I had no chance to do anything else. Charley launched himself at me with a wordless cry and we landed on one of the Louis Quinze chairs, which splintered under our combined ma.s.s, tumbling us to the floor. The big c.o.c.kney wrapped his hands around my throat and began to squeeze. "b.l.o.o.d.y git!" he said, with a growl.

My peripheral vision dimmed immediately, turning gray at the edges as the oxygen to my brain was cut off. My hands fluttered about his face, useless appendages against his brute strength.

Harlan leapt on Charley's back, trying to pull him off, but in his weakened condition all he could do was scream. "Stop it, Charley! Stop it, NOW!"

Suddenly, he began coughing, and gasping for breath, the blood draining from his face. He was having some kind of attack, and it saved my life.

Hearing his master's distress, Charley let go of me and rushed to Harlan's side. He'd slumped to the floor, his entire body quivering, eyes rolled back up into his head. Charley ma.s.saged Harlan's throat, his face creased with fear and concern. "Breathe, Guv'nor, breathe," he said.

A pounding came at the door, jarring me further. "Mr. Astor! Are you all right? Mr. Astor?"

"Shut yer bleedin' hole, Collins! Get Dr. Medford, now."

"Right," came the reply, followed by m.u.f.fled footsteps pounding down the carpeted hallway.

It seemed silly to be summoning a doctor for a dying man, more so to even have one on board, but with the steward gone, and Charley thus occupied, I realized nothing now prevented me from leaving.

Still trying to catch my own breath from the near strangulation I'd suffered, I staggered to my feet, using the wall behind me for support.

Charley still bent over Harlan, ministering to him, and I could see my friend's normal coloring returning.

I grasped the door handle, slipped out of the suite, and ran headlong down the hallway to my stateroom. My plan, as hazy and ill-formed as it was, was to grab my MacBook and iPod touch, find Maddy and get us off the ship in the lifeboat Harlan had prepared for me. With two of us, the food and water would have to be conserved, and the satellite phone would be our salvation, if my laptop cellular proved inadequate, that is if Harlan was telling the truth. And a.s.suming he was, I prayed he'd remembered the lifeboat's number correctly.

I burst into my suite, and locked the door behind me. I knew it was an absurd gesture, as the stewards no doubt had pa.s.s keys for every lock on board. Still, it offered me a measure of comfort while I set about gathering my things. A quick look at the bedside clock showed me that it was just after five. Dawn would be breaking soon. If I wanted to get Maddy and me off the boat under the cover of darkness I had to hurry. And time would be even shorter, given that I still had to locate Maddy, and convince her to leave with me.

Going to my closet, I pulled out the carryall, leaving the rest of my clothes behind. Taking them was unnecessary and would only weigh me down. I brought it over to the bed, unzipped it and placed both my laptop and the iPod touch into it, along with all of the backup disks for my interviews. I suddenly realized this was precious cargo, indeed. And not just for my own gain. These were the last wills and testaments of these people.

I scanned the room one last time, looking for anything I might have missed, and I heard the pounding of feet going past my suite. That would be the doctor and the steward returning to Harlan's suite. Time was running out.

I was about to open the door, when I heard a noise coming from the other bedroom. A soft moan. I replaced my carryall on the bed and padded over to the door separating the second bedroom from the sitting area. The moan came again, soft and forlorn. Swallowing my fear, I waited, counted to three and flung it open, snapping on the lights at the same time.

Maddy bolted up in the bed, her eyes wide with fright and bleary from sleep.

"Trevor!"

I hesitated only a moment before I was in her arms.

"Oh, G.o.d, I'm so sorry, Maddy, please forgive me," I said, my words coming in sobs.

She held me, locked in her embrace, smothering me with kisses. "I'm sorry, too, Trevor. I've been so silly about all of this."

"Where have you been? I've been trying to find you for the last day."

She shook her head. "I was angry and I just wanted to be alone for awhile. So, I moved to a first cla.s.s cabin on C-deck. I felt betrayed-that you'd manipulated me for your book."

"You know that's not true."

"I do now. And, Trevor...I love you, too. With all my heart."

The world shifted under me again. "You do?"

She nodded, tears coming to her eyes.

"H-how'd you get in here?"

"Your man, Henry, let me in."

I nodded, trying to find a way to broach the question uppermost in my mind. I decided there was no better way than being direct.

