DOUBLE KNOT (21 page)

We couldn’t open the garage door.

We didn’t have the right V2.

We slid down the blue garage door and sat on the cold floor.

I waited for Jess to start screaming “So? So? So?” but the second she sat down, she
conked out.

“He has the V2 to open the garage,” Fantasy said. “DeLuna has it.” DeLuna’s wife’s
head fell on her shoulder.

“I wish I could sleep like her.” I didn’t realize Mother and I were holding hands,
but we were. “I could use forty winks.”

“What does that even mean?” Fantasy asked. “I know it means take a nap, but if you’re
winking forty times during your nap are you getting any rest?”

We sat against the garage door silently. Except for Jess snoring. Anderson Cooper
purred on the babies.

Fantasy said, “I guess everyone’s in the casino.”

“Yep.” I tried to keep my eyes open. “Did either of you see a cart anywhere?”

“In those coolers,” Mother said. “I saw a cart with milk bottles.”

“Bottles?” Fantasy asked.

“I hope it’s on wheels,” I said.

“Are we going to roll Jess?” Fantasy asked.

“No,” I said. “Let’s take tools back to our suite.”

“What kind of tools?” Mother asked.

“The kind to patch the hole in the wall so DeLuna can’t come down it.”

“If we have access to tools—” Fantasy repositioned Jess’s dark snoring head, “—let’s
break into this garage and get No Hair out.”

“It’s electric,” I said. “The only thing we can do is electrocute ourselves or tear
up the door. We have to have the right V2 to open it.” We needed DeLuna’s V2. I’d
taken my one and only shot at the
Probability
system twenty minutes ago when I deleted our faces from digiCam so we could move
around. By now, the system knew it had been breached and was certainly locked down.
If I could get back in, I’d reroute his V2 functions to Poppy’s phone. I’d transfer
his phone brain to hers so we could get to No Hair, just behind the garage door, so
close. The best I could hope for now was an hour’s sleep and enough brain function
to hack into
Probability
’s system through Poppy’s laptop and gain access to his V2 that way. And turn ours
on while I was at it.

Mother’s head snapped up when her chin accidentally hit her chest. “Oops-a-daisy,”
she said. “The sandman hit me.”

“Time to wake her up?” Fantasy squirmed under the weight of Jess.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I placed an open palm on the garage door before I walked away. My promise to No Hair
I’d get him out. One way or another, I’d free him.

* * *

We made it back to 704.

From the relative safety of the public elevators and companionways, I made four more
attempts to reach Bradley with Poppy’s V2. None of the calls made it through.
Probability
was still dead in the water, so calling anyone in any position of authority still
wasn’t an option.

We couldn’t find the energy to patch the hole in the dressing room wall.

“We’ll sleep in shifts.” Fantasy pulled up a gun and a chair. “You go first, Davis.”

And that’s the last I remember of Sunday.

The next thing I knew, we were up, down, across, curled, spooned, and tangled in my
bed when the dawn of Monday morning reached Anderson Cooper’s little eyes. She made
several rounds with her pokey little paws until she was sure everyone was awake.

It took me a minute to process that we’d lived through the night. And at some point
while we slept, the
Probability
engines started up and we were moving again.

Jess sat up first. “So, how did we get back here? So, what happened?”

Mother’s bed head popped up. “I could eat a horse.”

Fantasy’s pushed Anderson to me. “Take your alarm clock.”

I saw legs I knew, but didn’t know. I lifted blankets and followed the legs to their
owner. “Ar
linda
?”

TWENTY

By silent agreement, we moved to my stateroom. Safety in numbers.

It looked—the sitting room full of everyone’s everything, the bedroom a study in pillows
and blankets, the dressing room sprinkled with power tools and scattered
Probability
server bikinis, the gold bathroom countertops brimming—as if 704 had flipped, shaken,
then righted itself.

We gathered around the kitchen table at nine thirty, two and a half hours until noon,
when ninety-nine-point-nine percent of
Probability
passengers and security would be in the casino, providing enough cover for us to
attempt another No Hair rescue. Two and a half hours to figure out
how
to attempt another No Hair rescue. Two and a half hours and a computer to somehow
contact my husband, Mr. Sanders at the Bellissimo, my father, the Coast Guard, Pizza
Hut, 911, the Red Cross, GEICO Roadside Assistance, Hawaii Five-O, Aquaman—anyone
or anything that could or would help us.

Mother, freshly showered and dressed in a nautical jogging suit featuring anchors
and buoys connected by loopy boat lines, fed us sausage biscuits, a cinnamon pull-apart
cake, and cantaloupe. She wedged the food onto the white kitchen table between the
laptop,
The Compass
, her (no signal whatsoever) portable phone, and the V2 we took off a corpse. Then
she came at us with two coffeepots. She poured steaming hot coffee into English pub
beer glasses for herself, Fantasy, Jess, and Arlinda, and when she got to me, she
poured from the second pot. “This is a little bit of the regular Starbucks, Davis,
and a whole lot of the Starbucks decaffeinated.”

