Chapter 8: The Story She Told

At the hospital, Elias learned that Selene had begun speaking before the patrol boat reached shore.

She said Adrian had forced her to lure Elias onto the yacht. She said the blow on the deck had been an attempt to stop Elias from attacking him. She admitted saying “Do it,” but claimed she meant for Adrian to release the chain, not push Elias overboard.

Adrian offered a different account. According to him, Elias had brought divers and cameras because he intended to accuse his wife publicly. Adrian said the anchor was part of the yacht’s equipment and that the struggle at the rail had been an accident.

Elias heard both accounts from the investigator who visited his hospital room that evening. Beth sat in the corner with a notebook on her lap.

“They can say what they like,” Elias said. “There were people on that boat.”

“There were,” the investigator replied. “We’re taking their statements separately. We’re also securing the recordings.”

“Did the cabin camera catch the push?”

“I don’t have an answer I can give you yet.”

Elias hated how quickly he wanted reassurance. The investigator had warned him before the voyage that rescue planning could be portrayed as a staged event. He had still boarded.

After the investigator left, Beth closed her notebook.

“Martin’s asking to talk to you.”

“No.”

“He says Adrian told him the video was for a board review. He wants to explain.”

“He explained enough in the voicemail.”

Beth nodded. “Claire has suspended his access. She also paused the East Point transaction.”

“Did she make that public?”

“Only to the people who needed to know.”

Elias leaned back against the pillow. His shoulder was bruised but intact. He had swallowed seawater and needed observation, the doctor said. He would recover.

“You should go home,” Beth told him.

“I don’t know whether Selene’s there.”

“She isn’t.”

“I meant our house.”

Beth understood. She offered to have someone collect his clothes from his office. He thanked her and said he would stay in a hotel when he was discharged.

The next morning, a photograph of him climbing onto the yacht’s deck appeared online. A headline called it a “marriage confrontation at sea.” Another claimed he had hired divers to frighten his wife.

By noon, a statement attributed to Selene described Elias as a man under immense pressure. It asked for privacy and said she loved him.

Elias read it once. Then he gave his phone to Beth.

“Call our lawyer,” he said. “I want any response based on what we can prove.”

The lawyer advised against arguing with headlines. Elias agreed. He spent the afternoon giving a detailed statement: the forged agreement, Adrian’s laptop on the home network, the route change, the anchor order, Martin’s video, and every moment he remembered on the yacht.

He did not leave out his own decision to board after receiving warnings.

That evening, Owen arrived at the hospital with an officer. His voice was hoarse.

“The deckhand’s all right,” he told Elias. “Adrian shut him in, but he wasn’t injured.”

“What about the footage?”

“The camera above the cabin recorded Selene striking you and the chain going over. The rail blocks part of the view when you fall. The wheelhouse camera shows Adrian at the controls afterward.”

Elias let out a breath.

“There’s a problem,” Owen continued. “The aft camera held the clearest view of Adrian fastening the chain. He took its card.”

“He threw it overboard.”

“I know. The other angles show pieces, and the divers saw what happened below the rail.”

The officer added that the original files had been secured. Their contents would be examined alongside the witnesses’ accounts and the physical equipment. She asked Elias whether anyone else might have recorded the planning of the trip.

“Adrian used my wife’s house to access company files,” he said. “Beth has those records.”

“Anything from before the voyage?”

Elias thought of Selene’s phone. Her calls to Adrian. The twenty-three minutes his laptop had spent at the house while Elias was out. He had no access to their conversations.

“Nothing I can put in your hands,” he said.

After Owen left, Elias asked Beth to bring him the archive of Adrian’s old work with Ward Coastal. She hesitated.

“The investigators have requested it.”

“I want to know what he could have taken before we cut him off.”

They worked through a copy with counsel’s permission the next morning. Most files concerned the rejected refinancing. One folder was labeled with the name of a small property company Elias did not recognize.

Adrian had prepared a proposal to transfer East Point to that company after the marina sale. Its listed owner was a trust. Selene was named as a beneficiary in a draft attachment.

Beth checked the document history.

“This was created four months ago,” she said.

Four months. Long before the yacht itinerary.

Elias asked her to send the folder to the investigator and the company’s lawyer. Then he noticed a note attached to the draft. It referred to a meeting about “succession” at Adrian’s office.

The note had been dictated and automatically saved as an audio file.

Beth opened it. Adrian’s voice came through the laptop speakers, reading instructions for the transaction. In the background, another voice said, “No one will believe he meant to sell it once he’s gone.”

Selene.

Beth stopped the recording. Neither of them spoke.

A moment later, she played the sentence again. This time Elias heard the rest of Selene’s words beneath Adrian’s reply:

“Make sure the paperwork is done before the boat trip.”

Elias reached for his phone. The investigators needed the original file and the records showing how it had been stored. He would not risk changing it by forwarding a casual copy.

Beth looked at the creation date, then at him.

“They planned the property transfer before they planned the voyage,” she said.

Elias nodded. For days he had been asking whether Selene had followed Adrian into a crime she feared to refuse.

The recording did not answer every question. It told him she had been there when the plans were made.