The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(15)

I should lie down, but where? I had given over my cabin, and with the sails furled, my hammock wasn’t shaded. Rotgut hadn’t returned yet, and neither had Bee; I couldn’t just borrow one of their beds without asking first. Of course the captain wouldn’t mind if I sprawled out on his floor—and though I didn’t relish being in his cabin, it was my best option. I was halfway across the deck when I realized his door was ajar.

Had he left it that way to catch the breeze? I went inside to find his room empty.

And all the cupboards wide open.

Standing on the threshold, my eyes went to one of them as though pulled along on a current: HISTORICAL MAPS OF THE PACIFIC. The map of Tahiti was there, and a dozen other maps of Hawaii that the captain had collected over the years. There was only one missing—I knew it before I even started searching. I would have recognized it from across the room—the creases, the bloodstains. The map of Honolulu, 1868. The map we’d robbed a kingdom for. The one where my mother was still alive, and where my father was going to die.

Where had it gone?

Had Slate gone with it?

And I had thought he’d changed.

“What’s wrong, amira?” Kash watched me from the doorway, his brow creasing as he scanned the open cupboards. “Thieves?”

“I think Slate might have . . .” It was hard for me to say the words. My stomach was roiling. What if I’d driven my father to his fate? Hadn’t I told him I doubted Joss’s prediction? He might have gone back only to prove me wrong. I hadn’t even said good-bye. Tears threatened like a sudden storm—I wasn’t ready. But would I ever have been? “I think—” But before I could finish the sentence, we both jumped at a sudden ruckus from the wharf.

A car horn was blaring, and over it—laughter? From belowdecks, Billie answered with a howl. “Rooooo!”

I rushed to the door. An old Honda was rolling slowly up to the pier. The man behind the wheel—a big man, stuffed into the little car—roared with laughter as the passenger opened the door and staggered out onto the hot pavement.

“Slate?” He couldn’t hear me; I had spoken barely above a whisper. The tide of my fear had ebbed. Relief took its place. “Slate!”

Both men looked up—my father and Bruce, his old friend at the Coast Guard. At first I thought it was a trick of the glare on the curve of the windshield, but Bruce’s face was florid, his eyes unfocused. Leaning over the passenger seat, he asked my father a question and reared back in mock surprise at the answer. He spoke with exaggerated care; I could read the words on his lips: “No shit!” Then he slapped the empty seat and rolled down his window. “Hey, kid! You’re all grown up!”

“Thanks, Bruce,” I said as Slate stumbled up the gangplank, swaying on his feet.

“You look just like your dad!”

I spoke through my teeth. “I hope not, Bruce.”

“All right, all right. Hey, I’d love to catch up, but I’m gonna be late for work!” His voice was warm, and his words only a little slurred. “Take care of your old man! Don’t be too pissed off!” Then he rolled up the window and drove away.

Slate stopped right in front of me, just a hair too close. He was still sweating, but his eyes were very bright; I grimaced. Through his white T-shirt, I could see blood seeping through the bandage over his ribs. Alcohol increased blood flow—I had read that somewhere. My anger was building in a wave. I’d been so hopeful when he’d tossed the box into the sea, but had opium ever been the problem, or only the treatment?

My father peered at me. “You’re not going to, right?”

“Not going to what?”

“Be too pissed off.”

I flung out my hands, exasperated. “Where are your shoes?”

“Don’t remember.” Slate looked down at his bare feet. The skin atop the right one was raised and red under a new tattoo—a simple design, one of his own, I could tell. The cross of a compass with an anchor’s curve at the bottom. “You like it?” He raised his foot toward my face, then toppled to the left. I caught his arms; he smelled sweet and sharp, like an overripe peach. “I made it myself!”

“Did you drink an entire bottle of liquor?”

“Not the whole thing.” He wiggled his foot. “I know I used some to sterilize my skin.”

“I’ve never even seen you drink half a glass of weak beer!”

He shrugged loosely and headed toward his cabin. “You know what they say. When you can’t be with the one you love— What the hell happened here?” Slate had stopped in the doorway.

“You did.” I faltered, uncertain now. “Didn’t you?”

“Didn’t I what?”

“Didn’t you take your map of Honolulu?”

“Take it where?” He walked toward his desk and stared at the surface—empty, but for a few coffee cups. “Where is it?”

I swallowed and glanced at Kashmir. Thieves, he’d said. Had someone come aboard while we’d been away? A crashing sound drew my attention back to the captain as he swept the shelves clear. “Slate, no!”

Scrolls scattered across the floor; he tossed heavy books atop delicate parchment. I leaped over a bronze tablet and barreled into him, shoving him away from the shelves. “It was right there!” he screamed, his eyes wild. “Where did it go?”