I don’t even know the number to the darn ship.
As I hand the phone back, my heart’s pounding again.
I’m in Mexico. Alone. Miles from port. No phone. No ID. And I’ve officially exhausted my optimism.
Should I go to the police? Throw myself at their mercy?
Just when I’m about to give myself permission to panic, I hear it—my name.
“Ashley!”
I spin around.
Beckett is jogging toward me—my purse slung over his shoulder, my phone in his hand. He’s still wearing the shorts Blakey threw up on, a little out of breath, a little wrinkled, and he is, without question, the best damn sight I’ve seen all day.
Relief slams into me so hard I nearly cry.
“How did you?—?”
“I looked up the address of the registrar’s office,” he says, breath a little uneven. “When I saw it was closed… I just thought—what direction would Ashley go?”
He shrugs, lifting my purse off his shoulder to hand it to me. “I guessed. Got lucky.”
It shouldn’t have worked.
But it did. He found me.
For a second, I just breathe.
Then my brain catches up.
“I just tried calling you,” I manage. “I used your old number, and it rang, like, a lot before it went to voicemail. Like it’s still charged. Did you… really just lose it somewhere?”
He stops short. “It was…” I see the indecision flash across his face. And then he brushes a hand through his hair.
“I can’t…” he mutters. “Ashley, I can’t get into that right now.”
My stomach turns.
“Are you in trouble?”
He glances away. His whole body goes tight. And then there it is, that flicker of… shame? “I’m… It’s… I… Later. I promise.”
I could push. I could get upset. But I’d already decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. So I meet his eyes.
“Did the company take it?” And the laptop too? That would make sense if he was getting fired.
“Not the company.”
But… Someone took it. And he knows who.
“You would tell me if you could, right?”
He nods.
And I… I believe him. And maybe that’s why this sudden stillness comes in, why all the anxiety I was feeling a few seconds ago just washes away.
“Okay,” I say.
