Chapter 10 - The Blackout
The door opened three inches.
I braced one foot against the floor and caught the edge with both hands.
Someone pushed from the other side.
Hard.
Lena dragged a stainless steel cart in front of Nicole's bed.
"Security!"
No one answered her.
The pressure against the door increased.
I let it move another inch.
Then I shifted my weight and slammed it back.
A hand disappeared from the gap.
A man swore outside.
I recognized the voice.
Gregory.
My stomach turned cold.
"Ashlynn."
His voice came through the door.
"Open it."
"No."
"We need to talk."
"You had that opportunity before the baseball bat."
"This is not about the bat anymore."
"It was never only about the bat."
The handle rattled.
"You sent the video, didn't you?"
That answered one question.
They knew the upload had started.
"What video?"
I kept my tone flat.
Gregory laughed softly.
"Do not do that lawyer voice with me."
"I am not a lawyer."
"You act like one."
The emergency lights flickered.
Lena moved beside me.
She held a heavy oxygen wrench in one hand.
I looked at it.
"Put that down."
"He is trying to get into my patient room."
"And if he comes in, I do not want anyone claiming we armed ourselves."
She glared at the door.
Then she put the wrench on the floor behind the cart.
Gregory pushed again.
"You think sending that clip saves you?"
"I think it makes breakfast more interesting."
His voice changed.
"You have no idea what you are doing."
"You keep saying that."
"Because you do not."
He lowered his voice.
"Project Meridian is not an accounting investigation."
I looked at Lena.
She heard it too.
"Then what is it?"
Silence.
"Gregory?"
The ship shuddered slightly beneath us.
A deep mechanical vibration traveled through the floor.
Then every light went out.
Not flickered.
Out.
The monitor beside Nicole died.
The ventilation stopped.
The emergency strips disappeared.
The room became completely black.
"Lena?"
"Here."
Her hand found my shoulder.
The door moved.
The electronic lock had released with the power failure.
I stepped back.
"Stay with Nicole."
"Ashlynn -"
"Stay with her."
I heard the door open.
Footsteps entered.
One person.
Maybe two.
My body went quiet in the dark.
I did not need to see Gregory to know how he moved.
I had watched him walk beside me for a year.
I knew the length of his stride.
I knew the sound of his dress shoes.
I knew he favored his right leg slightly when angry because he planted too hard on the heel.
A phone screen flashed.
Gregory's face appeared for half a second.
He was three feet away.
He saw me too.
"There."
He reached.
I moved sideways.
His hand caught empty air.
I did not strike him.
I caught his wrist, redirected it toward the wall, and stepped behind him.
His shoulder hit the doorframe.
He cursed.
"Stop fighting me."
The words were so absurd I almost laughed.
"You are in a locked medical room during a blackout."
I kept pressure on his wrist.
"You came looking for a witness's phone."
"I came looking for my wife."
"Wrong room for romance."
He twisted violently.
I released him instead of fighting the turn.
His momentum carried him forward.
He stumbled into the cart.
Metal crashed.
Nicole cried out.
Lena shouted.
"Get away from her!"
A second light flashed in the doorway.
Someone else was there.
"Gregory."
The voice belonged to Blake.
Of course it did.
"Get the laptop."
There was no reason to pretend anymore.
Lena sucked in a breath.
I moved toward the table where we had left the borrowed computer.
Blake moved faster.
His flashlight beam cut across the room.
He grabbed the laptop.
I did not try to take it.
Instead, I stepped toward the wall and hit the manual fire alarm.
Nothing happened.
No lights.
No bell.
Dead.
"System is down," Blake said.
His voice carried satisfaction.
"So is the camera."
Gregory straightened.
That sentence was not for me.
It was for him.
A signal.
No witnesses except the three women in the room.
No camera.
No alarm.
No electronic lock.
The same structure as the cabin.
Gregory walked toward me.
"Give me the receipt code."
"You already have the laptop."
"The cloud account needs reauthentication."
"Sounds frustrating."
His eyes hardened.
"Do not make me ask twice."
I looked at Blake.
"You understand you are standing here while he threatens me."
"I understand you attacked your husband and then kidnapped a witness."
Lena laughed in disbelief.
"Kidnapped?"
Blake lifted the laptop.
"That is how the report will read."
There it was again.
The report.
Not truth.
Not events.
The report.
They believed controlling the paper meant controlling reality.
"What happened in Savannah?"
I asked Gregory suddenly.
He froze.
Blake looked at him.
I saw it.
The question mattered.
"What are you talking about?"
Gregory recovered too late.
"You said Project Meridian is not accounting."
I stepped closer.
"You keep reacting whenever I mention the container records."
He said nothing.
"Three of the duplicated container numbers originated in Savannah."
I remembered the audit files.
