Monica was on her way below, searching for Scott, when she rounded a corner and stopped short. Down at the other end of the passageway, Lew Stevens, the ship psychologist, was wigging out, babbling to a master-at-arms about being attacked by the SEAL. Something about…blowing up the ship?
That was crazy.
But that announcement, just a few minutes earlier. Escaped prisoner, armed and dangerous? That had to be the SEAL. She’d watched them arrest him barely ten hours earlier.
Oh.
Oh!
The SEAL. Jesus. He’d been in the passageway that night, too, outside Kris’s ready room, watching. She remembered thinking how creepy it was, the way he was skulking the passageways. Could he have…?
And then she remembered what she’d told Jackson about Kris’s state of mind. “Almost like she was being stalked.”
Stalked.
She turned and ran.
Back through the passageway, back above toward the hangar deck, slipping once on a ladder and nearly falling. Get to her phone. Find Scott, find the chief of security, find someone.
She reached her office, yanked open the door, and stepped inside. Closed the door, put her back to it—and stifled a scream.
In the shadows, a figure sat splayed out on the floor, his back to the bulkhead.
“I need your help,” said the SEAL.