Overboard (5 page)

“No,” Brenna confirmed. Feeling suddenly
uncomfortable, she asked, “Why did you come here?”

Chelsea smiled broadly. “I was thinking... You know
how you assumed Marissa was the cause of all of your problems?”

Brenna looked upon her skeptically, wondering what
she was going to say next. “Vaguely.”

“Well, it may not have been her,” she announced,
talking casual steps closer to Brenna. “I was thinking... It was
Hallie that made you fight with Dylan last night. It was Hallie he
was with by the pool this morning, showing him those mysterious
papers. Could they have been evidence of something? Love letters or
something like that...”

Brenna contemplated her words.

“I think we should find out what is in that
file.”

“And how do you suppose we do that?” Brenna
inquired.

Chelsea smiled deviously. “You go to her room and
look through it.”

“And what about you?”

“Brenna, don’t worry about me... I will be your
lookout.”

Brenna shook her head. “Orman wants me to wait right
here for him.”

“Orman is searching the ship with everyone else,” she
said with a wink. “He’ll never have to know.”

* * * * *

While the others searched the boat for Marissa,
Brenna seized the opportunity to enter Hallie’s suite. She searched
all the normal places that she suspected Hallie would hide
something valuable. She looked through a chest of drawers, but
there was nothing to be found except some neatly folded
clothes.

Brenna opened Hallie’s suitcase. Upon finding it
empty, she unzipped and searched every pocket thoroughly before
concluding there was nothing in the bag.

She decided that Hallie wouldn’t put this file just
anywhere. She had to turn over everything in the entire suite if
she wished to find what she was looking for.

Brenna felt under the sofa and chairs. She lifted
cushions. She undid the bed, searching the sheets and pillows. She
lifted the mattress from the boxspring, finding nothing flattened
in between.

Finally, she found herself in the bathroom. She
immediately searched the cabinet underneath the sink. Yet, she
found nothing but a few rolls of tissue and some other
toiletries.

“Damn! It has to be here,” she cried, feeling
increasingly irritated as the heat from her body rose a few degrees
in fruitless search.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Chelsea. Just getting frustrated,” Brenna said
with a sigh, looking towards the entrance where her friend was
perched. “Just focus on keeping a look out.”

Brenna walked out of the bathroom and found her eyes
drifting across everything in the room. Yet, everything her eyes
were laid upon had already been searched. Agitated and ready to
give up, Brenna’s eyes had stopped scanning the room and rested on
an air vent, located on the floor by the nightstand.

She flung herself to her knees and tried to pry open
the vent. To her surprise, it popped open quite nicely as if it had
never been screwed in place. Looking into the hole in the floor,
Brenna saw something in the bottom. Sticking her arm into the duct,
she brushed it with her fingertips, realizing it was exactly what
she was looking for. Grasping hold of the file, she pulled it out
of the hole.

Making herself comfortable, she sat on the floor
Indian style and opened the file. Not knowing what she would find,
she flipped through its contents quickly, feeling the need to
answer the questions in her head.

As she scanned the contents of the file, she realized
what Hallie had been up to the past year. Feeling her heartbeat
quicken, Brenna had found pictures of herself, taken without her
knowledge, throughout the year. She found a homemade map of Camp
Summerwind with the location of each camp counselor on the night of
her sister’s accident marked in red ink. However, the locations of
two camp counselors were missing: Chelsea’s and hers!

Searching deeper, Brenna found a correspondence from
the camp. Hallie had asked them for information regarding Chelsea.
She wanted to know how long Chelsea had been a counselor? What
group was she in charge of? Had she had contact with Morgan?

The camp’s response was swift.

Brenna read the letter aloud. “As we are unable to
disclose specific information with regard to our counselors, and
such information is restricted for the privacy of our institution
and of the individuals who work here, the full disclosure of the
information you seek has been denied. However, it is not a
violation of our policies to inform you that no such person exists
within our institution or has ever existed.”

