Lost at Sea

by A. E. Radley

  She felt emotionally wrung out but knew that sleep wouldn’t come any time soon. She left the conference room and made her way down to deck two, taking the elevator this time as the majority of the passengers were tucked up in bed. The few who were awake were propping up the bars or losing everything in the casino.

  The doors slid open, and Caroline walked sluggishly into the hospital. She’d had long days before, but this must have been a record. Not due to the length of time but simply the ups and downs of it all.

  Was she really showing Serena Rubio around Serenity just a few hours ago?

  She chuckled bitterly to herself. No, that never happened. She’d never even met Serena Rubio.

  Seeing the light on, she walked into Mara’s office, surprised to see her still on duty. “I thought you would have gone to bed,” Caroline commented, taking a seat in front of her desk.

  “I don’t think I could sleep after all that,” she said. “I’ve been researching.”

  “Oh yes?” Caroline wasn’t sure she wanted to know but, considering that Mara’s curiosity had basically saved Annie’s life, she had no choice but to listen.

  “Annie Peck, from Yorkshire, only child of Anita and Samuel Peck.” Mara looked meaningfully at Caroline.

  Caroline blinked. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “Read a newspaper,” Mara sighed.

  “Too depressing,” Caroline replied. “Who are they?”

  “Who were they,” Mara corrected. “They ran a large investment firm, very well-known couple. Did a lot of charity work, that kind of thing. They were swept away in floods, helping in a local village in Devon. You must have heard about that?”

  Caroline frowned. It was ringing a faint bell, but she couldn’t put her finger on the exact details. Getting a copy of a newspaper hadn’t been the easiest thing when she was in the service, so she’d eventually gotten out of the habit of being up to date with the news entirely.

  Mara could plainly see her confusion. “It was that year we had all those floods in England. A small village in Devon was about to be hit by massive floodwaters when a river broke its banks. The Pecks had a holiday home there, and they were helping locals to get out. The water rose faster than expected, broke through a flood defence, and nine people were killed.”

  Caroline shivered at the thought. It was a terrible way to die. She remembered Annie’s haunted look the night of the rough waters and wondered if there was a connection.

  “But Annie survived?” Caroline asked.

  “She was at the rescue centre, helping to prepare beds and meals for the people being evacuated,” Mara said. “She vanished soon after they died, reports saying that she moved to Spain after that. Not to be crass…” She trailed off, seemingly uncertain whether or not to continue.

  “Go on,” Caroline encouraged.

  “She must have inherited a huge amount of money. They were very rich and had no other children. Whatever this… thing… was, it can’t have been about money.”

  “Maybe it was about transporting illegal goods aboard Fortuna. Or just the laugh of fooling me,” Caroline suggested resentfully.

  “So, you really think she’d go through all of this to fool you?” Mara asked. “Seems a little odd. She doesn’t even know who you are.”

  “Maybe not. But why use Serena Rubio’s name? How does she have her ID?” Caroline countered, not having any answers but able to find plenty more questions.

  “I spoke with Dan, and we contacted Serena Rubio’s management—no easy task, I might add. They can’t get hold of Serena at the moment but are going to get back to me once they manage to make contact. Keep in mind that it’s late in Spain.”

  Mara leaned back in her chair and tossed her pen to the desk. She looked as tired as Caroline felt.

  “How is she? Have you spoken to her?” Caroline asked.

  Mara nodded. “She’ll be fine. And, yes, I have spoken with her, at length.”

  “And?” Caroline pressed.

  “And I think you need to speak to her for yourself,” Mara replied. “I believe her, but I want you to talk to her.”

  “Is she well enough to go to the brig?” Caroline asked.

  “Caroline!” Mara admonished.

  “She’s a criminal, Mara.”

  Mara folded her arms and pinned Caroline with a serious glare. “I’m not releasing her. She needs to be here.”

  “Oh, really?” Caroline argued.

  “Really.” Mara was clearly lying.

  “You’re impossible.”

