Day Four Read online

  Sarah Lotz is a screenwriter and novelist who pens novels under the name S.L Grey with author Louis Greenberg; YA novels with her daughter, as Lily Herne; and is one third of pseudonymous author Helena S. Paige. Lauren Beukes calls her ‘a natural-born storyteller. Like the hand reaching up from the dark well, she’ll drag you into her thrall. You’ll come up gasping.’ Sarah lives in Cape Town with her family and other animals.

  Also by Sarah Lotz

  The Three

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by

  Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Sarah Lotz 2015

  The right of Sarah Lotz to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 444 77540 2

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For my dad, Alan Walters

  (aka The Doc)

  Contents

  DAYS 1, 2, 3

  DAY 4

  The Witch’s Assistant

  The Condemned Man

  The Devil’s Handmaiden

  The Suicide Sisters

  The Angel of Mercy

  The Keeper of Secrets

  DAY 5

  The Wildcard Blog

  The Witch’s Assistant

  The Condemned Man

  The Devil’s Handmaiden

  The Suicide Sisters

  The Angel of Mercy

  The Keeper of Secrets

  The Wildcard Blog

  DAY 6

  The Witch’s Assistant

  The Condemned Man

  The Devil’s Handmaiden

  The Suicide Sisters

  The Angel of Mercy

  The Keeper of Secrets

  The Wildcard Blog

  DAY 7

  The Witch’s Assistant

  The Condemned Man

  The Devil’s Handmaiden

  The Suicide Sisters

  The Angel of Mercy

  The Keeper of Secrets

  The Wildcard Blog

  The Witch’s Assistant

  The Condemned Man

  The Devil’s Handmaiden

  The Suicide Sisters

  The Angel of Mercy

  The Keeper of Secrets

  The Wildcard Blog

  The Witch’s Assistant

  The Condemned Man

  The Devil’s Handmaiden

  The Suicide Sisters

  The Angel of Mercy

  The Keeper of Secrets

  The Wildcard Blog

  DAY 8

  The Witch’s Assistant

  IT’S BACK!

  Bodies Found on Nightmare Cruise Ship

  Voices from the Deep?

  The Beautiful Dreamer: A Modern Day Marie Celeste?

  Sailor Who Discovered Mystery Cruise Ship Found Dead

  NSA Denies Survivors’ Existence. Describes Leaked Documents as ‘A Clever Hoax’

  TOP SECRET

  The Prisoner

  Acknowledgements

  Welcome on Board The Beautiful Dreamer!

  Congratulations on choosing a Foveros Cruise,

  your one-way ticket to Relaxation and Fun! Fun! Fun!

  ****

  Start your Holiday of a Lifetime by treating yourself to a cocktail at one of our many sun-drenched bars while our musicians delight with their signature sounds. Then cool down in the pool and take a spin on Foveros’s WaterWonder™ slides. Hungry? No problem! Our dining room and buffets will provide feasts galore, from five-star fare to yummy comfort food like momma used to make! And hey, don’t forget to pamper yourself at our superb spa – you deserve it! Our cabaret performances will delight, so settle into your seats and prepare to be entertained like never before! Soak up the sun during one of our many exciting excursions, where you can shop till you drop at our many concessions, snorkel in turquoise seas, horse-ride along beautiful beaches, and enjoy al fresco dining on our fabulous private island. And why not take a spin in the Delectable Dreamer Casino? Who knows? It could be your lucky day!

  DAYS 1, 2, 3

  Cruise is relatively uneventful.

  DAY 4

  The Witch’s Assistant

  Maddie waited until Celine was midway into her opening monologue, then threaded her way through the capsule chairs, making for the empty area at the back of the Starlight Dreamer Lounge. She’d almost made it when the cruise director’s voice boomed over the PA system, drowning out Celine’s patter with his reminder that the New Year’s festivities would kick off in ‘T minus two hours’.

