Chapter 16 - The Broadcast
Gregory's voice rolled through the ship with the smooth confidence of a man who had spent his life believing a microphone made him credible.
"My wife is a decorated former Marine."
I stood inside Hale's cabin and listened.
Danner lifted his radio.
"Broadcast control, kill that feed."
Static answered.
Gregory continued.
"She is highly trained in hand-to-hand combat."
Lena looked at me.
"He is doing the unstable-veteran story for five thousand passengers."
"No."
I shook my head.
"He is doing it for the board."
The emergency meeting was still hours away.
But a public scene could create headlines before then.
Headlines could create a reason to remove me.
Gregory kept talking.
"Last night, without warning, she attacked me in our cabin."
Danner swore.
"The theater control room has a local override."
"Can you reach it?"
"Main corridor is blocked by the morning show setup."
"Service route?"
Danner looked at me.
"No."
"That was not the question."
"You are not going anywhere near him."
"He wants an audience."
"He wants you angry in front of an audience."
That was true.
I forced myself to think.
Gregory wanted me charging into the theater.
He wanted video of the dangerous Marine confronting her injured husband.
So I would not give him that image.
"Can the broadcast accept a second audio source?"
Danner frowned.
"Emergency announcement channel can override entertainment audio."
"Who controls it?"
"Bridge."
"Captain Avery."
"Yes."
I looked at his radio.
"Call him."
Avery answered on the second attempt.
Danner explained in ten seconds.
"I cannot interrupt a passenger statement without cause," Avery said.
I almost laughed.
"He hijacked the ship announcement system."
"That is cause."
Avery was silent.
I understood.
He was afraid that shutting Gregory down would look like suppressing an accusation.
"Then do not silence him."
I looked at Danner.
"Give me the emergency channel."
Danner stared at me.
"Ashlynn."
"He wants to tell the ship his story."
I took a breath.
"Let me ask questions."
Lena smiled slowly.
"That could work."
Danner did not look convinced.
"Or it could become a public disaster."
"It already is."
Avery's voice came through the radio.
"I will authorize two-way audio only."
"No video?"
"No video."
Perfect.
No image of me looking angry.
No chance for Gregory to perform against my face.
Only words.
Danner handed me a crew microphone.
"You get one shot."
"That is usually enough."
He activated it.
Gregory was still speaking.
"My family has tried to protect Ashlynn from public embarrassment, but she has refused help."
I pressed the button.
"Gregory."
His voice stopped.
The entire ship seemed to stop with him.
Then he laughed.
"There she is."
"You said I attacked you without warning."
"You did."
"What time?"
A pause.
"Around eleven twenty."
"Interesting."
I kept my tone conversational.
"Because you filed a police report describing that attack at four thirty-six yesterday afternoon."
Silence.
Danner's eyebrows lifted.
Lena smiled.
Gregory recovered.
"That is a lie."
"The report number is available."
I read it aloud.
"The filing metadata shows your account and the Port Canaveral guest network."
Another pause.
"Would you like to explain how you reported an assault seven hours before it happened?"
No answer.
I continued.
"You also told security I have a history of violent episodes."
"You do."
"Name one."
"This one."
"That is circular."
"You broke my jaw."
"Medical staff says your jaw is not broken."
"You hit me."
"After you swung an aluminum bat at my ribs."
Gregory laughed.
"There is no bat."
"Nicole Mercer recorded you holding it before departure."
The broadcast went silent again.
Passengers would be listening now.
Crew would be listening.
More importantly, someone at Asteron would be recording.
"Nicole is confused."
Gregory finally said.
"She recorded your conversation with Blake and Charles."
"Edited."
"You asked how long the hallway camera would be dark."
"Out of context."
"Blake said twenty-three minutes."
"Technical issue."
"Your father said to make sure I swung back."
A long silence.
Then Gregory made the mistake I had been waiting for.
"Dad was talking about the board."
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
He had just admitted Charles was present during the conversation.
Until that moment, the Hartmans could argue the older man's identity on the video was mistaken.
Now Gregory had confirmed it himself.
"So Charles was there."
He realized it immediately.
"That is not what I said."
"You just said Dad was talking about the board."
"I meant hypothetically."
"Were you holding the bat?"
"I was moving luggage."
"With a baseball bat?"
"It was a gift."
"From your father?"
Silence.
I remembered his exact words in the cabin.
My father gave it to me before the wedding.
This is how my dad kept my mom in line.
"Why did your father give you the bat?"
Gregory's tone hardened.
"You know why."
The room around me went still.
He had not answered the way he thought he had.
"Say it."
"I am done with this."
"You wanted the whole ship to hear your story."