"Maddy, why didn't you tell me?"

She glanced at me, then down at her hands. A lone tear fell onto the sheets, soaking in immediately. "You know...."

"Yes, I know. And you haven't answered my question."

"At first, I didn't think I had to tell you, Trevor. All of us know why we're here. Then, later, when Harlan told me about you, it was too late. I-I was already falling in love with you."

"And you thought I wouldn't want to get involved."

"Was I so wrong to think that?"

"No," I said, shaking my head.

And she was right. If I had known the true nature of the voyage, I not only would have kept my distance from her, but from all of those whom I'd interviewed. The whole project would have been tainted with the breath of pity. There was also a very good chance I would not have gone at all. Still, once she'd known that I was not among the terminally ill, she owed me the truth. I should have been angry, yet I wasn't. Perhaps because the truth about her condition still hadn't sunk in.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, breaking into my thoughts.

"That you're right...and wrong. You should have given me the benefit of the doubt, Maddy."

"Maybe if you knew the whole story, you'd think differently." She glanced toward the other bedroom. "I a.s.sume you've got your iPod touch with you."

"You want me to interview you, now?"

"Yes."

"Maddy, we've got to get off this ship. If we don't leave soon, we might not have another chance. One of Harlan's goons just tried to kill me."

I started to rise and she grabbed my arm, surprising me with the strength of her grip. "Wait."

"Maddy, we have no time."

"Sit down, Trevor."

Her tone was adamant, and I sat back down on the bed, my anxiety level rising. "You're in no danger from Harlan, or anyone else. All of us have made our peace with G.o.d and life. Because of this, we have nothing to fear, least of all death coming sooner. Harlan loves you as he would a brother. He's forgiven you; he wants you to live."

"And what about you, Maddy. Don't you want to live?"

She shook her head. "Please, don't."

"Now, hold on a minute. You wanted to be interviewed. You have to be willing to take the hard questions."

"Okay," she said, whispering.

"I must be crazy, but if what you say about Harlan is true, and the fact no one has busted down the door supports it, then we might as well talk, that is, if you really want to, Maddy."

"I do."

I ignored the other connotation those words conjured and went back into my room. I reached for my carryall and listened for the rush and clatter of footsteps coming down the hall, but silence continued to reign. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps my friend had forgiven me my anger.

Unzipping the carryall, I pulled out the iPod touch and the camera gla.s.ses and brought them back into the second bedroom. Maddy was already up and putting on her clothes. I waited until she'd finished, then pointed to the Biedermeier chairs. "Why don't we do it over here," I said.

She nodded and sat down. I seated myself on the other chair, put on the gla.s.ses and placed the iPod touch on the small table between us.

"What's with the gla.s.ses?"

"That's where the camera is. You ready?"

Her face split into one of her wry smiles. "As much as I'll ever be," she said.

"All right. Just state your name, age, and occupation, then go wherever you want with it. It's up to you."

She nodded and I reached for the record b.u.t.ton.

15.

Interview with Maddy Regehr Location: Suite B-57/59 "Now that I'm doing this, I feel so stupid, like I'm giving a deposition, or something."

"You want to stop? You don't have to do it, you know."

"No, let's go on." She fell silent for a moment then nodded. "My name is Madeleine Regehr, I'm thirty-six years old, and I'm a burned-out interior designer." She laughed, then fell silent again, her expression turning serious.

"I've often wondered how a life can go awry. Is it the paths we consciously choose for ourselves, or the roads we leave untrammeled? Is it the big things, or the little things with interest compounding daily, that finally break us? It was these kinds of questions that filled my head when I left for college. I'd lived most of my life in a small Connecticut town, swathed in the bliss that comes with the ignorance of the privileged. Don't get me wrong, the nineties hadn't pa.s.sed us by. We had troubled youth, a crime index that would've shocked a big city, and a divorce rate off the scale. My own parents were anomalies-they'd been married for twenty-five years and were happy."

"But you weren't?"

"No. I guess it was because I felt stifled in that little town. Besides being dry, it had nothing for a young person to do, so you spent your time looking for trouble...and finding it. I was caught shoplifting- twice, prompting my parents to send me off to boarding school in the tenth grade. I fought it at first, managing to fail out the first semester.

"My parents drove up to the school and we spent the whole drive back in silence. Somehow, that was worse than if they'd yelled at me."

"Were you glad to be home?"

