by Blake Pierce
“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” London said. “It’s getting late, and I’ve got a long day ahead tomorrow.”
She left the lounge and headed for the elevator, which she took down to the Allegro deck.
She felt a new wave of worry as she walked down the passageway to her stateroom. When she opened the door and switched on a light, she breathed a sigh of relief to see Sir Reggie sleeping soundly on the bed. She latched the doggie door for the night, checked his food, and refilled his water bowl. She was glad that the dog potty was self-cleaning. Sir Reggie truly was a self-sufficient, low-maintenance roommate.
She sat down beside him and gave him a gentle scratch of his head.
“What have you been up to tonight, pal?” she asked. “Did you stay inside, or make use of your new door to go out and party?”
Sir Reggie replied with a half-asleep sigh.
“Well, I hope your evening was better than mine turned out to be.”
London took a nice hot shower, then put on her nightgown and got ready for bed. Before she lay down, she opened the curtains of her high window and looked outside. It was very dark out now, with little to see—only a few scattered lights here and there. The Nachtmusik was apparently sailing through forests and hills, not a city or a town.
But she knew that tomorrow she would wake up to a very different sight.
“Vienna,” she murmured aloud.
As if in reply, she heard her cell phone buzzing on her bed stand.
London sighed as she wondered—was this another complaint?
Was Kirby Oswinkle calling her, angrier than before?
She saw that it was a long distance number, and one that she didn’t recognize. She considered letting the call go to her voice mail.
Whatever it is, I’d better face it now, she decided.
She took the call and was surprised to hear a pleasant tenor voice singing softly …
“Edelweiss, Edelweiss …”
As the singing continued, it seemed uncanny to hear the same song she’d heard the choral group singing in the Habsburg Restaurant a little while ago.
But she knew that voice well.
CHAPTER NINE
London sat down on the edge of the bed, reeling from surprise.
“Hi, Dad,” she said.
“Hi, sweetie,” London’s father said in reply.
She struggled to think how long it had been since she’d talked to her dad on the phone.
Months, maybe.
And it had been at least a year since they’d seen each other face to face. It wasn’t due to a lack of interest in each other’s lives—the two of them always felt emotionally connected, but their paths just didn’t cross very often anymore.
“I—I didn’t recognize the number when you called,” she said.
“Oh, that. I lost my cell phone a couple of days ago—you know how I am about losing things. The one I’m calling on is brand new.”
“Where are you?” London asked.
Because her father was an airline attendant, she knew he could be just about anywhere in the world right now.
“I’m on a layover in Tokyo,” he said.
London looked at her clock and did some quick math in her head.
“It’s eleven o’clock at night here,” she said. “That means it’s six in the morning there.”
“Well, I always was an early riser. It comes with the job. You know that as well as anybody.”
Yes, I do know that, London thought.
She and her older sister, Tia, had spent their childhoods dashing all over the world with Dad and Mom, who’d both been flight attendants.
But even so …
“This is an odd hour for a phone call,” London said.
“Aren’t you glad to hear from me?”
“Oh, Dad, I’m always glad to hear from you. You know that. It’s just that …”
Her voice faded. She was having a hard time processing her thoughts. She realized she hadn’t told him about her new job aboard the Nachtmusik. She’d been offered the job suddenly just a few days ago, and hadn’t gotten around to letting him know. But he spoke up before she had a chance to explain.
“How’s Austria?”
London felt another jolt of surprise.
“How did you know—?”
“Hey, I know everything. Isn’t that what I always tell you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Did you like my rendition of ‘Edelweiss’? Appropriate, now that you’re in Austria, huh?”
“Yes, but—”
“Hey, did you know ‘Edelweiss’ is not Austria’s national anthem?”
“You’ve told me a hundred times. But Dad—”
“And that the Trapp Family Singers never sang any of the songs in The Sound of Music?”
“Yes, you’ve told me that too, but …”
“Well?”
“How did you know where I was?”
“Oh, that. I called your sister yesterday. The last I’d heard, you were supposed to be staying with her right about now, between ocean cruises. I thought maybe I could talk to both of you—and to my grandkids as well. Tia told me you’d gotten a new gig with the same company you’ve been working for, this time aboard a river tour boat. I looked it up online and found out the boat is called the Nachtmusik. The name really caught my attention. I’m sure you remember …”
His voice faded, but London knew what he meant.
“Yes, Mom used to play it on the piano—Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.”
She could still remember the glowing expression on her mother’s face whenever she’d played it. Learning the name of the boat had really hit an emotional button for London.
“From the pictures, it looks like a nice boat,” Dad continued. “A nice design too—long and low like most river tour boats, but smaller and more … elegant I think is the right word … than any others I’ve seen. How many passengers does it board?”
“About a hundred,” London said.
“Wow, that’s really a change from those gigantic oceangoing cruise ships you worked on before.”