As the letter shook within her grasp, Brenna read the
letter again, but there was no mistake. Chelsea had never worked
for Camp Summerwind. Brenna wondered if it had been a mistake.
Chelsea had to have worked there... After all, she met her at the
camp, and they had talked about managing camp groups.

Brenna wanted to call out to Chelsea, but she had no
words. What did she know about Chelsea? She wracked her brain for
answers... Chelsea had just appeared into her life. One day she was
just there as if she had always been. The friendship was instant.
They just understood one another. They liked the same things. How
could she not be who she knew her to be?

“What are you doing?” Hallie walked into the room,
finding her things thrown all over the suite. “What did you
do?”

Brenna looked up in shock, wondering why Chelsea
hadn’t warned her that Hallie was coming. “What have you done?” she
questioned, holding up the file for Hallie to see. “You’ve been
following me!”

“I needed to know,” Hallie shouted at her.

“Know what?”

“I needed to know if you were involved,” Hallie told
her, glaring.

“Morgan is dead, Hallie. No one is to blame. It was
an accident.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she told her through gritted teeth.
“You know it wasn’t.”

Brenna shook her head. “Stop this! Stop treating me
like I am the enemy. It was an accident. Everyone can see it but
you! You need help, Hallie. You can’t just go around accusing
people...”

“Where is Marissa? Did you have anything to do with
her disappearance?” Hallie said, doing little to mask her
hatred.

“No,” Brenna said in a whisper, shaking her head. “I
don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Do you really expect me to believe she just got lost
or whatever Orman is trying to convince everyone of?” Hallie
questioned angrily.

“I don’t know,” she told her at a loss for words as
hot tears began to stream down her face at the mention of her
missing friend. “I don’t know anything.”

“How well do you know your friend Chelsea?”

“You are delusional if you are going to blame Chelsea
for any of this.”

“How did you meet her?”

Brenna backed away from Hallie. Her mind raced. She
couldn’t think... She was so confused.

Images of Chelsea popped in her head. Chelsea... She
just appeared in her life one day, but she couldn’t pinpoint the
exact time. The memory of their first encounter evaded her. Brenna
found herself frightened by this. How had she forgotten?

“Where is Chelsea, Bren? I haven’t seen her since I
boarded. Why else would she be hiding from me?” Hallie told her.
“Something happened to my sister, and I know you know something
about it... Something is not right about you, Bren, and I am
determined to find out.”

* * * * *

Brenna ran to her suite in tears. Confused, she
wondered how Hallie could ever believe she had anything to do with
her sister’s death... She would have never hurt Morgan or Marissa.
She loved them like sisters.

She threw herself on the bed and began to cry. She
was so confused. Why did Marissa have to fall overboard? Why was
she even on the balcony and where did the blood on the bracelet
come from? Why did Orman feel it was better to throw the bracelet
overboard? Was he trying to prevent a scandal? A girl murdered at
sea would be a sensational story... Or was Marissa’s disappearance
merely an accident?

Hours passed, but Brenna remained in her room. She
refused to share the same space as any of the people she once
called her friends. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she didn’t
know her friends at all. She had a glimpse at the real person
within each of them, and in that instant, their true colors were
apparent to her. They blamed her...

They blamed her misfortune. They blamed her for
Morgan all along. They never trusted her. They only waited for the
right opportunity to destroy her life, and she never saw it before.
Were they making up Marissa’s disappearance to mess with her mind?
Or to force her to confess to Morgan’s accident?

She had never heard of any rivalry with Marissa. She
had never heard of any bad blood existing between them and Marissa.
The idea that any of them disliked Marissa was a new one. In her
suspicious mind, any of them could have knocked her off balance and
thrown her over the railing. Or, at least, faked it to drive Brenna
insane. The ship was huge. Marissa could have been hiding anywhere,
and Brenna didn’t join the others in searching the ship.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

Brenna didn’t respond, remaining quiet and hoping her
visitor would go away.

After a short while, Dylan stepped into the room
without being invited.

