glanced at the clock and realized that Rob and Jeremy might soon be on their way home from the movie theater. She ate some cheese and crackers and went back up to Molly’s room to try to find something distracting to watch on television in the meantime.
But even as she flipped through the channels with the remote she was thinking about Janice Pryor’s visit. Forget about it, she chided herself. Forget that Janice Pryor ever barged into your life. But it was no use. When Chloe disappeared from that ship, Shelby became a de facto member of the Overboard group – whether she cared to admit it or not. These were the people on this earth, she thought, with whom she now had the most in common. These were all people who had wished their loved ones a cheery ‘bon voyage’, or ‘good night’, or ‘enjoy your jog around the deck’, never to set eyes on them again. How could she expect herself to resist their stories?
Finally, she climbed off the bed, went to her computer notebook, and punched in the word ‘Overboard.’ The website sprang up before her eyes. In spite of her better judgment, she began to read. After about half an hour, she heard the front door open downstairs and the sound of Rob and Jeremy’s voices in the house.
Shelby stayed very still, listening to snippets of their conversation as they wondered aloud if she were asleep and debated about waking her. Rob finally prevailed upon Jeremy to brush his teeth and get ready for bed.
‘But Shep has her light on,’ Jeremy protested.
‘She probably fell asleep with the light on,’ Rob reasoned.
‘Can we turn it off?’ Jeremy asked.
‘No. We might disturb her. Let her sleep. Shep is very tired,’ said Rob.
Shelby wasn’t sure why she didn’t go to the door and call out to them. It wasn’t as if she didn’t want to see them or hear about the movie. But when she thought about it, she had to admit that she didn’t want to tear herself away from the website. She wanted to continue poring over every story recounted there. At the same time, she was a little bit reluctant for them to know what she was doing. So she stayed silent.
Their voices grew fainter as Jeremy, distracted from thoughts of his grandmother, enthusiastically recalled his favorite parts of the movie while Rob murmured in response.
Once she could no longer hear them, Shelby resumed her reading. The fascination she felt for these stories was akin to rubbernecking at the sight of an accident. In this case, Shelby felt as if she were both rubbernecker and victim.
If the people who told their stories on the site were planning a lawsuit, it was not evident from the testimonies they gave. Instead, their stories were filled with frustration, grief, and disbelief.
There were a couple of cases where, Shelby thought, people just did not want to face facts about the missing person. There were stories of people who went on cruises to try to alleviate depression, and ended up leaving all their belongings in their cabin in a neat pile topped with a note of farewell. There were other cases that seemed to cry out for a criminal investigation. One victim was a middle-aged woman who did not approve of her son’s wealthy, dissolute admirer. She accepted an invitation to go on the cruise with them, at the expense of said admirer, and disappeared from the boat, never to be seen again.
One of the strangest cases was, as it turned out, the disappearance of Elise Pryor. Rejecting the official version of events, Janice Pryor and her husband had updated the account repeatedly as they sought out, and found, answers. There was, indeed, a convicted sex offender working as a steward on Elise’s ship. His history linked him to previous assaults on teenage girls. After Janice’s husband brought this fact to the attention of the cruise line, the steward was eventually dismissed, and his cabin was searched. Wedged between his bunk and the wall they found a bikini swimsuit top that had belonged to Elise Pryor. The police investigated, but finally insisted that this was not enough evidence to bring charges against the man. The steward was fired from his job for lying on his application, and he was put off the ship in Miami. After that, he disappeared.
Reading this account, Shelby felt a mounting fury on the Pryors’ behalf. She also felt guilty for having dismissed the bereaved mother out