by Kathi Daley
“I found a pocket knife.” Trevor held it up.
“I guess that could work if the bullet isn’t in too deep. Let’s go back upstairs. Who knows when Evan will actually launch the life raft? It could be a while yet, and I don’t think Bret has a while to wait.”
When we returned, Mac, who had been a science geek all though high school, took over. She had taken a lot of biology during her schooling, in addition to computer classes, and seemed to know exactly what needed to be done. Trevor, who had taken a first aid class, helped her, and between the two of them, they managed to get Bret stabilized.
“Now we wait again,” Mac said.
“I wonder what is taking Evan so long to leave the ship,” Ty said.
“Maybe he is waiting for the other ship to do something,” I suggested. “Part of me wants to try to ambush him and his substitute captains, but I suppose that would be a pretty lame thing to do.”
“Especially when there is a ship just off our port with a crew who sound like they are waiting for a payoff.”
“Did I hear Bret say the men on the ship were Lance’s friends?” Trevor asked.
“That’s what I heard,” I confirmed.
“So maybe that is where Lance has been all this time,” Trevor said. “Maybe Evan couldn’t risk leaving the ship for fear of being detained, but Lance wasn’t being sought for questioning, so he left to arrange for Evan to transfer to another ship after this one entered international waters.”
“So when did he go?” Ty asked. “Was he involved from the beginning?”
I shrugged. “Maybe Bret knows. We’ll ask him if he wakes up.”
Alyson appeared. “The men are on the life raft.”
I blew out a breath of relief.
“We should be able to take the jammer offline now and communicate freely with Woody and whoever else he’s working with,” Ty said.
“Let’s wait until the other ship actually leaves, just in case they are monitoring things here,” Trevor said. “Who knows what sort of firearms might be on the other vessel?”
“Trevor is right,” I said. “We wait until they leave.” I looked at Ty. “Did we get a text from Woody when you went offline?”
Ty pulled out his phone. “There is one. Hang on.” He pulled it up and began to read it. “An agent from Interpol who has been assigned to the case has reason to believe that Lance Simpson may really be Lazar Durov, a Russian defector with connections to organized crime. Durov disappeared in 1990 and hasn’t been seen since, but it has been widely believed that he made a new life in the United States under an assumed name.”
“That would be almost thirty years ago. He’d have to be at least fifty. He certainly doesn’t look it,” I said.
Ty shrugged. “Maybe he aged well, or maybe he had plastic surgery. Do we know how Lucy and Lance knew each other, or what sort of work he does?”
I shook my head. “All she said to me was that Lance was one of her very best friends. Some of the others might know more about him.”
“Do you think any of them are awake yet?” Mac asked.
“I doubt it, given the fact that they were all drugged, and while it seems as if this night has gone on forever, it is only eleven thirty. I think it might be best not to try to wake them until after Evan and the other ship are well away from here.” I looked at Ty. “Did Woody say anything else?”
“Just that if Lance actually is Lazar Durov, and he is still alive, he would have the connections that Evan would need to disappear. Woody speculates that Lance might be in on things, given the fact that he has not been seen since yesterday.”
I’d noticed that Alyson was lurking about, listening to our conversation, since she’d appeared to let me know that Evan was in the water. The others couldn’t see her, and she hadn’t spoken since she’d first arrived, so I hadn’t spoken to her. I doubted the others had any idea she was here. Her ability to lurk had been the key to all of us staying alive, as far as I was concerned. I’d have to make a point of thanking her later, when we were alone.
“The other ship is leaving,” Trevor said, pointing to a spot in the distance, off the deck.
I walked over to him and looked out. “It does appear they are underway.” I looked at Alyson. “Can you confirm, or are they too far away?”
“I’ll try to take a peek to ensure that Evan is aboard.” She disappeared.
“When Alyson gets back and we have confirmation that Evan is on that ship, we’ll go up and disable the jammer for good,” I said to the others.
Alyson was back. “Evan is aboard. I won’t be able to check the ship once it gets much farther away, but I think we can assume he is gone.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s disable the jammer and get Woody on the line. I really want to go home.”
Chapter 18
Wednesday, November 14
By the time we disabled the jammer and got hold of Woody it was after midnight. Bret was still unconscious, but he was breathing, so that was something. Woody was able to pin down our location once Ty’s satellite phone was online for an extended period of time. He informed us that we were nowhere near the Queen Charlotte Islands; quite a way northwest of that location actually. Based on his calculations, a rescue ship would be able to reach us before sunrise. We gave Woody a description of the ship Evan was on, as well as the information that we had slipped Mac’s high-end global satellite phone in his computer case, so, hopefully, the signal could be used to find him.
“If we are lucky, help will arrive before the other passengers even awaken,” I said.
“It would be nice to avoid a panic,” Trevor said. He looked toward the bedroom door. “Do you think that Bret has all the details of everything that has happened?”
“Maybe,” I answered. “He has been involved in the debacle of the missing money at least since right after we left port on Sunday.”
“It would be nice to have some actual answers,” Mac said. She stood up. “I should probably check on him.”
