Chapter 2 - A Number from the Grave
Evelyn read the message twice. Daniel was still yelling about lawyers, humiliation, and how the entire yacht club would hear about this by breakfast. She hardly heard him.
“Where did you get that necklace?” she asked him.
“I bought it,” he snapped.
“From whom?”
“A dealer in Boston. Mom, you need to apologize.”
Evelyn held out her phone. His expression changed when he saw Nora's name at the top. Not surprise. Recognition. The difference was small, but Evelyn had spent sixty-eight years learning when people lied.
“It's a sick prank,” Daniel said. “Somebody cloned her number.”
“Probably. So why do you look frightened?”
Helen came to Evelyn's side. “The captain says we can return to port.”
“No.” Evelyn looked toward the lower deck, where Marcus was speaking quietly to a crew member. “Nobody leaves until we know who sent that text.”
Daniel laughed bitterly. “You're not the police.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “But I own this boat.”
That was the second fact Sloane hadn't bothered to check. The yacht called Second Chance belonged to Evelyn's company, not Daniel. Its captain, a former Coast Guard officer named Luis Alvarez, still answered to her.
In the service passage, Marcus crouched by a drainage grate. “The card didn't go overboard,” he told Evelyn. “It fell through here. I saw it slide under the deck panel.”
“What was on it?”
“We'll know if we find it before someone else does.”
A crew member lifted the panel. Underneath lay an earring, two coins, and a tiny metallic square. Marcus placed the square in a clean napkin without touching its contacts.
“Do you think Sloane sent the message?” Evelyn asked.
“I think someone wanted you to see the necklace. Someone else wanted Sloane to panic.”
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Before Evelyn could answer, the yacht's lights flickered. The engines slowed. Luis's voice came sharply over the radio: “Ms. Mercer, stay where you are. We've got an unauthorized person in the engine compartment.”
A crash echoed below. Then a man's voice shouted, “Get away from that hatch!”
