by Nancy Holder
“He’s been detained, madam. He’ll be here shortly. May I take your order?” He had some kind of accent, German maybe.
“Scotch, straight. A double,” Donna requested. Elise’s eyebrows shot up. Whatever was in her glass was clear; champagne, probably. She watched as the bartender served it up. Donna thanked him, stepping aside while John asked for a piña colada and a 7-Up for his boy. The bartender began shoveling ice into a blender at his elbow.
“Where’re Ramón and Ruth?”
Phil waved his drink. “Ramón’s been sent off somewhere. I think they actually threw him in the brig. Ruth didn’t feel up to coming.”
Elise lit a fresh cigarette and blew out the match, searching for an ashtray. She muttered something, but the whir of the blender drowned her out.
John handed Matt’s drink to him. “Is she okay?”
Phil shrugged. “The steward told me she wanted to sleep.”
“Maybe I should take a look.” John checked his watch. “I could meet everyone in the dining room afterward.”
“If she doesn’t sue, she’s an idiot,” Elise said.
Donna tapped the beads of water on the varnished wood bar with her finger. “Maybe they’ve got Ramón on bread and water.”
The lights went out. The blender stopped.
“Hey,” Matty said.
“It’s not you,” John said quickly to Donna. “They’re really out.”
“Oh, great, great.” Elise huffed in the darkness. The red light of her cigarette flared as she took a drag.
“Darlin’, it’s all right.” Poor wiener-man, he just put up with it, didn’t he? Donna wished he’d just haul off and belt her. “I’m sure it’s just a fuse.”
“On a ship?”
“Excuse me.” The bartender brushed past Donna, fumbling his way to the door. “I’ll see if …”
His voice trailed off; a door squealed open, and his footsteps sounded in the hall, which was also dark.
Uh-oh, what about the elevators?
And the engines?
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Elise’s voice rose.
“Daddy?” Matt touched Donna’s fingers, jumped away. She reached out and slipped his hand into hers.
“Boo,” she joked. “Now we can hold hands and no one will ever know.” He grunted. A noise like rustling silk: he was probably fingering the hair on the back of his neck. She’d noticed that he did that whenever he got tense.
There was a pause. Everyone stood around quietly. Elise’s cigarette winked like a beacon.
Suddenly Matt murmured, “Oh, no …”
“Well, hello.”
There rustle of clothing as everyone turned in the direction of a deep English voice.
A man framed in soft, flickering light stood on the threshold of a door to the left of the wet bar. There was a candle in his hand, which he lifted as he pushed the door out of his way and came into the room. He was of medium height and build, snappy in a white officer’s uniform, with short, curly red hair. Something white was pressed to his lips. A handkerchief. The flame flickered, flickered, flickered over his face, carving a deep shadow on the left side of his face. Donna strained. No, no shadow. A black eye patch covered his eye socket.
He walked into the room. His lips were full and bowed into a faint smile. Donna found herself smiling back, though the man couldn’t see her.
“I’m Captain Reade,” he said.
He raised the candle toward the bar, dimly lighting the area where Donna stood. Over her shoulder, Elise’s smoke trailed like a tendril of yellow fog.
“I see the steward was using the blender. Well, that would do it. My apologies. There’s a short in this room, and I’ve warned him not to plug … Ah.”
The lights flashed on, revealing him more fully. He was scrubbed and clean and neat. Green eye. A sprinkling of freckles on his cheeks, softening the sinister appearance of the eye patch. Otherwise, he was a regular guy, nothing special.
His gaze lingered on Donna. “I’m Donna Almond,” she said.
“Somehow, I knew that,” he replied. He cocked his head. “Are you feeling ill, Miss Almond?”
She blinked. What, didn’t she look okay? “I’m fine, considering.”
“Please, Captain. Let’s introduce ourselves after you tell us about the Morris,” John said urgently, coming up beside Donna with Matt in tow.
“Yes, the Morris. Please sit down.”
No one moved. Elise puffed on her cigarette. Reade cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t allow smoking in here.”