It wasn’t until around three a.m. that he came to.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Evan shot you and left you for dead, but Mac and Trevor sewed you up and saved your life,” I answered. “I don’t suppose you remember what happened?”
Bret nodded. “I remember. Where is Evan?”
“Gone,” I answered. “His two goons are gone as well. A ship came and picked them up.”
Bret tightened his lips. He glanced at Mac. “Thanks for saving my life.”
She held up the knife she had used to dig out the bullet and then looked him in the eye. “I saved your life for a reason and can take it just as easily. We want to know everything that has happened on this cruise from hell from the minute we left Seattle, so start talking.”
I placed a hand over my mouth to cover the smile on my face. Mac trying to play Mr. Tough Guy was adorable.
“How much do you know?” Bret asked.
“Assume we know nothing and start at the beginning,” Mac said.
“Although we do know quite a lot,” I added. “We’ll know if you are lying.”
“Can I get some water?” Bret asked.
Trevor went into the bathroom, filled a glass, and handed it to Bret after Ty and I helped him sit up.
“Evan has been embezzling money from Hamilton Investments for quite some time, although no one realized it until Ty, here, did a software update and found some anomalies. Initially, Harris believed that the amount of money missing was contained to just a handful of accounts, and it appeared that two individuals were responsible for the theft. The money was replaced and the two employees were fired, and very few people even knew what had happened until Sunday afternoon, when Lucy was going through some financial statements in anticipation of Harris’s speech on Monday and found additional anomalies. It looked as if there was a lot more money missing than Harris had initially thought. Lucy wasn’t completely sure of the extent of what she’d found and didn’t want to unnecessarily give Harris a heart a
ttack, so she asked for my help. We looked at the reports together and found that hundreds of millions of dollars had been syphoned off over a three-year period.”
“And then?” I asked. Bret had been told to start at the beginning, but we knew this part, and I sort of hoped he’d move the story along.
“And then Lucy and I decided we needed to tell Harris what we’d found, so we went to his stateroom on Sunday night. He, of course, was very upset. Lucy suggested that we notify the authorities immediately, but Harris needed time to process things. He asked her to wait until he had reviewed the accounts. He argued that once the customers found out the money they thought had been invested on their behalf never had been—were, in fact, simply gone—there was going to be widespread panic.”
Which there had been, I realized, but didn’t say as much at this point.
“Harris thought he could smoke out the person who’d embezzled the funds with some carefully worded inquiries, so he called an emergency meeting for Monday morning. He tried to get the embezzler to slip up, but Evan was much too smart to do that, and the meeting ended without Harris getting his answers. Of course, the meeting also served as a way of letting Evan know that Harris was on to the missing money. I’m not sure why he didn’t get off the ship immediately. Meanwhile, Lucy felt that she had waited long enough to tell what she knew, so she called her cousin, who works for the FBI, and told him what was going on. Harris didn’t know that she had already informed the feds about the missing funds and went to her room to try to buy himself some additional time. She told him that she’d already called them, and that they were working on a warrant that would take all the Hamilton Investments employees on the ship into custody for questioning when we reached Friday Harbor. Harris was outraged and they argued. After he left her cabin, he decided it was time to fill Evan in.”
“Why did the feds wait? Why not detain everyone while the ship was still docked in Port Townsend?”
“I’m not sure, although they may not have had the warrant before the ship left port.”
That would make sense. “Go on,” I encouraged.
“Lance came back from the trip ashore and Lucy confided in him, telling him everything that had happened so far. The two have been friends for a long time, and she felt she could trust him, although it turned out she shouldn’t have. Lance was not who we all believed him to be, and when he heard about the money, he saw an opportunity. He sought out Evan and made a deal to help him out of this mess in exchange for a huge payout. Evan agreed. Lance killed Lucy and dumped her body overboard so that she could no longer interfere. He had the shuttle take him back ashore and then used his connections to arrange for the two Russians who have been piloting the ship to come aboard. The plan was for the ship to be sailed to international waters, where it would meet up with another ship Lance had arranged for. Evan would transfer to it, pay off Lance and his pals, and disappear.”
“Why did he have Dotty, Claudia, Lisa, and Brody taken off the ship?” I asked.
“Dotty and Claudia knew about the missing money, and Evan didn’t want anyone left on the ship who knew what was really going on, so he drugged them and arranged for them to debark.”
“Did you know what was going on when this was all unfolding?”
“Some of it, but not all,” Bret said. “I knew about the missing money but didn’t learn the rest until later, but I’ll get to that.”
“Okay, go on,” I said.
“By the time the speech rolled around, Lucy was dead, Lance was ashore getting everything into place, Dotty had been drugged, and Claudia, Lisa, and Brody had been told that if they didn’t want to end up like Lucy, they would play along and keep their mouths shut. They were afraid of what would happen to them, so they did as Evan said and kept quiet. I’m not sure what happened with Harris, or whether Evan planned to kill him all along, but that was the end result. The other four left with the boat that brought the captain replacements, and the original crew were detained. Later that night, they were set adrift in a life raft. I’m not sure what happened to them after that.”
