Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Wasn't Invited.
Lena spent ten full minutes staring at the brass key.
The obvious explanation was that Noah had left it there.
The less comforting explanation was that someone else had entered their cabin.
She picked it up with a towel rather than her bare fingers, then immediately felt foolish for doing so.
This was not a crime scene.
It was a yacht.
It was a romantic weekend.
At least that was what she had believed that morning.
She tucked the key into the small zippered pocket of her beach bag and went to dinner.
Noah had changed into a dark shirt but kept the same gray trousers.
He stood when she entered the dining salon.
“You look beautiful.”
Lena had changed into a simple navy slip dress.
“Thank you.”
He pulled out her chair.
Captain Mercer joined them only long enough to explain that the crew would serve dinner, then returned to the bridge.
For the first twenty minutes, nothing happened.
Noah talked about a restaurant they had once loved in Boston.
Lena smiled at the right moments.
She drank one glass of wine slowly.
Then a low engine sounded across the water.
Noah stopped speaking.
Lena noticed.
The captain’s voice came over the internal speaker.
“Mr. Sterling, our guest has arrived.”
Lena put down her fork.
“Our guest?”
Noah exhaled.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Before she came aboard.”
“You have about thirty seconds.”
A tender boat appeared beside the yacht.
A woman in a cream pantsuit stepped onto the lower platform with the help of a crew member.
She was perhaps thirty-five, with dark hair cut neatly at her shoulders and the kind of confident posture Lena associated with attorneys and surgeons.
She carried a slim leather case.
Noah stood.
Lena did not.
The woman entered the salon and gave Noah a brief hug.
Not intimate.
Not distant either.
Lena felt her jaw tighten.
Noah turned toward her.
“Lena, this is Celeste Harrow.”
Celeste extended a hand.
“I’m glad we finally get to meet.”
Lena looked at the hand for one beat too long before taking it.
“Finally?”
Celeste’s eyes flicked toward Noah.
He looked irritated with himself.
Celeste recovered quickly.
“Noah talks about you.”
“I’m learning there are several things Noah talks about when I’m not in the room.”
Noah sat down slowly.
“Lena.”
“What?”
Celeste placed her case beside the chair.
“I can come back later.”
“No,” Noah said.
Lena looked at him.
He continued.
“We don’t have later.”
The sentence landed heavily.
Celeste checked her watch.
“We need to finish before midnight.”
Lena’s fingers went cold.
The tag on the brass key suddenly felt like it was burning through the fabric of her beach bag upstairs.
She leaned back.
“Finish what?”
Noah rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“Something I should have explained earlier.”
“Then explain it now.”
Celeste looked at him.
Noah’s eyes remained on Lena.
“I can’t give you half of it.”
“That is a very convenient sentence.”
“It isn’t meant to be.”
“Then tell me all of it.”
“Not yet.”
Lena laughed once.
There was no humor in the sound.
Celeste opened her leather case and removed a thin folder.
Lena saw her own name printed across the top page.
LENA MARIE WHITMORE.
She stood so quickly her chair scraped the floor.
“What is that?”
Celeste closed the folder immediately.
Noah stood too.
“Lena, please.”
“No.”
Her voice remained low, but the room had gone completely still.
“You bring me onto a yacht, hide a gift box, invite a woman I’ve never met, and put my legal name on documents you won’t let me read.”
“Those documents are for you.”
“Then hand them to me.”
Noah did not move.
Lena’s eyes hardened.
“That’s what I thought.”
She turned and walked toward the deck.
Noah followed.
“Lena, wait.”
She stopped outside beneath the soft deck lights.
The ocean was black now, broken only by silver reflections.
“You have one chance to tell me whether I am in danger.”
Noah’s face changed.
“From me?”
“From anyone.”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She searched him.
“Then why are you treating me like I’m not allowed to know what happens to me?”
His expression tightened with regret.
“Because if I tell you too early, you could lose something your father spent his entire life trying to protect.”
Lena stopped breathing.
Noah knew immediately that he had said too much.
Her father, Elias Whitmore, had been dead for fifteen years.
His name was rarely spoken between them because Noah knew how complicated the grief was.
Lena stepped closer.
“What does my father have to do with this?”
Noah looked toward the cabin.
Celeste stood behind the glass, watching.
“Everything,” he said.
Lena’s anger sharpened.
“Then you are going to tell me everything.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“Midnight.”
She stared at him.
“No.”
“Lena.”
“No more mysteries.”
She walked past him toward the staircase.
Noah caught her wrist gently, then released it the instant she looked down.
“Please don’t open anything you find before I can explain it.”
The request confirmed what she needed to know.
He knew there was something to find.
Lena gave him a cold smile.
“Then you should have hidden it better.”
She went upstairs.
Inside their cabin, she locked the door and retrieved the brass key.
For the first time, she noticed tiny engraved letters on its shaft.
M12.
The same code printed on the white ribbon.
Lena closed her hand around the key.
The locked cabinet in the salon was not the only door on the yacht.
At the end of the lower corridor was a narrow wood-paneled room marked STORAGE 12.
May you like
And suddenly Lena knew exactly where she was going next.
The Black Gift Box |