  Mara shrugged. “Maybe I am. But she does honestly need to remain under supervision for a few more hours to be certain that her internal organs didn’t suffer any permanent damage.”

  Caroline bit the inside of her cheek. She wanted to know more about what had happened and how serious Annie’s injuries were, but she also didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to care.

  “Go and talk to her,” Mara ordered. “Try not to be too mean.”

  “Mean?!” Caroline balked. “Do I honestly need to remind you what she did?”

  “Go and talk to her,” Mara repeated. She sat up, pulled her laptop close, and started typing, signalling the end of the conversation.

  Explaining Things

  Annie gently lifted the edge of the gauze on her right wrist. She could see angry red marks and peeling skin. She assumed her left wrist looked the same. Both itched like hell.

  The duty nurse had lowered the lights in her room, assuming that Annie would want to get some sleep. A few moments later, Annie had turned on the harsh reading light above her bed. She didn’t want sleep to claim her. Nightmares and memories would surely come if it did.

  Exhaustion and the pain medications were doing their combined best to take her away, and every now and then her eyelids started to feel unimaginably heavy.

  A shadow emerged. She narrowed her eyes to locate the source.

  At last, she thought once she identified it as Caroline standing in the doorway. She looked hurt and angry, exactly as Annie had expected.

  Caroline stepped into the room, standing at the end of her bed, hands clasped in front of her and gazing at Annie with a suspicious glare.

  “Thank you,” Annie whispered, her voice still weak from attempting to scream for help through the gag.

  Caroline turned away; Annie imagined that her face wasn’t exactly a pleasure to look at currently. Not that anyone had provided her with a mirror as she had requested. Soon, they had said. Tomorrow, they’d promised. It told her everything she needed to know.

  “Just tell me… why?” Caroline asked. Rather than look at Annie, she walked over to the wall and studied a painting.

  Annie had explained everything to Doctor Perry and had no idea what Caroline knew. She didn’t care either. The opportunity to explain everything to Caroline was more than she thought she’d get.

  She gently pushed herself into a higher seating position, careful not to put pressure on either of her wrists. She winced and struggled for a few moments before letting out a relieved sigh and leaning back into the soft pillows supporting her.

  “My name is Annie Peck,” she said. She swallowed quickly a few times to lubricate her throat. “I wanted to tell you. I know that’s not an excuse, but I did try.”

  “Not hard enough. Why were you pretending to be Serena Rubio?” Caroline asked, her voice cold.

  “Diego Ortega was my boyfriend, many years ago. We haven’t been together for years, but I still lived with him. I stayed because, well, actually, I don’t really know why I stayed,” she admitted. “But a week ago I saw something. A crime. And I knew that just seeing it would mean the end of my life. So, I ran.”

  Caroline continued to look at the painting. Annie didn’t know if she was listening properly or not.

  “I didn’t really have a plan. The Ortega clan are dangerous, they’re criminals. Some might say mafia,” Annie explained. “I was at Barcelona’s train station about to get out of there, when this woman came int
o the bathroom where I was hiding out.”

  She started to giggle.

  Caroline turned around and stared at her. “Is something funny?”

  “It’s just so ridiculous,” she confessed. “Like, if you told me this, I wouldn’t believe you. It’s crazy, but it’s true. This woman was the spitting image of me. We were both shocked, and she introduced herself as Serena Rubio. Which meant nothing to me.”

  Caroline took a small step closer. Her arms were firmly crossed, but at least she was now facing Annie.

  “She thought God had brought us together.” Annie laughed. She stopped quickly at the pain in her throat. “Ouch, right, no laughing.”

  She took a few slow breaths to calm herself before continuing. “Serena was booked on Fortuna, but she didn’t want to go. Her manager booked it because she needed to rest her voice for her upcoming shows. But her boyfriend, whom her manager doesn’t know about, was flying in from… Australia, I think?” Annie paused and thought about it. “Or was it America? I think it began with an A. It was a long way away.”

  “Is it relevant?” Caroline asked, exasperation clear.