I knew but declined to say. “So what was your role to this point?”
“I had no role at that time. Yes, I knew about the missing money, but I didn’t know that Evan was the one who took it, or that Lance had killed Lucy and was working with Evan. All I knew was that the company was in trouble and Harris seemed understandably stressed out. After the speech, I went to the bar and got hammered. When I woke up yesterday morning to find that Evan was in charge, Harris was nowhere to be found, and the crew were supposedly quarantined, I became suspicious.”
“Didn’t you wonder why Lucy hadn’t come to hear the speech?” Mac asked.
“Actually, no. She was very vocal about the fact that we needed to call the authorities, so I figured that Harris was afraid of what she might say in front of the others and kept her in her cabin. I only found out later that she was dead at that point.”
I glanced at Trevor. He was frowning but hadn’t said anything at all. “Okay, so the speech is over, Lucy is dead, Lance is ashore making arrangements with his Russian connections, and Dotty, Claudia, Lisa, and Brody have been escorted off the ship. I suppose Harris must have been killed at some time between the speech and his wife leaving the ship. The crew are locked up below and two new men have arrived to pilot the ship, which we later realized is heading out to sea and not to Friday Harbor. When exactly did you get involved, if you hadn’t been before that?” I asked.
“Later that day. After we all woke up to so many changes. I went to check on Lucy, but her stateroom had been cleared out. Harris had said that Lucy and Lance had left the cruise because of a family emergency, but I never believed that. When I found out the stateroom was empty, as if they really had gone, I went to talk to Harris but found his room unoccupied as well. I was trying to decide what to do when Evan came back to his cabin with one of the Russian thugs. I was still in Harris’s stateroom and I went out on deck to try to listen in on their conversation. The Russian was informing Evan that the ship they were going to meet was on the way and that the transfer should occur before the following morning. I didn’t have all the details yet, but I realized that Evan was the embezzler and was planning his getaway. I also overheard Evan tell the Russian that he didn’t want any witnesses left to attest to his transfer to the other ship. Evan ordered the man to kill everyone.”
I gasped. “But he didn’t. Why not?”
“I quickly came up with a plan. I went next door and told Evan that I’d overheard his plan. I was half-expecting him to shoot me on the spot and was surprised when he didn’t. I told him that I had a plan that would eliminate the threat of witnesses without having to kill anyone. He agreed to listen to what I had to say. Cynthia had all sorts of sleeping pills, antianxiety pills, and tranquilizers. I gave Evan the idea of drugging the wine so that everyone would sleep through the transfer and no one would know what had become of him. He seemed suspicious, so I played the I-want-my-cut-of-the-money card, figuring he might trust me if he thought money was my main motivator.” Bret frowned. “Why aren’t the four of you passed out like everyone else?”
“We found out about your plan and didn’t drink the wine,” Trevor said.
Bret nodded. “I guess that was good for me or I would have bled out and been dead by now.”
“So you drugged the wine,” I said. “Then what?”
“Then I continued to act as if I was in it for the money. I planned to go with Evan when he transferred to the other ship so I could find out where he was going. I figured I could get away at some point and notify the authorities, but as you saw, Evan shot me instead. I’m wondering now if he ever believed that I wanted in or was just using me until he no longer needed me.” Bret tried to adjust his position, but from the flinch that crossed his face, I could see that he was in a lot of pain.
“Why don’t you get some rest?” I said. “I’ll wake you when the cavalry arrives.”
“Cavalry?” Bret asked.
/> “We’ve known at least part of what has been going on since Monday evening. We’ve contacted the authorities and they are on their way.”
Bret blew out a breath. “I’m very happy to hear that.” He closed his eyes and drifted back toward unconsciousness.
“Well, I guess we got most of the story,” Mac said.
“Yeah.” I glanced at the clock. The others would begin to awake in a couple of hours, so although it was late, there was no reason to go to bed. “I could use some coffee.”
“And food,” Mac said. “I never did have the opportunity to eat my dinner.”
“I’ll have Alyson keep an eye on Bret and the four of us can go down to the kitchen.”
“I’ll scramble us up some eggs,” Trevor offered.
“Sounds good to me.”
Chapter 19
When the other passengers began to stir, “the cavalry” had arrived in the form of a navy vessel that had been just off the coast of Alaska and was the closest to respond. Bret was transferred to a helicopter and taken to the hospital, and our ship was manned with naval personnel. The passengers were informed that all of them would be interviewed individually once we reached our destination. In the meantime, the four of us continued to cook meals with the food that was left on board. It seemed the least we could do; the others were dealing with very personal losses, including the deaths of Lucy and Harris, their jobs, and for some, their life savings.
As we neared land, cell and internet service returned. I checked my phone to find a bunch of missed messages from Donovan, all of which had been left the day before. I immediately called him back.
“Donovan, it’s Amanda. What’s going on?”
“Where have you been?”
“Our cruise ship was hijacked and taken out to sea. It’s a long story. It seems as if you left a million messages yesterday.”
