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Mom: If everything were fine, you wouldn’t be sharing your iPhone location like a hostage!
Me: I’ll check-in with you in an hour. If you don’t hear from me, you have my permission to talk to dad’s poker detective friend.
Mom: What if they take you out to international waters? What if they’re pirates?
Me: Love you, Mom.
I set a reminder to text her in 45 minutes. Knowing her, she wouldn’t wait the full hour before freaking out.
When I looked out the window again, I didn’t see the roads and buildings of the greater Providence area. There was only the endless blue of the ocean. I oriented myself; the sun was to our left, which meant we were flying south.
I hope my mom isn’t right. If I’m kidnapped and taken to international waters, she’ll never let me hear the end of it.
“Where are we going?” I asked calmly. At least, I hoped I sounded calm.
Andrew ran a hand through his wavy chestnut hair. “To the Bellerophon.”
“The what?”
“The Bellerophon is Mr. Benning’s ship.” He cocked his head at me curiously. “You still haven’t Googled him, have you?”
I stared at him for five long seconds, then pulled out my phone. By the time I had typed Pierce Benning into the search engine, it gave me a blank page. I no longer had cell signal.
“There’s Wi-Fi on the boat,” Andrew said, sensing why I was frowning. “We’re actually about to land.”
Sure enough, the sound of the engine changed pitch as the helicopter began descending. It turned, wheeling around in a circle, and I got a glimpse of the boat Andrew had referred to.
Except it wasn’t a boat.
It was a fucking mega-yacht.
The scale didn’t seem real until we drew closer. There was a helipad at one end of the yacht, but that circular space took up only a pinprick of the length of the ship. There were five floors—decks?—above the water line, and a huge swimming pool on the opposite end as the helipad. The name Bellerophon was written in cursive script on the side of the ship.
What kind of a name is that, anyway? I wondered. I started to pull out my phone to Google it, but then remembered that I had no signal.
The landing was so calm that I didn’t realize we had touched down until Andrew opened the door. I climbed out, ducking my head instinctively. Up ahead, next to a doorway leading into the interior of the ship, was another well-dressed man flanked by white-clad servants. He had short blond hair, perfectly combed, and his suit was slate-gray. Everything about him—from the brown dress shoes and matching belt, to the perfectly-arranged tie clip, to the gold cufflinks—spoke of a man who preferred everything proper and orderly.
Is this him? I wondered. Is this Pierce Benning?
Over to the right, there was another man standing on the edge of the yacht wearing nothing but tight board shorts. He was tan and had an array of tattoos down one arm, and was holding a wooden spear with a shiny bladed tip. He glanced over at the commotion on the helipad, but didn’t seem to care very much. Abruptly, he dove headfirst into the water, disappearing under the surface. I shuddered; I knew that the water off the coast of Rhode Island was frigid this time of year, and the swimmer wasn’t wearing a wet suit.
Back on the boat, the well-dressed man cleared his throat and said in a crisp English accent: “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Norris.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Benning,” I said, extending my hand.
The man chuckled softly as he shook my hand.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“The whole world,” he replied. “But especially what you just said.”
“This is Tristan Lowe, Mr. Benning’s personal assistant,” Andrew explained. The two of them embraced briefly, and then Andrew added, “Didn’t realize you were back so soon.”
“I finished up that nasty affair in London sooner than expected.” Tristan glanced at me with eyes so blue they were almost gray. “Besides, I would not miss today for all the tea in Boston harbor.”
Is he talking about me? Why would this be such a big deal to Mr. Benning’s personal assistant? Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Benning had been searching for a surrogate for longer than I thought.
Out on the water, fifty feet from the yacht, the man with the arm tattoos resurfaced with a splash. He raised the spear out of the water; three plump lobsters were skewered on the blade.
