Chapter 10
The hallway is silent and Nash is two minutes behind.
Sconces glow softly, the fabricated flicker of the antique-looking flames giving an unnerving glow.
Even Nash for all his nonchalance has his hands at his sides, as if halfway expecting to have to knock something or someone
down at any moment.
But nothing jumps out at us.
We even go back to Neena’s door and listen a minute or two.
Nothing.
There’s a list of activities inside a gold frame next to the elevator.
Nash scans the list.
“They have three things still alive this time of night,” Nash says, then sees my face. “Sorry. Not the best choice of words.
Caree’s Casino. A piano bar. And the Blue Lagoon Lounge. Want to take the elevator down?”
I shake my head.
“I can’t imagine Neena breaking out in the middle of the night to go to a piano bar. Either she’s made her entire life a lie and she’s a killer, or she did the same thing we did and broke into Gordon’s room for safety. I’m banking on her going to Gordon’s.”
I scan Nash’s face.
He nods wearily and I feel a pang of sympathy for him. And a bit of guilt for having dragged him out of bed for nothing.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten you up for this. Let’s just go back to bed.”
Nash and I turn back.
Nothing, not a fingerprint on a doorjamb, not a hair out of place, is anywhere for us to find.
It’s depressing, actually.
It’s never this slow in the books.
There’s always a most convenient clue just lying about.
A perfect imprint of a soggy boot left by the doorway.
A scream sounding right at the moment of the fireworks that you still can just vaguely hear.
But no. No fireworks this night.
The door is still cracked when we return.
Nash noticeably cuts me off to step ahead of me.
Enters first.
Checks it all out.
“And you’re sure you saw her?” Nash says in the quiet, taking a tentative step toward the bathroom and pushing the cracked
door open in the dark. The clock on the bedside table glows 4 a.m. now. Another night on this ship with no sleep.
Another night with Nash, I can’t help noting, but for two vastly different reasons.
“I mean, I wouldn’t gamble my life on it,” I say, then correct myself.
I rub the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know.
I would’ve sworn I saw her, but it was so close up, I guess it could’ve been anything.
” I throw my hands up. “Or nothing! I don’t know.
I really could just be hallucinating at this point.
Everything I say should be taken with a grain of salt. Nash?”
I realize that Nash has turned his entire attention onto something at the edge of the bed. Shoes.
But wait. That can’t be right.
Nash is wearing his boots.
And if Nash is wearing his boots . . . whose shoes are they?
And suddenly, the little table mirror now in Nash’s hand, he steps forward and—