Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

For reasons she couldn’t pinpoint, she began to feel sick. “You expect me to believe this?”

“Look at the woman. Look at her face. You two could be twins.”

She wasn’t blind, she saw the likeness. It was nonsense. “You think you can trick me?”

He didn’t blink. “It’s not a trick. Your mother was a telecommunications expert, your father worked on satellite guidance. They were both very intelligent people, brilliant in their understandings of math and science. Just like you, I’m guessing. They had a good life in suburban England. Unfortunately, the Brèvard family came along, took them from the world, and made them disappear, the same way you kidnapped Sienna and her children. They were bartered for and used for what they knew the same exact way you and Sebastian and the rest of this sick family have used the people you’re holding hostage.”

She was shaking her head, filled with rage, a kind of rage she was having a hard time controlling. It was unlike her—she was cold, emotionless. Why should this make her so angry? she wondered. Of course he would lie. Of course he would try something to confuse her. But why, if he and his friends were all but assured of victory in their own minds, would he bother?

She felt an urge to charge him, to put her hands around his throat and choke the life out of him if she could. Even if he shot her in response, at least she wouldn’t have to listen to any more of this.

She lunged for him. “You’re a liar,” she screamed.

She slammed one fist into his chest, where it uselessly struck the body armor, and reached for his face with her other hand, intent on clawing out his eyes. But he was too quick and too strong. He caught her arm and stopped it. He spun her around and folded her arms across her chest, holding her from behind.

“I’m not lying,” he said. “I’m not trying to hurt you. But you should know the truth.”

“I don’t want to know!”

“Believe me, you do,” he said. “Because these people are better than the Brèvards. These people loved life, they didn’t abuse and destroy it, and you’re one of them.”

She continued to thrash and tried to slam and elbow him, but it was no use.

“I know what kind of hell it is to wonder what’s real and what isn’t,” he said quietly. “I know what you’re going through right now. I lived it for months, but you’ve had it worse, you’ve lived it all your life. I can only imagine what it’s done to you.”

“It’s done nothing,” she insisted, trying desperately to kick him and pull free.

He turned her around and looked into her eyes. “Your father was killed trying to escape his captors,” he said. “He was gunned down in broad daylight by a man who was never found. He’d been gagged and beaten. He’d been tortured.”

“Stop it!”

“Your mother and brothers fared worse. They’d found a lifeboat on a ship half buried in the sand, but they didn’t have enough water. They died from dehydration, drifting on the ocean a hundred miles from here.”

She froze. “What did you say?”

“They died at sea,” he repeated, “on a lifeboat half gutted with rot. We’re pretty certain they found it on an old ship that was buried in the river several miles from here.”

An image flashed in her mind, it struck like a bolt of lightning. A brief glimpse of the rivets on the dark metal plating, the rushing river, the sediment being scoured away. “A ship,” she whispered. “An old iron ship?”

A second bolt of lightning struck. It was night. There was only a sliver of moonlight to see with. A woman had her by the wrist, leading her toward the hill. Two boys were dragging a small wooden boat from a cave they’d excavated in the sand.

“It’s a lie,” she protested.

“It’s the truth,” he said. “Your truth.”

She’d ceased struggling now, her mind adrift. He continued to hold her tight, perhaps because he couldn’t trust her. But as her legs began to shake, she felt he was holding her up, keeping her from buckling right then and there.

The memories continued to come. Men chasing them. A gunshot ripped through one of the containers. The water was spilling out. Disaster.

“There’s not enough water,” Calista spoke aloud.

More gunshots. The woman fell.

“They shot her,” Calista said to no one.

“She was wounded,” Kurt replied softly. “But it was superficial.”

“She fell down the hill.”