Why hadn’t I thought of this?

Mother stood there in her sailor suit with the two coffeepots and launched into one
of her favorite speeches: “The Good Old Days.” The television had three channels,
kids played outside, mothers didn’t work, nice young men wearing snappy uniforms pumped
gas, empty soda bottles somehow turned into Saturday matinee tickets, and pregnant
women drank coffee.

“So, when was this?” Jess had showered and changed into a clean pool towel, her long
dark hair still dripping. “Are you talking about Dr. Phil?”

I stared at the coffee trying to figure out how to get through the blue garage door.
Mother stared at me as I stared at the coffee trying to figure out how to get through
the blue garage door. Which brought on another of her favorites: “Keep Your Chin Up.”
Don’t meet trouble halfway, every cloud has a silver lining, tough times call for
tougher women, paddle the canoe you find yourself in, and the darkest hour is just
before the dawn.

“We have a canoe?” Jess asked.

My babies rolled and tumbled.

Arlinda reached for more cinnamon cake.

“This is delicious.”

* * *

The primary bar servicing
Probability
casino patrons was located directly above 704. Five small satellite bars were strategically
scattered elsewhere in the casino for alcohol emergencies, but ninety percent of the
cocktails and one hundred percent of the wine came from the main bar. Behind it, the
fifty (supermodels) servers, all female, had their own changing rooms and lockers.
The changing rooms were cozy personal cubbies with full-length mirrors, lighted makeup
mirrors, rolling wardrobes, and shoe racks. Against the back wall the servers had
a locker for personal items and valuables. The changing rooms and lockers were V2
access only.

For the week-long cruise, the servers had a total of twenty-one skimpy uniforms. Three
wardrobe changes a day. Their V2s alerted them when it was time to change, and they
were allowed eight minutes to put down their trays, hustle to their changing rooms,
strip out of one nautical bikini, and tuck themselves into the next, then be back
on the casino floor passing out Red Bull and vodka. Between uniform changes the servers
weren’t allowed to leave the casino floor.

When the casino opened at the stroke of midnight after the billionaire married the
nanny, no one entered the changing rooms again until the next uniform change at two
a.m. So no one knew Max DeLuna was trapped until the V2 alert went out to remind the
servers a uniform change was approaching. At eight minutes ’til. Max DeLuna had been
trapped in Arlinda Smith’s changing room for two solid hours. He couldn’t break down
the door, because one thing
Probability
did very well was doors, and he couldn’t fit down the passageway in the floor of
her locker, had he even wanted to fit down the passageway, which he probably didn’t,
because he believed his wife to be at the end of the tunnel. And it was a very safe
bet he didn’t want to see her.

What we hadn’t taken time to anticipate last night when we sent her up the wall to
trap him in her changing room was Arlinda’s exit strategy when Max DeLuna escaped.
Arlinda had gone straight to work on the casino floor and tried not to
think
about Max DeLuna locked in her changing room again until she received the second
V2 warning to prepare for a wardrobe change. Only then did it occur to her she would
have to deal with the aftermath of locking him up. Because she realized, as she passed
the main bar, that had he managed to escape, she’d know about it already. He’d have
tracked her down first. And throttled her.

Her pace slowed as she approached the changing rooms, her sister servers flying past,
and she was the last one to set foot in the common area. She found a small crowd at
the door of her changing room, most in various stages of nakedness climbing in and
out of bikinis. One said, “Arlinda, there’s a man in your changing room.”

She died a little.

“You need to let him out.”

He would surely kill her the rest of the way when she opened the door. So she waited
until more servers stopped to gawk, several already in bright yellow push-up bras
with matching boy shorts sporting embroidered captain’s wheels on the butts, because
the more witnesses the merrier.

“You need to let him out, Arlinda.”

“Yes, Arlinda.” A man’s voice from inside her changing room. “Let him out.”

She had no choice but to scan the door with her V2.

Max DeLuna stepped out, straightened his tie, and found Arlinda in the server crowd.
He held out his hand. “Give me my V2.”

“I don’t have your V2, Mr. DeLuna.”

“Yes, you do. Give it to me.”

“No, I don’t.” Her knees wobbled. “I don’t.”

This went on until server V2s all around sounded the third and final warning and servers
began scattering. It got down to the two of them.

DeLuna said, “Get your things and come with me.”

“Mr. DeLuna,” Arlinda said. “It was an accident.”

“Don’t insult me. Get your things.”

