Cindy’s nose smarted and tears welled up. She grabbed a tissue and pressed it to her eyes, willing herself not to cry.
But she cried anyway.
When she got hold of herself, Cindy left her office and made it to the ladies’ room without anyone seeing her. She washed her face and put on fresh makeup. Then she went back to her desk with a newborn and promising idea.
She hit the reply key and typed a return e-mail to Morales.
Subject heading: “Mackie’s back in town.”
Hi, Mackie,
I wasn’t sure where you were, so thanks for letting me know. Let’s meet. No tricks. I have a big idea to discuss with you.
Cindy
Before she could change her mind, Cindy hit the send key.
There. Done. She hoped she would hear back from Mackie very soon. If Mackie would meet with her, she might get her interview, and Mackie might get the kind of notoriety she might actually crave.
Her computer pinged.
There was mail in her inbox marked undeliverable. It was the message that she had just sent to Morales. Morales must have written to her from public internet access or a boost phone, so Cindy’s sketchy connection to her no longer existed.
Cindy exhaled a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
Morales had made her, cut her, dropped her, and every bit of that hurt like a hot poker had been thrust through her heart.
What are you going to do now, Cindy?
What are you going to do?
Chapter 54
Yuki had been huddling against a bulkhead on the Pool Deck for a long time, terrified for Brady, having no sense of what these terrorists wanted in exchange for releasing the passengers of the FinStar.
And if they didn’t get what they wanted, what then?
Start shooting?
Blow up the ship?
She was very aware that she was wearing a see-through nightgown under the short ship-provided terry-cloth robe. She tucked the hem of the robe under and around her, then interlaced her fingers in front of her life preserver as if it could actually save her life.
These were the questions going around and around in her head on an endless loop: Where was Brady? Had they done something to him?
About six hours before, Yuki had been savagely woken by an unimaginably loud air-cracking boom. Her bed had pitched sideways, throwing her to the floor.
She had grabbed the floor as the ship rolled in the other direction, and she had fallen head-first hard against the bed frame. She’d screamed, “Brady! What’s happening?”
Glass crashed and doors swung open and slammed closed while the echo of the concussion rumbled long and low below her and the ship rolled again. Light flashed where light should not be—outside the windows, below their balcony.
Yuki got to her knees, grabbed the side of the bed, and pulled herself to her feet. Although the bed had been tumbled, Brady’s side of it was still neatly made.
She turned to the bathroom and screamed “Brady!” expecting him to come out, saying, “What the hell?” or “Get down!”
But he hadn’t been there.
Just then, there had been another loud boom—a bomb going off, for sure. This boom was more muffled than the first, coming from across the hall or maybe the other side of the ship.
Sirens sounded in the hallway, and then a man’s voice came over the public address system, saying, “Crew to emergency stations.” It was repeated several times.
Yuki’s mother would say, “Find your husband, Yuki-eh. Go to your husband.”
No kidding. Where was he?
Yuki had pulled on a robe and gone to the windows. She’d spotted a number of small boats, visible in the still-light night sky of Alaska. The boats were motoring at high speed toward the ship.
Yuki remembered feeling pure gratitude.
Thank God. Help was coming.
Help was on the way.
Chapter 55
As Yuki sat on the Pool Deck with hundreds of other passengers, shivering in her thin nightclothes, and not just from the cold night air, she remembered how right after she had seen the boats through her window, the public-address system had come to life again, this time squealing as if it were in pain.
Then she’d heard the uninflected voice of the captain.
“Dear guests, this is Captain Berlinghoff. As you have noticed, there has been a disturbance, but there is nothing to worry about, I assure you we are getting everything under control. We will be escorting you to public rooms. Please cooperate with your cabin stewards and stay calm. We are safe, absolutely safe. I repeat…”
What kind of disturbance?
The small boats had been closing on the flank of the ship. From her windows, forty feet above the waterline, she hadn’t seen any faces. But then she’d seen guns.
Was the Navy coming to investigate the explosions? A sharp pang of fear had shot through her mind like a bullet. Pirates! Maybe those men were pirates!
But that couldn’t be. There were no pirates in this part of the world. This was the United States.
About then, smoke had begun curling through the air-conditioning vents.
Was the ship on fire? Was it even safe to leave?
Oh, God, what was happening? Where was Brady?
She had looked for her cell phone and finally found it wedged under the night stand, but before she could turn it on, there had been a loud knock at the door.
“Mr. and Mrs. Brady. It’s Lyle.”
Yuki had looked through the peephole and seen their cabin steward, his eyes so round that there was a circle of white all the way around his irises. She’d opened the door.
“Mrs. Brady. You have to go to the Veranda Lounge.”
She had asked, “Have you seen my husband?”
“No ma’am. When did you see him last?”
She’d had a lot to drink last night, and Brady had tucked her in early.
Behind Lyle, people wearing life vests filled the corridor, streaming toward the stairs, their faces wrinkled with sleep and naked with fear.
“What’s happening?” she’d asked. “Is the ship on fire? Are we under attack?”
“I don’t know anything, Mrs. Brady. Put on your life vest,” said Lyle, “and hurry to the Veranda Deck. Take the stairs.”
“No, wait.”
Lyle had snapped at her, “Put on your vest and go upstairs, Mrs. Brady. Go now.”
Yuki had dialed Brady’s number, and when his outgoing message came on, she had left a message of her own.
“I’m going to the Veranda Deck,” she said. “Look for me.”
Panting, her hands shaking uncontrollably, Yuki had found her deck shoes on the floor of the closet. Her life vest was under the bed—and so was Brady’s.
She had put the vest around her and then had taken a last look around the cabin. Opening the drawer of the night stand, she had found her new coral necklace, her wedding gift from Brady. Clutching it, she joined the throng heading for the stairs.
Chapter 56
There had been four armed men at the top of the stairs. They wore camouflage and ski masks, black with slits for the eyes and mouth. They had held serious assault weapons, and that was when Yuki understood that the captain had nothing under control. He had lied trying to keep order.
Her blood had rushed to her feet.
Lightheaded, close to fainting, she’d grasped the banister and begun to climb. Terror had squeezed out any hope in her mind that this evacuation was about engine failure.
This was an attack.
Where was Brady? Was he even alive?
The men—pirates, as she thought of them—had directed the passengers at the top landing, sending the elderly and the women and children to the left. Men were sent to the right. Anyone who hesitated was shoved or poked with a gun.
Yuki and the rest of those sent to the left were herded into the Veranda Lounge, the pirates deliberately terrorizing the passengers who were as vulnerable as baby birds on a high window ledge. Then all the lights had gone out and Yuki had heard muffled gunfire.