Page 12 of No One Aboard
At some point he realized he was actually swimming deeper down.
When he opened his eyes in the morning, Jerry was comforted instantly by the familiar sight of his Bass Pro Shops cap brim. Huge sweat stains pooled under his arms, and he took off the cap to fan himself.
In the weeks after his brother’s death, the nightmares had followed Jerry as if Steve himself haunted the shores that hecouldn’t make it back to. That was when Jerry decided he couldn’t stay on land either. Aboard the beat-up lobster boat, the nightmares stopped.
Until now.
Jerry got to his feet and headed to the galley. He made a cup of joe and put a fresh-caught snapper sizzling on a pan. He waited until both sides were black before he slid them on a plate and lumbered up on deck to eat.
It was the first moment he’d had to think since the boat alarm had gone off. The events of last night came back to him in pieces: the empty sailboat, the coast guard, the lengthy drive back to port.
The message on the mirror.
It was all too much to take in, especially once a detective reminded him of the rule of salvage: If you find something at sea and no one who it belongs to, then finders keepers. It was some kind of homage to pirates and scavengers, he liked to think, to the men who risked everything to find the treasures hidden in the most dangerous parts of the world.
If the detective was right,The Old Eileenmight now belong toJerry.
He looked over his shoulder at her masts standing white against the lavender sky. Jerry could get used to that sight.
He gazed at her for so long that it took him a second to realize he was no longer alone.
A young woman, around twenty or so, in a deckhand uniform was standing on the dock. Her hair was buzzed close to her skull, and her hands were deep in her pockets. She was looking up at the sailboat with rounded almond eyes, impressed.
“Damn,” the woman murmured.
“Don’t have to tell me twice. I found her last night. Jus’drifting. Can’t understand it.” Jerry shook his head and took a bite of snapper. “Do you work here in the shipyard?”
The woman nodded and lit a cigarette. “Yeah. I’m Lainey.” She offered one to Jerry, but he waved it away. “Sorry, did you say youfoundher? As in, empty?”
Jerry fished a bone out of his mouth. “Jerry. And yep. Can’t understand it...”
“That means you own her, right? Rule of salvage and all. Bet the press won’t be able to get enough of this.”
Jerry hadn’t even thought of that. An empty yacht... a missing family... He set down his plate, appetite vanished, and scratched at his beard.
“I... I need to get some things in order,” Jerry mumbled. “Before the story breaks.”
But Lainey wasn’t looking at him or atThe Old Eileenanymore. She was looking down the dock where a van had pulled up. A news van. She stuck her hands back in her pockets and gave Jerry a faint smile as she walked back toward whatever yacht she crewed for.
“Better get them in order fast, Jerry. It’s already broken.”
NBC 6 South Florida
Is This Luxury Family Sailboat a Modern-Day Ghost Ship?
by Jennifer Byun
So many stories of the sea are the stuff of legends, but ghost ships, the most famous of which is arguably theMary Celeste(found empty in 1872), are unnervingly real. A ghost ship could be a phantom appearance of a ship on the horizon that isn’t really there, but it can also be a seafaring vessel that is found without any crew or passengers onboard. There have been many theories as to what happened to these missing people over the centuries, but they have never been so relevant to our modern world as now.
The Old Eileen, a decadent sailing yacht owned by Captain (and Unwind Yachting Co. cofounder and CEO) Francis Cameron, was home to four crew members (including Cameron) as well as three passengers (Francis’s wife and two children). Mrs. Cameron is far better known as Lila Logan, a sweetheart television actress from the ’90s best known for starring in the seriesReina Gold Is Lying(and the subsequent scandal). Before they set sail,their daughter, Taliea Indigo, had just graduated from St. Bernadette’s School for Girls in Connecticut, and her twin brother, Francis Rylan (Rylan to his friends and family), had received his diploma from Oxbridge Academy.
The Camerons—wealthy and beautiful—by all accounts have a picture-perfect life.
That is, until longtime fisherman Jerry Baugh discoveredThe Old Eileenearly yesterday morning, adrift and completely empty.
Authorities say it is too soon to tell what could have become of the seven people aboardThe Old Eileen, but a massive search is being conducted in the area where the ship was found, and theories are already building to explain such a shocking and baffling occurrence.
Chapter 6
