Chapter 10: The Purser's Book

Livia's POV

My first shift at the hospital started at six on Monday morning, and I was glad of it.

For ten hours I wrote orders and checked charts and answered to nobody's name but my own.

At four I drove to the Santoro marina on the river, in my scrubs, with the yacht on my mind.

The old boat captain was on the dock, coiling a line.

He had worked for the family since before I was born, and he'd been on deck the day of the fire.

"Miss Livia," he said. "Heard you were a doctor now. Congratulations."

"Thank you." I sat on a bollard beside him. "I want to ask about last month. I never asked, and I should have."

His face closed a little. "It was a bad day."

"I was in the water a long time."

"I know. I saw everyone we pulled out. You were the last one."

He said it flat, without blame.

"Who ordered the launch?" I asked. "When the fire started."

"Mr. Massimo did. He took Miss Bianca to the boat himself. I had to go back for the others."

"She had a life jacket on already, he says. Before the smoke."

The old man's hands slowed on the rope.

"Aye, she did."

"Why?"

"I couldn't say. She came aboard that morning and went straight to the purser."

"She asked for a jacket and said she was frightened of the water."

He frowned. "We keep ten on the yacht, and nobody wears one at the dock."

"Was it logged?"

"Everything's logged."

He took me into the office, and he opened a thick book of the sort nobody had updated since my father's time.

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