He gave a jolly, nervous laugh. “No, but I know you. You used to come around the docks when you were a little girl.”
My grandfather had often brought me to the shipping yards. I had met dozens of captains over the years. “Sorry, I don’t remember you.”
“It’s been a long time,” he said kindly.
“Do you know why I’m here?” I asked, curious.
“Come.” He motioned for us to follow him to the inner cabin. “We should talk inside.”
He herded us inside. It was a standard cargo ship, with a massive wheelhouse and typical crew quarters.
He led us past an empty galley. “The crew is on a twenty-four-hour leave. It’s just me and a few engineers.”
I looked for other signs of life, but the place felt empty.
He ushered me into the great cabin—his office—the most regal room on the ship. He stepped toward a drink cart. “Would you two like a drink?”
To my surprise, Viktor spoke. “Vodka, neat.”
The captain spoke over his shoulder. “You’re in for a treat. I’m friends with a captain from Russia, and he always buys me the best stuff.”
We watched in silence as he opened the bar fridge freezer and pulled out a tall clear bottle. He poured a generous amount into a crystal glass before he looked at me. “And you?”
“I think I want to try that vodka myself.”
The captain gave another big smile. “Terrific.”
He carried both glasses over and handed them to us. “Sit, please sit.”
I obediently sat down on one of the chairs that faced his desk, but Viktor remained standing behind me.
I looked around the room and couldn’t shake the sense of déjà vu. “This room feels familiar to me.”
The captain poured himself a generous amount of amber whisky before lifting the glass to his mouth with a shaking hand. “It should. It used to be your grandfather’s office. Whenever he traveled by sea, he always used this ship. Half the stuff in this room is still his. He likes to come and hang out here with me when we dock in Vancouver. That’s why everything is so cluttered.”
I frowned. “I had no idea.”
He drained his glass before he spoke. “You must be wondering how I knew you were coming.”
“I’m wondering a lot of things.”
“Your grandfather always said that if something happened to him, you’d show up. He stated that I should only trust you—and that you’d find your way to me.”
This conversation baffled me. Had my grandfather known something would happen to him? How could he have ever known I would end up here? “Did you hear what’s happened to my grandfather?”
His nod was short. “I did.”
“But he didn’t send me here. I’m here by other means because I’m hoping to find him. I’m at a bit of a loss as to what he wanted me to do here.”
“Yes, that is the mystery, isn’t it? Well, my instructions were clear. To invite you on board. To trust only you. And, whenever you arrived, to first give you a drink and then private access to my office.”
“Excuse me?”
The captain drained his glass. “Whatever he wanted you to find, he’s left in this room. I’ve opened every locked cupboard and safe. I am heading to the galley to make tea. When you are done investigating, come join me for a cup.” He gave Viktor a sideways glance. “And please leave me out of the rest of it.”
I twisted in my seat and watched as he stiffly walked out of the room and then shut the door quietly behind him.
“Did you see his hand?” I whispered to Viktor.
Viktor set his still-full glass down on the desk. “He was scared.”
He moved to the door and listened. I stood up and slowly walked around to the front of the desk. The room had dozens of cupboard shelves and hidden wall compartments. I opened a couple of wall drawers and saw hundreds of files filled with cargo documentation.
“Look at how much stuff is here. It could take days to go through all this.”
Viktor waited at the door. “Can you figure it out in the next couple of minutes?”
I started to slowly walk around the room. “What could possibly be in this room that I would know is for me?”
I paused in front of a heavy oak armoire with plate-glass doors. The inside shelves were jammed with old stuff. I saw stacks of books, a ship in a bottle, stacks of old paper boxes and hundreds of books.
Something caught my eye. I slowly opened the cupboard door.
“You find something?” Viktor asked, watching me from across the room.
“Nothing—except there is a used pastry box in here from my favorite donut shop. It was called Polly’s Pastries, and it was a huge deal when my grandfather came home with donuts from there. The last time I had donuts from there was on my tenth birthday.”
Viktor frowned. “Why?”
The box was balanced precariously beneath some other dusty old boxes. “The place went under.”
“What’s in the box?”
I reached in and pulled the box out. I lifted the lid and gave a short cry. “Lucy.”
Lucy was an old-fashioned Raggedy Ann doll I had inherited from my mother. She had played with it as a child and passed it down to me. In every photo of me between the ages of one and five, Lucy was there. When I moved back to live with my grandparents, it was the only toy I’d brought with me.
One day, Lucy had gone missing. We looked everywhere for her, retracing my steps. My grandfather had distracted me with a new dollhouse and then a pet gerbil, but I had mourned her loss bitterly.
“Who is Lucy?” Viktor sounded terse.
I couldn’t take my eyes off my beloved doll. She looked older than I remembered, worn and sad, but it was her. “I found what we’re looking for.”
Viktor moved to stand beside me. “How do you know?”
“Because this used to be my doll.” Only I would know that. I had always thought this doll was lost. We’d spent weeks looking for it. Why did my grandfather have it? Why hadn’t he given it back to me?
Viktor made an impatient noise. “Is there something in the doll?”
I lifted her up and inspected. Pinned to her back, beneath her dress, was a flash drive.
“I don’t want it,” I told him. “Take it off.”
He took Lucy from my hands, unpinned the drive, and then tossed her carelessly back into the cabinet.
I stared at him in shock. “Are you crazy?”
“What?”
I scooped Lucy back up. “You just tossed my entire childhood to the side.”
I started to open my knapsack. Except I hadn’t had time to ask the hotel to mail the negligee back to Vancouver, so it was stuffed in my bag. There wasn’t any room for Lucy.
“What are you doing, Blaire?” Viktor didn’t sound amused.
“Do you have any room in your bag?”
“No.”
“You have two choices: you either get my negligee or Lucy, but we’ve all gotten this far, so I’m not leaving without them.”
His jaw ticked. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I found the USB drive almost immediately. You can take time to pack up my stuff.”
He breathed a few times. “The negligee.”