"Then they appeared again in Rotterdam forty-eight hours later."
Lena looked confused.
Blake did not.
That was useful.
"Impossible transit."
I continued.
"Which means either the manifests were false or the containers were cloned in the system."
Gregory's breathing changed.
"What were you moving?"
"Shut up."
He said it too fast.
"Money?"
No reaction.
"Restricted equipment?"
His jaw tightened.
"Sanctioned cargo?"
Blake spoke.
"Enough."
I looked at him.
"That one."
Gregory turned sharply.
"You idiot."
Blake glared at him.
I felt the puzzle shift.
Not proof.
Direction.
Project Meridian was not about padded invoices.
The invoices were camouflage.
Something moved through Hartman freight routes under false paperwork.
Something important enough to infiltrate my apartment for eight months.
Something important enough to stage a domestic violence narrative on a cruise ship.
"You used the acquisition to bury the records."
I said it slowly.
Gregory stared at me.
"Asteron buys Hartman Strategic Freight."
I continued.
"The audit gets folded into integration."
Another piece.
"Old systems are migrated."
Another.
"Data is archived."
Another.
"Exceptions disappear into transition noise."
Gregory stepped toward me.
"You always were annoyingly close to the answer."
My heart hit once against my ribs.
He had said it.
Blake cursed.
"Gregory."
"What?"
His control was fraying.
"She already knows too much."
The room became still.
Lena looked at me.
Nicole's monitor remained dark.
But Nicole was awake.
I could hear her breathing.
Four witnesses.
Gregory had forgotten again.
"What happens when the acquisition closes?"
I asked.
"Nothing you need to worry about."
"What happens to the Savannah records?"
"They become irrelevant."
"Because they are destroyed?"
He smiled.
"Because your company becomes responsible for them."
That was worse.
Asteron would inherit the liability.
Hartman would take the purchase money.
Then if regulators discovered the falsified manifests, the mess would belong to the buyer.
My company.
My board.
My name.
"You were going to sell us the crime scene."
Gregory's smile widened.
"That is dramatic."
"Accurate."
"Not your problem if you sign the proxy."
"It becomes exactly my problem."
"No."
His voice softened.
"It becomes your father's problem, your board's problem, your lawyers' problem."
He stepped closer.
"You get to be my wife."
The sentence made something in me go cold.
Not because it frightened me.
Because he believed it was an offer.
"I would rather testify."
Gregory's face changed.
"Then you will testify as the unstable woman who attacked her husband on her honeymoon."
"With a witness video showing you planned it."
He looked at Blake.
"Delete it."
Blake opened the laptop.
"Trying."
"Too late."
They both looked at me.
"It uploaded."
I did not know whether every copy had completed.
I knew at least two had.
That was enough to bluff with confidence.
"Where?"
Gregory asked.
"Somewhere your father cannot reach."
He grabbed my arm.
I twisted free before he could tighten his grip.
"Do not touch me."
He reached again.
A beam of white light flooded the corridor.
"Security!"
Danner's voice thundered from outside.
Blake froze.
Gregory stepped back.
Danner entered with three crew officers behind him.
One carried a portable emergency lamp.
"Hands where I can see them."
Blake lifted his hands.
"Chief, she -"
"Shut up."
Danner looked at Gregory.
"You too."
Gregory laughed.
"You cannot detain me."
"Watch me."
Danner pointed at the doorway.
Two officers moved in.
Gregory looked at me.
"This is not over."
"I know."
I rubbed my arm where he had grabbed me.
"That is why I am keeping notes."
He was escorted out.
Blake followed in restraints.
Danner looked at the borrowed laptop.
"Did you get the video?"
"Sent two copies before the network died."
He exhaled.
"Good."
"What happened on the bridge?"
His expression darkened.
"Captain Avery tried to suspend me."
"Tried?"
"I asked him to put the order in writing."
"And?"
"He would not."
I almost smiled.
"Paper matters."
"Apparently."
The lights flickered back on.
Nicole's monitor rebooted.
Lena rushed to it.
Danner checked his radio.
A new announcement filled the ship.
Captain Avery's voice sounded calm.
"Ladies and gentlemen, due to severe weather developing along our scheduled route, tomorrow's port arrival has been delayed."
My stomach dropped.
"We will remain at sea approximately eighteen additional hours."
Lena turned toward me.
Danner swore softly.
I looked at the ceiling speaker.
Eighteen hours.
The board vote was in six.
The port authorities were now delayed until after the acquisition.
Gregory had lost the video.
Charles had lost Blake.
So they had changed the clock.
Danner looked at me.
"You think the weather is real?"
I walked to the porthole.
The ocean outside was dark.
Almost perfectly calm.
"I think the forecast probably is."
I turned back toward him.
May you like
"I also think Charles Hartman just found eighteen hours inside it."
