Julia was teetering. She hadn’t even allowed herself ten seconds. Coughing, panting and shivering with tiredness, she’d pulled herself up on Daniel Bonhoeffer’s arm. Now she had to hold onto the frame of the sliding door so as not to collapse again. Her saviour was standing beside her, his hands outstretched in case he had to intervene again.
‘Where is she?’ Julia rasped. She’d screamed herself hoarse and gripped the rail so tightly that her fingers were still white. Her legs were shaking; she could feel large bruises forming on her kneecaps. In the struggle she must have bloodied her legs on the ship’s side as well as biting open her lips. She could taste blood.
‘Where. Is. My. Daughter!’
She pointed at the empty bed.
The boots lay at her feet. There had just been pillows under the bedspread on the floor.
No body. No Lisa.
‘Where?’ she screamed at Daniel, but the captain merely shrugged.
‘We came as quickly as possible.’
He pointed to a suntanned officer in the cabin door with wildly unkempt, blond hair, although every strand appeared to have its defined place.
‘That’s Veith Jesper, one of our security officers,’ he introduced the man.
‘I’ve searched everything,’ the pretty boy said self-importantly. As if looking for a teenager in a thirteen-square-metre cabin demanded the training of an FBI profiler.
Veith had steel-blue eyes surrounded by light lashes that were bushier than Daniel’s hairline. He looked at least ten kilos lighter than the captain and yet stronger.
‘She’s not here in the cabin,’ he said, stating the obvious. The bathroom door was open, the connecting door was still bolted and she’d already checked beneath the bed.
‘Did you bump into her?’ Julia asked.
Maybe all this is just a dirty trick. Did Lisa flee when she heard me coming?
‘No.’ Daniel and Veith shook their heads in sync.
‘And that would be hardly likely,’ Veith Jesper said, pointing ruthlessly at the door.
In spite of the panic that had grown on Julia like a second head, she realised what the security officer was getting at.
The chain.
It was dangling from the doorframe. Broken. Torn out.
Daniel must have broken it when they stormed into the cabin.
Because Lisa put the chain on from the inside!
Just as she’d bolted the connecting door from her side.
‘No!’
Julia pressed both hands over her mouth and bit her fingers. She turned back to the balcony.
There were two doors you could leave the cabin by.
And Lisa hadn’t used either of them.