Chapter 10 - WHAT MY GRANDFATHER LEFT ME
I had spent my entire childhood believing my grandfather was a stubborn old mechanic.
Arthur Morgan wore faded overalls.
Drove a fifteen-year-old pickup.
Fixed tractors for neighbors.
Every birthday, he mailed me the same kind of card.
Inside, he always wrote a strange string of numbers.
I thought it was one of his jokes.
Suddenly, those cards mattered.
“Where are they?” Hale asked.
“At my house.”
Daniel laughed.
“No, they’re not.”
My blood went cold.
“What did you do?”
“Your husband did what husbands do.”
He leaned against the wall.
“I cleaned.”
Our house.
My desk.
My grandfather’s wooden box.
Daniel had gone through everything.
“You found the cards.”
“I found twelve.”
“There were thirteen.”
Daniel stopped smiling.
I remembered the last one.
My grandfather had given it to me personally before he died.
I had kept it somewhere different.
Not at home.
Inside a book.
The book was in my military storage locker.
Daniel stepped toward me.
“Where is it?”
I smiled.
“You don’t know.”
For the first time that night, I had something he needed.
And he hated it.
Pike suddenly slammed his shoulder into Hale.
Hale fell.
Daniel grabbed Pike’s gun.
Rebecca shouted.
Daniel fired twice into the ceiling.
“Everybody down!”
He backed toward the door.
“Claire comes with me.”
“No,” Hale said.
Daniel aimed at Rebecca.
“She comes with me, or Rebecca finishes her cruise the way I intended.”
I looked at Hale.
Then Rebecca.
“I’ll go.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Claire—”
“It’s okay.”
Daniel grabbed my arm.
He pushed me through the door.
We climbed toward the upper decks while sirens echoed outside.
Coast Guard lights flashed across the windows.
Daniel forced me onto the empty pool deck.
Wind whipped across the ship.
He pressed the gun against my ribs.
“You’re going to tell them we’re hostages together.”
“And then?”
“We leave.”
“You still think you’re getting away?”
His voice became almost gentle.
“I always get away.”
Then a helicopter spotlight hit us.
Daniel pulled me closer.
A voice boomed over the deck.
“DROP THE WEAPON!”
Daniel whispered in my ear.
“Smile, sweetheart.”
Then I felt something sharp press against my side.
Not the gun.
May you like
A syringe.
“Do what I say,” he whispered, “or you’ll be unconscious before you hit the floor.”