  ‘Voices from above,’ Celine quipped, but Maddie wasn’t fooled by this show of good humour. Celine had been like a Rottweiler with a sore tooth all day, sniping at the backstage tech after he’d snagged her dress attaching the microphone’s transmitter to her wheelchair, and complaining that the spotlight wasn’t in the correct position to halo her hair.

  ‘Know this,’ Celine continued once the announcement had petered away. ‘When you all return home, rested and suntanned and maybe a few pounds heavier,’ – she waited for a ripple of laughter to die down – ‘you won’t be alone. Friends, in all my years of helping people connect with those who’ve crossed over, there are two things I can tell you for sure. One: there is no death; and two: the souls of those who’ve left the physical world are always with us . . .’

  With Celine back on track, Maddie allowed herself to relax. She leaned against a pillar and massaged her neck, trying and failing to dissolve the headache that had dogged her since day one of the cruise. It was probably just a side effect of the anti-nausea medication she was taking, but the garish environment wasn’t helping. Whoever had designed the ship’s decor had a hard-on for Vegas-inspired neon and naked male angels; you couldn’t go anywhere without being blinded by an illuminated palm tree or leered at by a cherub. Still – just one more night to get through and she’d be free of this floating hellhole. The first thing she was going to do when she got back to her apartment was run a bath and scrub the ship off her skin. Then she’d treat herself to a takeout from Jujubee’s – splurge on the crab special with glass noodles and extra garlic. She could afford the calories; she must have lost at least five pounds this week.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ a voice stage-whispered in her ear. She turned to see Ray, his eyes fixed to her breasts. He’d jettisoned his usual shorts and navy T-shirt combo in favour of Levis and a flimsy cream shirt, which gave him the appearance of a seedy lounge singer.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be on the door, Ray?’ Tonight’s event was strictly for ‘Friends of Celine’ only – the select group who’d paid through the nose to cruise with ‘America’s Number One Psychic Medium’ – and Ray knew as well as she did that Celine would flip if a non-paying passenger wandered in.

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, yeah. So listen – you know when we stopped at Cozumel yesterday?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I got one of the waiters to smuggle me in a bottle of high-end tequila. The good stuff.’

  A Friend sitting on the outskirts of the group
scrunched around in her chair and shushed them. Maddie shot her an apologetic smile, and hissed at Ray to keep his voice down.

  ‘Whatever. So, hey – party later, my cabin. You in?’

  More heads were turning in their direction. ‘Seriously, Ray, shut the—’

  ‘Think about it,’ he smirked. ‘Going to grab a frosty while the boss does her thang.’ Maddie watched him saunter off towards the bar, checking out a waitress en route.

  Arsehole.

  The atmosphere grew taut as Celine moved on to the highlight of the evening. She licked her lips, touched her chest and said: ‘I’m getting . . . Who’s Caroline? No, wait . . . Katherine? Someone with . . . it’s a C or a K. Nope . . . it’s definitely Katherine. Kathy, maybe.’

  Maddie smothered a jab of guilt as Jacob, one of the older Friends, wobbled to his feet. She had a soft spot for Jacob. She admired his sense of style (he tended to dress as if he was a guest at a gay wedding), and he wasn’t as pushy as some of the others. Celine had feigned illness for much of the cruise, barely showing her face at the various meet ’n’ greets and cocktail events, so Maddie had been left to pick up the slack. Part of her job was schmoozing with Celine’s fan base, but there was a world of difference between trading messages with the lonely and desperate online, and contending with their neediness face to face. Listening to the Friends’ hopes that Celine would connect with their loved ones, missing relatives, and in some cases, deceased pets, had worn her ragged. ‘Kathy’s my sister!’ Jacob called.

  ‘That’s what I’m getting,’ Celine nodded. ‘Know this, she’s stepping forward right this second. Hey . . . Why can I smell turkey?’ She chuckled. ‘And sweet potato pie. Good pie at that.’

