“Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but you freaked me out,” he explained. “What’s going on? Why are you down here?” His voice was as shaky as his hands.

Her blue eyes gave him a blank look at first until she remembered what happened.

“Don’t hurt me,” she stammered as she tried to sit up and slide away from him at the same time. It was an ungainly attempt that might have made him laugh any other time. But it was clear she was terrified of him.

“I’m not going to hurt you, damn it,” he growled at her. “I wouldn’t have hit you if you’d just shut up and listen.” Warren still had an adrenaline rush going. He forced himself to take a deep breath as he backed away from her.

“Ok, I know you didn’t kill the guy since you walked by me. I’m pretty sure someone else is down here in this area. That’s why I came down; I heard people talking along with strange noises.”

He slowly scanned the area with the light in his hand. He could see no one on the ladder closest to them.

Amber gave him a suspicious look.

“I want to get the captain,” she insisted.

“I agree. That makes sense.” He replied.

As he turned the beam of light on her, her expression shot venom at him when she raised her hand to shield her eyes. Warren didn’t like the look.

“Hold on! Before we go anywhere, I want to know why you’re down here,” he growled. “Now that I think about it, you’ve been hanging around my cabin. I have a sneaky sensation you have been following me. In fact, I feel you might tell the captain I did this. Listen carefully, I’m not frying again.”

Amber gave him a curious look at what he told her.

“No, we go to the captain,” she declared and started toward the ladder.

Impatiently, he grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. He pressed his fingers hard into her arm, wanting to shake some sense into the woman.  

“Listen, if I was the killer, wouldn’t you be dead already? Now, think about that.”

Her hostility dropped slightly.

“It would have been simple to just walk out of here, leaving two dead bodies here. But I’m not that way,” Warren stated. “Now come with me.”

He pulled her back over to the ladder, where he heard someone climbing earlier. Her defiant look remained, but she quit fighting his pull.

“I thought you said someone else is down here,” she told him in a mocking tone, which made him grit his teeth. He trained the beam of light up and down the ladder to the hatch above.

“I’m damn sure someone was down here since I heard them running away when you came down,” he insisted. “They must have escaped this way.”

After several seconds of staring at the closed door above, he glanced at her. Her smirk made him replay the events in his head.

“I know I heard footsteps,” he said mostly to himself, finally convincing himself whoever was waiting in the cargo hold with him was now gone.

“Pretty convenient for whoever it was,” Amber said. The skepticism was evident in her voice made him angry.

“Shut it,” he snapped. “It’s not like you’re clean here. You still haven’t told me why you’re down here,”

He pushed her back to the murder scene. When they got near the body, he swept the floor with the flashlight beam, immediately finding the item he stepped on earlier.

“What the hell is this?” He asked as he crouched down, picking up a piece of stone like material.

As he examined the unusual piece, he realized he held a broken finger from a good-sized statue.

“That’s weird.” She stared at the item in his hand.

Warren glanced back at her, surprised at her choice of words.

“Have you seen this before?” Warren asked while standing. She shook her hand and put the item into his pocket. The man turned the light toward the body.

“Come on, I want to see what’s in the trunk,” he told her as he focused his attention on the box next to the body.

“No, I’ve seen enough,” Amber refused to follow.

“Yeah, you and me both,” he admitted quietly, then stepped away.

“Just stay there and don’t move,” he warned her with a glance back. Amber gave him a defiant look, crossing her arms, but she remained still.

Warren slowly passed the dead man, trying to avoid the staring eyes as he kept glancing back at Amber. The first thing he noticed was the box lay on its side, partially opened. As he carefully stepped over the body, Warren saw that someone had cut the leather straps that wrapped around the trunk. Someone also forced open the lock.

Shining the light on the inside of the trunk, he observed a white canvas bag with lettering on it. Unable to get a clear view, he lifted the lid of the trunk wider. The chest is heavier than he imaged, and he had to hold the lid with one hand. His stomach twisted into a knot when Warren recognized his name on the tag attached to the handle. Then he looked inside. At first, he could not grasp what he was seeing.