She blazed, opened her mouth, closed it, and finally said, “I’ll be glad to put it out if you’ll give me an ashtray.”
Phil flushed. Reade reached over the bar and handed her a cut-glass dish. Wordlessly she tamped out the cigarette.
“Thank you. Now.” He remained standing. Everyone craned their necks. He leaned against the bar and faced them.
“Captain,” John pressed.
Reade held out his arms. He smiled brightly. “It was a false alarm.”
John and Donna looked at each other, at Phil. Elise shut her eyes and bit her lower lip.
“They found a small hole in the hull, patched it, and pumped out the water. The Morris docked in Honolulu a couple of hours ago.”
Elise goggled at him. “By God, I’ll—”
“Shit,” Donna groaned. “I mean, that’s great, but here we are.”
John held up a hand. “But we must be close to Hawaii, too. Is that your destination?”
“Well, it’s very odd you should ask that,” Reade said in a bemused tone. “Because we’re on our way to Australia, and we’ve already passed the Hawaiian chain. You drifted over a thousand nautical miles in twenty-four hours. That’s one of the reasons we were so busy on the bridge, trying to make sure the Morris hadn’t made an error about her position.”
“Wait a minute. Stop.” Elise jumped to her feet. “Are you trying to tell me … are you …” She reached down and batted Phil’s shoulder. “Do something!”
Donna scratched her cheek. “But is that possible? Does that make any sense?”
“All we can surmise is that you were caught in some kind of massive current,” Reade said as he perched on the edge of a bar stool and hung his hands between his knees. He folded his handkerchief and put it in the inside breast pocket of his uniform.
“Like a riptide?” John asked.
The captain nodded. “Something like that, yes. Now …”
“Well, you’re taking us back to Hawaii, aren’t you?” Elise snapped.
“It would make more sense to continue on to Australia. We can take a plane from there. Right, Captain?” Phil rose. “Let me get you some more champagne, sweetheart.”
“Australia!” she screamed.
“There’s a problem,” the captain cut in. “Unfortunately, another lifeboat was launched from the Morris, and we’ve been searching for it all day.”
“Who … who was in it?” Donna crossed her fingers.
The captain pulled a sheet of paper from another pocket. “I have a manifest.” He handed it to Donna. It was on the same creamy stationery as the invitations.
Donna grimaced. “Cha-cha’s on it,” she announced. “Kevin isn’t.” She handed the list to John, who scanned it and offered it to Phil, who studied it and gave it back to the captain.
“Ol’ Kev’s probably hitting the surf by now.” John took Matt’s glass and popped an ice cube into his mouth. Chewed down hard. “God, I hope the others are all right.”
The captain put the list away. “We’ll keep looking.”
“Coast Guard?” Donna queried.
“Everyone’s doing everything they can. I must say, I was quite surprised by the size of your boat. It was uncommonly small for a freighter. And ill equipped.”
“What a surprise,” Elise said acidly.
The captain clapped his hands together. “But at least all of you are safe, and we’d like to celebrate that. Shall we go to dinner now?”
He picked up his cap.
Donna moved her shoulders. A thousand miles? Poor Cha-cha. He must be out of his mind. More out of it.
“Listen,” she said. “The Morris was involved in some kind of illegal dumping. Something dangerous. Ramón—”
“Officer Diaz has told me all about it.” Laugh lines formed around his single eye. “He was afraid you’d get to me first and I’d keelhaul him.”
“Keelhaul?” Matt looked at the captain, clearly smitten.
The captain gazed down on him fondly. “An old-fashioned method of punishment.”
“Execution, more like,” John put in.
The captain nodded. “Yes, it was usually fatal.”
“Cool.” Matt slurped his straw. “What did they do?”
Just then, the steward wheeled around the corner. “It’s all ri—” Saw his superior officer, and skidded to attention with a salute. His face was white as chalk. “Sorry, sir. It … it was the blender.”
The hand that held the salute trembled violently. Jesus, the kid was scared half to death.
Reade saluted him back, said, “Don’t let it happen again.” He pointed at Matt. “That little fellow would like to see someone keelhauled.” Smiled, to show it was just a joke.
