Chapter 11
Eleven
“That was scary as hell!” Chloe said when they returned to their cabin at last. “And, of course, more confusing than ever!
Was that random? Was someone else supposed to be in the water? I mean, why in God’s name would anyone want to kill Sally?
And yet, I had a few minutes to talk to the lifeguard who was on duty,” she told Wes. “And, according to him, Sally loves
the water and heads into it any chance that she gets!”
“We need to know more about her,” Wes said. “Maybe there is a reason. Maybe it was all just to cause some kind of an incident?”
“She could have died.”
“But you remembered what I told you and you were looking for her, Chloe. Thank God you did,” Wes said.
“Wes! What would have happened if she had? I mean, would we head right to a port, would they helicopter the body somewhere?”
Chloe asked.
“She would have been taken to the ship’s morgue and while cruise lines don’t have actual grief counselors, they have people trained to deal with grieving relatives and to help a family with repatriation, getting the body home, to a funeral home, back to their loved ones.
Depending on the ports next visited, a body may be brought inland, but many of the smaller islands don’t have facilities and won’t make arrangements for repatriation.
But you’d be surprised. Especially because there are cruises that appeal specifically to retirees and older people, there are many deaths that take place every year on cruise ships,” Wes told her.
“You just happen to know all this?” Chloe said.
He laughed. “And you don’t? All those cruises your family took you on for years and years? We didn’t go on half as many, but
my mom was always careful about insurance just in case something happened. Not only would such a situation be devastating
in the grief department if a loved one died on a ship, but the repatriation of the body and all the legalities involved can
be staggeringly expensive.” He winced. “Then, of course, there was the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the world, millions of people
wound up sick, and again, across the world, millions died. Now, I’m not sure how they managed that as cruise ship morgues
don’t tend to be very big.”
“Okay, we’re getting really depressing here!” Chloe said. “Thankfully, Sally is really and truly fine.” She winced. “Then
again, we are on this cruise looking for a murderer, so it’s pretty . . .”
Wes walked over to her, set his hands on her shoulders, and told her, “And we’re both good at what we do, no matter how frustrating
this case is. We’re going to find out what is going on, who is causing the deaths—and stop them and bring justice to those
who were taken far too soon. Seeking the truth. Finding justice. Those things are important, it’s why we do what we do.”
She smiled at him, then quickly lowered her head, remembering her strange dreams.
If only . . .
“Well, everything done, incident report filed, crew working on whatever went wrong with the pool . . . Bar?” she asked.
He nodded, but didn’t seem to be in any hurry as he turned away.
“Wes?” Chloe asked softly.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I can’t begin to figure why drowning someone—and there could be no guarantee on who might be
drowned—would further anyone’s agenda. Sally was the one caught. She had nothing to do with the programs being taught on the
ship. She has no business interest in computers, the internet or cybersecurity companies . . . I just don’t get it. But,”
he added, “that could mean we’ll have a quiet decent night!”
Chloe laughed softly. “All right, then, darling, it is time for another lovely nonalcoholic beer and then dinner.”
“I may drink a six-pack of the real stuff once we’re out of this!” he told her dryly. “Anyway, sorry, can’t help it, haunted
by my mother, please go on in and take the first shower.”
Chloe laughed. “I just realized how much we don’t know about each other. Where is Mom? Whoops, I’m sorry, first—”
“Is she still living? Yes, she and my father are alive and well and looking forward to their imminent retirement,” Wes told
her.
“Good, happy to hear it. Siblings?” she asked. “I read your file, of course, but it concentrates on you—”
“One younger sister. She fell in love with a navy SEAL and is living in Hawaii. Your turn.”
“Parents also alive and well. One older brother, teaches history, geography and government at the university in Tallahassee,” Chloe told him. “They leave me alone because I got into this because my dad was a cop—and because my brother has already given them five grandchildren.”
“Ah, so the heat is off!” Wes said. “So, at least, in this romantic marriage of ours, we don’t need to worry about procreating
too quickly! Please, if you will—”
“I’m going, I’m going!” Chloe assured him.
She chose a somewhat alluring and festive dress for the evening, a halter dress in an emerald-green chiffon.
Wes whistled when she emerged.
“Gee, I sure have had much worse undercover assignments!” he assured. “What a hardship! You could be walking down a runway
in Paris.”
