DOUBLE KNOT Read online

  “You know, Davis?” Meredith said. “Mother and Daddy are the grow-old-with-me couple. You know, from the song?”

  “The best is yet to be,” I said.

  “That’s them.”

  I’d seen my father worry plenty—it went with his job—but I’d never seen him panic like he had at the idea of losing Mother. And the count was at two on the road to my parents’ next station in life: Daddy had a massive heart attack and bypass surgery three years ago and now Mother’s health had been compromised by cancer. I thought of the past and I thought of the future, drawing lazy circles on my babies, who were barely stirring, lulled by my warmth, soothed by the imperceptible rocking.

  I thought of my husband.

  I thought of Cuba.

  I asked Fantasy how long she thought it took to go through someone’s underwear drawer.

  “It depends on how much underwear your mother packed. If Jess isn’t back in two minutes, I’ll go look for her,” Fantasy said. “Your mother is ten feet from the balcony door to her room. She’s going to get up any second, walk through that door, and catch Jess.”

  “Mother isn’t going anywhere,” I said. “She’d never go inside in a wet swimsuit. It’s not allowed.”

  She must have felt us talking about her, because she stood, peeled off her yellow swim cap and traded it for her afternoon sun hat—how many did she bring?—slipped into her floral cover up, and padded our way. “I’m going to sun myself for a few minutes, let my bathing suit dry, then go to the kitchen to see what we might want for our supper.”

  Behind her, against the glass separating the salon from the veranda, Jessica DeLuna jumped up and down in her red undies. Waving victory through the air.

  Fantasy scrambled off her chair to get her out of sight before Mother turned around and caught Jess with her portable phone. It was close.

  I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

  Mother settled into her sun chair.

  “How was your swim, Mother?”

  “So refreshing.” She cracked open her Good Housekeeping. “So refreshing.”

  Time ticked sluggishly away until Mother’s swimsuit was Maytag dry. She slapped her magazine closed and said, “Well, dinner’s not going to cook itself.”

  I waited until I heard pots and pans, then scared Fantasy and Jess out of hiding. We hugged the wall and sneaked past the kitchen to my stateroom where we turned on Mother’s phone. It was dead. There could be a cell phone tower on top of Probability and we wouldn’t be able to call anyone. The SEALS weren’t here and it was time to face the fact that they weren’t coming. Bradley landed hours ago; that clock had run out. Our captors had apparently done such a good job of communicating for me, my own husband had no idea we were in this predicament. No one was coming to save us. We had to save ourselves.

  It was time to bust through the wall.

  TWELVE

  “Leeward,” I said. “We were leeward and now we’re not.”

  “So? What does that even mean?”

  “The wind has been hitting the other side of the boat all day,” I said. “But we changed course. We’re pointed at the Caymans, so now the wind is hitting this side of the ship. Or maybe the wind changed directions.”

  “We’ve all had enough sun and outdoors anyway.” Then Mother had a few words for Jessica. “You need to cool your jets and pipe down. I’d think you’d be exhausted by now from all your bellyaching. Why don’t you rest? Do you know how to rest?”

  “So, hello? I have a sleep disorder? I rest all the time?”

  “I believe you play possum all the time, Missy. I don’t believe a word of your mystery ‘disorder.’ You young people and your food disorders, your sleep disorders, your short attention disorders. It’s all in your head.”

  “SO?”

  “Mother?” She turned my way. “Would you like to go to your room and read or rest your eyes?” So I don’t have to listen to this? And I can pump Jessica for information about her husband?

  “I’ve already rested my eyes, Davis,” Mother said. “Do you want to rest yours?”

  I wanted one thing: out. More to the point, I wanted to be with Fantasy, who was working toward that end. Between us, one needed to keep Mother and Jessica at bay while the other executed the demolition work order in my dressing room. I’d had just about all the excitement I could take for one afternoon so I got the babysitting job, the less physical of the two chores. Mother and Jess might wear my mental health down to the wire, but at least my unborn children and I wouldn’t be knocking down a wall.

  “Davis?” Mother asked. “Where is Fantasy?”

  “She’s resting her eyes, Mother.” She was busting through a wall was what she was doing.

  “This is a beautiful room,” Mother said. “She’s missing it.”

  We were in 704’s library just off the salon, the one without the interactive television, but with a bird’s-eye view of the door that led to the crew’s quarters and far far away from the activity in my dressing room. Mother, Jessica, and I had been driven indoors because with Probability’s shift in course, the pool deck was breezier by one puff. When we stepped out, Mother’s sun hat ruffled with a wisp of wind and you’d have thought we were in the middle of a typhoon. (“Get back! Get back! We’ll catch our death of cold.”) I talked them through the salon to the library. For a change of scenery. The interior room was so dark we had to turn on the floor lamps to see each other, making it feel later than it really was, but it was quiet and peaceful, Jess and Mother at each other’s throats notwithstanding.