"No. About the third day I was back, I realized it was worse than being in boarding school. My friends had no ambitions other than to get married, live in their husband's shadows, and screw the tennis pro at the country club. I begged my Mom and Dad to send me back, promising to make straight 'A's.'

"They were skeptical, but I won them over. I think it was my father who saw it first, recognizing in me a little something of himself at that age. He convinced my Mom, and they in turn convinced the school. Apparently, it wasn't easy, as I'd been far from their ideal student. Their proviso was that I study at home and take their final exams under the watchful eye of a hired proctor.

"It was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. Throughout the entire summer, my parents and I played the roles of teachers and student, spending six, seven, sometimes eight hours a day drilling me in the finer points of high school curriculum. I think we all discovered a newfound respect for one another.

"Anyway, two weeks before the new school year was to begin, I took the exams and aced every one of them, the lowest grade being a 'B.' My Mom and Dad were so proud, and I felt something I'd never felt before: a sense I could do anything I wanted, that I didn't have to end up like my friends, as some trophy wife.

"I worked my b.u.t.t off for the next two years and got those straight 'A's.' I ended up grabbing a choice scholarship to Yale, where I majored in philosophy."

"Still trying to answer those questions?" I asked.

Maddy smiled.

"I'm nothing if not stubborn. It was that and a yearning to learn more about myself and the rest of humanity, to try and make some sense of it all."

"Did you?"

"No. But I could see why everyone is so consumed with living the good life, why 'things' matter more than ideas. You can grasp a Rolex in your hand, you can caress a new BMW, but an idea must first be understood. And no one outside of the department seemed willing to understand the simplest thing. They wanted to be entertained."

"Bread and Circuses."

"Exactly. And it was that realization that finally turned me off of the 'Great Quest.' And while I did not descend into 'moral degradation,' like my fellow cla.s.smates, I nevertheless became less consumed with the inner world and more obsessed with the outer one."

"No boyfriends?"

"You want to hear about that, huh?" she said, grinning. "Sure, I dated, but no one serious. That came later."

"So, what came next?"

"I managed to graduate, though it was not with the honors my parents came to expect. The problem was I'd been spending most of my spare time going to New York to visit the art museums and the tiny little galleries in Soho.

"The scene was so vibrant back then, right around the turn of the Millennium. I think it was all that apocalyptic c.r.a.p everyone was going through, I don't know. But I had a ball just absorbing everything. My only problem was I had no talent to be an artist, at least the kind I wanted to be. The breakthrough came for me when I took the wrong bus one day and ended up in the design section.

"On the street level, there was storefront after storefront selling fabrics, furniture, objects d'art, you name it, all to the trade. From the second floor and up were all the architects and design firms who patronized these places.

"I was fascinated, and I think this is where my philosophical questions were finally answered, because I felt a sense of synergy at work. I knew-without a flicker of doubt-I belonged on that street. I'd finally come home.

"I spent the whole day visiting those stores and making a nuisance of myself with the questions I asked. One woman who owned an Italian furniture store was kind enough to tell it to me straight: if I wanted success in this business, I had to go back to school. And the only one that counted was Parsons School of Design."

"What did your parents think?"

She tilted her head, considering the question. "To be honest, I don't think they were overly thrilled with the idea. I think they equated it with the bohemian lifestyle of a Soho artist, which they were deathly afraid I would become. When I told them the kind of income I could make, they changed their tune and agreed to finance me. And as I'd had a full scholarship to Yale, it was less of a burden for them.

"I applied myself the same way I had in high school and college, and graduated with honors. The day after the ceremony I received three job offers from the top design firms on the street. None of them paid very well to start, but I took the one from Halsey Design because they seemed to be the most willing to challenge me, and because they were the best of the best.

"The next two years were the most grueling I've ever experienced. Most of it was spent as Rudy Danzig's gopher. He was the firm's top designer, and he ran me ragged. If Rudy needed a fabric sample, I'd run out and grab it. If he needed a floor plan, I drew it. And that was one thing that always galled me. I did most of the grunt work, and Rudy took all the credit, even for those creative little touches I came up with on my own."

"Sounds like you hated it."

"I loved every minute, because I knew I was learning what it would take to make it. My break came the day Rudy had a heart attack. He died right on the job site. The client, a real 'Nervous Nelly,' called the firm in a tizzy; and that's when I met Matt Halsey.