“We couldn’t find Marissa. The coast guard gave the
captain the okay to dock at the nearest port,” he informed her
sadly. “The authorities are going to inspect the ship thoroughly
there. They want to go through her things. Orman said she was
pretty drunk last night so it should be cited as an accident.”

“Is there a reason you are telling me this?” Brenna
questioned, sitting up in bed.

“We are going to dock in Miami for a few hours. The
rest of us decided to cut this trip short and head back home.”

“Fine,” Brenna answered shortly.

After a long moment, Dylan walked across the room and
sat on the edge of Brenna’s bed. “What are you thinking? You look
scared...”

“I can’t believe it,” she told him, her tone as soft
as a whisper.

He nodded.

“The pieces don’t fit,” she said, thinking aloud.
“This trip has been a disaster from the beginning. We have been
more at odds with each other than ever before.”

He stared at her, appearing to try to follow her
thought pattern.

“Things just don’t make sense in my head right now,”
she said, mashing her palms into her forehead.

With his green eyes intent, Dylan grabbed her hands
to prevent her from injuring herself. “Talk to me. What is going on
in your head right now?”

“No one could fall off that railing,” she told him.
“It was a calm night. There weren’t any huge waves rocking the
boat. She would have had to climb over the railing and fall
over.”

“She could have decided to end her life by drowning
herself.”

Brenna scoffed. “She was not suicidal.”

Dylan looked at her pensively. “You didn’t know
Marissa.”

“She was one of my closest friends, Dylan. I knew her
better than anyone else on this boat,” she told him
matter-of-factly.

“You knew the side she wanted you to see,” Dylan
said, running his hands through his black hair. “You didn’t know
the
real
Marissa.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked softly,
trying her best to make sense of the circumstances she found
herself in.

Dylan hesitated.

“Tell me, Dylan. Tell me the truth for once in your
life,” Brenna scolded, her mind racing with what Marissa could have
had over his head. “Did Marissa know about you and Morgan? Were the
two of you together?”

He shook his head. “Hallie convinced her I was seeing
Morgan while we were dating... Before the accident last summer,
there was a fling... I didn’t want to hurt you, Brenna. I thought
if I just pretended like it didn’t happen, then it would all be
wiped away. Then Morgan died, and Hallie suspected me. She
suspected you... You were different. I had never seen you so
depressed. You just isolated yourself, and focused only on school.
Your chance for a scholarship seemed more important than me.”

“I was trying to cope with my friend’s death by doing
what I do best. School work was a way out of what I was feeling.
The more work the less I had to feel. I was not punishing you,”
Brenna told him, trying hard to listen to him without judgment.
Yet, she was hurt. Everyone had disappointed her, but none more
than Dylan. “What did Marissa threaten to do?”

“Marissa found out everything last summer before
school ended and you went to work at the camp. She said she was
going to tell you if I didn’t stop seeing Morgan,” he said
shamefully. “I wanted to. I knew it wasn’t right. Morgan was
furious though. She didn’t want to let go...”

Brenna folded her hands over her chest. “And?”

“After Morgan’s accident, Marissa just wouldn’t let
it go. I think Hallie had convinced her that something was not
right about the way Morgan died. She said you were her best friend,
and she had to be honest with you. She was going to tell you during
this trip. That’s why I didn’t want to come,” he said, looking
heartbroken. “I felt like she was toying with me. She held that
secret over my head like she enjoyed torturing me. She was cruel
that way... Orman told me some things she did to him. She was not
the person you thought she was. I couldn’t take being with her on
this boat. She threatened me all of the time, following me around
the boat.”

Brenna stood quietly, unable to find the words that
would justify how she felt. She had been lied to by the two people
she trusted; her boyfriend and her best friend. “You should have
told me.”

“I shouldn’t have kept anything from you,” he said,
looking at the floor. “I guess I wanted to hurt you at first, but I
didn’t realize how that would make me feel. I feel like such an
idiot...”