Chapter 4 - The Deleted Hour)
Caleb Ross answered Danil's call on the third ring.
He was forty minutes away.
Danil put the phone on speaker.
"The lower deck camera just went offline."
Caleb's voice sharpened.
"Which one?"
"Galley corridor."
A pause.
"That camera shouldn't go offline individually."
Vanessa stood near the stairs with her arms folded.
Danil watched her.
"What does that mean?"
"It means somebody disconnected that camera or disabled the lower deck feed from the security console."
"Can footage be deleted remotely?"
"Not externally."
Vanessa smiled.
Danil caught it.
"But it can be deleted from the yacht?"
Caleb hesitated.
"Yes."
"By who?"
"Anyone with administrator access."
"Who has administrator access?"
Another pause.
"Mrs. Grant."
Emily saw Vanessa's smile disappear.
Danil asked, "Anyone else?"
"Me. Captain Morris. And the emergency account."
"Lucas?"
Silence.
Caleb said, "Who?"
Danil looked at Vanessa.
"A man named Lucas."
"I don't know any Lucas."
Vanessa exhaled.
"Because Sophie invented him."
Sophie gripped Emily's hand.
Danil ended the call.
For the next ten minutes, everything became strangely formal.
The engagement party upstairs continued.
Guests laughed.
Music played.
A speech began.
Downstairs, Danil ordered a crew member to bring Sophie shoes and a blanket.
He asked Melissa to stay with Emily.
He told the yacht captain that no security equipment was to be touched until Caleb arrived.
Vanessa objected to every instruction.
Danil ignored her.
Emily sat on a bench near the galley.
Her cheek throbbed.
Melissa pressed a wrapped ice pack into her hand.
"What happened?" Melissa whispered.
Emily glanced toward Danil.
"He hit me."
Melissa went pale.
"Danil Grant?"
Emily nodded.
"Oh my God."
"That's not the biggest problem."
She looked at Sophie.
The girl was sitting under a blanket drinking water through a straw.
Melissa followed her gaze.
"Oh my God," she repeated.
Emily leaned closer.
"Don't let anybody take her somewhere alone."
Melissa stared at her.
"You think Vanessa did this?"
"I know she did."
"You saw her?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
Emily thought about Sophie's terror.
"Because children can be afraid of a person before they have the words to explain why."
At nine twenty, Caleb Ross arrived.
He was thirty six, wearing jeans, a rain jacket, and glasses he kept pushing up his nose.
He carried two hard equipment cases.
Vanessa met him at the lower stairwell.
"There was a malfunction."
Caleb looked at Danil.
Danil said, "There may have been evidence destruction."
Caleb stopped.
"That's different."
Vanessa folded her arms.
"No one destroyed anything."
Caleb connected a laptop to a maintenance port.
The lower hallway camera came back online.
"Feed is working."
Danil stood behind him.
"Show me the last hour."
Caleb typed.
A loading icon appeared.
Then a message.
FILE NOT FOUND.
Emily felt her stomach drop.
Caleb typed again.
Another message.
He checked a second directory.
Then a third.
"The recording is gone."
Vanessa looked almost bored.
"I told you the camera didn't record."
Caleb turned in his chair.
"It records."
Her expression changed.
He continued.
"All internal cameras record on a forty eight hour loop."
Danil looked at Vanessa.
"You said they were live only."
She shrugged.
"I was mistaken."
Caleb studied the logs.
"Someone manually deleted sixty three minutes."
"When?"
"Eight forty seven."
Emily looked at the wall clock.
That had been only minutes after she found Sophie.
Danil asked, "Which account?"
Caleb's fingers moved.
Then stopped.
"Emergency administrator."
"Who has that password?"
"Captain Morris and Mrs. Grant."
Vanessa's voice became cold.
"And your company."
"Not that account."
Captain Morris appeared at the door.
He was a gray haired man in his late fifties.
"I didn't delete anything."
Vanessa smiled.
"How convenient."
Morris stared at her.
"I've been on the bridge since six."
"Can you prove that?"
