"Luck had nothing to do with it," Deirdre contradicted. "What about yourself? Didn't it ever occur to you how you came to be in the whaling station caves at exactly the right moment?"
"What are you implying?"
"You don't understand, do you?" Deirdre said as if scolding a naughty child. "Did you think Daddy was going to forgive and forget after you stormed out of his office, swearing never to see any one of us again? He especially went mad when he heard that you had legally changed your name to that of our great-great-great-grandmother. Fletcher, indeed. Since you left, he's had your every movement observed from the time you entered Melbourne University until you were employed by Ruppert & Saunders.
Maeve stared at her with anger and disbelief that faded as something began to dawn slowly in her mind. "He was that afraid that I would talk to the wrong people about his filthy business operations?"
"Whatever unorthodox means Daddy has used to further the family empire was for your benefit as well as Boudicca and myself."
"Boudicca!" Maeve spat. "Our sister, the devil incarnate."
"Think what you may," Deirdre said impassively, "Boudicca has always had your best interests at heart.
"If you believe that, you're a bigger fool than I gave you credit for."
"It was Boudicca who talked Daddy into sparing your life by insisting I go along on the voyage."
"Sparing my life?" Maeve looked lost. "You're not making sense."
"Who do you think arranged for the ship's captain to send you ashore with the first excursion?"
"You?"
"Me.'
"It was my turn to go ashore. The other lecturers and I worked in sequence."
Deirdre shook her head. "If they had stuck to the proper schedule, you'd have been placed in charge of the second shore party that never got off the ship."
"So what was your reasoning?"
"An act of timing," said Deirdre, suddenly turning cold. "Daddy's people calculated that the phenomenon would appear when the first shore party was safe inside the whaling station storage caves."
Maeve felt the deck reeling beneath her feet, and the color drained out of her cheeks. "No way he could have predicted the terrible event," she gasped.
"A smart man, our father," Deirdre said calmly as if she were gossiping with a friend over the telephone. "If not for his advance planning, how do you think I knew when to lock myself in the ship's freezer?"
"How could he possibly know when and where the plague would strike?" she asked skeptically.
"Our father," Deirdre said, baring her teeth in a savage smile, "is not a stupid man."
Maeve's fury seethed throughout her body. "If he had any suspicions, he should have given a warning and averted the slaughter," she snapped.
"Daddy has more important business than to fuss over a boatload of dismal tourists."
"I swear before God I'll see that you all pay for your callousness."
"You'd betray the family?" Deirdre shrugged sarcastically, then answered her own question. "Yes, I believe you would."
Bet on it."
"Never happen, not if you want to see your precious sons again."
"Sean and Michael are where Father will never find them."
"Call in the dogs if you have a mind to, but hiding the twins with that teacher in Perth was not really all that clever."
"You're bluffing."