  We were deep in three of four dark leather armchairs surrounded by four dark walls of bookshelves with hundreds of beautiful hardcover books whose spines had never been cracked. I was out of the string bikini and in a soft gray 3.1 Phillip Lim jersey knit sleeveless drape dress, and over it, I wore a million-dollar creamy cashmere cropped cardigan by Brunello Cucinelli. My afternoon Probability prison ensemble was outrageously expensive, roomy, comfortable, and covered me. All of me.

  “So, Davis.” I looked up from the jersey knit. “I never understood why you and Mr. Cole were married but I get it now. You and Mr. Cole are alike. The way you’re both so solid. That’s what I like about him so much,” she said. “He’s so solid. He makes me feel more solid. And so now I see it. You’re solid too.”

  It hit me like a freight train, Jessica saying his name. I was running on fumes and desperation and panic, and it was for him, for our children, for No Hair, for my father, for my mother, for Fantasy’s family, for Jess even, and everyone else remotely connected to 704 that I kept propelling myself forward. But the flood of emotion that poured over me at the unexpected mention of my husband threatened to undo me. I’d made it through six months of pregnancy and Mother’s breast cancer without shedding a tear, and it was right here and right now, and at the hand of Jessica DeLuna, that I almost lost it. And I would’ve. If she hadn’t passed out.

  Which effectively hit my reset button.

  “Does she have a mother?”

  “I’m sure she does,” I said. “How can you not have a mother?”

  “Well, there are mothers and then there are mothers,” my mother said. “Everyone needs a mother.”

  Yes.

  I had to get us out of here.

  “When she wakes up, I guess you should say thank you,” Mother said. “That was very kind.”

  I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded.

  “Maybe she’s not as harebrained as she thinks she is.”

  I smoothed the jersey knit, nodding again.

  “Davis, it’s four o’clock.”

  Mother had a single cup of afternoon coffee every day of her life at four o’clock and with that, we’d been 704 prisoners for exactly twenty-four hours.

  “Stay there, Mother. Let me make you a cup of
coffee.” And check on Fantasy.

  * * *

  The dressing room door was wide open. “Fantasy! You’re going to let Anderson Cooper out!”

  She came out from behind the mirror covered in gauntlet gray dust. “All we have to worry about and you’re worried about your cat.” She shook the only thing we could get our hands on in all of 704 to knock out a wall—the statue from the foyer. “Worry about this.” She shook it again. “We’re probably going to get sued.”

  According to The Compass, my constant companion, she was shaking a $52,000 piece of antiquity dating back to the Ming Dynasty. It looked like hammered silver grasshopper antennas mounted on a silver dinner plate, and it was doing the job of destroying the wall. She slammed it in, then raked it through the gauntlet gray. And the wall came tumbling down. She sat back on her heels, pushed her hair out of her face, and rubbed her eyes with the pink sleeve of her summer sweater.

  “Is it me, Fantasy, or are you growing more hair?”

  She looked at herself in the mirror. “It’s the humidity.” She patted it down. “Give me a few more days. I’ll have another foot.”

  “No.”

  “No, what?” she asked.

  “You can’t have a few more days.”

  “Right,” she said. “We’ve had enough vacation.”

  I took a step to the left, inspecting the destruction. “How’s it going?”

  “As well as can be expected. How’d you get away from your mother?”

  “I’m making her a cup of coffee.”

  “Any sign of Burnsworth or Poppy?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “Jessica?” she asked.

  “Cat nap.”

  Fantasy stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders. “What are we going to do when I get through destroying this boat?”

  (Oh, come on. How hard is it? Ship. It’s a ship.)

  “Next up, we need in Burnsworth’s room. I found a lifeboat.” On my way to the Ming Dynasty statue in The Compass, I stumbled on a closet behind a closet in the butler’s room of every suite that held ten life jackets, a comprehensive first-aid kit, and the lifeboat.

  Fantasy flecked gauntlet gray off her sleeve. “What are we going to do with a lifeboat? If our plan is to escape by lifeboat, why am I knocking down a wall? Davis, surely you understand that we can’t climb into a lifeboat and drop a hundred feet to the water. You get that, right? We’ll get sucked out to sea like Bianca’s luggage.”

  “Fantasy, the lifeboat has LED lights and a flare gun.”

  “How are LED lights going to help us?”

  “They’re not. But the flare gun will.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “And you want to do what with it?”

  “Neither of us can get up the wall. But maybe we can get in the wall far enough to shoot a flare.”

  “That’ll get someone’s attention.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How are we going to get in Burnsworth’s room?” she asked.

  “One of us keeps him busy, the other one goes to his room.”

  Five minutes later I was back in the library with Mother and Jess, who’d nodded off again.

  “Davis?” She placed the last Probability 704 coffee cup in the last Probability 704 saucer.

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “That coffee was good to the last drop.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “Thank you very kindly.”

  “You’re welcome, Mother.”

  “I need to put my chickens on.”

  “Do you need me to help?”

  “I’ll do it.” She pushed up from the chair. “I need to preheat the oven and set the table. If you come with me to the kitchen, you’ll probably find something to eat and ruin your dinner.”

