long dark hair, dark eyes . . . and this is the thing—she was wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt.”
Something cold trickled down my spine. I remembered Archer last night, his laughing face as he twisted my arm up behind my back, Chloe’s disapproving maybe the rumors about his first wife are true. . . .
“Was she the person he was trying to text?” I asked. Ben shook his head.
“I don’t know. He might have pressed a few buttons when he fumbled the phone.”
Automatically, I pulled out my own phone, ready to google “Jess Fenlan”—but the search bar whirred fruitlessly. The Internet was still down, and my e-mails were still not loading.
“Is your Internet working?” I asked Ben. He shook his head.
“No, there’s some issue with the router, apparently. I suppose teething problems are par for the course with maiden voyages, but it’s a right pain. Archer was sounding off about it over lunch; he kicked up quite a stink to poor Hanni. I thought she was about to burst into tears at one point. Anyway, she went and spoke to Camilla Wotserface, and it’ll be fixed shortly, apparently. At least, I bloody hope it will be, I’ve got a piece to file.”
I frowned as I pushed the phone back in my pocket.
Could Archer have been the person who wrote the message in the steam? I thought of his strength, the hint of cruelty in his smile last night, and I felt sick at the idea of him tiptoeing past me while I slept.
“We went down to the engine room,” Ben said, almost as if reading my thoughts. “It’s three decks down, we probably passed fairly close to that exit from the spa you were talking about.”
“Would you have noticed if someone had peeled off from the group?” I asked. Ben shook his head.
“I doubt it. The engine deck was very cramped, we were all kind of strung out, slotting in and out of small spaces, the group only got back together when we got upstairs.”
I felt suddenly and nauseously claustrophobic, as if the stifling opulence of the boat were closing around me.
“I’ve got to get out,” I said. “Anywhere.”
“Lo.” Ben put a hand out towards my shoulder, but I pulled myself away from his grasping fingers and staggered towards the deck door, forcing it open against the wind.
On deck, the wind hit me in the face like a punch, and I stumbled to the rail, hanging over it, feeling the pitch of the boat. The dark gray waves stretched out like a desert—mile upon mile, stretching to the horizon, no sign of land of any kind, nor even a ship. I shut my eyes, seeing the fruitless whirling of the Internet search engine icon. There was literally no way of calling for help.
“Are you all right?” I heard over my shoulder, the words snatched by the wind. Ben had followed me. I screwed my eyes shut against the salt spray that smacked the side of the ship and shook my head.
“Lo . . .”
“Don’t touch me,” I said through gritted teeth, and then the boat went up and over a particularly big wave and I felt my stomach clench and I threw up over the rail, my stomach heaving and heaving until my eyes watered and there was nothing left but acid. I saw, with a kind of vicious pleasure, that my vomit was spattered across the hull and porthole below. Paintwork not so perfect now, I thought as I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.
“Are you okay?” Ben said again from behind me, and I clenched my fists on the rail. Be nice, Lo . . .
I turned round and forced myself to nod.
“I actually feel a bit better. I’ve never been a great sailor.”
“Oh, Lo.” He put an arm around me and squeezed, and I let myself be pulled into his hug, suppressing the urge to pull away. I needed Ben on my side. I needed him to trust me, to think I trusted him. . . .
A whiff of cigarette smoke caught my nostrils and I heard the tap, tap of high heels coming along the port side of the boat.
“Oh God.” I stood up straighter, moving away from Ben almost as if it were accidental. “It’s Tina, can we go in? I can’t face her at the moment.”
Not now. Not with tears drying on my cheeks and vomit on my sleeve. It was hardly the professional, ambitious image I was trying to project.