The Woman in Cabin 10(13)
Hey honey, I haven’t heard from you since your e-mail on Sunday. Not sure if our messages are crossing. Did you get my reply, or the text I sent you yesterday?
Getting kind of worried, and hoping you don’t think I’m off somewhere being an * and nursing my wounds. I’m not. I love you, I miss you, and I’m thinking about you.
Don’t worry about what happened back home—and the tooth is okay. I think it’ll re-root like the doc said. I’m self-medicating with vodka anyway.
Let me know how the cruise is going—or if you’re busy, just drop me a line to say you’re okay.
Love you, J
From: Rowan Lonsdale To: Laura Blacklock CC: Jennifer West Sent: Wednesday, 23 September Subject: Update?
Lo, could you please reply to my e-mail sent two days ago requesting an update on the cruise? Jenn tells me you’ve filed nothing, and we were hoping for some kind of copy by tomorrow—a sidebar piece at the least.
Please let Jenn know ASAP where you’re at with this, and cc me to your reply.
Rowan
- CHAPTER 6 -
Even rich people’s showers were better.
The jets buffeted and massaged from every angle, numbing in their ferocity, so after a while it was hard to tell where the water started and my body ended.
I soaped my hair, then shaved my legs, and finally I just stood underneath the stream, watching the sea and the sky and the circling gulls. I’d left the bathroom door open and I could see across the bed and out to the veranda and the sea beyond. And the effect was just . . . well, I’m not going to lie, it was pretty nice. I guess you had to get something for the eight grand or whatever it was they were charging for this place.
The amount was slightly obscene, in comparison to my salary—or even Rowan’s salary. I had spent years drooling over the reports she sent back from a villa in the Bahamas or a yacht in the Maldives and waiting for the day when I, too, would be senior enough to get those kinds of perks, but now I was actually getting a taste of it, I wondered—how did she stand it, these regular glimpses into a life no regular person would ever be able to afford?
I was idly trying to work out how many months I’d have to work to pay for a week on the Aurora as a passenger, when I heard something—an indistinct little noise—beneath the roar of the water, that I couldn’t place, but it definitely sounded like it came from my room. My heart quickened a little, but I kept my breathing firm and steady as I opened my eyes to turn off the shower.
Instead, I saw the bathroom door swinging towards me, as though someone had shoved it with a swift, sure hand.
It banged shut, the solid, firm clunk of a heavy door that was made of the very best-quality material, and I was left in the hot, wet dark with the water pounding on the top of my skull and my heart beating hard enough to register on the boat’s sonar.
I couldn’t hear anything above the hiss of blood in my ears and the roar of the shower. And I couldn’t see anything, apart from the red gleam of the digital controls to the shower. Fuck. Fuck. Why hadn’t I double-locked the cabin door?
I felt the walls of the bathroom closing in on me, the blackness seeming to swallow me whole.
Stop. Panicking, I told myself. No one’s hurt you. No one’s broken in. Chances are it’s just a maid come to turn down the bed, or the door shutting by itself. Stop. Panicking.
I forced myself to feel for the controls. The water went freezing, then agonizingly hot so that I yelped and staggered back, cracking my ankle against the wall, but then finally I found the right button, the stream stopped, and I groped my way to the lights.
They came on, flooding the little room with an unforgiving glare, and I stared at myself in the mirror—bone white, with wet hair plastered to my skull like the girl from The Ring.
Shit.
Was this going to be what it was like? Was I turning into someone who had panic attacks about walking home from the tube or staying the night alone in the house without their boyfriend?
No, f*ck that. I would not be that person.
There was a bathrobe on the back of the bathroom door, and I swathed it hastily around myself and then took a deep, shaking breath.
I would not be that person.
I opened the bathroom door, my heart beating so hard and fast that I was seeing stars in my vision.
Do not panic, I thought fiercely.
The room was empty. Completely empty. And the door was double-locked, even the chain was across. There was no way anyone had got in. Maybe I’d just heard someone in the corridor. Either way, it was obviously just the tilting movement of the ship that had caused the door to swing shut, impelled by its own weight.
I checked the chain again, feeling the thick weight of it heavy in the palm of my hand, reassuringly solid, and then, on weak legs, I made my way to the bed and lay down, my heart still pounding with suppressed adrenaline, and waited for my pulse to return to something approaching normal.
I imagined burying my face in Judah’s shoulder and for a second I nearly burst into tears, but I clenched my teeth and swallowed them back down. Judah was not the answer to all this. The problem was me and my weak-ass panic attacks.
Nothing happened. Nothing happened.
I repeated it in time with my rapid breaths, until I felt myself begin to calm down.
Nothing happened. Not now. Not then. Nobody hurt you.
Nothing happened.
Okay.
God, I needed a drink.