Roshaan
She opens her tablet and quickly scans her elite reservations.
Sarah Frost has booked a table for three at Captain Zorba’s.
They should be down there now. She goes to Sarah’s suite, taps gently on the door, then uses the intercom.
She announces that she’ll be entering for a routine check. No reply. She slips inside.
She crosses to the connecting door and raps on it lightly. No answer.
She opens it, enters Dr. Gideon Marsh’s suite, and moves directly to where she hid the cam. As she pries the bug loose, Dr. Marsh’s words loop through her mind.
There is a line. When someone knowingly allows others to suffer, they have crossed from victim to villain . . . Give him up. Or go down with him.
She exits. Sweat dampens her underarms. She’s trembling. Dear Allah, what have I gotten into? She scans the corridor again, trying to calm herself, trying to appear as though she’s just checking her tablet, just doing a routine suite inspection after embarkation—that will be her story.
Poppy and Lillith have not made any reservations, according to her tablet. They could be inside their suites.
She passes the Orion. Anxiety squeezes her chest as Theo’s warning surfaces in her brain.
He’s dangerous . . . hired-killer-type shit. He carries a garrote in his pocket. And some kind of injection pens. God knows what’s in them.
She knocks lightly on Poppy’s door. No reply.
Again she uses the intercom, then enters cautiously.
She startles at the sight of Poppy’s suite. It looks like something exploded in it. Crumpled piles of clothes bulge from an open suitcase on her bed. Around the bag is a debris field of underwear, cosmetics, a hairbrush, books.
Roshaan hesitates. She’s feeling sick at the idea of Theo watching this woman inside her room, and spying on the private lives of the others. The voyeurism—the violation of it—makes her stomach turn.
She climbs up on a chair and finds the bug she secreted beneath the top shelf of the bar. She slips the bug into her pocket, climbs down, and repositions the chair by the desk.
Feeling slightly bolstered by her success so far, she knocks on the door that connects Poppy’s suite to Lillith’s.
No answer. She unlocks it and steps into the Elysium Sky Villa, the most magnificent of her elite suites—all pale luxury with clean lines and mirrors that make everything appear even lighter and larger.
Roshaan mounts a stool, and reaches for the last bug hidden up near the blinds mechanism above one of the deck windows.
This one is a bit sticky. She fiddles with it, and her stool wobbles.
“Can I help you?” Male voice. Deep.
She freezes. Her heart starts to gallop.
Slowly, Roshaan turns her head. She gasps.
Avi Galev stands in the middle of the room, as if materialized from the ether without a sound.
Her brain folds in on itself. Buzzing begins in her ears. Her world narrows. Panic screams at her to flee as her brain scrambles with what to do.
She closes her fingers tightly around the bug in her hand and lowers her fist to her side.
“What are you doing in here?” Roshaan asks him. “These—these are Mrs. McGregor’s accommodations.”
“The question is, Roshaan DaSousa, what are you doing in Mrs. McGregor’s accommodations?”
“I—there was a complaint. From downstairs—about a leak.” She realizes it’s not going to make sense.
She’s been caught on a stool fiddling around the ceiling.
“I mean from upstairs. There’s a pipe leak upstairs, a hot tub.
I’m just checking to see if any dampness is coming down into any of the elite suites. ” Her voice catches.
He pins her with his cold eyes. No emotion shows on his face. He doesn’t move a muscle.
She climbs down from the stool, the tiny spy cam still clutched in her fist, her palm growing sweaty.
He glances up at the blinds mechanism above the window. “And did you find it?”
“Find what?” she stammers, face heating.
“The dampness. The leak.”
“Oh, I”—she clears her throat—“it seems fine.” She makes for the door, but he steps into her way, blocking her path. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way to check the suites.”
“What’s in your hand?”
“Nothing.”
He doesn’t budge. There’s no way for escape without physically shoving past him. She glances at the connecting door. Maybe she can flee that way.
She makes a sudden dart for the door. He grabs her wrist, stopping her. His fingers are like an iron vise. Her eyes water.
“Let go of me.”
“What’s in your hand?”
“None of your business. I don’t know why you’re in here, but you need to get out before I call security.”
“Security? Go ahead. If that’s what you want. Call them.”
She swallows.
“Or should I call them for you? And tell them you’ve taken something from my employer’s suite.”
Employer?
“Show me. What’s in your hand?”
She won’t. She can’t let it come to this. If he calls security, she’s done. She’ll never work on a cruise again. She’ll have a criminal record. She could go to prison.
He squeezes her wrist, making her eyes burn. He adds more pressure. Pain sparks through her bones, forcing her fingers open. And there in her damp palm is the tiny black surveillance device. A little evil spider of a thing with a smooth cyclops eye.
“And what’s this?”
Her vision blurs. Words won’t come. Her knees begin to buckle.
“And in your pocket, Roshaan?” He reaches for her pocket. She recoils, but he pins her against the wall and slides his big hand into her pocket. He scoops out the other bugs.
He scatters them into a small pile on the bar counter, along with the one she just pried loose. He adds another from his jacket pocket.
“Six,” he says pointing. “Are there more?”
He waits.
She’s too terrified to speak. All she can hear are Theo’s words.
We can’t have him trace the cams back to us. At any cost.
“Are there more surveillance devices, Roshaan?” Avi repeats the question. Eyes hard. Face cold. She thinks again of a garrote in his pocket, of lethal injection pens.
“No,” she whispers. “That’s all of them.”