Chapter 8 - My Father Knew Grant Was DangerousWe reached St. Lucia shortly after sunrise.
“You always loved dramatic endings,” he said.
My hands tightened around the radio.
“You programmed the yacht to crash.”
“Captain Reed did.”
“People are still aboard.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“You’re willing to kill the entire crew?”
Silence.
Then Grant said, “You destroyed my life.”
A laugh escaped me.
“You planned my murder.”
“And you ruined everything by listening at a door.”
The insanity of that sentence stunned me.
Grant genuinely believed I had wronged him by discovering his crime.
Evelyn took the radio from my hand.
“Grant, Coast Guard has your coordinates.”
“Hello, Evelyn.”
“You’re not getting away.”
“I only need enough time.”
“For what?”
He disconnected.
Devon looked toward the stairwell.
“We need the bridge.”
Evelyn grabbed the radio.
“Luis, get to engineering. Kill propulsion.”
Static.
Then Luis answered.
“Trying. Reed locked remote control.”
“Mechanical shutdown?”
“Possible, but it’ll take time.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
We had perhaps twenty.
I ran toward the bridge.
Evelyn followed.
The helicopter spotlight washed across the deck.
A rescue swimmer descended on a cable.
The Coast Guard clearly understood something was wrong, but they didn’t yet know the yacht was essentially a guided missile pointed at submerged rock.
The bridge door was steel-reinforced.
Locked.
Devon arrived with a fire axe.
“Move.”
He struck the lock.
Once.
Twice.
The frame shook.
Again.
Metal bent.
Below us, the engines continued roaring.
I looked forward.
In the distance, I could barely make out white water breaking against something invisible.
The reef.
“Again!”
Devon swung.
The lock snapped.
We rushed inside.
Screens covered the console.
Navigation charts.
Radar.
Engine data.
Warnings flashed.
AUTOPILOT LOCK.
COMMAND AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
Evelyn sat at the controls.
“Can you override it?”
“I’m not captain.”
“Try.”
She entered codes.
Denied.
Again.
Denied.
Devon opened drawers.
“Manual key isn’t here.”
I remembered Reed boarding the tender.
He had taken it deliberately.
I grabbed the radio.
“Luis, what happens if we kill power completely?”
“We lose steering.”
“But do we slow down?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
“Working.”
A Coast Guard officer appeared behind us.
“Who’s in command?”
“No one,” Evelyn said. “Captain abandoned ship.”
The officer stared at the navigation screen.
“What’s our heading?”
“Reef.”
“How long?”
“Maybe fourteen minutes.”
He immediately spoke into his radio.
Then he looked at me.
“You’re Claire Holloway?”
“Yes.”
“We received a distress beacon registered to this vessel.”
“That was us.”
“Where is your husband?”
“Running.”
The officer looked at my bruised face.
Understanding came quickly.
“We have another cutter intercepting the tender.”
Good.
But none of that mattered if the yacht broke apart against coral first.
The officer ordered evacuation preparations.
Crew rushed to ready life rafts.
I went below for Vanessa.
She sat on the bed staring at nothing.
“We’re abandoning ship.”
“What?”
“Get up.”
She followed.
As we reached the corridor, the yacht suddenly lurched.
The engines changed pitch.
Everyone stopped.
Then Luis shouted over the radio.
“I killed starboard propulsion!”
The yacht began turning.
Not enough.
But slightly.
“How far from reef?” Evelyn asked.
The Coast Guard officer checked radar.
“Seven minutes.”
“Port engine?”
“Still engaged.”
“Can Luis stop it?”
“He’s trying.”
The yacht tilted as the remaining engine pushed asymmetrically.
Furniture slid.
Glasses shattered.
Vanessa grabbed the wall.
I reached the main deck.
A rescue boat approached on the starboard side.
Crew began boarding.
“Claire!” Evelyn shouted. “Go!”
I moved toward the ladder.
Then I saw something on the horizon.
A small white light.
The tender.
Grant.
He had turned around.
Why?
Then the radio crackled again.
“Claire.”
I stared at it.
“What?”
“Look behind you.”
I turned.
Vanessa stood twenty feet away.
Her face changed.
Then I saw what she was holding.
A satellite phone.
Grant said quietly through the radio:
“Ask your best friend why she called me.”
Vanessa went white.
My heart dropped.
“What did you do?”
She shook her head.
“I just—”
“What did you do?”
“I told him the Coast Guard was here.”
“Why?”
“I was scared!”
Grant laughed over the radio.
“She asked me to come back for her.”
I stared at Vanessa.
She began crying.
“I panicked.”
“You chose him again.”
“No.”
“You called the man who tried to kill me and asked him to rescue you.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
Behind us, the Coast Guard officer shouted that everyone needed to move.
I walked past Vanessa.
“Claire!”
I stopped.
She looked terrified.
“You’re leaving me?”
“No.”
I pointed toward the rescue boat.
“You’re getting off with everyone else.”
She stared.
“I’m just done saving you from choices you keep making.”
Her face collapsed.
I climbed into the rescue boat.
Vanessa followed.
Evelyn came last.
Three minutes later, the final crew member evacuated.
The Solstice continued forward without us.
We watched from the Coast Guard vessel.
At 12:28 a.m., the luxury yacht struck Saint Verena Reef.
The sound was enormous.
Wood, fiberglass, metal.
The bow lifted.
Then twisted.
Lights flickered.
A vessel worth twenty-five million dollars began taking on water beneath a sky full of stars.
I thought about my father’s honeymoon gift disappearing into the sea.
Strangely, I felt nothing.
I was alive.
That was enough.
Then a Coast Guard officer approached.
“We’ve intercepted the tender.”
My breath caught.
“Grant?”
He hesitated.
“Captain Reed and one deckhand were aboard.”
I stared at him.
“And my husband?”
“He wasn’t.”
The officer held up a wet burgundy jacket they had found inside the tender.
Grant’s jacket.
But Grant himself was gone.
My stomach tightened.
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
Evelyn looked toward the dark ocean.
The officer continued.
“There was evidence someone transferred to another vessel before interception.”
Another vessel.
Grant had planned an escape beyond the escape.
Then Evelyn’s phone buzzed.
A message had arrived through restored emergency Wi-Fi.
Unknown number.
She showed it to me.
Four words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE DROWNED.
May you like
Grant was alive.
And now he knew I had survived.
