Chapter 9 - HUSBAND ON THE RUN
The ship became a maze.
Passengers continued drinking in lounges and dancing beneath chandeliers without realizing a man accused of attacking his wife was moving somewhere among them.
Security avoided a full passenger alarm because panic on a cruise ship could become dangerous faster than almost anything else.
Instead, officers quietly sealed sections deck by deck.
Ortiz wanted me inside the security center.
I agreed.
Not because I was afraid of Gregory.
Because chasing him would have been exactly what he wanted.
My old training had taught me something more valuable than fighting.
Do not let an opponent choose the battlefield.
Gregory knew this ship better than I did because someone had helped him prepare.
I stayed where the cameras, officers, and witnesses were strongest.
At 12:28 a.m., my phone rang.
Gregory.
Ortiz signaled for me to answer.
I put it on speaker.
“Where are you?”
He laughed softly.
“Still giving orders.”
“I’m not the one hiding.”
“You embarrassed me.”
“You attacked me.”
“You could have handled that privately.”
There it was again.
The Hartman worldview.
Cruelty was acceptable.
Exposure was the unforgivable offense.
“Come back to security,” I said.
“We can talk.”
“You think I’m stupid?”
“No.”
I paused.
“I think you’re afraid.”
Silence.
I had found the nerve.
His breathing changed.
“You were supposed to be different.”
“Different from Celia?”
Another silence.
Then his voice dropped.
“My mother has been filling your head.”
“Did you kill her?”
“I loved Celia.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Gregory exhaled.
“She made choices.”
My entire body went cold.
“What choices?”
“She humiliated me.”
Ortiz immediately began writing.
I kept him talking.
“How?”
“She tried to leave.”
The words came with genuine resentment.
“She took documents.”
“She threatened my father.”
“She thought she could destroy my family and walk away.”
“And then she went overboard.”
Gregory said nothing.
I looked at Ortiz.
She was staring at the phone.
Then Gregory whispered.
“You should tell my mother to stop digging up graves.”
The line disconnected.
Ortiz’s officers traced the call.
Deck Eleven.
Forward observation lounge.
Security converged.
They found his phone beneath a sofa.
Gregory was already gone.
But someone had left something beside the phone.
My wedding photograph.
The one taken outside the church six hours before we boarded.
A black line had been drawn across my face.
May you like
On the back were five handwritten words.
YOU WON’T REACH THE MORNING.
