No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7

by Barton, Sara M.

  “It’s me, Ryan! For God’s sake, stop fighting me!” a male voice yelled. “I’m trying to save you!”

  I gave a small sob as I realized Bob was pulling me back onto the ship. As soon as my feet touched the deck, I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay. Take a deep breath,” he encouraged me. “You’re safe now.”

  “Who was that? Why did he do that?” I was stunned by the attack. “Where did he go?”

  “All good questions. I’m going to work on answers. But let’s start with the most important. Someone just tried to kill you and he’s still on the ship. We need to get to the security office. Maybe he showed up on surveillance cameras.”

  Bob led me through the warren of interconnected staff hallways and offices until we got to a large, windowless room with a long bank of monitors. A couple of women and men sat watching the activities from the live feeds throughout the ship.

  “By the way, I never had a chance to ask you your name,” he told me, as he settled into an empty seat. He patted a chair, inviting me to sit.

  “Mariem Dufours,” I answered.

  “What cabin are you in?”

  “619B.”

  “We’re moving you. I want you in a cabin where we can keep an eye out for you. We’ll kill two birds with one stone, keeping an eye on 619B, to see if anyone shows up.”

  “Should I go pack my things?” I wondered.

  “The steward will do that. Montcrieff, bring up the footage on 28HVK about ten minutes ago,” Bob directed a young woman. She punched in some numbers and letters, tapped on a few buttons, and suddenly I could see myself talking in the hallway to Bob. There was no audio, but I could tell we were having our first conversation. Bob directed her to go forward. He studied the five people who used the passageway. I saw two couples and a single woman. One of the couples was elderly, the other middle-aged. The single woman looked like she was in her twenties, slightly tipsy.

  “Show me the adjoining passageways, same time frame,” he commanded. He went through each view three times before moving onto the next. Half an hour later, I still had no idea who my assailant was, but Bob seemed energized. “Pull up all the ID’s for those folks on 28HVK, 28HWK, and 29IVK. I’ll be back for them in about an hour. In the meantime, get me Fortuna and Thompson.”

  Moments later, Bob huddled with a man and a woman in an adjacent cubicle as I waited. I watched the middle-aged woman nod a lot as he spoke. The glass walls kept me from hearing their conversation, but I noticed the younger man seemed very intense. When Bob was done, he hopped up, crossed the distance in a few long strides, and held out a hand to me.

  “Let’s go have that drink.” He took my elbow, steering me back through the “employees only” passageways and out into the main public space. We took the elevator up two floors and went into an intimate lounge. A cabaret singer dressed in a black cocktail dress was belting out “La Vie en Rose”, accompanied by a pianist and bass player. Bob led me to a small table hidden behind a large potted palm. As we sank into a pair of soft club chairs, the cocktail waitress sauntered over and gave Bob a sultry smile. I suspected that Bob had used this private nook with some regularity, perhaps to keep an eye on ship passengers who warranted watching.

  We ordered drinks and they arrived minutes later with a clear glass bowl of spicy peanuts. I was about to take a sip from my sombrero when Bob held up his glass.

  “Here’s to the late, great Henri Dufours. May he rest in peace.” As our glasses clinked, I felt a sudden stab of guilt hit me in the gut.

  “Nous sommes relié toujours,” I said without thinking. My companion looked at me expectantly, so I translated. “We are always connected.”

  A shadow crossed Bob’s face, almost imperceptible. I suddenly wanted to know what he was thinking, but I hesitated to ask. Was it because he was a stranger or because he had been kind enough to pay attention to me? The hungry often need food, and a starving soul is especially ravenous, seeking a gentle word or a sympathetic glance wherever it may be found.

  “Tell me about your husband. What was Henri like?”

  “Henri?” I stalled, trying to think of a way to avoid the subject without seeming like a heartless woman. Bob must have sensed my reluctance, even though I hadn’t said a word.

  “How long were you married?”

  “Almost twenty years.”

  “Not all of them happy?” he queried me. There was something about Bob’s eyes I found particularly compelling. Was it because he was so physically attractive or because, underneath the smart, carefully crafted image, there was a man who had seen some of the darker side of life and understood life isn’t always about easy choices?

  “Have you ever been married?” I asked him.

  “Twice. Divorced twice, too.”

  “So you know marriage isn’t always easy,” I decided.

  “There’s an understatement. My first wife left me for her law partner. My second marriage lasted all of three months. She turned out to be hired by a criminal organization that wanted to get close to me. Can’t really count that as a marriage, though. We knew what they were up to, so I was just going through the motions. I used to be a Treasury agent.”

  “Oh,” I nodded, relieved to be off the subject of Henri.

  “First marriage?”

  “Yes.” I reached for peanuts, hoping that by filling my mouth, I could avoid answering awkward questions.

