
“Keeping an eye on Evan.”
Ty frowned. From the varied emotions crossing his face, I could see that he was trying to work everything out in his own mind. Finally, he said, “If Alyson is on the ship, watching Evan, what is he doing now?”
I glanced at Mac. She nodded. I shrugged. “Alyson,” I called.
She appeared. “What’s up?”
“Have you been watching Evan?”
“I have.”
“And what is he doing?”
“Sleeping.”
I raised a brow. “Sleeping? Where?”
“In the theater. It’s dark, there isn’t any movie playing. He is in there all alone, sitting in a chair, sleeping.”
I supposed that he might very well have been awake ever since we set sail on Sunday given everything that had happened, so the fact that he was sleeping now might not be all that odd.
“And what about the others? Bret and the two men who have been in the engine room?”
“Bret is in his cabin. Cynthia is sleeping, and he is looking through the same files he was looking through earlier. The men in the bridge were sitting in the captain and co-captain’s chairs the last time I checked on them. They were taking turns napping. The ship is barely even moving. I think they are waiting for someone.”
“Thanks. I want you to keep an eye on all four of them. If anything changes, come find me.”
Alyson saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
She disappeared, and I turned to the others and told them everything Alyson had said. I watched Ty’s face as I shared my news, and while I could see a hit of doubt when I started out, by the time I was done, I could sense that he believed me. Again, I had to hand it to the guy. A lot of people would have fought the concept of my ability to speak to ghosts despite any explanations or evidence I could provide.
“So, the fact that the ship seems to be idling either means that the ship is in the correct location for the meeting and are just waiting, or the phony captains have managed to get us good and lost and Evan is waiting in the wrong place,” Trevor said.
“That would be my take on things,” I said. “Alyson is going to let me know if there is any change. I guess right now we should be focused on getting as much information as we can to Woody.”
“Wait,” Ty said. “If Alyson can pop in and out of the bridge, she can find out where we actually are.”
“She can?” I asked.
“I haven’t had a look at the bridge myself, but the GPS coordinates for our current location should be visible on the navigational instruments.”
“Alyson can’t manipulate anything.”
“She may not have to. If the instruments are set up so that the captain has to toggle between gauges, she might not be able to get the information we need, but we can try at the very least.”
I called Alyson back and had Ty explain in great detail what she was to look for, which must have been odd for him, considering he couldn’t see or hear her. She promised to see what she could find out and disappeared again.