“N-no, sir.” A line of sweat trickled down the steward’s temple.
“Well.” Captain Reade stood. His eye narrowed as John came over to Donna, combining the two of them into a couple.
He led the way to the elevators. The nervous steward stayed behind to clean up. In the back of the group, Elise was whispering fiercely and Phil was doing his best to calm her down.
“Do you steer the ship?” Matt asked him.
The captain smiled. “In a way. Would you like to see how?”
“Yes!” Matt looked up at his father with a puppy-dog expression that might have melted even Elise’s heart, had she been paying attention.
“That would be great,” John replied. “Thank you.”
“Oh. Oh.” Matt was about to burst.
“Tomorrow.” The captain’s mouth twitched. “All right?”
“Sure! Cool!”
“That’s quite a boy you have there,” he said to John. “Maybe someday he’ll grow up to be a sea captain.”
“No! An astronaut!”
“You’re behind the times, Captain Reade,” John said.
“Don’t I know it.” The captain traced the gold braid on his cap with his forefinger. “Boys make men feel old, don’t they?”
John sighed theatrically and rolled his eyes. “Absolutely.”
The elevator came, and they all got in. Donna flashed: Hope no fuses blow while we’re in this baby.
The captain looked up at her reflection in the mirrored ceiling. The fluorescent haze turned him gray. “You’re safe,” he said. “With me.”
13
Feelers
Phil was the last one out of the elevator, to prove he wasn’t afraid of another blackout. Then he lagged back from the herd to watch his wife, who sashayed her way up to the captain’s side, practically pushing Donna Almond out of the way like in some old black-and-white movie—Move it, sister—and now the captain and Elise chatted like two naughty children plotting a murder.
Phil sighed heavily. The doctor, John, glanced at him. So did the captain, with a smirk.
Fuck him.
When they trooped into the vast dining room, everyone rose and applauded. Phil caught up to Elise as the captain eased away from her and entered stag, probably to look more heroic. Elise tensed when Phil took her hand, and her fingers lay in his grasp like a catch of cold, dead trout.
The room was magnificent, all crystal and gold and silvery pink. It reminded him of an opera house. On a dais gleamed the white and silver of the captain’s table, complete with an ice sculpture of a mermaid on a rock, arms open, and small bouquets of flowers. All the chairs were empty, though the table was large enough to accommodate twenty easy. Apparently, the captain had invited no one else to his table, just the survivors, minus Ruth and Ramón. None of his own officers, either.
They began to select their seats—there being no place cards—and Donna lowered herself into the one on Phil’s left as the steward held it out for her. She flashed the man a flirtatious smile that he impassively ignored. Phil wasn’t sure she understood what an honor this was. Heavy makeup, plunging neckline, she was definitely blue collar, a “worker,” as Elise would so sweetly put it. John, however, thanked the captain for singling them out. You could tell he was an educated man.
Phil frowned and sat down. Lord, under Elise’s tutelage, he’d become such a snob. When they’d met, she’d laughed at him and called him a cracker. Now he was a rich, cultured Southern gentleman.
At the time, it had seemed like a fair trade: he would give her money, and she would give him class. Elise had been a storybook heroine, beautiful and genteel, and mired in poverty. Over the years, she’d conveniently forgotten the poverty part, but she’d always remembered that when they met, he’d owned silver services that should have been in museums but had no idea which fork to use at dinner.
His fortune came from real estate, and all by accident. He had been a simple insurance salesman in a two-man office, kept score for the bowling league, and rooted for the Atlanta Braves. After his mama died, he took his share of the inheritance and purchased a dilapidated Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Charleston. He’d bought the land on a whim, just because it was located near Van Buren Avenue (no relation), and then the developers had approached him less than six months later, laughing and clapping him on the back and asking, How did he know that was exactly what they were looking for for their mall? Pure dumb luck, with a capital D. He’d gone on from there, buying more when he felt led to, and selling it for a killing. Gettin’ rich, but still not sure why.