  “Not made in heaven, I take it.” Bob was sitting back in his chair, keeping it casual, but it felt like he was interested in my answers.

  “We were two very different people.”

  “Did you change over time or were you always mismatched as a couple?” he wanted to know. That was a question I had often asked myself. All of our family members and friends talked about how good we looked together at the wedding. That was the first, and for many, the only time they met Henri Dufours. Our life as a couple was composed of orchestrated public appearances and private separations that maintained the fiction of happy-ever-after. The truth was I married a stranger, and even after nearly twenty years of marriage, I still didn’t understand him. Henri could be very cold. We often went for a whole week without having a meaningful conversation. Sometimes the only interaction between us was in the bedroom. Henri was never willing to give up his own pleasure, even to punish me for my imaginary sins. He took what he wanted, even when I was unwilling to give it.

  Early in our relationship, I tried to get him to open up, to tell me what was wrong, why he was so miserable. He brushed me off abruptly, uninterested in sharing his feelings with me. A very angry confrontation one weekend resulted in Henri storming out of the house as I sat crumpled on the floor, red-faced from frustration. He didn’t come home for three weeks. Every call I made to his office was rebuffed by his administrative assistant. He returned at midnight on a Thursday, appearing in the doorway of our bedroom. Without a word to me, he got undressed and crawled into bed beside me, as if the last three weeks had never happened. In frustration, I sought counseling, but Henri refused to join me for sessions with the therapist. After six months of little progress in changing the dynamics of our communications, I threw in the towel. As the years slipped away, I stopped trying to change my husband. We silently agreed to live together as we were, warts and all.

  “Always,” I admitted. “We had a complicated relationship.”

  “Define complicated.” Bob pressed me for details.

  “I never knew what Henri was thinking or feeling. I was forever guessing. He kept me in the dark about everything.”

  “Why didn’t you divorce him?” Bob’s determined eyes focused on my face, closing in on every wince, every sigh, every frown. It felt like he had trained a powerful spotlight on me, revealing everything, concealing nothing, and as I sat there, I suddenly realized he was far too interested in the answer.

  Chapter Two —

  “Divorce him?” It was such a simple question, why was it so hard to answer?
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  “It what most people do when they can’t get their marriages to work.” Bob shrugged. To him, marriage seemed to be black or white, good or bad. It either worked or it didn’t.

  “It wasn’t an option for us,” I told Bob.

  “Religious reasons?”

  For a moment, I paused, flashing back to that terrifying night three years ago. Henri and I were cruising down the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar in our deluxe cabin on the Mandalay Empress. I wanted to believe Henri’s purpose in booking the trip was to celebrate our anniversary. He had been fairly cheerful in the weeks before we flew to Thailand. But I found out the hard way this was a really just a business trip and I was along to make it all look legitimate. Henri scheduled a meeting with a man called Wan Liu, a fellow passenger. He directed me to stay in our cabin until he got back, and then we would go to dinner together.

  “How long will you be gone? I’ll go for a swim,” I decided, rising from the chair to change into my bathing suit.

  “Stay in the cabin,” Henri insisted. His voice had an ugly edge to it. He was in one of his moods. “I’ll be back within the hour.”

  “Well, I don’t want to,” I snapped. I had reached my emotional breaking point, after being dragged along on the trip to play the role of wife, not because Henri loved me, but because he needed a companion. I decided I had to draw a line in the sand and redefine our relationship. At least that was my intention when I defied Henri.

  “You will do as I say,” he warned me.

  “Or what?” I demanded.

  “Or maybe you will accidentally fall into the river and be eaten by the crocodiles.” There was a dark, dangerous look in Henri’s eyes and I suddenly wondered if he was serious.

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” I replied, my eyes filling with tears. “I cannot believe you said that to me. It’s our anniversary. How hurtful!”

  “Then be a good girl and do not anger me!” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I have an important business meeting. When I am done, I will return and you can have your gift.”

  “The only gift I want from you is kindness!” I cried.

  “And the only gift I want from you is cooperation,” was his retort. He reached out and shoved me back into my chair. The shock of his action left me stunned. “Do I have it, Mariem?”

  “Just go,” I snapped, unable to bear the sight of him. “Go! Do what you have to do. What do I care?”

  “You have much to care about and much to lose if you anger me!” my husband warned me menacingly. He picked up his sport coat from the back of the desk chair and slipped it on as I watched his reflection in the mirror. I didn’t dare look up at him as he stood so close to me. I was afraid of what I would see in those eyes. Something told me Henri was capable of tossing me over the railing, into the deep, dark, swirling waters of the Irrawaddy River.

  “Is that too personal a question?” Bob said, suddenly bringing me back to reality. I took a sip of my drink, trying to recover my equilibrium, remembering how terrified I was of Henri that night. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded weakly. Was I? I realized that what happened this evening was too close a call for comfort. Henri had threatened to throw me overboard three years ago, and tonight someone almost succeeded in doing just that. Was there a connection?