"Bridge cameras."
Caleb looked at his screen.
"They weren't deleted."
Danil said, "Check."
The footage showed Captain Morris on the bridge at eight forty seven.
Danil turned toward Vanessa.
"Where were you?"
She did not answer.
Emily did.
"Down here."
Vanessa looked at her sharply.
"You were in this hallway when I found Sophie."
Caleb checked another screen.
"If the deletion was issued through the local network, we might identify the device."
Danil nodded.
"Do it."
Caleb searched.
His eyebrows drew together.
"What?"
He enlarged a line of data.
"The deletion command came from a tablet."
Vanessa said nothing.
Caleb looked at Danil.
"Registered to the owner's suite."
Danil turned toward his wife.
Vanessa laughed.
"You think I ran upstairs, deleted video, and came back in two minutes?"
"No," Emily said.
Everyone looked at her.
Emily remembered Sophie's words.
"Lucas."
Vanessa's face hardened.
Danil said, "Explain."
"Sophie said a man named Lucas has deleted footage before."
Caleb turned to Sophie.
"Did you see the tablet?"
Vanessa stepped between them.
"Do not interrogate a child."
Sophie looked past her.
"He keeps it in the blue bag."
Danil stared.
"What blue bag?"
"The one he hides in Mommy's room."
Vanessa went completely still.
Danil looked at her.
"My first wife's room?"
On the Azure Crown, Danil had preserved one private cabin exactly as it had been when his first wife, Hannah, was alive.
Vanessa hated that room.
She had asked him repeatedly to renovate it.
He always refused.
Danil walked toward the private cabin corridor.
Vanessa followed.
"Danil."
He kept walking.
"Danil, stop."
He reached Hannah's cabin.
The door was locked.
Danil tried his keycard.
Red light.
He tried again.
Red.
Caleb checked the lock.
"Access permissions were changed."
"When?"
Caleb connected his laptop.
"Three days ago."
Danil turned.
Vanessa was already walking away.
"Stop her."
Captain Morris moved toward her.
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
"You can't detain me on my own yacht."
Danil's voice became quiet.
"Then don't make anyone have to."
Caleb reset the lock.
The door clicked.
Danil entered first.
Emily remained with Sophie outside.
Ten seconds later, Danil called Emily's name.
She hesitated.
"Why me?"
"Because I want a witness."
Emily looked at Melissa.
"Stay with Sophie."
Then she entered.
Hannah Grant's cabin looked untouched.
Cream curtains.
Old books.
A framed family photograph beside the bed.
Danil, Hannah, and a much younger Sophie.
There was grief in the room.
Not fresh grief.
The kind that had become part of the furniture.
Danil knelt beside the bed.
A blue leather bag was partially visible underneath.
He pulled it out.
Inside was a tablet.
Caleb switched it on.
The device connected automatically to the yacht network.
"It could have issued the deletion."
Danil searched the bag.
Beneath the tablet was a blue folder.
Sophie had been right.
Danil opened it.
The first page contained his signature.
Emily watched him read.
"What is it?"
Danil did not answer.
He turned to the second page.
Then the third.
His face drained of color.
Vanessa appeared in the doorway.
"You shouldn't have opened that."
Danil slowly looked up.
"What did I sign?"
Vanessa leaned against the doorframe.
"Something that protects this family."
Danil stood.
"This gives you emergency authority over Sophie's trust."
"It allows me to manage certain assets if you're deemed unavailable."
"I never agreed to this."
"Your signature says otherwise."
Danil stared at the page.
Then Caleb spoke from behind him.
"There's another problem."
He pointed toward the tablet.
A notification had appeared.
REMOTE CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.
Someone else had just logged into the yacht security system.
The username appeared beneath it.
LUCAS_VALE.
Danil whispered the name as if it belonged to a ghost.
"Lucas Vale."
Emily looked at him.
"You know him."
Danil closed the folder.
"My wife Hannah died in a car accident three years ago."
May you like
He stared at the screen.
"Lucas Vale was the last person seen with her alive."
