Read Chapter 27: Aftermath of the Flood

The water hit them like a living thing, black and hungry, surging through the boiler room’s exit with a roar that swallowed every other sound. Jack grabbed Margaret’s arm and pulled her toward the iron stairwell, the matron already clawing her way up the rungs with a strength that belied her years.

“Go!” Jack shouted, shoving Margaret ahead of him. “Don’t look back!”

The water slapped at his calves, then his knees, as he climbed. Cold—colder than anything he’d felt in his life—seeped through his trousers and bit into his bones. Behind him, the boiler room screamed as steam met seawater, a sound like a dying animal. He didn’t look. He kept climbing.

They emerged on the next deck into a corridor that tilted beneath their feet like a carnival floor. The electric lights flickered, some already dead, casting long shadows that danced and twisted. A few passengers stumbled past, their faces blank with shock, clutching coats and children and whatever else they’d grabbed in their panic. No one asked questions. No one offered help.

“Which way?” Margaret gasped, bending over to catch her breath. The ledger case was still clutched to her chest, her knuckles white around its leather strap.

Jack wiped seawater from his eyes and scanned the corridor. Forward meant the bow, already underwater. Aft meant the stern, still rising. But the stairwells between—Christ, the water was everywhere now. It seeped through doorways, dripped from vent grates, pooled in the low spots where the ship’s spine had begun to groan.

“Up,” he said. “We have to get higher.”

The matron nodded, her face grim but steady. “There’s a service stair past the mail room. It should still be dry.”

They moved, half-running, half-falling, through the tilted passage. The ship’s angle grew steeper with every minute, and the water followed them like a patient hound. Jack’s lungs burned. The ledger case banged against Margaret’s hip as she ran, and he thought of Vance’s burned registry pages, of the banker in London who had set all of this in motion, of the list of names that might still doom the living.

They rounded a corner and nearly collided with a figure slumped against the wall.

The man was older, sixty if he was a day, with a grey mustache and a suit that had once been fine but now hung wet and ruined. His face was the color of ash, and a dark stain spread across his chest, blooming through his waistcoat like a crimson flower. He held a handkerchief pressed to the wound, but his hand trembled, and blood leaked between his fingers.

“Help,” he whispered, not looking at them, his eyes fixed on something far away. “Please. God in heaven, help me.”

Jack stopped. Every instinct screamed at him to keep moving, to leave this stranger to whatever fate the ship had planned. But Margaret had already knelt beside the man, pressing her hand over his.

“We don’t have time—” Jack started.

“He’s dying,” Margaret said flatly. She looked up at Jack, and her eyes were hard. “We have time for this.”

The man coughed, a wet, rattling sound that brought more blood to his lips. “Miss,” he said, focusing on her face with an effort. “Miss, you shouldn’t have stopped. The ship—she won’t last the night.”

“Neither will you, if that wound’s as bad as it looks,” Jack said, crouching beside Margaret. He kept his voice low, but his eyes scanned the corridor. No one else had come this way. They were alone with the dying man and the rising water. “What happened to you?”

“Bastard shot me.” The man laughed, a hollow, humorless sound. “Suppose I deserved it. Stuck my nose where it didn’t belong.”

“Who?” Jack asked.

The man’s eyes flickered to Jack’s face, and something sharpened in his gaze despite his pallor. “You’re the one. The stowaway. The jack who’s been causing all that trouble.”

Jack’s hand itched toward his pocket, where the knife still rested. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Course you don’t.” The man smiled, and his teeth were red. “Name’s Whitfield. Pinkerton agency, out of Chicago. Been tracking that bastard Vance and his employer for three months now. Got a lead in Liverpool, followed it here.” He coughed again, and this time the sound rattled deep in his chest. “Didn’t figure he’d be as fast as he was.”

“Vance did this?” Margaret asked, her voice tight.

“Vance,” Whitfield confirmed. “Or one of his men. Doesn’t matter. They got what they wanted—but not all of it.” He fumbled at his breast pocket with his free hand, trembling, and drew out a small brass key, worn and dark with use. He held it out to Jack, his fingers unsteady.

Jack took it. It was heavier than it looked, the teeth cut in an intricate pattern he’d never seen before. Engraved along the bow was a number: “17.”

“What’s this for?” Jack asked.