“It sure is. I have more responsibilities, but I get to know the passengers better. I’m beginning to really like it.”
He said, “I also looked up the itinerary—I’m nosy like that, you know—and found out you’d gotten into Vienna yesterday. And I just called to …”
His voice trailed off, but London had some idea of what he was leaving unsaid.
He’s worried about me.
And maybe, she thought, he was right to be worried.
“Actually, we aren’t in Vienna quite yet,” she said. “We’ll be docked there by tomorrow morning.”
“That’s odd. This itinerary must be wrong.”
“It’s not the itinerary. We got held up for a whole day in Gyor, because …”
London felt a sharp lump of emotion in her throat.
“Oh, Dad, so much has been going on. I wish we could sit down over a couple of drinks and talk about it.”
“What’s the matter?”
London swallowed hard.
“Someone died—I mean, someone got killed. A passenger. And elderly woman.”
She heard Dad gasp.
“You mean she was murdered?”
“It was a homicide, anyway. It was really crazy. I—I just don’t know where to start.”
“Did you catch the killer?”
London was startled by the question.
“Um, yeah, I kind of did.”
“Really? Good for you.”
“But how did you know …?”
“Oh, I didn’t really,” Dad said with a laugh. “It was just sort of a slip of the tongue. But whenever there’s a crisis, you’ve always been the first to plunge in and try to fix it.”
A silence fell between them. Finally Dad spoke again.
“I guess you might have realized … I called because I was worried …”
“About me being in Vienna,” London said, finishing his though
t.
“Well, it’s the first time you’ve been there since you were little, and also since …”
Again, London knew what he was leaving unsaid. The last time anybody had heard anything from Mom, she’d been in Vienna. Then she had completely disappeared. That had been twenty years ago, and London had never returned to any part of Europe as an adult.
“How does it feel to be on your way there?” Dad asked.
“It feels strange,” London said. “I haven’t processed it. I guess I probably won’t until I get there.”
“Well, try not to do too much ‘processing.’”
“What do you mean?”
“Your mother’s disappearance isn’t another mystery for you to solve. You’ve always had some idea that something terrible happened to her. That’s not true. I’m sure of it. Deep down, I’m sure of it. She just … needed to get away.”
London felt a familiar bitterness rising up inside her.
“From all of us, you mean,” she said. “From Tia and me and …”
“It was my fault, London,” Dad said, gently interrupting. “Her leaving, I mean. I should have known she …”
London heard Dad’s voice choke up a bit.
“It wasn’t your fault, Dad,” London said in a comforting tone. “If you’re right, and nothing terrible happened to her in Vienna, then she made her own decision to go away. You’re no more responsible for her leaving than Tia or me.”
Another silence fell.
“You do understand that, don’t you, Dad?”
Dad forced a slight chuckle.
“I guess so,” he said. “But maybe I need to hear someone say it now and then.”
London smiled again.
“Well, whenever you need to hear it, I’m always available.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’ll try to stay in better touch. You do that too.”
“I will.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, sweetie.”
They ended the call, and London wiped a tear from her cheek. She noticed that Sir Reggie was awake now, and he was gazing at her with a seemingly sympathetic expression.
“It’s nice to have you around, pal,” she said, ruffling the fur on the top of his head.
He let out what sounded like a small grunt of agreement.
London got up from the bed and walked over to a mirror that was hanging on a wall. Her uniform was rumpled and she realized she looked sad and tired.
She wondered …
Do I look like her?
She thought that her five and a half feet of height and her slender build were similar to Mom’s image in family photos. But in her own vivid memories, Mom’s face was stronger than her own and her hair was redder. How much had Mom changed over the years? Did she still have such beautiful red hair, or had it turned gray?
She climbed under the covers and thought about the conversation she’d just had with Dad.
It feels weird to him too—my going to Vienna.
She wished he wouldn’t blame himself for Mom’s disappearance. She didn’t feel as though he had anything to blame himself for.
She closed her eyes and remembered those days when Mom and Dad had both been flight attendants, and she and Tia had followed them all over the world, hearing one language and then another, being privately tutored as frequently as being in school. Tia still resented that lack of stability, but London didn’t feel that way at all. To her, her childhood had been one nonstop adventure, and she wouldn’t have missed a moment of it for the world.
More than that, she’d always thought of Mom and Dad as perfect parents. Even when Dad had come out as gay when she and Tia and London were little girls, he and Mom negotiated the change with grace and humor and love. They’d kept right on being the best of friends and had continued to devote themselves to raising London and Tia as well as they possibly could.
But then …
Something happened.
When Tia was fourteen and London turned eleven, Mom and Dad had mutually agreed that it was time to give their children a more stable home. They rented a nice house in Gaitling, Connecticut, and Mom had quit working as a flight attendant to become a full-time parent. Dad was home as often as he could be, but it wasn’t like the old days, when Tia and London had always been traveling with one parent or another.
