“You can’t … I … he … and …” Graham’s angry voice rose and fell. Aria could only make out every other word. “… watching you!”
“Please go away!” Aria screamed. “I said I was sorry! Please let me go!”
“… there’s a picture!” Graham continued. “… watching you!”
Aria blood sizzled. He had to be referencing the awful photo of Aria pushing Tabitha off the roof. Maybe he had taken that photo. Maybe that’s what he meant by watching you.
Thoughts cascaded in her mind like a falling line of dominoes. What if Graham was crazy about Tabitha and hadn’t let her go after they broke up? Maybe he’d followed her to Jamaica to rekindle things. Maybe he’d taken pictures of her without her knowing, and had posed on the shore to take pictures of Tabitha on the crow’s-nest deck. Only, instead of documenting Tabitha with some new friends, he had witnessed a murder. Maybe he’d snapped a picture of her lying on the beach, too, after she’d fallen and died. Maybe he’d even torn this necklace from her throat and planted it for Noel to find. It didn’t make sense why Graham didn’t tell someone at the resort right away, but maybe he’d wanted to get revenge his way. And so … he’d become A.
Aria began to tremble. Was it possible? All the warnings her friends had given her, all the times they’d said he had motive, and there she was, by his side, making excuses for him. He did have motive. He could have gotten in touch with Naomi, somehow, after the crash, and recruited her onto his team.
He could be a murderer. A torturer. And now she was trapped in this room with him on the other side.
The door thumped and thudded with Graham’s pounding fists and kicking feet. When Aria shut her eyes, she saw Tabitha’s terrified face as she fell. She pictured her broken body on the sand, kissed by the incoming tide. Aria was a terrible person. She deserved Graham to be mad at her. But she didn’t deserve what he’d done as A.
Boom.
Aria screamed and covered her head. The sound was so close, and the room vibrated. The lights flickered overhead, and the sound of metal hitting the ground clanged all around her. She let out a breath and peeked through her fingers. Had something exploded? There was as horrible smell in the air of gunpowder and charred electronics. It sort of reminded her of a firework. Or, perhaps, a homemade bomb.
A fire alarm started to blare. “Everyone!” Jeremy’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker after about a minute. “We need you to evacuate right now! Please go to your lifeboat stations in an orderly fashion!”
Evacuate? Aria’s heart started to pound. She wasn’t even opening the door.
She cocked her ear, waiting for Graham to start pounding again. A few seconds passed, and then a minute. Finally, Aria opened the door a crack. Emergency lights flashed overhead. The room was thick with smoke. A boiler had tipped over. Pieces of metal were strewn all over the floor. Black smoke was pouring out from seemingly everywhere, and flames leapt to the ceiling. The explosion had definitely occurred right there in that room.
She let out a scream, then wrenched open the door. She had to get out of there. She looked around for Graham, expecting him to grab her. But even through the haze, the realization dawned on her fast.
Graham was gone.
28
WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
Emily followed the stream of kids toward the stairs, her nostrils burning with smoke. Above her, emergency lights flashed. Kids were screaming about the strange explosion, laughing hysterically, or making nervous comparisons to Titanic. And even though they’d attended a safety meeting the very first day on the boat, no one seemed to remember where their lifeboat stations were.
“Everyone!” Jeremy yelled over the loudspeaker. “If we get separated, please remember to meet us at the Royal Arms Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda.”
Jeremy repeated the message three times more. As Emily waited to go down the stairs, she glanced at the sky. A plane zoomed overhead, coming from the Bermuda airport, which was now a ten-minute boat trip away. Was it the plane she and Jordan were supposed to be on? She pictured the people sitting in their seats, the stewardesses cruising up the aisles, the smell of fresh-brewed coffee wafting through the cabin—and the two unoccupied seats meant for her and Jordan.
The line moved up a little, and a few more kids made it through the stairwell door. A girl in front of Emily with cornrows in her hair nudged her friend. “I heard terrorists blew up the cafeteria.”
“No, these two guys who were in the talent show did it,” her friend replied knowingly. “They knew their act sucked, so they decided to bomb the place and steal the Vespa.”
“You’re making that up.” Cornrows rolled her eyes.
“Maybe it was that girl who jumped overboard earlier,” another voice said. “Maybe this was revenge for whoever ratted her out to the Feds.”
“That’s crazy.” Someone sounded annoyed. “That girl never came up for air. She’s dead.”
“Can you believe she was on this ship the whole time? Who do you think turned her in?”
Stop talking about her! Emily wanted to scream. It was like Jordan was an infamous celebrity, someone weird and unknowable. She likes a lot of milk in her coffee, she thought. She’s fearless. She’s the most amazing girl I’ve ever met.
She shut her eyes and considered Jordan’s body sinking down, down, down, to the depths of the bay, just like Tabitha’s had. She wanted to strangle A with her bare hands. Why couldn’t A have just let them go? Why did A have to ruin Every. Single. Thing?