She grinned. “Flattery! Clean up so we can at least pretend we’re having a great time on a gorgeous cruise!”
He gathered his clothing and disappeared into the bathroom. When he emerged, she was checking her hair.
One thing about even the best dye job, she had to hope she hadn’t lost any of its color. Luckily, the ship’s pools were salt
water and treated differently; there wasn’t a ton of chlorine to remove all the darkness with which it had been dyed.
“Well?”
She turned. Wes was out, decked in dark blue jeans, a light blue shirt and a casual jacket. She grinned because he managed
to look something like a college-aged beach boy with just enough maturity in him to suggest he might be a decent businessman
or, better still, a truly competent dive master.
“Am I, um, equally gorgeous?” he asked her lightly.
“You’ll do,” she said, grinning.
He groaned. “You and your compliments! They’ll go right to my head. Anyway, it’s been a long day, I’m ready for my nonalcoholic
beer!” he said.
“Eventually,” she told him, “someone is going to notice that you’re only ordering nonalcoholic beer.”
“I’m going to blame it on the amount of alcoholism in my family,” he told her.
“Oh?”
“I’ve a cousin who has done great in a program. And when the family is together, we respect his sobriety. He doesn’t expect
others not to drink. But we’re family. We support him.”
She nodded. “And that’s great! Okay, so . . .”
He bowed politely to her with a sweeping gesture and opened the door so that she could head out of the cabin.
“No,” he murmured suddenly, closing the door he’d just opened.
“No?”
“Phone vibrating!” he told her.
He pulled it from his pocket. “I got a message out earlier. I wanted to see if someone could crack the surveillance cameras
on the ship.”
“But, if there was someone out there, wouldn’t the ship’s security guards have been on it already?” Chloe asked.
He shrugged, shaking his head, studying his phone. “Our cyber guys will make sure that this can’t be tracked. Come over and
look with me,” he told her.
She walked to where he stood and came close to study his phone with him. Naturally, as asked, they were shown the footage
from the pool area in the middle of the night.
Surely the ship’s security was on this, as well. And, of course, having seen it, their people on land were working with those
at sea.
Chloe wondered if the cruise company’s CEOs might not decide to end the trip themselves.
Then again, they might feel themselves perfectly capable of dealing with any threats.
But there in the footage was a dark figure. The person was dressed in a black wet suit that covered them from head to toe; their eyes were barely visible. There was absolutely no way to discern who the person might be.
I don’t think that this is Amelia—Amelia is too small to be the dark figure moving across the darkened rear deck.
And, of course, it might have looked as if a determined cruiser just wanted to go for a dip when the pool was officially closed.
But there was the splash. The sound that Wes had heard from a deck below.
The black figure disappeared and reappeared about five minutes later.
“So,” Wes murmured, “someone was down there, messing with the drain.”
“But still,” Chloe said, “we have no idea who—or even if that was just some jerk who wanted to go swimming in the middle of
the night.”
“We know,” Wes said. “What I can’t figure out yet is why? I mean, a death would just throw the cruise all out of whack, especially
since it would have been a death caused by the ship. As I was saying before, especially on retiree cruises, there are deaths
and the cruise goes on, but something like this . . . But there couldn’t have been a target.”
“Maybe something was supposed to happen when we were forced to return to our port of origination?” Chloe suggested.
“Maybe. But then again, why?”
“Well, hm. Let’s see how our people are doing. Feel free to open the door for me again,” she told him, grinning.
“Of course, of course!” Wes said, once again making a sweeping gesture out of opening the door for her.
“Thank you,” she told him as he joined her in the hallway. “But, you know, you should get the bed tonight. It’s finally my turn to take the couch.”
“That sofa and I have gotten to be pretty good friends,” he assured her.
“And you think that you can slip out into the night from there without waking me, but I think I’ve proven you wrong on that!”
she told him.
“Hey, I was just acting on a hunch.”
“And you still need to share your actions with me!”
He was silent, halfway smiling as they moved down the hall. He slipped an arm around and brought his head low to whisper in
her ear, “‘As you wish!’”
Her groan was loud, and they both laughed.
Their group seemed to gather at the same deck bar every night and they naturally headed in that direction.
And they were right. That night was proving to be no different.