SOS: Ship of Secrets✔️

27- Lilly & Joey & Jesse

"Josephine.", I repeated.

"But I think you know her as Josie."

I took a step back and finally took in the older man's appearance.

He was tall and skinny. He had dark brown hair and wore thin black glasses. It was his eyes that caught my attention. They were identical to my best friend's vibrant eyes.

"You're Josie's dad?"

He nodded.

"My wife and I used to wonder if she would go by Josie when she was older. I guess it's a little more common than Josephine."

"Your wife? Is she here too?"

He took a deep breath and cleared his throat.

"My wife, Josie's mom, she died when Josie was 2. Car accident. Josie was trapped in the car with her dying mother for twenty minutes. Lauren knew she wasn't going to make it. She didn't want the rescue team to worry about her until after our baby was out the car and when they finally got Josie out, she told me she loved me and to make sure Josie knows how much her mom loves her. She died a few minutes after that. I couldn't handle it. I lost my practice because I couldn't get out of bed and I lost Josie because I couldn't take care of her."

"Josie thinks you two abandoned her."

He sighed and looked over his shoulder.

"I know and I'm going to tell her everything, but I need you to listen very carefully. I have a plan to get us off this ship tonight."

"What about Jennifer? We can't leave without her."

"I know where they're keeping her. I'll get her for you."

"Wait, how do I know this isn't a trick? I got a text from Ernie to come here."

He pulled out his phone.

"It's not just Ernie sending the texts. He tells us what to send and we send them. All of our phones are linked. As long as I delete the message before anyone sees it, no one will ever know."

I nodded.

"I need you to get the others to the laundry room on the second floor. They're no cameras there.", he said before walking away.

Joey

I heard Nina sigh as I paced the room once more.

"Do you think she's dead? Ernie's been quiet. What if he killed her and he-."

"Joey, stop. He's doing this to torture you. If he really wanted to hurt Jen, he would have."

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me.

"You're right. He just wants to scare us."

There was a knock on the door. I walked over to open it and saw Lilly standing there.

"Is e-."

"Follow me.", she said before walking in the other direction.

We followed behind her as she proceeded to knock on doors, telling everyone else to follow her.

"Where are we going?",Neal asked.

"She won't say."

"Lilly, what's going on?", Josie asked.

"Shh..."