“Attention passengers. The tenders to Catalina Island are departing now. Please proceed to Deck Three. Thank you for sailing on the Howard Line.”
Rosemary pulled her thoughts from the wet fog of her memories. She used the heel of her palm to mush away the unexpected tears. She turned toward the Sunbathing Deck, her eyes outlining the hard ridges of the island looming just beyond the ship. Go back to your cabin, meet Marty, and go to the island. You know she won’t leave the ship today. There’s no risk that she and Marty will see each other. No danger. Put on your happy face, Rosie.
She tortured her lips into a smile. She drew her gaze away from the island and back onto the ship. A golden halo of hair rose from the ladder in front of her.
CHARLEGNE!
Rosemary knew it was her, knew it in that deep place where intuition becomes knowledge. Somewhere in her brain, there was a distant boom like faraway thunder. She wheeled around, strangling the railing with her hands while she tried to stifle the balloon of rage inflating in her chest. She could not, could not, could NOT deal with that woman right now! The salt in the sea mist bit her skin. The letter trapped under her fingers felt white-hot.
If I stay here, she’ll mention Dustin. If she does, I’ll kill her.
She marched to the Seaview Deck, trying to put as much distance between her and the bitch as she could. Her eyes bulged with new tears.
CHAPTER 8
Scandal
“Are you going on the Catalina crew excursion, Li? They plan to go to the Airport-in-the-Sky and eat enough buffalo to repopulate the prairie. Got to be much more interesting than doling out Chef Will’s ‘boof burger-nine.’”
“Boeuf bourguignon,” Li corrected. “It’s a beef stew in red wine with—”
“Earth to Li!” Travis knocked hard on Li’s skull. “You’re off the clock. Get out of waiter mode and get moving. You’re holding up the mess line.”
Li spooned scrambled eggs onto his plate. “Sorry, Travis. Spending all day explaining dishes to people sort of gets stuck in my mind.”
“Is there any way for you to refrain from thinking while we get our breakfast? Carlos is saying some pretty colorful Spanish obscenities behind me.”
Li shifted down the buffet line. He heard someone behind him exhale an expression of annoyance in some Scandinavian tongue. “Are you going on the excursion, Travis?”
Travis ladled a sea of gravy onto two and a half biscuits. “You bet. I hate staying cooped up on the ship. Any excuse to get off is welcome. I could use a buddy.”
“I’d like that, but—”
“Hurry up, will you? I’m starving down here!” The new voice swore with a French accent.
Travis stacked a tower of bacon onto his plate. “Let’s get a seat before we’re mugged.”
“Do you really need that much bacon, Travis?”
“We made a rule. No discussing my eating habits. I don’t make fun of all that fruit you eat. Trust me…I have a few gems in my head.”
“Doc Innsbrook must love seeing this.”
“Li, I have to deal with drunk rich people. I should be allowed to eat what I want.” He shoved a fat forkful of gravy-drenched biscuit into his mouth, making his cheeks bulge. “You never answered my question, Li.”
“I was going to say—”
“Johnson!” shouted an all-too familiar, all-too irritating voice. “We have business we need to discuss!”
“—that I never get a word in edgewise.”
Paul stormed through the aisles dividing the cafeteria tables. Heads swiveled on their necks to follow him.
“You have a shit ton of explaining to do, Johnson!” Paul yelled across the room.
“Gee, that’s a surprise,” Travis said. “Next he’ll tell you that you are a waiter in the dining room. The man misses nothing.”
“Paul, if this about your shoes—” Li began.
“If you don’t want my foot in your ass, Johnson, I’d suggest you keep THAT little apology to yourself. Now what the hell is this about you and Charlegne last night?”
A few heads bobbed above the rest like curious flamingos.
“I delivered her tea.”
“HA! I’ve heard many euphemisms, but ‘delivering tea’ has to be the worst one yet!”
“Excuse me?”
“What time was this so-called delivery?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“So you won’t answer the question?” Paul barked over his shoulder. “Told you, Jasper! The kid’s a slippery little twerp!”
Travis waved his loaded fork at Paul, gravy slopping onto the tabletop. “If you spent less time being a prick, Paulie, maybe we could get to the point of this interrogation.”
“Shove it, Patrelli! And don’t call me Paulie! Jasper saw Mr. Popular here go to Charlegne’s room. She stood in the doorway wearing nothing but a bathrobe. A SILK bathrobe. She was expecting you, wasn’t she?”
“He told you, Paulie. He delivered tea to her. That’s kind of his job. Leave him alone.”
“Patrelli, I would have to be drunk out of my skull to want to talk to you. Go shove a bagel down your throat.”
“And why was Jasper spying on Her Royal Highness, anyway?”
Paul waved off the insinuation. “He worked as the night shift attendant. Forget about him. The real news is he heard the loudest sex noises coming from the room not long after Johnson was there!” Several men whooped and applauded, jeering in at least a dozen languages. “Jasper said it sounded like someone rode the mattress like a mechanical bull.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Li shouted.