  “Oh, no, I suppose not.” Annie shook her head softly. All of her planning and practiced speech had been forgotten. Not surprising when she’d nearly been murdered.

  “He was flying in and she was devastated that she wouldn’t see him. She came up with this crazy idea that I could be her. I’d told her that I was leaving town, leaving a bad relationship. She thought it was perfect: she’d go and see her boyfriend, her manager would think she was here, and I could hide out on the ship.”

  Annie reached for the cup of water on the table in front of her. Caroline stepped forward, picked up the cup, and placed it in Annie’s outstretched hands. It was a simple gesture, but it warmed Annie’s heart.

  She took a sip of water and then rested the cup in her lap, grasping it tightly. “It was stupid, but I was running for my life and not thinking straight. And I suddenly realised that I had a twin walking around Barcelona, and if I couldn’t tell us apart, then neither would Diego’s people. I told her I’d agree, but she had to promise to get out of the city. Which she said she’d do. God, I hope she did.”

  There was a soft knock on the door; Mara stood in the doorway. “Everything okay in here?” she asked.

  Annie nodded.

  “Call me if you need anything,” she said, casting a look towards Caroline before leaving again.

  “I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone,” Annie said. “I was supposed to sit in my room and never see anyone. Just order room service and stay in the room. But the day I checked in, someone recognised me… Serena… whatever. They made a big deal about it, and Graham Fucking Shelby overheard it. When he realised it was my first cruise, he wanted to give me some tips, or so I thought. He actually wanted to show off that he knew a celebrity.”

  Caroline perched on the edge of the plastic chair beside the bed. Annie was relieved that she was listening, but she knew she had a long way to go yet. Caroline hearing the story was not her believing it. And who knew if forgiveness was even possible.

  “I had no idea he was sitting at the captain’s table. If I knew I never would have gone. That first dinner I was terrified. I thought you’d see right through me.”

  “No, you had me fooled,” Caroline said.

  “I don’t think I did,” Annie argued.

  Caroline opened her mouth to argue and then stopped herself. “There was something about you,” she confessed.

  “You knew something was wrong,” Annie said. “And I so wanted to avoid you, but I couldn’t. I just—”

  Caroline held up her hand. “Let’s not discuss that. So, you say you were running away from Diego Ortega. You had a convenient doppelgänger emerge. And then you were on Fortuna. All very implausible.”

  “It’s the tr—”

  “What happened next? What happened this evening?” Caroline asked.

  Annie swallowed down her dejection at Caroline’s obvious anger.

  “I had no idea Diego was on board. I found out the moment he sat down next to me at dinner. And I panicked. I’d wanted to tell you everything earlier, and the day before—”

  “What happened after I left the table?” Caroline asked, repositioning the conversation to the facts and not the feelings.

  “We had dinner,” Annie said simply. It had been the most uncomfortable meal of her life. The food had been delicious, as always, but she had been in such a panic that her appetite had rolled over and died. “After, we went back to Diego’s room. I… I’d hoped we’d go back to my room, and I could alert someone. Maybe Elvin would see something was wrong.”

  Elvin. Annie closed her eyes, realising that the sweet man was going to find out about her lies and probably be crushed by them. She’d probably never get a chance to apologise to him.

  “And then?” Caroline asked.

  Annie opened her eyes. “He hit me. A few times. Broke my nose, Doctor Perry told me. Then he was calm, told me he could fix things. Asked if I told anyone what I’d seen. I knew at that point that he was going to kill me. Diego doesn’t leave loose ends lying around.”

  Annie paused. She’d seen fire in his eyes before he punched her the last time, the one that ultimately led to her falling on the floor and crawling away from him. Consciousness had been fleeting after that. Annie hadn’t fought much, not wanting to be awake for what she knew was coming.

  “And then?” Caroline pressed.

  “I don’t know, Caroline,” Annie snapped. “I was beaten up, tied up, and shoved into a fucking suitcase. I nearly died in a freezer. I don’t know what you want to hear!”

  “I want to know what happened!” Caroline raised her voice in return.

