Free Deception by John Altman Page A

situation. Are you waking up now?”
    â€œâ€¦ Still logy.”
    â€œThat’s the sedative the doctor gave you. It should be wearing off soon. Are you hungry?”
    Hannah thought about it. She shook her head.
    â€œWell,” Jackie said again. “I need to show my face at dinner, to keep up appearances. But if you decide you can handle some food, just pick up the phone. Call the purser. He’ll bring you anything you want.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œAnd if you want to talk about anything, or want anything at all …”
    â€œI think I’ll just sleep for a while.”
    â€œAll right,” Jackie said. She stood. “Sleep well.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œSleep well,” Jackie said again. She gave Hannah a final empty smile, and left.
    3.
    That doesn’t look safe , Renee Epstein had said.
    It’ll be fine , Hannah had assured her.
    Yet it hadn’t, of course. It had been very far from fine.
    Had it all been a dream? That face, oddly ageless. The Epsteins, touching each other in death.
    All a fever dream, she decided. She was sick. The weather seemed to be worsening, which didn’t help. The sea had turned choppy; the boat pitched and yawed relentlessly. She kept her eyes tightly closed.
    She was finished.
    When they reached Istanbul, they would be met by the FBI. Every person on board the ship would be put under a microscope. They would look at her passport, and see that it had been forged. And she would be finished.
    She was as bad as Jackie Burns, in her way. She had witnessed two murders. And yet already her mind was turning to her own concerns. Now we need to look ahead, and make things as easy as possible on the rest of us.
    Perhaps it was just part of life, Hannah thought. Perhaps life meant moving ahead, when death showed its face.
    In her case, however, the only place to move ahead to was prison.
    When the niggling voice spoke, her eyes opened halfway.
    Remember: there’s no record of your presence here.
    Suddenly she felt overly warm. She shoved the blanket aside and then lay on her back, limbs splayed, aspirating shallowly.
    It was true. There was no proof that she had ever been on the ship. Vicky was the one who had been on board, according to the passenger roster. So if she could somehow find a way to slip away undetected, then she might still have a chance. If she could get herself home, to her father …
    How would he react now, if she appeared on his doorstep with a warrant out for her arrest? There had been bad blood between them. But would he turn on his own daughter? No. Instead he would help her broker a deal, an exchange. He was a criminal lawyer in Baltimore; he would get her the best possible terms. She would turn over Frank, and in return the company would forgive her mistakes and wipe her record clean. A fresh start.
    Wishful thinking.
    But was there any other option?
    She bit her lip, trying to think of one, and came up empty. Her mistakes over the past few months had whittled her options down to nothing.
    Slowly, her mind turned to Yildirim.
    He was chief security officer aboard the boat. If the chief of security couldn’t find a way around his own rules—a way to help her slip unnoticed through customs at Istanbul—then who could?
    For another ten minutes, she stayed where she was, her brow creased. Then she got out of bed. The feeling of sickness had passed. Only shock, after all. She looked at herself in the mirror above the dresser. Her hair wound crazily in a half-dozen directions. The skin beneath her eyes was purplish and bruised-looking. She wouldn’t get far with Yildirim, not looking like this.
    Which was, of course, why God had created makeup.
    She went into the bathroom, took a long shower, and then considered herself again in the mirror. Better. There was something to work with, at least. Something was better than nothing.
    Anything was better than nothing.
    She reached for her makeup, and