Arlinda went to get her things. But the second she stepped into her changing room
she kicked the door closed and scanned it locked. She began sailing her personal belongings
down the chute that led to 704 and slid down behind them. She found a pillow and a
blanket, then crawled into bed with us.

Sometime during the night, the path from 704 to the floor of her locker had been permanently
sealed, blocking any future 704 exit by bulkhead. But that was okay. Because I’d wiped
our faces off the Probability grid and we had Poppy’s V2 to get in and out the door.
Max DeLuna thought he’d solved his 704 problem.

I intended to let him keep thinking it.

It was ten thirty and I’d finished my third English pub glass of the Starbucks (so
good) before Arlinda finished the story. I tried her V2 again. Nothing. DeLuna knew
where she was, he knew her V2 had come down the wall with her, and it was just as
operable as ours were, which is to say not at all. “Where
is
Mr. DeLuna’s V2, Arlinda?”

She shifted in her white seat. “I don’t have it and I don’t know where it is. He pulled
it out of his front pocket and passed it to me when he bent over to look in the locker.”

“You should have given him a little push when he bent over to look in the locker,”
Fantasy said.

“Then he’d be here.” Jess tapped the table. “I’d hate that so hard.”

I’d hate that so hard too. Because we didn’t have another trunk. “And then what?”

Arlinda demonstrated. “I had my V2 in this hand. I had his in this one. I had to get
out fast. I didn’t want to get the V2s mixed up so I sat his down.”

“Where?”

“I can’t even remember. My shoe rack, I think.”

“He was in there two hours,” I said. “Alone in a closet for two hours. How’d he miss
it?”

It was a think tank all around the white table, except for Jess, who asked, “So?”
Then every chair scraped back except hers and we made a run for the dressing room,
Jess trailing behind, holding up her towel, yelling, “So? So? So?”

We sidestepped the power tools to get to Arlinda’s scattered shoes. Mother found it
inside a red leather Fendi ankle boot.

We had Max DeLuna’s V2.

TWENTY-ONE

DeLuna’s V2 had been cleared of personal information, but not deleted from the system.
Which meant he had no idea we had it. He might not know where it was, but he didn’t
suspect we had it or it would’ve been completely scrubbed. As it was, factory settings
and all, the home screen apps were available and the passenger identification information
transferred to a different V2. The V2 we found in the Fendi ankle boot wasn’t assigned
to anyone. Or anyone’s thumb. I pushed the power button; it lit up. Behind a number
pad was the phone application. Behind a question mark was the V2 help desk. Behind
a black bow tie, we could make restaurant reservations, beside it a mailbox, then
a full moon, which turned out to be an app for shipboard stargazing. Behind a rolled
newspaper was the day’s itinerary, and behind a wind rose was our exact location with
a countdown clock showing we would arrive in the Caymans in 9:24:02. (9:23:59) (9:23:56)
(And so forth and so on.) My favorite was the padlock icon. What was left of his V2
should still open and close the doors it was programmed for.

“If that’s a phone, I don’t understand why you can’t call your father, Davis.”

“For the same reason we can’t use Poppy’s phone, Mrs. Way,” Fantasy said. “We don’t
want
DeLuna to know we have a way to call out. We don’t want to tip our hand. If we make
a call from inside this room, he’ll know we have a V2.”

“Well.” Mother blew a raspberry. “Fiddlesticks.”

Arlinda held her hand up, third-grade style. “Who is Poppy?”

“She’s a crazed bitch,” Mother said.

(OMG.)

“So, a
cray
bitch.”

“Right.”

Mother mouthed it silently several times so she wouldn’t forget again.

“Poppy was our stateroom attendant, Arlinda,” I said.

“Was?” she asked. “Where is she? What happened to her?”

“She—” Jessica was about to tell the tale of the trunks.

“Jess?” When we need her asleep she’s awake. When we need her awake she’s asleep.
“Let’s stay on track.”

“I’m so confused,” Arlinda said.

“So, me too,” Jess said.

I looked at my watch. I stood.

“We don’t have time to be confused.”

* * *

The casino opened at noon. I planned on having No Hair out of the submarine at noon-oh-five.
What I couldn’t count on was the Orlon Deck being deserted at midday like it was at
midnight, so Fantasy and I had to get clever. She was cleverly stuffed into one of
Poppy’s uniforms: khaki shorts and a
Probability
staff T-shirt. The only problem being Poppy was (very past tense) half Fantasy’s
size. I couldn’t fit anything of Poppy’s past my elbow, so I had to suck it up and
go back to Burnsworth’s room. I borrowed a starched white short-sleeve cotton uniform
shirt with navy blue shoulder boards that extended a good eight inches past my shoulders.
I was wearing the uniform tent over my Mommy 2B white stretch pants, and I looked
like I was on my way to knock on
Probability
doors and say, “Trick or treat.”

