I wait. Knees and hips aching. Nose tickling.
I finally sneeze and lose patience. There’s nothing sexy about this and it’s not cool for Daddy to make me wait so long. I climb up off the floor and look at the clock.
5:47 p.m.
I grab my phone. No messages. No way would Logan be seventeen minutes late without telling me.
Something’s wrong.
I try the connecting door. It’s still locked on his side. I knock, and knock, and knock. No answer.
Gritting my teeth at the thought of what trouble this might get me into, I call Daddy’s phone. Please don’t let him be in the middle of an important interview. I’ll die if I embarrass him again.
His phone rings six time before it goes to voicemail.
No, Daddy wouldn’t ignore me. Not when he’s late. Even if he was super busy.
Unless he’s hurt.
That’s silly thinking. Logan’s a big, strong man. He was in the military. He can take care of himself.
He’s seventeen minutes late. Nineteen minutes now.
I call him again. Six rings and voicemail.
Daddy, where are you?
This is all wrong. I can feel it. I don’t always trust my gut-feelings. I was wrong about Ashley. For freaking years. But I can feel this in my tummy. All the way down to my bones, actually. Something’s wrong. I know it.
Clutching my phone, I run the few steps to the dresser and throw on the first clothes I lay my hands on.
Once I’m dressed, I do something I should never do. Daddy wouldn’t do it to me. I’m going to be so embarrassed if he’s in his room and occupied with something important. He’s going to punish me, really punish me. I shiver with indecision before I stiffen my spine. I’ll take it. Something’s wrong. Daddy’s in trouble. I open my phone, thumb to my apps and open the phone tracking app I bought when my mother developed dementia. She left the house several times without telling anyone where she was going, got confused, and couldn’t find her way home. But she always took her phone with her.
I key in Logan’s number. The app cycles. And cycles. And cycles. Maybe it doesn’t work outside the U.S.? I never checked if the app was international. Oh, sweet Lord, how will I find him if it’s not?
I knock on the adjoining door again while the blue whizzy thing goes round and round. No answer. My knuckles sting from all the knocking.
Twenty-two minutes. Something’s so wrong. Am I being stupid? Am I overreacting? My hateful internal voice hisses that I am. Logan doesn’t have to account to me for his every minute.
A drop falls and splats on my phone screen. I wipe the tear away and GPS coordinates pop up under my thumb.
I have no idea what they mean. How do GPS coordinates translate into a location on a ship? At home, the app gave me a street address. Dear God, how do I find him?
I grab my room key, shove my feet into Keds, and run out the door.
I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know how to find Chief Licence or the captain. She said if I needed anything, I should come to her, but how do I find her?
No one is where they should be. The lounges are all full of passengers watching the storm lash the windows but no crew. Where are they?
I finally remember the desk at the far end of the Lido restaurant. There’s always been a white-uniformed purser standing there while we’ve been eating. Will someone be there now? I hope so. It’s the only place I can think of.
Getting to the Lido restaurant is its own challenge, since they’ve closed the pool deck, but I finally stand in front of the uniformed man, pleading, tears dripping off my chin. Whatever pathetic picture I make, it gets everyone’s attention. Within a minute, a nice lady in a Pink Pearl polo shirt has her arm around me and is telling me everything will be okay. She’s trying to get me to drink from a bottle of water, when Chief Licence appears at a run.
He takes me away from the nice lady and holds my shoulders while he listens to my barely-coherent explanation. He nods briskly and escorts me away from the purser’s station, through a maze of corridors, to a door I’m not allowed to go through, where he leaves me with strict instructions not to panic.
While I wait, I call Daddy, text him. Each time the call goes to voicemail, each time the text shows as delivered but not read, it gets harder for me to breathe.
The door opens and Captain Lopez steps out. She puts her hand under my chin. When she holds my eyes for a long moment, I feel the warm tide of her power. More like Gabriela’s than Logan’s, but it has the same strong current as Daddy’s. It backs my panic up a step. Allows a little more air into my lungs.
She takes my phone from my hand and tucks it into her pocket before she puts her thumb on my wrist and rubs. I stare at her in surprise.
“I saw Logan doing this with you,” she says. “I want you to breathe slowly, Emily, in and out, for five breaths.”
“Bu-bu-but,” I blubber.
“I will help you find Logan, Emily. First, we need to get you squared away. Five breaths. In and out.”
When I’ve taken the five breaths, and the high humming in my ears that’s telling me I’m about to pass out drops to a hiss, I blurt out why I’m so frightened. Captain Lopez’s dark eyes—as dark as Logan’s and with no emotion in them, oh, Lordy, what if she doesn’t believe me?—flick over my face.
“I understand,” she says. “Logan seems very reliable and you’re right to be worried that he’s so late. Carey said you had a way to find his phone.
