Page 72 of A Princess, Stolen
“Sparta said the camphor ointment he always uses was stolen that afternoon. Apparently, he always kept it in the same spot on the top of his dresser. At first, he thought he had misplacedit, but in retrospect, he thinks someone must have stolen it to deceive you.”
“Why would anyone want to deceive me?”
“In case the plan to kill you failed. Which it did!”
I only stared at him.
“Naturally, we discreetly searched for the ointment. Pan and I combed the Agamemnon, but the ointment has disappeared from the face of the earth.”
“He probably threw it overboard,” I said, sitting on the bed.
“That could be, yes. But anyone could have disposed of it that way.” He looked at me for a moment. “I’m only concerned about your safety, Willa. I don’t want to give the guilty party a second chance to hurt you.”
“Oh? What about Isaac? He wants to hurt me too,” I said bitterly. “It was only because of him that I wanted to…” I fell silent.
Nathan stared down at me from above. “You allied yourself with Sparta because of Isaac?”
“Should I have waited for him to come on board?”To kill me?
“I told you I wanted to prevent that.”
“I didn’t want to rely on that.” I didn’t look at him when I replied.
He sighed. “We have to solve one problem at a time. We currently have a killer on board.”
“And you locked him up. It couldn’t have been anyone else. Only Sparta knew the plan.” I suddenly felt so cold again. And I was exhausted. I just wanted to sleep and forget my fear. At least, for a few hours.
Nathan, however, wouldn’t let up. “The Agamemnon is small and the walls are thin. Maybe someone overheard.”
I shook my head. “He was quite tall, about the same height as you, so all men who are shorter are out.”
“You want it to be Sparta, don’t you?”
“And you want it not to be him.”
He was silent.
“But it was him,” I said stubbornly.
“And if not?”
“There is noif not,” I replied defiantly.
He peered down at me sternly. “I don’t care what you think, but Pan is going to guard you,” he said firmly.
“And if it was Pan?” I asked defiantly but was unsure for a split second.
Nathan shook his head. “It couldn’t have been Pan. He was the only one who heard you calling for help. On my orders, he and Troy were supposed to stay close to you. They usually took turns…and Pan came to me and swore he heard you scream. He was a hundred percent certain, so we searched the entire boat for you…but you had disappeared into thin air. So, you must have fallen overboard. Then, someone discovered the trawling net.”
“Pan…” I muttered. He hadn’t said a word about hearing me scream.
“Without him, you wouldn’t be sitting here.”
I swallowed. I hadn’t even thanked him. “Pan said you didn’t know about the net and that’s why you cut your hands because you didn’t have a knife with you.”
“He must have misunderstood because he wasn’t there when we discovered the net. I didn’t have time to grab a knife. It was a matter of seconds.”
I looked at him, imagining how he had ripped open the strong net with his bare hands to save me. I thought about Mom and the many memories that had resurfaced. So many questions were pounding in my head. Why did Mom believe Dad loved her too much? Why had she hidden the blue pills from him? Had she hidden them there in the first place or was it me and I just didn’t remember?
