The Woman in Cabin 10 Ch. 22 - 28

Okay, I was sick last week, sorry.

Babysitting the nephew, who kindly shared all of his baby germs with me. How are baby germs 10,000% more virulent than regular germs?

Anyway, rather than split it up, I just decided to do the six chapters in one post.

Lead with, Lo has gotten herself captured and locked somewhere on the ship. Because she...she was every dumb woman in every horror/thriller ever.

Bad guy is somewhere out there, out to get you.

Knock comes on the door and you...answer it.

Like an idiot.

I mean, I guess it's sort of like I told a friend, if no one was dumb in a horror movie, it'd be a very short movie.

"What, that noise in the basement? Hell no. We out. Investigate NOTHING."

Not today, Satan.

But wow, is it frustrating. We were all rooting for you!

*facepalm*

So we sort of pick up where we left Lo, sitting on her couch knowing that she is Not Fucking Safe. And there's a knock on the door.

She tries to be all sneaky and stealthy about checking the door, but all sense goes out the window when she sees that it's the Woman! And then she follows the woman, who is acting creepy and suspicious and Lo, Lo, really this is the worst of ideas, and hey, she gets knocked out in a dark stairwell in the bowels of the ship and wakes up some indeterminate amount of time later locked in a tiny fucking room.

I don't blame her for the panic attack, I too would be peeing myself. Though maybe less from the 'being trapped in a small space' and more the, 'I am at the mercy of a killer and am going to die, also I WAS THE DUMB CHICK IN THIS MOVIE'

Though I question the logic of not just killing Lo. I mean, sure, separate her 'disappearance' from wherever you're going to dump her body, but why is she still alive? This is not smart. You could totally keep a body hidden in this tiny room for a day or two if you had to. Logistics of the smell might be difficult, but I don't know what resources they have access to.

It would definitely be smarter to kill her right off.

*sigh*

So, Lo is locked in, panicking, and also having withdrawals from her antidepressants which is....not going well.

The Woman pops in to feed her, and there's obvious messing with the lights and her sense of time and day, which is just standard 'I have a captive' evil laughter inserted wherever. Lo tries to fight her way free, and also sort of realizes that she just accidentally got caught up in this by accidentally giving the Woman the secret knock she was expecting from her accomplice.

Lo also pegs Ben as the accomplice and she is...*sigh* much as it pains me. She is wrong.

It's not Ben. It was never Ben.

I still hate him.

Hates.

But he's not a murderer.

FINE.

Lo and the Woman reach a sort of agreement.

Lo won't try to escape and the Woman gives her her meds.

Which is good, from Lo's description, she cannot afford to loose the focus that it sounds like she loses without the meds.

ALSO, hey, guess who the Woman is?

Anne Bullmer.

Or.

Well.

She's playing Lady Anne Bullmer.

Who, one must assume, went overboard that first night.

I mean it makes sense.

Ambitious man marries woman with money.

Woman looks like she's about to die and leave him with all of that glorious money.

Then lo, (ha ha), she is not going to die, and she gets to keep controlling all of her own money.

Man suddenly needs a plan to get money into his control.

Know what would help with that?

Less wife.

*shakes head*

Dude.

Everyone kills for money. Or rage.

Or serial-killer-ness.

People are people, even when they're stupid rich.

Lo puts it together because she is Not Dumb, in spite of her earlier behavior. Especially when the Woman wipes blood from Lo's attack off of her face and also cleans off an eyebrow. Like Lo says, she's a good actor to pull it off, but Lo knows - also they have different eye colors. Anne Bullmer had grey eyes and the Woman has dark eyes.

Which is...a sign that this is not a long term plan.

Like, I'm certain that Bullmer has sold the Woman on the fact that he loves her and his wife was just awful and they could be together now but damn, man, you could spring for some colored contacts if you wanted to keep the charade up for long. But, as Lo point out when she's working on getting the Woman on her side, this is not going to end in a happy ever after for her and Bullmer.

He's used her to murder and dispose of his wife.

He is definitely going to get rid of her as soon as he doesn't need her anymore.

Because she is the only person who can tell his part of the events - Lo knows that he was involved, but that's just from putting things together. I would bet actual money that the Woman has evidence. And money spends so much more easily when it's just you spending it.

I kind of feel sorry for the Woman, even though she is totally a murderer, because she seems trapped. She's in love and she has gotten way too far in to back out now. In spite of her assurances that they're not going to hurt Lo, or that Bullmer loves her. She has to know that neither of those things are true.

Bullmer is going to kill them both, eventually.

Because it's the smart thing to do.

And he's probably also a sociopath.

We get another insert from an email that Jude sends out, announcing that they have identified some of the clothes that were fished out as Lo's, and they seem to be accepting that Lo is the body that was fished out of the ocean.

*sigh*

I really hope Lo makes it through this.

I've read books before where the, or one of the, main characters gets killed and it's interesting, but I like Lo in spite of her lapse in judgment from earlier.

I also like the Woman.

So....

Maybe they run off together and Thelma and Louise it, but without the finale?

What's another pair of female criminals that get to ride off into the sunset?

I can't think of any.

So, I think I'll finish the book for next week. Three chapters is too slow, I'll do the next book a bit faster.

I'm torn between reading Proud by Ibtihaj Muhammad or Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh. Non fiction or YA? Probably less murder in the non fiction, one can hope.