Chapter 4 - The Photograph from Twenty-Five Years Ago
I turned slowly.
The lower salon appeared empty.
Water dripped from my cover-up onto the cream carpet. My heart beat against my ribs so hard that the pain from the fall pulsed with it.
Another floorboard creaked near the hallway.
The yacht had guest cabins on both sides, a mechanical room below, and a narrow crew passage leading toward the galley.
Someone was there.
I reached for the nearest object that could become a weapon.
A heavy brass candlestick sat on the table.
Before I touched it, a hand emerged from the half-open galley door.
A woman stepped out wearing a navy crew uniform.
I recognized her.
“Emily?”
Emily Ward had served as chief stewardess during our first two yacht trips. Ryan claimed she had quit two months earlier to care for her sick mother.
Now she stood barefoot on the lower deck, her uniform wrinkled, one cheek swollen purple.
She lifted a finger to her lips.
I moved toward her.
“What happened?”
“Quiet.”
Her voice was barely audible.
She took my arm and guided me into the galley, then shut the door.
A small locking pin slid into place.
“Ryan said you quit.”
“He fired the crew this morning.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Leonard locked me in the storage compartment.”
She looked down at my belly.
“Oh my God. Did he push you?”
I nodded.
Emily’s mouth tightened.
“I heard the splash.”
“You saw them planning this?”
“Parts of it.”
“How long?”
“Since yesterday.”
The answer hurt almost as much as the fall.
She opened a cabinet and handed me a towel.
My hands shook as I dried my face.
“Who was using Ryan’s account?”
Emily glanced toward the ceiling.
“There’s a control station in the mechanical room. Leonard brought a technician aboard before dawn.”
“Another person?”
“At least one.”
“Who?”
“I never saw his face. He wore a hood and used the crew stairs.”
The yacht shifted as a larger wave struck the hull.
I gripped the counter.
Emily reached for me.
“Are you bleeding?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Any contractions?”
“No.”
But I felt pressure low in my abdomen, and fear made it impossible to know what was normal.
Emily opened a first-aid drawer and pulled out a waterproof radio.
“It only reaches the bridge.”
“Who’s on the bridge?”
“No one. Ryan disabled the autopilot controls after the engines shut down.”
“Why did they shut down?”
“I did it.”
I stared at her.
Emily lifted her chin.
“When your necklace transmitted, the yacht security system detected an unauthorized emergency beacon. I killed the engines before Leonard could override it.”
“You knew about the recorder?”
“Your mother showed me the necklace design years ago.”
I forgot to breathe.
“You knew my mother?”
Emily looked toward the locked door.
“My mother worked for her.”
The photograph on Leonard’s laptop flashed through my mind.
“My mother was pregnant in that picture.”
“Yes.”
“Who was the father?”
Emily’s eyes filled with something that looked like pity.
“I don’t know.”
“Do not protect me with a lie.”
“I’m not lying. Your mother never told mine.”
“Then why did Leonard have the photograph?”
“Because he has spent twenty-five years collecting anything that could challenge the Mercer estate.”
I wrapped the towel tighter around myself.
“My father raised me.”
“I know.”
“He left the foundation to me.”
“Yes.”
“Then biology doesn’t matter.”
“It matters if the trust documents were altered.”
The phrase landed coldly.
“What was altered?”
Emily reached beneath her uniform collar and pulled out a thin key.
“Your father’s original trust required his biological child to inherit controlling shares. Six months before his death, he amended it to name you directly.”
“I signed those papers.”
“You signed copies.”
My hands went still.
Emily continued.
“Leonard claims the amendment is fraudulent.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know. But he has been paying people to make it look fraudulent.”
A thud sounded outside the galley.
We both froze.
Leonard’s voice came faintly through the wall.
“Search below deck.”
Emily killed the light.
Darkness covered us.
Footsteps entered the salon.
Ryan said, “She couldn’t have climbed aboard.”
Leonard answered, “The detector lost her signal near the stern.”
Vanessa’s voice shook.
“What if she swam away?”
“In open ocean?” Leonard said. “Seven months pregnant?”
The footsteps separated.
One moved toward the guest cabins.
One approached the galley.
Emily guided me toward a narrow service hatch beneath the counter.
“Where does this go?”
“Crew passage. Then mechanical room.”
“The technician is there.”
“He may be our only way to transmit the files.”
“Or he may be waiting to kill me.”
The galley handle moved.
Emily pushed the key into my palm.
“If we get separated, open Locker Three.”
“What’s inside?”
“Proof your mother knew Ryan’s father.”
The handle turned harder.
The locking pin bent.
Emily opened the service hatch.
I crawled into the darkness.
As she began closing it behind me, the galley door burst inward.
Ryan entered.
He saw Emily.
May you like
Then his eyes dropped to the wet footprints leading beneath the counter.
📖 Follow Clara into the hidden crew passage as Ryan discovers her wet footprints—and learn what Locker Three contains in CHAPTER 5. 👇
