Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

In her mind, Calista heard the woman shout.

“Olivia!”

Calista felt only fear—terrible, swirling fear.

“Mum!” one of the boys had yelled.

“Olivia, hurry!”

More gunshots sounded and the woman turned and ran. Calista just stood there on the hill, while down below, her mother and brothers pushed the small boat out into the water. She saw them climb on board and paddle into the darkness, moving swiftly with the current. She felt the men rush by her, watched as they scrambled down the bank, and listened as they fired again and again into the dark.

But she never flinched. She just stood there and stared until eventually the shooting ceased and one of the men came up to her and took her hand.

“I let them go without me,” she said to Kurt.

She was sobbing, dropping to the ground. Kurt eased her down gently.

“There wasn’t enough water,” he told her. “Not enough for three. Certainly not enough for four.”

She was sobbing and shaking and then suddenly angry again. “You have no right! No right to . . .”

The insanity of what she was saying cut her off before she’d finished.

“The Brèvard family stole your life,” he said. “Maybe they realized how sharp you already were. Maybe they knew they could mold you into one of them. Maybe they planned to kill you and just never got around to it. But, whatever their reasons, they stole your life. They stole the lives of your family and we think many others. And if you let them, they’ll steal the lives of Sienna and her children and everyone else they’re holding in that oversize Quonset hut halfway down the hill.”

She noticed he kept saying “Sebastian” or the “Brèvard family,” but she knew her part in it. For a second she wanted to scream out, to yell at him, “This is who I am,” to claim it and own it and tell him to go to hell, but the desire faded. And tears returned uncontrollably.

Why shouldn’t her name and memories be false? Everything else around her was a lie.

As she cried, Kurt moved to a spot in front of her and gently wiped the tears from her face.

“Help me get to Sienna before the Marines arrive,” he said. “Sebastian is going to lose tonight. But I don’t want him using her as a shield or killing her in a fit of spite when he realizes it’s over for him.”

She looked up at him. There was kindness and determination in that face. The white knight, she thought. He really was.

“It’s not over for him,” she said.

“It will be soon.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she replied. “You may be early, but he knew a response would be coming. He’s got some nasty surprises waiting for your friends. And he’s got a plan of escape locked and loaded.”

“He couldn’t know we would be coming.”

“Not you, but he knew someone would be,” she said. “He’s waiting for it. While our men are fighting with your forces, he’ll blow this place to kingdom come. The hacking you’re seeing now will end and he’ll disappear—we’ll disappear—and the whole world will assume we’re dead.”

“So history does repeat itself,” Kurt said. “We have to stop him. And we have to stop whatever he has planned. Will you help me or not?”

She looked at him through the tears.

“I’ll trust you,” he said.

“Why would you?”

“Call it instinct,” he said, offering her a hand.

She hesitated. Her true desire was to remain there on the floor, to lie there until the fires came and consumed her. A fate she’d never been more certain she deserved.

“A wise man once told me, ‘We are who we decide to be,’ ” he said. “You have a choice. You can be Calista Brèvard or you can reclaim your humanity as Olivia Banister.”