“What the—hell,” his question went silent as he clumsily pulled the bag inside the trunk. The bag contained a gray-white powder. Warren stood up, scratching his head.

“This thing is full of clothes and a bag of cement,” he told her. “Why the hell would someone put a bag of Portland cement in a trunk with clothes?”

Warren glanced at Amber, who wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she focused her eyes on the ladder he had inspected earlier. Just as he was about to ask what she was looking at, the grating metallic sound of the hatch door opening behind them filled the cargo area. Warren sprinted over to Amber as he turned out the light.

“What is this? Times Square?”

Warren caught her arm, pulling her away. In the distance, he heard someone climbing down the ladder.

“I… don’t understand.”

Amber whispered, and from the sound of her voice, Warren heard the fear. He put the flashlight in his coat pocket and turned it on. Using the bit of light sneaking out of his pocket, he led them back to his hiding spot under the tarp by the car.

 The footsteps stopped only a row away from them, then they heard the rustle of clothing followed by the striking of a match. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted to them. Warren pushed up the canvas, and he saw a crewman in blue dungarees holding an electric lantern. The light filled the area around the man. He turned away and stepped toward the other side of the hold.  

“It’s the night-watch,” Warren whispered to Amber, coming close enough to smell her perfume. “He’s heading away from the body. Do you still think you want to have him find the body with us down here? That will mean you are in this with me.”

In the dark, he could almost feel the wheels turning in her head. Warren hoped she would think he was the lesser of two evils. 

“I have an idea,” he whispered to her. “Let’s go back to the ladder and get out of here before he finds Krupin. We can go to the captain. I’m willing to bet you don’t have a good excuse for being down here, either. But I’ll guarantee you we won’t have a leg to stand on if they find us here.”

“Alright, I’ll go with you, but only to get the captain,” she told him reluctantly.

“Then take off your shoes and follow me.” He told her as he slipped off his leather shoes.

Quickly, he tied them together and put them over his shoulder. Pressing forward, he slowly put his head out. The light moved away from their area as the footsteps diminished.

He held the tarp up for the woman, and she crawled out. The night watch’s light gave off enough ambient light over the cargo hold for them to find a path back to the hatch above. He reached over to hold the woman’s arm to guide her, but she pulled away.

“Fine,” Warren whispered bitterly, then he pushed past her.

He followed a row of crates and boxes. As they snuck along, they glanced over at the watchman’s light, which was now visible on the far side of the cargo area. Soon, it was too dark to see, and they felt their way using the pinprick of light coming from his pocket. Warren finally found a narrow spot between the rows, which led them to a place where the entrance ladder went up.

As they emerged from the row, Amber glanced back and noticed the light slowly moving along a row closer to the body. The faint echo of whistling reached them, and Warren nearly walked into the steel ladder. He felt the woman stumble onto his back when he stopped.

“Sorry about that,” he whispered. “You go up first. I’ll be right behind you,” Warren moved aside.

Quickly and quietly, she started up while the man gave her a couple of seconds before he followed. Using the sound of the rhythmic swaying of the chain above them as a guide, he tried to gauge their distance from the top. Occasionally, he looked back at the light, which was now close to the area where the body lay.

As they got to the top, he congratulated himself on the escape. Then, Warren caught the dim shadow of Amber hurrying to finish the climb. Almost immediately, he realized she decided to ditch him.

Hurrying up the last steps as fast as he could, he reached the top of the ladder and scrambled across the small steel platform. Amber scurried to the hatch and forced it open.

Striking his knee on the metal edge of the platform, Warren let out a loud grunt and limped across until he reached the steel door. Amber closed it on him.  

Suddenly, the beam of light from the crewman below lit up the surrounding area. Oblivious to the yelling from the night watchman, Warren used his full weight against the hatch. He pushed through despite the frantic efforts of the woman to keep him inside. Warren fell through and quickly turned to close the door. Pulling Amber’s flashlight from his pocket, he jammed the metal between the handle and the latch to ensure the sailor remained locked inside.