  Jacob gasped and wiped at his eyes. ‘She disappeared in the late seventies, round about Thanksgiving. Is she . . . is she at peace?’

  ‘Yes. Know this. She has left the physical world and has gone into the light. She wants you to know that every time you think of her, her soul is with you.’

  Jacob waited for more, but Celine just smiled blandly back at him and he nodded and sat down.

  Celine touched her chest again. ‘I’m getting . . . It’s getting harder to breathe. There’s someone here who’s . . . they passed before their time. I’m talking about a suicide. Yes.’

  Leila Nelson, a bony woman with mild hair loss, squealed and jumped out of her chair. ‘Oh my Lord! My husband killed himself two years ago.’

  ‘I want you to know he’s stepping forward, my darling. What’s with the breathing? I’m thinking . . . did he asphyxiate? Does this make sense to you? I’m tasting carbon monoxide here.’

  ‘Oh my Lord. That’s how he did it! In the garage, in his Chevy.’

  ‘In his Chevy.’ Celine paused to ram this home to the Friends. ‘What’s the significance of April?’

  ‘His birthday was in April.’

  ‘So April’s his birthday. Yeah, that’s what I’m getting from him. A tall man, does that make sense?’

  Leila hesitated. ‘John was five eight.’

  ‘That’s tall if you’re me, my darling,’ Celine rallied. ‘I’m getting that . . . Was John unhappy at work? Does that make sense to you?’

  ‘Yes! He lost his job. He was never the same after that.’

  ‘What’s with the shoes?’

  ‘Oh my Lord, he was always particular about his shoes. Always polishing them, been like that since he left the marines.’

  ‘That’s what I’m getting. A feeling like he was a very particular, precise sort of person. Know this, he wants you to know that what happened to him, the way he died, it was nothing you did. He needs you to move on with your life.’

  ‘So he doesn’t mind that I’m getting remarried?’

  Shit. That was one detail Leila hadn’t mentioned during last night’s Friends of Celine cocktail event, but Celine didn’t skip a beat. ‘Know this, he’s proud that you’re doing so well.’

  ‘He was such a jealous man, though. What I need to know is if he—’

  ‘My darling, I’ll have to interrupt you there, as Archie is coming through.’ Celine pressed a hand to her throat. ‘I can feel the weight of him. He’s coming through strongly now.’ Maddie suppressed a shudder. Fake or not, Archie, Celine’s primary spirit guide – an urchin who’d supposedly died of consumption in late nineteenth-century London – gave her the screaming heebies. There weren’t many mediums who channelled the voices of their guides these days, and secretly Maddie thought Celine sounded like Dick van Dyke gargling caustic soda whenever Archie’s voice ‘came through’.

  Celine paused for dramatic effect. ‘There’s a bloke ’ere who wants a word with Juney,’ Archie’s voice rattled from Celine’s throat.

  Juanita, the Friend who’d shushed Ray, sprang to her feet. ‘That’s me! Juney is my nickname!’

  Celine reverted to her normal voice: ‘Juney, don’t feel bad about leaving the insulin out of the fridge. He knows you didn’t mean it.’

  Goosebumps popped on Maddie’s arms. Juanita hadn’t said anything about insulin last night. Celine was adept at cold reading, but that was an unusually precise detail. She tended to stick to generalities.

  Juanita’s face creased. ‘Jeffrey? Jeffrey, is that you?’

  A blade of light sliced through the gloom as a man slipped through the doors on the far side of the lounge. He was two decades younger than Celine’s core demographic, his legs clad in skinny jeans and boots, his arms scrawled with tattoos. Ray hadn’t noticed the intruder; he was slumped on a bar stool, his back to the doors.

  ‘Celine del Ray!’ the guy shouted, striding towards the stage and pointing a camera phone in Celine’s direction. ‘Celine del Ray!’

