The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch 10 - 12

You know, I'm thinking that three chapters was too few.

It's really slowing down the plot and possibly stabbing me in the sanity.

Next week I'll do four.

Anyway.

Today begins the second most sacred week of the year, SHARK WEEK!!!

This has nothing to do with the book, I just want you all to know.

SHARKS.

Smooth ocean puppies!

Okay. Book.

Lo rushes to the balcony, making a ton of noise as she slams through her sliding door and she can't see anything in the water except maybe a hand sinking? That could just be her mind playing tricks on her - I can vouch for how hard it can be to make things out in the dark ocean especially in rough seas.

What she definitely sees is the smear of something on the glass partition. Something that might be blood, but certainly doesn't bode well for Cabin 10's occupant.

Lo understandably freaks, especially as she realizes that whoever was over in the next cabin definitely heard her and maybe even saw her face. She scoots back into her cabin and double checks the door and makes sure that the veranda doors are as secure as she can make them.

Then she calls boat 911.

I appreciate this line, 'This was it. This was real danger, and I was coping.' 

Lo is traumatized, drunk, and she has an anxiety disorder going on in the background somewhere. And she's always worried about looking weird or frightened of things and not sure that she's reacting appropriately to the situation. But this, this here, there is definite danger and she is not freezing, she is  doing the right things. Making sure she is as safe as she can be and then calling for help.

Karla, her own personal cabin slave #2, checks that Lo is safe and then says that she's sending someone up to Lo.

Lo, waiting, realizes that someone has been in her cabin and touched all of her things. Not in the weird, someone broke into your house way, but in the housekeeping way. Though I'll be honest, I haven't been home invaded or burgled or anything like that and I still find the idea of someone unpacking my things or going through my laundry and cleaning up after me weird and invasive. I'm with Lo - it kind of makes me want to cry.

I could never make it as the idle rich.

I'd have to at least do my own laundry.

Sorry.

So head of security Johann Nilsson shows up and Lo gives him the run down.

Only when they go out onto the balcony to check on the blood smear, it's gone.

Nothing.

There's a clear turn in the tone, Lo goes from seeing Nilsson to being on her side to feeling disbelieved and judged. And that's before they actually go next door to discover that the room is entirely empty. No signs of a struggle, no sign that anyone has been living there at all.

Which is what Nilsson claims is fact. That there is no one in cabin 10. The guest who was supposed to be staying in it cancelled - whoever the woman was Lo met earlier, she did not belong there.

I kind of love and feel awful for Lo that she tries to show Nilsson the mascara like it's existence proves that she borrowed it from someone. All it proves is that you have mascara, darling. And also that the bottles in your trash from the minibar have been noted and you're drunk.

Nilsson agrees to come to Lo at 8 the next morning, to take her around and see if she can identify the woman among the staff. He obviously believes that she's drunk and having some sort of episode. After all, there's no sign of anything having gone wrong in the cabin. There's no one being reported missing among the guests or the crew and it's a small vessel so someone missing would be noticed.

Though I'd argue with that, if someone wasn't where they were meant to be for even an innocuous reason, but the rest of the crew thought they were somewhere else, someone could go missing really fast. Enough people go missing off of cruises and those things have security cameras.

It's obvious that Nilsson doesn't believe her and I can't really entirely blame him. He came up, obviously was woken up, and checked out the report. There's no evidence, other than Lo's word and she's drunk and was asleep when she heard whatever it was that she heard.

I can vouch for having sworn that I saw or heard things while awake only to wake up and find out that I was asleep the whole time. Dreams are weird.

Chapter 12 starts up with Lo, hungover, getting the 8 am Nilsson wake up call that she demanded.

By the time she cleans herself up, Nilsson is waiting patiently for her in the hall.

A good chunk of the chapter is taken up with Lo being taken below decks and in the private crew areas to meet everyone and find out that 1) no one is missing and 2) no one matches her description of the woman. I might regret not naming everyone later, but I doubt it. Suffice to say that even when Lo admits that in the more sober light of day she's maybe not sure of what she heard, Nilsson insists that she meet every member of the crew that could possibly be Cabin Girl. I'm guessing to put Lo's mind at ease - she can't claim that it was that one crew member she didn't meet if she meets them all.

Lo remains certain that the woman was real, however, because of the mascara.

And the fact that if she wasn't real, if she's not dead, some sort of stow away that's been murdered, that means Lo is losing her mind.