“Don’t yell, Johnson! No wonder she had a preoccupation with you. I couldn’t understand why she wanted YOU to serve her. Nobody wants you.”
“David can vouch for me! I went to bed not long after I left!”
“You’re going to hang your hopes on that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You mean you don’t know?” A slimy grin outlined Paul’s lips. Li drew up the image of a hungry snake. “David said he saw you leave, but doesn’t know when you returned. You were gone for a while he thought.”
“I-I swear I—”
“Why else would you be in her room?”
“But it wasn’t her room!”
Li’s hands rocketed to his mouth, and the color of his face matched the Oxnard strawberries he had been eating. The crowd in the mess hall settled. This new silence pressed tightly against Li’s ears.
Paul’s voice stayed calm. “Why do you say that, Johnson?”
Li shook his head wildly back and forth.
“Were you in her room or not?”
Li repeated the action.
The hungry snake grin widened. “Sex with a passenger while on duty. You know that’s a violation of ship policy.”
Travis intervened. “Okay, okay. Let’s break this up. Paulie, you don’t have any proof. And neither does Jasper. Li didn’t do anything. Let’s just eat our breakfast and get out of here.” He tucked into his palace of bacon like he hadn’t eaten in days.
The room seemed to retract into a caricature of a normal breakfast. Li felt every eye crawling on the back of his neck. He returned to his plate and poked a cantaloupe wedge with his fork. His heart drooped around his knees. “It was better when people ignored me. When did this turn into high school?”
Travis slowed his eating. “Why didn’t you tell me about Charlegne?”
“Travis, I—”
“I mean…I had to wonder why she was so keen on you. That whole ‘I will never remember what you look like’ thing never really felt right.”
“Travis, I swear I didn’t—”
“Sorry for saying this, but a guy has issues when his friend sleeps with his former fantasy girl.”
“I did not sleep with her!”
Travis set his loaded fork on the plate, propped his elbows on the table, and folded his hands. He stared Li down like a judge appraising the damned. “Then how do you know th
at the room wasn’t hers?”
Li told him.
Travis relaxed his pose. “So it’s the old room service gag, eh? I can’t believe that you’d actually be that observant at one o’clock in the morning.”
“Well, I was! Charlegne wasn’t in her room last night, but she was for breakfast!”
“A fact that only YOU know!”
“I’m telling you the truth, Travis!”
“You should have stuck to sleeping with the purser like Carlos does.”
“Why don’t you believe me?”
Travis picked at the bacon with his fingers. “You know you totally threw your neck into a noose, Li. Paulie will see you hanged for this. Hell, he’d hold the rope. Good-bye cushy cruise job.”
“I didn’t do anything! What will it take to get you to believe me?”
“Who knows? Maybe you can have Charlegne make a public appearance. Really ham it up with the tear-stained hankie, a cup of Darjeeling, and a hearty cry of ‘I did not have sexual relations with this what’s-his-face!’”
Li’s mouth tensed into a scowl. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“Wait…what?”
“Talking to Charlegne. If no one will listen to me telling the truth, they will definitely listen to her.”
“Ha! Good luck with that! Once word gets out that you had a private chat with Madame Frostbite, you’ll be marooned off the Ensenada harbor in a rowboat with a map to Mexico City. Hope your Spanish has gotten better.”
“I’m not going to lose my job, Travis. I won’t let them fire me without knowing the truth.”
“You poor, innocent, idealistic child.” He swished milk in his mouth, inflating his cheeks in a cartoonish parody of a chipmunk storing nuts.
“I guess I’m not going ashore with you then.”
Travis choked. “Hey now! Why are you punishing me?”
“Who said anything about punishment?”
“What will you do? You know Charlegne will have a swarm of sycophants kissing her elegant behind. How do you plan to get through to her?”
“I’m sure there are ways.”
“Not without security stalking you. If Charlegne doesn’t want to be disturbed, Captain Crayle himself would throw anyone off the ship who so much as cast a shadow on her.”
“If I can’t talk to her, then I guess I’ll have to find out who slept with her last night.”
CHAPTER 9
Catalina Island
“Damn tourists! Get out of my way, stupid!”
The golf cart veered wide. Steven Danforth ducked out of the way just as the tire scraped the heel of his $300 Oxfords. The driver swore as he sped up the hills of Avalon. Several parents clamped their hands to their children’s ears.
Incredible, Steven thought. Even on a damn island in the middle of the damn ocean where people drive golf carts instead of cars, there’s still road rage. People never change.
“How awful! Are you okay, sir? I can’t believe people can be so rude!”
A woman with a half-tamed ponytail of black hair descended upon Steven like a nurse on the battlefield.
“That man just came out of nowhere! Ducking and diving and swerving through the crowd like he was on the run. I can’t imagine why he was in such a hurry! I’m surprised he didn’t hurt anyone. That was a very close shave he gave you. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Oh…um…I think so. He just nicked my shoe.”
“It was so rude of him to swear at you like that. Especially in front of all these kids. Just terrible. If I was lucky enough to be a mother, I would have DIED to know my children heard that sewer mouth. Absolutely filthy. Wouldn’t you say so, girls?”
