Frustration bites.
She tries again.
Once more, it goes directly to voicemail. She leaves a message.
“Patrick—hi. Is everything okay? Please let me know where you are.”
She follows with a text, echoing her plea.
Please call ASAP. Love you. Xoxox.
Arrabella goes into the shower. Hot water sluices over her, but sick worry mushrooms in her gut. She steps out of the shower, wraps a towel around her body, reaches again for her phone on the bathroom counter.
Still nothing from Patrick.
Carter
Carter sits with his breakfast tray in the Helios Café. On a tray across the table, his mother’s oatmeal congeals, untouched. She’s across the food court at another small table by the window. Her phone is pressed to her ear as she looks out over the port of Souda on Crete. She’s arguing with Carter’s dad about something again—probably him.
The ship docked in the early hours of this morning when the winds finally calmed. Already the morning sun outside burns down fiercely, despite the fact it’s fall.
They were supposed to eat breakfast together—Mom, Gramps, and him—before getting on a bus to go up the coast to the Minotaur’s Labyrinth. It’s a theme park where kids and even adults can carry plastic swords and battery-powered torches and enter a maze of caves to hunt for the Minotaur’s lair in the middle. The first one to find the beast gets to slay him. Carter is both excited and a little bit scared. He likes being brave, but if he’s honest, he does get scared in total dark.
But Gramps hasn’t arrived for breakfast. He returned to the suite very late last night after his talk and signing. Carter had sneaked back into bed but wasn’t sleeping. He was tossing and turning, thinking of everything he’d seen in his grandfather’s files.
He’s puzzled. How could that 2018 photo be of Vincent Kapoor if he’s supposedly still rotting in a jail in Kathmandu? Did Grampsactuallysay he was still in prison? Thinking back, Carter can only recall for surethat Gramps said Vincent didn’t escape. What if he got out some other way—like he was released? Omission is a kind of lie, isn’t it?
And he’s definitely seen that man from the 2018 photo. His suite is on the same deck as theirs. He said hello to Carter.
Carter’s chest knots with worry. Why is Gramps really on this trip?
He finally fell into a restless sleep, but at 5:00 a.m. he was roused by the sound of a ping on Gramps’s phone.
Gramps switched on his small reading light, checked his phone, then threw back his covers and got out of bed. Gramps padded to the slider, opened it quietly, and stepped onto the deck. He shut the door behind him. Carter could see his silhouette in the moonlight as he called someone on his cell. Moments later, he came back in, dressed, and headed for the door.
“Where are you going, Gramps?” Carter asked, sitting up in the dark.
“Just stepping out for some air.” He paused. “My hip gets stiff. Go back to sleep, son,” he said gently.
“Who’d you phone?”
But Gramps just said, “I’ll see you both at breakfast.”
And then he was gone, the door closing with a quiet snick behind him.
Carter’s focus returns to his breakfast tray. He picks at the bran muffin as his thoughts turn again to Vincent. Worry gnaws at his chest—he senses something grave and unusual is happening. He glances at his mother across the food court, and anger feeds into his worry. He begins to kick the back of his heel against the leg of his chair. The action makes a rhythmicthump, thump, thump. He kicks harder, faster, growing more unsettled, more frustrated, angrier as he watches his mom talk on her cell. It seems like she’s angry. She’s waving her hand and pushing hair back off her face.
Carter’s stomach twists. He bites into his muffin and can’t swallow. He spits the mouthful out. He always feels sick when his parents have “discussions.” Dad left six months ago. They both said they needed to “work some things out.” Mom has been sad and mad ever since. Thecruise was supposed to fix things. It was about keeping some sense of family intact, and giving Carter some male influence in his life. Or so she said. But all he wants—needs—is for her to be happy again. And he wants his dad.
It feels like his mom and dad are being echoes of Gramps and Gran. Dad is off working long hours in the tech world. Mom is at home, alone, homeschooling Carter.
Meanwhile here he sits, solo, at his little table with his mother’s congealing oatmeal, an absent father in his life, and no sign of Gramps.
“Oh, hello, Carter!”
He startles, looks up.
It’s her.
