Chapter 2 - The Knock at the Door
The rhythmic pounding on the heavy oak door reverberated through the cabin like a drumbeat of doom.
“Ship security,” a deep, muffled man’s voice called out from the hallway. “Mr. Hartman, are you safe in there?”
Ashly’s heart hammered against her ribs, but her external posture remained frozen in tactical readiness. Noticeably, the security officer hadn’t asked if both of them were safe. He hadn’t asked for Mrs. Hartman. He was checking exclusively on Gregory.
Gregory beamed up from the carpet beneath her, his expression dripping with smug vindication.
“I told you,” he whispered triumphantly, his voice raspy. “They’re expecting this.”
Ashly dragged his dead weight away from the door, tucking him behind the heavy armchair where he couldn't easily lunge or shout warnings to the corridor, and crept toward the door. She peered through the brass peephole.
What she saw froze the blood in her veins.
Standing in the brightly lit corridor were two uniformed cruise ship security officers, their posture rigid and professional. But standing right beside them, holding a clipboard and looking deeply concerned, was Gregory’s father.
The same father who was supposed to be back home in Miami. The same patriarch who had taught Gregory that women needed to be kept "in line" with aluminum bats.
Worse still, tucked securely beneath the elder Hartman's arm was a second baseball bat, wrapped in protective plastic.
Ashly’s stomach plummeted into a bottomless void. This wasn't a localized domestic dispute; it was an organized family enterprise. The ship's security detail had already been subverted, bought off, or manipulated before the ship had even cleared the Florida straits.
Suddenly, the screen of Gregory’s cell phone, resting face-up on the unmade bed sheets, lit up with a harsh, glaring white light. A text message notification popped up from an unsaved number, but the sender ID was clear: Mother-in-law.
Ashly lunged across the mattress and grabbed the device. The message displayed in bold, terrifying letters:
ASHLY, DON’T OPEN THE DOOR. GREGORY’S FIRST WIFE DIDN’T SURVIVE THEIR HONEYMOON.
Ashly’s breath caught in her throat. Before she could swipe away the notification, a second message flashed across the screen with lethal speed:
THE CRUISE DOCTOR HELPED THEM COVER IT UP.
The heavy brass handle of the cabin door slowly began to turn from the outside.
With a sickening click, the latch mechanism gave way. Gregory’s father had been issued a master key by the compromised security team.
Ashly looked around the room in frantic desperation. The balcony doors leading out to the open ocean were dead-bolted from the inside, opening onto a sheer twenty-foot drop above churning white foam. The hallway exit was blocked by armed security and a corrupt family member. She was cornered in a floating cage designed to keep secrets buried at sea.
Then, from the drywall directly behind the headboard, a faint, metallic scraping sound emerged.
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A frightened, breathless woman’s voice whispered through the thin partition separating Suite 804 from the adjacent stateroom:
“Marine, if you can hear me, knock twice. I know where they hid the first wife’s body.”