  Shit. The week after Celine had signed up as the cruise’s guest celebrity, Maddie had heard via Twitter that there might be a blogger on board, and it looked like he’d finally decided to pitch up.

  ‘Who is that?’ Celine called, squinting into the audience.

  ‘Any comment about the fact that Lillian Small is planning to sue you?’

  A collective gasp. There were too many obstacles for Maddie to get to the guy easily, and she couldn’t count on the wait staff to intervene. Thankfully Ray had realised what was going on and was hustling towards him.

  ‘You know the story, right?’ the man crowed to the Friends gaping at him. ‘This so called medium, this predator, bombarded Mrs Small with messages saying that her daughter and grandson were alive in Florida, when DNA proves that . . .’ he faltered. ‘Proves that . . .’ he clamped a hand to his mouth. ‘Oh fuck.’ With that, he whirled, shoved past Ray and ran out, the doors hissing closed behind him.

  Ray glanced at Maddie and she gestured at him to follow.

  Celine chuckled again, but it sounded forced. ‘Uh. I tell you, that was . . . Give me a minute here.’ She took a slug of Evian from the bottle in her wheelchair pocket. The room settled into an uneasy silence. ‘You know, there are always gonna be doubters. But I can only repeat what Spirit tells me. That situation . . . you know . . . Wait . . . I’m getting something else here. You know, sometimes the spirits come through so strong that I can taste what they’re tasting, feel what they’re feeling. I’m getting . . . Smoke. I can smell smoke . . . I’m hearing . . . Someone here lose a loved one in a fire? Does that make sense to anyone?’

  No one spoke up. Maddie squirmed.

  ‘It could be . . . yeah, you know, I’m smelling gas, think it might be a car accident. I’m getting . . . What is the significance of the I-90?’

  A Friend called out that his second cousin had been killed in a head-on collision on that highway years earlier. Maddie allowed herself to breathe again. Ray crept back into the room and gave Maddie the A-okay sign. She checked her phone. Five minutes to go. She edged towards Celine, signalling that it was time to wrap it up. Ray had better do his bloody job and usher everyone out as fast as possible. The Friends were booked to eat at the second sitting, so they’d have to leave straight away if they didn’t want a r
ubbery lobster tail.

  Celine wished the Friends a Happy New Year and ran through her usual schtick about visiting her website where there were links to purchase her eleven books. Maddie leapt onto the stage before her boss could be engulfed in a tsunami of well-wishers. Celine’s wheelchair wasn’t strictly necessary (although she could propel it with the skill of a Paralympian if an over-zealous fan threatened to approach), but Maddie was glad of it this evening. Close up, Celine was really showing her age; her waxy skin had the look of an apple left too long in cold storage, her lips were the colour of old deli meat.

  Maddie unplugged the mic and handed it to the tech before Celine recovered and lambasted him for the PA system screw-up.

  ‘You okay, Celine?’ she murmured.

  ‘Get me the fuck outta here now.’

  ‘Celine?’ Leila bustled up to them before Maddie could intervene, waving a copy of part two of Celine’s autobiography, Medium to the Stars and Beyond. ‘I meant to ask you last night at the cocktail evening, but you were there so briefly . . . could you sign this?’

  Celine smiled icily. ‘It’d be a pleasure, my darling.’

  ‘Can you put, “To Leila, my biggest fan”? I’ve got all your books. E-editions and audio as well.’

  Maddie handed Celine a pen, glancing at Leila to see if she’d noticed Celine’s shaking hands; fortunately she was far too busy staring rapturously at her face. ‘You’ve helped me so much, Celine. You and Archie of course.’ Leila pressed the book to her chest. ‘You’ve really brought me peace. John . . . he wasn’t the easiest and . . . I don’t know how you do it.’

  ‘It’s a God-given gift, my darling. Know this, your faith and support means a lot to me.’

  ‘And you mean a lot to me. That awful man who burst in here doesn’t have a—’