“Strongroom,” Whitfield said, each word costing him. “Behind the purser’s office on C-deck. Number seventeen. Vance thinks he got everything—the registry pages, the names, all of it. But he missed the safe. Been sitting there since we planted it in Belfast. Documents. Photographs. Everything the agency has on the banker and his clients.”

“What kind of documents?” Margaret’s voice was sharp.

Whitfield’s eyes found hers, and there was a grim satisfaction in them. “Proof. Letters, bank records, correspondence. Enough to hang every man involved in that deposit scheme—and the ones who disappeared the account holders before they could talk.” He winced, his body sliding a little lower against the wall. “Vance thinks this ends with him. But it won’t. Not if you get that safe open before he does.”

“Why us?” Jack asked. “Why not one of your own?”

“Because they’re all dead,” Whitfield said simply. “Sent three men ahead, one on each crossing. All of them gone. I’m the last, and I’m about to join them.” He reached out and gripped Jack’s wrist, his fingers surprisingly strong. “You’ve been dancing with this devil all night. You’ve got more right than anyone to finish it. Take the key. Find the safe. Make sure the truth gets out.”

Jack looked down at the key in his palm, then back at Whitfield’s face. The man’s eyes were already glazing over, the life draining out of him with his blood.

“I’m not a hero,” Jack said quietly. “I’m a thief.”

“Good.” Whitfield smiled, a faint ghost of humor in it. “Means you know how to open a lock. Go on, then. Leave me. The ship’s got a claim on me now.”

Margaret opened her mouth to protest, but the man shook his head, a faint, final gesture.

“Go,” he repeated. “Before the water takes the strongroom too.”

Jack stood, pulling Margaret to her feet. The matron hovered behind them, her face pale but composed. Whitfield’s eyes had slipped closed, and his chest moved weakly, barely rising.

“His wallet,” Jack said suddenly. He crouched and reached into the man’s coat, drawing out a worn leather billfold. He flipped it open, glancing at the ID card—Pinkerton National Detective Agency—and the folded bills inside. Then he tucked it into his own pocket.

“That’s theft,” Margaret said, but her voice held no judgment.

“That’s evidence,” Jack corrected. “Moran put a debt on my head tonight. Tried to have me killed in that boiler room. Dead men don’t pay their debts, but their effects can.” He patted the pocket. “When this is over, this wallet proves who Vance works for—and who was hunting him.”

He paused, looking down at Whitfield one last time. The man’s breathing had stopped. His face had relaxed into something almost peaceful.

“We need to move,” the matron said quietly. “The water’s rising.”

Jack nodded. He pressed the brass key into his own pocket beside Whitfield’s wallet, then turned and led them down the corridor, away from the dead man and toward the rising decks.

They climbed another set of stairs, emerging into a wide passage lined with closed cabin doors. A few passengers stood outside, arguing with a steward who was trying to herd them toward the boat deck. Somewhere above, a band was playing—something jaunty, almost mocking in its cheerfulness.

Margaret touched Jack’s arm. “The strongroom. We have to go.”

“I know.” He glanced at the matron, then at Margaret. “You two find a lifeboat. Get yourselves aboard. I’ll handle the safe.”

“Like hell you will,” Margaret said. There was no anger in her voice, just flat resolve. “You’re not doing this alone.”

“Margaret—” Jack started.

“No. I didn’t drag you out of that boiler room so you could give me instructions and run off into the deep end.” She held up the ledger case. “And I’m not letting you out of my sight until this is finished. The list. The safe. Vance. All of it.”

Jack opened his mouth—then closed it. There was no arguing with that expression. He’d seen it before on the faces of men who’d already made up their minds, who’d crossed a line and weren’t coming back.

“Fine,” he said. “But the matron goes to the boat deck now.”

The matron shook her head. “I’ve been evicted from my post and chased through the bowels of this ship with you two. I’m not about to abandon you at the last dance.” She smoothed her dress, looking for all the world like she was about to attend a church service rather than drown. “Lead on, Mr. O’Leary. I’ll keep the lady safe while you work your thievery.”

Jack looked at them both—the stubborn matron, the determined girl with her dead sister’s ledger clutched to her chest—and felt something shift in his chest. He had spent his whole life running alone, trusting no one, relying on nothing but his own wits and quick hands. And now here he was, with two women who refused to leave his side even as the ship tilted beneath their feet.

“All right,” he said. “C-deck. The strongroom. Let’s hope Whitfield’s safe is still dry.”

He turned and led them forward, into the darkening heart of the sinking ship.