  I picked up The Compass in the dim quiet of her wake to keep from joining Jess and falling asleep. I’d made it almost all the way through the big blue book without finding a magic way out. I was at the end, the indexes at the back, and they started with the employee directory. It led off with the Captain. It went on to list the ship’s officers, then department heads, so on and so forth, Sommelier This and Curator That. Then it listed employees by stateroom. Decks Five, Six, then Seven. I found ours, Burnsworth first. His name was Andrew Burnsworth and he was from Jackson, Mississippi. Just like No Hair. And they were about the same age. I was about to turn the page to meet our missing chef or learn a little more about Poppy when I heard quick footsteps coming down the hall. I looked up to see Fantasy and her $52,000 statue breeze by. I heard her stop and back up, then she poked her head in the door. “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting. Waiting for her to wake up.” I nodded at Jess. “Waiting to get out of here. Waiting on you. Just waiting.” I caught her eye. “All we can do is wait.” She waited. “What are you doing?”

  She checked the hallway, right and left, then whispered, “I’ve got the hole ready. It’s big enough to climb through.”

  “If only we had someone small enough to climb through it.”

  Right, her face said. “We’ll go with the flare gun and we need a vacuum cleaner. I’m hiding this in my room.” She shook the statue, curves long gone, now a mangled Ming Dynasty silver fork with sharp straight tines. “We might need to throw it overboard. Where’s your mother?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  She aimed her statue at Jess. “How long has she been out?”

  “This time? Five minutes.” I tilted The Compass to show her Burnsworth’s picture. “Come look at this.”

  She rolled her eyes and sat the statue down at the door. “You and that book.”

  “Look at Burnsworth’s picture. Have we ever seen him before?”

  She was over my shoulder. “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  I turned the page and found the missing chef. Her name was Dawn Frazier. She learned to cook in Vermont at the New England Culinary Institute, and while I didn’t know if she was any better a cook than Mother, I did know she was a luckier cook than Mother. Because she wasn’t locked in 704. I turned the page to meet our stateroom attendant, Colby Mitchell. Not Poppy Campbell at all. Not even a little bit. I gasped and Fantasy smacked my shoulder. Before we could even speculate as to why we had Poppy Campbell instead of Colby Mitchell, my mother let out a roar that rang through all of 704 and a gunshot blasted through on the exact same beat.

  “DAVIS WAY! WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE THE DISHES?”

  Fantasy and I froze—what was that?

  “So? So? SO?” Jessica’s legs flew out of the Probability robe and into the air.

  “Stay right where you are, Jessica.” I pushed up from the leather. “I mean it. Don’t move a muscle.”

  “Go back to sleep,” Fantasy said. “Right now.” She grabbed her statue and ran into the hallway; I was on her heels. She pointed at the door that led to the crew’s quarters where the shot had come from. “I’m going in alone, Davis.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am.” Her hand was on the doorknob.

  “Fantasy.” I tried to hold her back. “There’s a gun down there.”

  She shook her Ming Dynasty giant-sized fork. “And it’s about to be mine.”

  Who takes a Ming Dynasty fork to a gun fight?

  Fantasy.

  We piled onto the steps and looked down the short hall. Light spilled from the door at the end of the hall. “Burnsworth! Poppy!”

  “In here.” It was Poppy, the fake stateroom attendant, her voice giving nothing away.

  Fantasy’s arm shot out, holding me back and trapping me on the third step. “Stay here.”

  I did. I owed it to Bradley, to my babies, and to my mother to stay out of
harm’s way, which meant sending Fantasy in alone. My mouth went dry and my heart was in my throat as she took tentative steps in the direction of the light, statue first. I barely heard my mother bellow my name again and at the same time I heard a struggle, a thud, then my partner.

  “Davis, come on. I’ve got her.”

  I hugged the wall, creeping toward the bedroom, then peeked. Fantasy had her down; Poppy wasn’t giving her a fight. “You’ve got this all wrong,” she said. “He pulled a gun on me. He was going to kill me.”

  I ran for Burnsworth and dropped to my knees at his side. “I don’t think so.”

  Fantasy had a forearm on Poppy’s neck, ready to snap it. “I don’t either.”

  I got out of my sweater as fast as I could and pressed it against the fountain of blood flowing from Burnsworth. The air was thick with the acrid smell of impending death. I put all my weight into stopping the flow, but blood poured through the cashmere and my fingers. His eyes found mine and we both knew he wasn’t going to make it. In fact, he only lived long enough for me to watch him die, and his last gurgled words were so faint I was the only one who heard them. “It’s up to you.”

  THIRTEEN

  Face of an angel—this was not her first kill. She couldn’t care less about the dead body at her feet and she was even less concerned that we had her.

  The bullet ripped through Burnsworth’s carotid artery; he bled out in minutes on the white carpet at the foot of the bed. The room was small and there were too many of us in it. We strapped Poppy to a desk chair with the belt we took off Burnsworth’s dead body.