Page 35 of No One Aboard

He regarded her, waiting. “My nephew is sitting surface for the divers...”

“Which means Francis and the others are still underwater,” she finished for him.

Alejandro nodded again and closed the door behind him.

They were alone together. Nico had to watch for the divers from above as a safety precaution in case another ship came by or there was an accident. And, rest assured, Lila would hearher noisy husband and children returning long before they ever came belowdecks.

Alejandro crossed the small room until they were eye to eye.

“Nunca lo diré,” he growled low and soft.

I’ll never tell.

The promise he made each time before they began.

It had started seven years ago when Francis and Alejandro had had a fight and Francis left for two weeks of business meetings. The twins had been in sixth grade and were gone all day, and Alejandro had stopped by unexpectedly to bring her chouquettes.

Or maybe it had started earlier, when Lila was pregnant and cooped up at home. While Francis worked eighty-hour weeks, Lila was alone in their Palm Beach villa, which they had originally purchased for her to have a quiet space outside the limelight. Palm Beach would become their default home. She was between projects then, taking Lexapro and prenatal vitamins in lieu of the tequila that usually passed the time. Her hair-care brand was in the red and needed to be euthanized. And Alejandro didn’t like working more than necessary unless it was to cook. Lila and Alejandro hadn’t done anything back then, not really, but he would stop by to cook her fajitas or play a round of blackjack. He tutored her in Spanish, traded stories about growing up Catholic, and never looked away when she spoke.

Or maybe it had been penned in the stars the moment he laid eyes on her.

The day Lila met Francis Cameron, there had been a smiling man with copper hair loitering around her trailer after a shoot. And then there was the smaller boy that lingered behind.

Francis’s shadow.

Lila had just made a name for herself filmingHerald of Mystery, and the two boys were day hires for a catering company, nobodies who wanted to catch a glimpse of a star. Lila had still been Catholic in those days, still a natural blonde. She hadn’t yet taken up smoking (her director allowed her to film scenes with herbal cigarettes instead), and she blushed whenever someone recognized her on the street. The two boys following her had been flattering, cute even. She offered to sign her autograph on a napkin, and Francis had countered by asking her out.

You can’t affordthis, Lila had told him.

Francis showed off his crowded teeth.I’ve been saving.

I don’t mean dinner.

She shooed him away, and the other boy stopped and asked for her autograph. It was the only time he’d spoken.

While Francis was away on business, it became a dizzying corner of her life, an affair that held the gravity of Guinevere falling for Lancelot while Camelot looked on, unwitting. If King Arthur ever knew, would he find it in him to burn his queen at the stake?

“Nunca lo diré,” Lila repeated.I’ll never tell.She moved to fit into Alejandro’s arms.

The sharp blare of a horn cut between them without warning.

“Jesus!” She clapped her hands over her ears. “What on earth is that?”

The horn sounded over and over. Lila curled her head into her body.All right, we get it. Now, make it stop.

But the interruption seemed to tell Alejandro something that Lila had missed. He stood straight and tense like a prey animal with cocked ears.

“Five blasts,” he said and then rushed from the room.

Five blasts?Lila followed after him to the companionway and up onto deck before it clicked.

The signal for danger.

Chapter 17

Rylan Cameron

Call sign: Minnow