I kept my voice steady.
"Tell them why your father gave you a baseball bat for your honeymoon."
Gregory's breathing was audible through the speakers.
"Ashlynn."
"Tell them."
"Stop."
"Tell them what you told me when you raised it."
The microphone picked up a sound like something being struck against a table.
"I said stop."
His temper was rising.
Good.
Not because I wanted him violent.
Because anger made him careless.
"You told me your father used the same method to keep your mother in line."
Gregory exploded.
"Because she never knew when to shut her mouth either!"
The sentence went across every speaker on the ship.
Nobody in Hale's cabin moved.
Gregory kept going before he realized what he had done.
"She pushed him until he had no choice, just like you keep pushing me."
Lena covered her mouth.
Danner stared at the microphone.
I felt sick.
Not triumphant.
Sick.
Because somewhere inside Gregory's anger was the memory of a woman being hurt and a child being taught that the person suffering had caused it.
Then he said something worse.
"You think you are better than my mother because you fought back."
I gripped the microphone.
"No."
My voice stayed quiet.
"I think your mother deserved someone to help her."
Silence.
"And so did you."
Another silence.
"But what happened to you does not excuse what you chose to do to me."
Gregory's breathing changed.
For a moment, I wondered if I had reached something human in him.
Then his voice went cold.
"You should have signed the papers."
Danner's head snapped toward me.
I pressed the button.
"Which papers?"
Gregory did not answer.
"The marital silence agreement?"
Nothing.
"The forged proxy?"
Nothing.
"The withdrawal of my audit?"
His control finally shattered.
"All of them."
The words echoed through the ship.
I did not breathe.
Gregory continued.
"You could have walked away rich."
His voice was shaking with fury.
"Dad offered you everything."
"Everything except freedom."
"Freedom is a word people use when they do not understand consequences."
"And what were the consequences if I refused?"
There was movement on his end.
A door slammed.
Then Charles Hartman's voice came faintly through Gregory's microphone.
"Turn that off."
Danner's eyes widened.
I pressed the button immediately.
"Charles?"
The feed erupted in static.
I heard Gregory swear.
Then Charles, clearer.
"You stupid boy."
A thud.
The broadcast cut.
Every speaker went silent.
For two seconds, no one spoke.
Then Danner's radio exploded with calls from across the ship.
Passengers asking what happened.
Crew asking whether security was needed.
The bridge demanding control of the theater system.
Avery's voice cut through all of them.
"Chief Danner, secure Gregory Hartman and Charles Hartman immediately."
Danner grabbed his radio.
"Teams to theater control and owner corridor."
He looked at me.
"Stay here."
"I will."
This time I meant it.
I had already done what I needed.
Ten minutes later, Danner called from the theater.
Gregory was gone.
Charles was gone too.
The control booth was empty.
A crew emergency door leading backstage had been forced open.
Avery ordered the gangways and lifeboat access locked even though we were still at sea.
Then Renee called through Hale's terminal.
Her face appeared almost immediately.
"We recorded everything."
"Good."
"So did half the board."
"Better."
"Ward postponed the two o'clock meeting."
I exhaled.
"Compliance hold?"
"Still active."
"How long?"
"Same deadline."
"Then we still need the original shipping evidence."
Renee nodded.
"There is something else."
"What?"
"Kessler Grant finally responded about Lyle Emerson."
My pulse shifted.
"Where is he?"
"They claim they do not know."
"Claim?"
"He resigned six months ago after refusing to sign a revised Hartman audit."
I stood straighter.
"Do they have the original?"
"They say no."
"Someone does."
Renee nodded.
"We found an email Emerson sent to himself before he left."
"Content?"
"One sentence."
She read it.
"If anything happens to me, the real Hartman file is where Eleanor used to hide from Charles."
I stared at her.
"Eleanor."
Gregory's mother.
"That is what we think."
Renee leaned closer.
"Ashlynn, did Gregory ever tell you where his mother died?"
I searched my memory.
He had said she died after a fall years ago.
He had never said where.
Then I remembered an old photograph in Charles's office during Christmas.
A white yacht.
A woman standing near the stern.
The name painted across the hull.
ELEANOR'S GRACE.
My blood went cold.
"On a yacht."
"What yacht?"
"His father's."
I looked at Danner's deck map.
A tender-service note blinked near the navigation display.
A private yacht had requested rendezvous clearance for later that afternoon.
Registered owner: Grace Maritime LLC.
My heart slammed once.
Charles did not need a lifeboat to leave the cruise ship.
He already had an escape waiting.
May you like
And if Emerson had hidden the real Hartman file where Eleanor used to hide from Charles, the evidence might be on that yacht.
