Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“Slade, you’re scaring me.”
Placing his hands on my arms, he steers me to a nearby seat. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure out what to do.”
“Can’t we radio the Coast Guard or whatever?” I distinctly remember Oliver carefully giving me the safety rundown yesterday and there being a myriad of emergency options.
“He cut the wires.” Slade crouches down, his hand in his hair again. “The bastard cut the wires to the radio. He took the solar flares. He threw all of the food and water overboard—at least I assume so because the kitchen is empty. He must’ve drained the gas tank somehow, or maybe he didn’t fill it all the way before we left, but either way, we’re on E. The satellite cell is gone, too. Even the life jackets.”
“What?” The panic in my voice sends a tightness to my throat. “What about that boat? The emergency one he talked about? The inflatable?”
“It’s gone too. I’m guessing that’s how he got out of here.” He rises, pacing again. “That fucking bastard left us here to die.”
Slade takes the seat next to me.
“I’m so sorry, Campbell,” he says, staring blankly ahead, a shell-shocked look about him. “I can’t believe he would do this.”
“We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”
Two weeks ago today, we said the words ‘til death do us part.
The irony of that isn’t lost on me.
37
Slade
“You have to drink something,” I tell her. It’s been twenty-four hours since Oliver left us stranded somewhere in the Atlantic. I hand her the champagne bucket filled with melted ice. It’s all we have for water. Apparently Oliver thought of everything—going so far as to shut off the water filtration system and drain the onboard tank.
The bastard had to have been planning this for a while.
“It’s all we have,” she says, her tongue smacking against the roof of her mouth. Her eyes are looking hollower by the hour. The average person can survive up to three days without water, but being out here, under the hot sun, might accelerate that. I promised Campbell she’d be safe, that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. If anyone dies on this fucking boat, it’s not going to be her.
Hunger pangs sound from her stomach, but she says nothing. I must have torn this ship upside down earlier looking for something edible, only to come up empty-handed. I’d have settled for a fishing rod or a net, too, but again, Oliver thought of everything.
“You need to sit down,” she tells me. “Stop moving so much, stop pacing, conserve your energy.”
She closes her eyes, massaging her temples. For a moment, I’m hit with a flashback of my mother in one of her debilitating states, where nothing provided her relief or comfort from her pain.
“I’m going to kill him,” I say for the millionth time since yesterday.
Campbell says nothing. We both know in order to kill that man, I’d have to get off this boat alive, and it’s not looking like that’s going to happen anytime soon.
“Maybe we should lie down,” she says, her voice slow and lacking a shred of energy. She’s fading already, and we’re only twenty-four hours into this. “We don’t have food or water, but we have each other.”
It’s the only thing we have, literally.
It’s too hot to lie down in bed, so I spread out a blanket on the floor of the helm, under the shade. It must be a hundred degrees outside, which means we’re hardly getting relief from the sun. Yesterday we figured out pretty quickly that Oliver also sabotaged the generator, rendering the air conditioner useless.
“I’m sorry,” I tell my wife of two weeks.
“Shh,” she rests her head against my shoulder, closing her eyes. “Save your energy.”
Unless some random boat happens to pass by, there’s no point. It would take divine intervention, and it’s been my experience in life that miracles don’t happen.
“I love you, Campbell,” I say. I’ve never said those words before to anyone. “I’ve loved you for years, even if I didn’t realize it.”
“I love you too,” she says. “You’ve grown on me these last couple of weeks.”
She wears a weak smile for me.
While I should be focusing on her, on what could very well be our final days together, all I can think about is all the things I want to do when I see Oliver … if I see Oliver. This entire thing is about money. That’s the simplest explanation. What a fool I was to ever worry that he would try to steal Campbell out from under me. It was never her he wanted. It was the Delacorte money. If I die, Oliver will be the last remaining heir to the Delacorte fortune, as the prenup specifically prohibits Campbell from collecting anything other than what was previously agreed upon.
With my mother gone and with me out of the picture, Oliver will get everything once my father passes.