Chapter 4: Play Along
I was back in the bed before he reached the bottom step.
Eyes closed.
Hands loose.
Breathing slow.
Graham came to my side and this time he didn't check my pulse.
He slid one arm under my shoulders and one under my knees and lifted me the way you'd carry someone who couldn't carry themselves.
I let him.
He was careful on the stairs.
Almost gentle.
That was the part that turned my stomach — how practiced the gentleness felt, how easily it lived alongside everything I'd heard him say.
The night air hit me when we reached the deck.
Cold and sharp, cutting through the thin fabric of my nightgown.
The wind had picked up exactly as his father had said it would.
The yacht was rolling in slow, heavy swells.
Somewhere in the dark, water slapped against the hull.
His father was waiting at the railing.
"How is she?" his father asked.
"Right where we need her," Graham said.
His mother stood near the door to the lower cabin, arms folded, watching.
She didn't come closer.
Graham carried me to the railing and set me down so I was half-sitting against it, my back to the water.
He kept one hand on my shoulder.
"The shoe," his father said.
Graham reached into his jacket pocket and produced one of my sandals — the left one, the one that had gone missing from the cabin two days ago when I'd assumed I'd simply misplaced it.
He crouched and pressed it into my limp hand, curling my fingers around the strap.
Evidence.
For whoever found me.
Or didn't find me.
"Storm's close enough," his father said.
"Ten, fifteen minutes, the deck will be wet.
No one questions it."
"And the transfer?" his mother asked from the doorway.
"Monday," Graham said.
"I already told you."
"I want to hear the lawyer confirm it."
"You'll hear it Monday morning.
Can we focus?"
She said nothing.
Graham straightened and looked at me.
In the dark, with my eyes barely open, I could see his face clearly enough.
He wasn't angry.
He wasn't excited.
He looked the way a person looks when they're finishing a task they've been planning for a long time.
Calm.
Organized.
Ready.
He put both hands on my shoulders.
I felt the railing at my back.
I let him shift my weight toward it.
And then a light came on.
Not from the yacht.
From the water.
A beam, wide and white, sweeping across the deck from somewhere off the port side.
Then a second beam.
Then the low, steady sound of an engine cutting through the swells — not a small engine, not a pleasure boat.
A coast guard cutter.
Graham's hands went rigid on my shoulders.
"What is that?" his mother said.
His father moved to the railing and looked out.
His voice came back flat and stripped of everything.
"Someone called them."
Graham turned and looked at me.
I opened my eyes.
He saw my face — fully awake, fully present, not dr*gged, not afraid — and something moved across his expression that I had never seen there before.
"You—" he started.
"Let go of my shoulders," I said.
He didn't move.
"Graham." My voice was steady.
I was surprised by how steady it was.
"Take your hands off me.
Right now.
Because there are two officers on that boat with a camera that has been recording this deck for the last four minutes."
His father turned from the railing.
His mother took one step forward and then stopped.
Graham's hands dropped.
The cutter's engine slowed as it came alongside.
A voice came over a speaker, calm and official, cutting through the wind.
"This is the United States Coast Guard.
We are boarding for a safety inspection.
Please remain on deck."
Graham looked at his father.
His father looked at his mother.
None of them looked at me.
I stood up on my own, steadied myself against the railing, and watched the cutter pull close.
On its deck, I could see the outline of two uniformed officers.
And behind them, leaning against the rail with his phone already raised and recording, was a man I recognized.
My father's head of security.
He gave me a single nod.
I nodded back.
Behind me, Graham said my name.
Quietly.
May you like
Almost gently.
I didn't turn around.
