Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
I frowned, pausing the music, but then silence blanketed me.
“Theo?” I called up the stairs, wiping my hands on the dish towel. “Is that you?”
I heard the faint murmur of voices again, and I wondered if Emma and the crew had come back earlier than expected. Or maybe it was Wayland and Theo, or Theo talking to Captain Chuck.
I didn’t want to leave the fish unattended, but I took a few steps up the stairs and called out again.
“Hello? Everything okay?”
For a long moment, there was nothing but silence.
Then, someone rounded the corner upstairs, and it was so dark that they were nothing but a shadow at first. I narrowed my eyes, trying to peer through the darkness, and when my vision steadied, my heart leapt into my throat.
No.
It can’t be.
But it was.
Joel slowly descended the stairs, one by one, taking his sweet time as his glazed eyes narrowed in on me. His dark hair was greasy and matted, his eyes hollow and underlined with dark circles.
I backed away with every step he took down until my hips hit the counter of the galley island.
“Well, well, well,” Joel said when his feet hit the bottom stair. He stood there for a minute, taking in the scene — the trout on the stove, the half-made salad in a large bowl, the mixing bowl full of what would have eventually become a cheesecake. When his eyes met mine again, I noted how red they were, how wide his pupils were dilated, and my stomach shriveled up at the sight. “Look who’s still on board. What a lovely surprise.”
“Joel,” I whispered.
“Oh, baby,” he cooed with a wicked grin, taking a few more steps toward me. “I always did love it when you said my name.”
My eyes flicked to the gun in his right hand, and I swallowed, heart throbbing in my ears. I’d never seen Joel hold a gun, let alone shoot one, not in all the years I’d known him. And that only made me fear the situation even more.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on,” I said, holding my hands up as I backed away more, slowly, one steady step at a time across the galley. “But Theo doesn’t have to know you were here. Okay? Just… just go, and I won’t say a word.”
Joel tilted his head at that, frowning for a second before he let out a loud laugh. “Oh, Theo will know I was here,” he said. “Especially because his precious little safe is being drained upstairs right at this very moment. I wish I could stay to see his face when he finds it empty, but alas,” he said, holding his hands out wide as if that sentence could finish itself.
I forced a steady breath, even though my heart was pounding so hard I thought I would pass out. I didn’t know how Joel got here or who was with him, but one thing I knew for sure was that he wasn’t himself. He was on something, he had to be. Only drugs could have his skin that thin and ghastly, his eyes underlined with dark bags, the whites of them stained with red. His pupils were still wide, even in the galley light now, and they were constantly bouncing, like they couldn’t focus at all.
With whatever was in his system and that gun in his hand, I needed to tread lightly.
“Joel,” I said softly, and this time I took a tentative step toward him instead of away, hoping it would settle his defenses. “This isn’t you.”
“Oh, this is very much me,” he sneered back, glaring at me with a menacing gaze.
I shook my head, but Joel slammed his hand on the wall before I could argue further.
“You don’t think I have a right to be pissed off?!” he screamed. “I have worked my ass off for years, Aspen. Years! And that prick took away everything.” He narrowed his eyes at me then. “Including you, it seems.”
I didn’t want to argue that it was Joel who had thrown his future away when he committed his grand theft, especially not since he apparently hadn’t learned his lesson. So I just nodded, holding my hands out like he was a wild animal and I was trying to coax him into a cage.
“I understand,” I said.
“No, you don’t. You don’t understand, Aspen. And you know what? I don’t either.”
I frowned.
“I don’t understand why you,” he said, pointing the gun straight at my chest as he took a few more steps toward me. Fear prickled at the back of my neck, but I held my chin high, not backing down. “Are still on this fucking boat.”
The fish started to burn, the smell of charred meat only adding to the nausea rolling through me now. Joel’s gaze shifted to the stove, and then he smirked, shaking his head.