  “I told you!”

  Mara rushed back into the room. “Okay, that’s enough,” she said firmly, directing her statement to Caroline. “She’s a patient in my care, suffering from moderate hypothermia. If you want to shout at each other, you can do it when she’s been discharged.”

  “She should be in the brig,” Caroline said.

  “Caroline,” Mara warned.

  “No,” Annie said, “she’s right. I should be in the brig.” She put the water cup on the table and pushed the heated blankets away from her. It took several attempts, but eventually she tossed them to the floor. If Caroline wanted her in the brig, then that’s where she would go.

  She was sick of causing problems for Caroline. This was something she could do. Some small way she could help bring order and reason back to Caroline’s life.

  “Annie,” Mara said. She crouched down to pick up the blankets.

  “As long as Diego isn’t in the brig with me,” Annie said. She looked at Caroline. “Unless you want me dead?”

  She slid out of the bed and wobbled, immediately falling back towards it when her legs failed her. Mara was on the other side of the bed, so Caroline stepped forward and took Annie in her arms, preventing her from collapsing to the floor.

  “Of course I don’t want you dead,” she said.

  “Careful,” Mara instructed. “She has an IV.”

  Annie realised that her body was rapidly turning to jelly and considered that maybe getting out of bed had been a bad idea.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  Her words came out a slurred mess, just as they had when she’d first arrived in the hospital wing. It was disconcerting that she was showing those symptoms again. She’d been feeling better, but she obviously wasn’t. She started to wonder just how long her recovery would take.

  Mara moved Caroline out of the way and helped Annie herself. “No need to apologise, you’re still groggy. Let’s get you back into bed, get the blankets back over you, and get you nicely heated up.”

  Once she was positioned back in bed, Annie could tell something was wrong. She looked around to find the source of the problem. Her eyes settled on her right wrist, the one where the rope had been tightly wound and cut deep into the skin. A red line was seeping t
hrough the gauze.

  Mara followed her gaze. “I’ll go and get some clean bandages.”

  Annie’s head lolled on the pillow. Caroline was stood over her looking uncertain and a little anxious.

  “I’m sorry,” Annie repeated.

  “Shh, we can talk when you feel better,” Caroline said, the harshness leaving her tone.

  “The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you,” Annie said. “You won’t believe me, but I really care for you, Caroline.”

  Caroline hushed her again. Annie wanted to say more, but exhaustion was slowly creeping in at the edges of her vision.

  Lies, Lies, Lies

  “I’m sorry,” Caroline said when Mara returned to her office. She’d been dismissed from Annie’s bedside the moment Mara returned with fresh bandages.

  “Go to bed,” Mara instructed. “Or just leave here and do whatever it is you’re doing somewhere else.”

  “I needed to know what had happened,” Caroline defended.

  “Why are you here, Caroline? Why not send Dan? It’s his job. It’s not as if the captain needs to be here for this,” Mara pointed out. She sat in her chair and pointed at Caroline. “Unless this isn’t a work thing. Maybe this is a personal thing for you?”

  “Mara,” Caroline warned.

  “Do you believe her?” Mara asked.

  “I…” Caroline didn’t know what she believed anymore.

  “I do,” Mara said. “I think she was frightened and planning to run away. She came across Serena Rubio in a piece of miraculous luck and fully intended to never come out of her cabin.”

  “But she did,” Caroline argued. “And she dragged me into this.”

  “Or maybe she honestly fell for you?” Mara suggested.

  Caroline laughed. “Are you so naïve, Mara?”

  “Are you so pig-headed?”

  Caroline put her hands on her hips. “She lied to me. Consistently. Every time we spent time together. Lies, lies, lies.”

  “Did she?” Mara asked.

  Caroline reeled back. “Of course she did, have you not been paying attention?”

  “I’m paying more attention than you are,” Mara said. “I’m trying to get to the bottom of this, too, but I’m not blinkered by hurt feelings. So, tell me, did she lie to you? Did she tell you about all the amazing concerts she’s performed?”