Then, just three years later, Mom had announced that she was going to take a break and spend some time in Europe. The last any of them had heard from her was when she’d arrived in Vienna.
Poor Dad, London thought.
He still seemed to think that her disappearance had been his fault—that maybe if he’d stayed home with the kids and let Mom keep working, she wouldn’t have succumbed to wanderlust and gone away like that.
But is that really why Mom went away? London wondered.
She’d just wanted to get away for a couple of weeks, she’d said.
But that couple of weeks had turned into forever.
London felt herself drifting off to sleep now. And in her mind, she could hear a lovely voice singing …
“Climb every mountain!”
The night before Mom had flown to Europe, she’d sung that song to Dad, Tia, and London, accompanying herself on the piano. That was why London had felt such a stab of emotion at hearing the choral group singing that song in the Habsburg Restaurant.
Fortunately, she was too sleepy to cry now.
Curled up nearby on top of the covers, Sir Reggie was snoring lightly. As London drifted off to sleep, she didn’t know whether to welcome or dread the images that began to form in her dreams.
CHAPTER TEN
London flung open the curtains of her stateroom window and gazed out into the morning light. The view across the Danube wasn’t what she had expected to see.
Last night she had dreamed of wandering beautiful streets in a venerable city that she’d visited as a child. Among the crowds, she’d caught repeated glimpses of a woman who looked like Mom … a woman who always disappeared when London tried to approach her.
Of course, she knew very well what she was looking at now. During the night, the slight lurching and noisy activity of the Nachtmusik docking had told her they’d arrived at their destination. She shook her head to clear away the fragments of those dreams, then reached down and picked up her little dog.
“See that city, Sir Reggie? It’s Vienna.”
From here, it seemed very different from the cities where the Nachtmusik had docked back in Hungary—Budapest and Gyor. While those cities were proudly old and historic, this view featured a modern skyline. Across the sleek Reichsbrücke Bridge she saw tall buildings, including the two tallest structures in Austria—the spindly Danube Tower and the newly completed skyscraper, Donau City Tower 1.
But she knew that the view was deceptive. On the other side of the boat, on the left bank of the Danube, lay Vienna’s Old Town with its wealth of history and culture.
And mystery, London couldn’t help reminding herself.
The last postcard Mom had sent to the family was of the sights of old Vienna. After that, no one had ever heard from her.
She reminded herself of what Dad had told her last night.
“Your mother’s disappearance isn’t another mystery for you to solve.”
He was perfectly right, of course. She wasn’t going to be able to learn the truth about a twenty-year-old mystery during a single day in Vienna. The visit had been cut short because Mrs. Klimowski’s death had disrupted their original schedule.
And besides, she had a job to do.
She put Sir Reggie down and sat at her table to eat the breakfast that had been delivered to her room just minutes ago. Next to a silver compote was a little folded card with a greeting written on it.
“Willkommen in Wien, London and Reggie!”
London recognized Bryce Yeaton’s handwriting. She read it aloud, then looked down at Sir Reggie.
“Did you hear that? Bryce says welcome
to Vienna!”
Sir Reggie yapped cheerfully.
She lifted the compote, and under it found a mouth-watering breakfast—Eggs Benedict, which Bryce knew she loved, and a side dish of his exquisite apple strudel. There was even a saucer with several of the dog treats he’d made especially for Reggie.
A perfect breakfast, she sighed. From a very attractive chef.
She coaxed Sir Reggie into sitting up for a treat, which he crunched and gulped down in a single swallow.
London smiled at his voraciousness.
“I’m going to take a bit more time with my food, if you don’t mind,” she told him.
She was supposed to begin her day by meeting Emil and a tourist group in the reception area very soon, but there was still time to savor every bite. Then she hurried to change out of her nightgown into her dark blue uniform and prepare herself for work.
As she left her stateroom, she unlatched the dog door and looked at Sir Reggie.
“So what are your plans for the morning, kid? Do you want to stick with me, or go roaming around on your own, or maybe just laze around the stateroom?”
Seeming to understand the question, Sir Reggie yapped and trotted along with her into the passageway and up the stairs. As they entered the reception area, they encountered Captain Hays on his way out.
“Willkommen in Wien, you two!” he said, tipping his hat.
“Danke,” London replied with a smile. “Willkommen to you as well.”
The captain glanced behind him, then at London again. He seemed to be on the verge of telling her something, but at the moment he was apparently in too much of a hurry to do so.
“I’ll give you a call shortly,” he said breathlessly. “Meanwhile, duty calls. I’m off to the bridge.”
Without another word, the captain dashed on up the stairs toward the Rondo deck.
“Such a busy man,” London said to Sir Reggie.
In fact, it now occurred to her that she couldn’t remember him ever leaving the ship since the beginning of their voyage. He hadn’t had the time to get out and explore Budapest or Gyor.
“I hope he gets a chance to see a bit of Vienna while we’re here,” she said to Sir Reggie.