Elise would have known what she was doing. Oh, yes. As she knew now, lounging and posing for the sake of Captain Reade, a devilish temptation with his eye patch and his British accent, like that good old boy in the Brenda Starr comics, Basil somebody. Captain Basil, who poured wine with his ding-dang pinkie sticking up, and every time he uttered a syllable Elise creamed her hundred-dollar silk panties.
Maybe it was his telling her not to smoke that had done it. Oh, she’d sputtered, but that was what she really wanted. By the time they’d gotten into the elevator, she’d zeroed in on him like a cruise missile. Phil understood that it wasn’t so much that she found the man attractive, although it was obvious as mud on a lamb that she did, but that she wanted to rile him, Phil. Get him to macho up, take command. Slap her around and act like Rhett Butler.
He would always disappoint her. He wasn’t the kind of guy ladies read about in romance novels. He was nice, and he was a sort of a wimp, and that, Miz Scarlett, was that.
Passengers constantly interrupted their dinner, shaking hands with them, telling them how happy they were that they’d been saved. A varied mix, old, young, Japanese, Mexican. Bright-eyed, having a marvelous time, excited by the rescue at sea. Surely now it would be news back home, folks calling their folks, and families would worry. Elise had phoned “all the people who mattered,” with requests to contact those who mattered less.
Donna should try her calls again ASAP; he was just about to tell her so when a tragically obese woman waddled over and told them all how grateful they should be to the captain: he’d spent an entire day searching for them, remaining on the bridge for thirty hours straight.
“He’s wonderful,” the lady gushed. “He’s the best captain in the world.”
“Now, now, Mrs. Reinstedt,” the captain murmured modestly, but it was clear he was flattered.
Many others simpered over the captain in the same way, almost as though they’d been coached. The captain’s the best. The captain’s the most fabulous. The captain, the captain, the captain. Not that the captain seemed to mind. Ol’ boy kept shifting that one eye toward him and the others, as if to make sure they noticed how much the paying guests worshiped him.
&n
bsp; With a heavy heart, Phil surveyed the room—the widows, the young couples, the families. Beyond them, an immense dessert buffet from which ice sculptures rose like glaciers. Banks of big, wide windows, and the black night beyond.
Last night in the lifeboat, he’d wept with fear. She had heard him. Everyone had. She probably wouldn’t fuck him for a week.
He took a swallow of the excellent port, which tasted like it was at least fifty years old (Elise had drilled him on vintages; he was quite the expert now, a regular oenophile). Elise was not going to screw the captain of a cruise ship, for mercy’s sake. Even though she had gone to bed with his tax attorney and tried to with Hunter Bennett, his former insurance partner and ex-best friend.
Even though the damn captain was acting like she should.
A band on a dais started up an innocuous, catchy song.
“Oh, I’d love to dance,” Elise trilled. “Phil’s got two left feet.” She laid a hand on the captain’s arm. “Would you do me the honor?”
The captain looked at Phil. There was something cold and mean in that one eye, and Phil felt a chill in the small of his back. The man kept looking at him, and the room tipped to the right just a bit. Straightened out. Phil’s head swam. God, he was exhausted. Wasn’t everybody else ready for bed? They’d just been fished out of the sea, for God’s sake. What were they doing at a goddamn debutante ball?
The captain gazed at him. Phil regrouped and smiled evenly, waved his hand. Go ahead, boy. Take her. I’m man enough to take it.
Elise set down her champagne glass and pushed back her chair. Phil didn’t assist her. Instead, he drained his glass (supposed to sip it, you cracker) and motioned to the steward for a refill.
Elise and the captain melted into the growing crowd of dancers as others took the floor. The captain glanced once over his shoulder, and Phil shot a glance toward Donna, not quick enough to miss the man’s shit-eating grin.
Well, hell, the Morris had made it, so maybe this damn boat would sink instead. That’d solve everything, wouldn’t it?
The steward bent over his glass. Phil grunted. What a terrible thing to think. He drained it before the man left and held it out. Donna started to say something, shut her mouth. Good woman.