Fantasy pulled the Berretta PX4 we found in a lockbox in Poppy’s room from somewhere
behind her. It couldn’t have been the waistband of the khaki shorts, because there
wasn’t room to fit an idea in the waistband of those shorts. She placed it in front
of Mother. Who stared at it.

“Don’t let anyone in except us, Mother. Anyone. And shoot to kill.”

“You got it, Davis.”

Then, at long last we caught a break.

Fantasy and I walked out of 704 at eleven forty-five using Poppy’s V2 to open the
door. We traveled the companionway without seeing anyone. We took the service elevator
alone to the Orlon Deck, where we found plenty of traffic. We got a few looks because
I was so pregnant and Fantasy was so busting out of her t-shirt, but for the most
part we blended in. We could have been the butler and stateroom attendant in any of
the fifty suites, albeit a very pregnant butler and a six-foot-tall stateroom attendant
in Daisy Dukes.

I snagged a wide service cart stacked high with dishes (we could use in 704) so large
and heavy it took both of us to roll it. We hid behind the dishes and made our way
down the wide path we’d traveled last night without incident. A few close calls with
the dish cart today, but again, no incidents. That it was lunch helped. An hour earlier
or later might have meant more traffic. As it was, we looked like we were doing our
jobs and everyone we passed looked like they were doing theirs. We made it to the
lobster tank. We stepped behind it and stood in front of the blue garage door. I aimed
Max DeLuna’s V2, and with everything I had, prayed the door would open. The lock slid
and the blue door raised and rolled. Fantasy ran through first, then helped me cross
the gap between metal floor and submarine dock. I aimed the V2 again and closed the
garage door behind us, then we took exactly one second to orient ourselves to the
massive dimly lit space with a submarine close enough to reach out and touch.

“Where’s the door?”

Fantasy’s breath was coming in gasps.

Mine too. “Look for a hatch. Find the hatch. There!” I saw a set of dock steps. We
ran, we climbed, yelling “No Hair!” the whole way. I aimed, I pushed the padlock,
and nothing. The V2 wouldn’t open the hatch. I tried it ten more times and as hard
as I was trying to get V2 to open the hatch, I was trying harder not to have a full-blown
panic attack.

“You’re going to have to climb, Fantasy.”

“Climb
what
?”

“The submarine. To the escape hatch.” I sat down hard on a dock step. “There are four
exterior ladders. Find one. Climb to the top. You’ll find a round hatch on top of
the submarine right in the middle.” My heart was beating out of Burnsworth’s shirt.

She took off and I dropped down to a sitting position on the dock step in front of
the hatch. The air in the submarine chamber was dead, there wasn’t a ray of natural
light, and
Prospect 1000
was floating in water with wide docks built around it. My eyes adjusted more and
I found another blue garage door against the hull of the ship, this one wide enough
for
Prospect
to clear.

I listened as Fantasy thumped down the dock in one direction, then the other. She
found a ladder. I couldn’t see her climbing, but I could hear her.

“I got it, Davis!” Her voice echoed off the chamber walls. I heard the slam of the
escape hatch opening. “I’m going in!”

The longest seventeen minutes of my life ensued, during which I wandered up and down
the wide dock worrying the hem of Burnsworth’s shirt until I had it twisted into knots.
I couldn’t hear anything from inside
Prospect
; the only thing I could hear was my own pulse slamming my temples and the water gently
slapping the submarine chamber walls. It raced through my mind that this level of
stress couldn’t possibly be good for my babies and if I
ever
got off this ship, I would sit my butt in a chair and stay in it, without moving
one single muscle, until the day these babies were born. My thoughts raced past Mother,
Daddy, my sister Meredith, my niece Riley, and the daughter I had yet to meet, then
they all landed on Bradley. I’d never wanted or needed him more, and alone in the
submarine chamber I was on the edge of turning a dark corner of despair—something
must have happened to Fantasy inside
Prospect
—certain I’d never see Bradley or anyone else again, when I finally heard Fantasy.

“DAVIS!” She was climbing out from the escape hatch. “
Davis
!
Davis
!
Davis
!”

The sheer panic she painted on my name as she called it out paralyzed me.

“
Davis
!”

I took off, running for her, and the next thing I saw, clearing the shadowy corner,
was No Hair. The relief of seeing him would have knocked me down had he not started
yelling my name too. “
DAVIS
!” Urgency propelled his stiff muscles down the dock. “The pilot!” The two words bounced
off the metal walls. “Davis! The pilot! DeLuna’s pilot! She’s on
Bellissimo One
! She’s flying Bradley’s plane!”

I passed out.