The Contract Ends When I Stop Wanting You

How it begins

Eva found the second compartment because the first one had been repaired badly.

Whoever fitted the panel understood expensive wood and very little about seawater. The screw heads were clean. The metal beneath them was not.

She removed two and stopped.

Inside lay a waterproof case marked as medical equipment. It weighed almost nothing.

Captain Rowe appeared on the dock before she opened it.

“That wasn't on the work order.”

“Neither was the corrosion.”

He looked at the case, then at the open panel.

Eva had accepted the repair because the money would keep her workshop open through winter. She had not accepted whatever expression crossed his face when he realized she had found something he hoped to reach first.

“Am I in danger?” she asked.

He did not answer quickly enough to be reassuring.

“Yes.”

“From you?”

“No.”

“Then begin with something I can verify.”

For a moment he seemed almost relieved by the instruction.

Julian Rowe had the polished manner of a man accustomed to people hearing what they wanted in a pause. Eva knew boats. A pause under pressure could be a warning, a weakness or a person deciding whether to stop lying.

He gave her the employer's name.

She knew it from a payment dispute at another yard.

“The case contains a recording,” he said.

“Of what?”

“Something I should have reported.”

Eva put the screwdriver down where both could see it.

A crew member laughed somewhere beyond the cabin. The ordinary sound made the hidden case more difficult to dismiss. Other people worked here. Other people would be on the water when the job was finished.

She looked at her contract.

The departure date was Friday. The cancellation clause was clear.

“I can leave,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And take what I've found to someone independent.”

“Yes.”

Only then did she look back at the captain, interested for the first time in the answer he might give without needing her to stay.