Steven’s eyebrows launched up his forehead as he saw Priscilla Reilly stand beside the woman. “I thought I had seen the worst living in L.A. Some people just have no class, Daphne.”
“Aren’t you a little far from the ship, Priscilla?” Steven asked. “Charlegne can hardly blow her nose without you being there to hold the Kleenex.”
Priscilla fussed with the drape of her dress, which drooped like sad woolen swags of Spanish moss. “She gave me the afternoon off. She told me so last night. I guess she just wanted some space. I gathered she had her fill of human interaction after last night. Don’t you think so, Steven?”
“You always seem to know too much, Priscilla.”
“The walls are thin. Remember that.” She turned back to her travel companion. “I simply must take you to this little dress shop I heard so much about, Daphne! All custom pieces done in the most exquisite fabrics. We’ll find something gorgeous for you to wear to dinner tonight. If we step up the pace a little, we can go there just before our tour of the Casino.”
“Oh yes, Priscilla! Sounds wonderful! But remember, Sally asked us if we could stop at the drug store so she can get something for her headache.”
“Oh yes, of course. We’ll go after the dress shop. Confidentially, Daphne, I think Sally’s husband is her only real headache.”
The two women bustled back across the street to a woman whose face cowered behind a lifeless sheet of blond hair. She seemed to wilt into the scenery.
Could have been very pretty if she let herself think so, Steven thought. His eyes swung around to where the ship rested on the cushion of a Pacific horizon, a white diamond couched in blue satin. She’s no Charlegne Jackson.
He pictured his boss lounging on the thin strip of beach just ahead of him, warming her fading tan and clad in white, her favorite color, the color of ice.
And virgin brides…Let’s not forget that she almost got married. She certainly didn’t forget. I think it’s impossible for her to forget. She made sure her memories would last. She’ll carry that copy of Vogue with her until the day she dies.
He drew up the picture of her in the Lacroix dress, white on ivory crowned with gold. His own little monster stretched and yawned. Grunting under his breath, Steven shoved the drowsy beast back into bed.
Goddamn woman. He unbuttoned the collar of his three-piece suit. She’s got her claws in my throat, all right. She’ll drag me to Paris…Rome…then Sydney…and I wouldn’t be able to refuse her! Worse, she knows it. She knows that I’d bend over backwards and kiss my own ass to do whatever she wanted. I hate that bitch. I hate the fact she makes me love her. She can pretend to care, just like she pretended last night. But when I saw her before dinner, I knew she hated the sight of me. Love disgusts her. She is incapable of loving anyone ever again. She just loves that I belong to her, that I’m her stupid little slave. His eyes hardened on the ship. Unless I ask questions. Charlegne hates them. Maybe I ought to ask more questions about that little wimp who—He checked his watch. Dammit. Eleven o’clock already? I’m going to be late for that damn tour.
Dodging tourists and keeping an eye out for another wild golf cart, Steven dashed across the street to the shuttle depot. A line of people already snaked through the turnstiles. He managed to bypass a family with a thunderstorm of begging children, colliding with the man in front of him.
“Whoops! Sorry! I seem to be running into all sorts people today.”
“No foul done. I can take a few bumps. Howard Line, right?”
“How did you know?”
“It wouldn’t seem weird if I said ‘clothes make the man,’ would it? That’s an expensive suit, good tailoring, and those shoes are more at home in the executive boardroom than on a day trip to Catalina. They scream respectability and luxury, and the only cruise line I know that caters exclusively to that is the Howard Line.”
“Moonlight as a detective?”
“It’s my job to know how much things are worth. I’m in real estate. Name’s Josh Cole.”
The two shook hands, giving Steven time to appraise the other man’s suit. It was less executive, a good cut with cheaper fabric. His shoes were more for comfort than style. His hair gave the illusion that his head was on fire.
“Steven Danforth. And yes, I’m sailing on the Howard Line. I take it you are on the cruise too
?”
“Yep. Gift from my sister. She thought my wife and I needed a vacation.”
The thunderstorm descended. A thin, adenoidal screech of protest complained about not being able to ride a buffalo. Steven felt a headache prickle at his temples.
“Can’t ever escape screaming children, can you? I was hoping to avoid them on this tour.”
Josh shrugged and smoothed back his firestorm of hair. “Oh, I don’t know. I like kids. I’d like to have some of my own if…if things pan out. Don’t mind the noise. If you knew my wife, you’d understand why. Besides, I’m sure that family will sit up front. They’re the kind that has to get off first and be close to any guide to ask a million questions. Speaking of which, here’s the shuttle.”
Josh’s prediction came true, as there was nearly an argument with another family about the seating arrangements. The two men decided to seek refuge in the back. In five minutes, the shuttle wormed its way up the mountainside to the Airport-in-the-Sky.
“What business are you in?”
“What was that?”
“Are you enjoying the scenery that much, Steven? I asked ‘what business are you in?’ I told you I was in real estate.”
“Sorry…I had my mind on something else. I work in fashion.”
“Hmmm…I pegged you as the lawyering, managing type, not as a designer.”
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