Elliot performed all the tasks with the kind of precision gained with the years. Check course, check sails, check radar beacon, check emergency gas levels. Hands on the helm, he finally allowed himself to stare out into the distance.
It was one of those beautiful sunsets where reds and oranges and yellows bled into the blue above and below, and moisture in the air made it difficult to tell the sea from the sky. Elliot imagined Poe writing some terrible tale about a sailor getting caught in between both realms.
He sighed.
Damn, it had been hard. Surprisingly hard.
The plan was easy. Being a forensic expert, coming up with ideas that would work and keep him out of trouble, finding out what he really needed, was not that much of a trouble. Actually obtaining some of the components, so that he could deny knowing anything, had been complicated.
Still he had managed to.
But the most irritating part had been money. Damn but money is easy traceable these days, and he knew it really well. The actual lengths he had gone to so that he could obtain enough money for his plan almost drove him mad. Of course, it was not the money itself but making it not point back at Elliot what was almost unachievable.
Almost. But Elliot wasn’t a certified genius for nothing.
Compared to that, finding and hiring the guy who would actually do the job and rid him of Mei had been a piece of cake, all the while maintaining anonymity. The deep web was your friend if you had the know how, and Elliot did have it. In fact, he was so good nobody else knew about it.
And now. Now he was finally free, the wind in his sails, the horizon his limit.
It made him laugh out loud, here where nobody could hear.
He heard a noise coming from the cabin. Something had toppled? In this weather? Impossible.
Another noise.
And then…
“Elliot? Darling? You there? Are we at sea?”
“Mei?”