  “You look like you just saw a ghost,” Bob confided. “Thinking about Henri?”

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t trust myself to speak, afraid that all of my marital secrets would spill out. I felt an invisible chill touch my skin and I started to shiver.

  “You’re cold, Mariem. We should move to another table,” Bob suggested. “We’re sitting under the air vent.”

  I let him escort me to another table a few feet away. I let him believe that cold air was the only reason for my goose bumps. I let him believe that Henri was a decent man and we were just two people who couldn’t get along. Maybe I didn’t want to admit to myself that I thought the late Henri Dufours was capable of murdering me, any more than I wanted to admit he might have hired someone to do it for him, had he not died almost two and a half years ago.

  “Shall I walk you to your new cabin?” Bob offered. I nodded, wondering if I was ever going to feel like the Mariem I used to be, long before I ever set eyes on Henri Dufours.

  We walked down the hall and took the stairs one flight down. He unlocked the door of 819B. The new cabin was almost a mirror image of the one I was forced to abandon.

  “We’ve got a camera aimed at your door, and a couple of our people are sleeping on this floor. Anything happens, we’ll be able to respond right away.” Bob gave me a reassuring pat on the arm, opened the closet door to show me all of my clothes had been hung in my new cabin closet, and then opened up the bathroom door to show me that my toiletries had also arrived. “You should be okay, so get some rest. Let us worry about the bad guy. Sleep well, Mariem.”

  He moved towards the door and I gave a tiny sigh of relief. It dawned on me I was feeling things I didn’t think I should feel, things about Bob as a man. I was suddenly too aware of the line of his jaw and the strength of his hands. His eyes were on me again.

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling awkward.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied. “Lock the door behind me.”

  Long after he was gone, my thoughts stayed on him. I knew it was wrong. Declan, my fiancé, was owed my loyalty, my love. And yet I felt an invisible connection to a man I didn’t even know. Was it that I sensed he understood what it was like to have a loveless marriage? Or was I getting cold feet, now that the wedding was only a few weeks away? I paused, thinking about the man I would soon marry.

  “Go to Bermuda. Make your farewell to Henri. When you come home, we’ll focus on the wedding, on us.” Declan had driven me to the dock to catch the ship, unloaded my suitcase, and kissed me passionately. “I’ll be thinking of you the whole time you’re gone.”

  I felt a pang of guilt as I lay on the bed. I had let my guard down. I had allowed myself to feel something genuine and real about another stranger. The last time that happened, I had married Henri.

  I was in the Paris metro one steamy August day, a young college graduate on a tour of Impressionist hot spots, finishing my last fling before joining the working world of starving artists. With a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and a decent portfolio, I would soon begin interning as a cataloguer for Vente aux Enchères Deloitte, a French auction house specializing in art masterpieces. My goal was to work there for a couple of years before heading back to graduate school. Eventually, I hoped to find a position in a respected museum as a restorer. Someday, my humble hands might actually touch the canvas of a Rembrandt or Monet.

  Henri took a seat opposite me as the train rumbled through the dark tunnels of the underground subway. He was a very handsome man, with long blonde hair and azure eyes. His white shirt was open at the collar, offering me a glimpse of a braided gold chain around his neck.

  “American?” He spoke to me in a lightly accented English.

  “Oui,” I answered him in my pigeon French, explaining that my grandmother was from Rouen, so I had spent a few summers with her, exploring Normandy. When we reached the metro stop at Saint-Sulpice, I stood up to go.

  “Have a coffee with me,” Henri insisted. “I want to know more about you.”

  That’s how it all started, and in the next year, not only did Henri sweep me off my feet and convince me to marry him, I abandoned my dream of becoming an art restorer. As soon as I finished my internship at Deloitte, we were married at a little ceremony at a small French restaurant on the Connecticut shore, where Henri knew the owner. He made all the arrangements for the thirty guests. All I had to do was show up. We started our marriage in a small apartment in Greenwich, where Henri had a position in private banking for Grenois Financial. He was in charge of several large accounts, managing the money and investing it to make more.

  As I lay on my bed on the Beauty of the Seas, feeling the throttle of the ship’s engines as we chugged throug
h choppy seas, I recalled my naïveté all those years ago. How innocent and inexperienced I had been. There was so much concealed from me, so much I didn’t know until it was too late.

  I thought about my life after Henri died, when I suddenly I felt as if someone had thrown me a life preserver after years of struggling. I so desperately wanted to reach dry land, to feel safe again. Alas, it was not to be. Shortly after the police notified me that my husband had perished at sea, Henri’s skeletal remains had washed ashore, but there wasn’t enough left of the late Henri Dufours to conclusively identify the cause of his death. A week later, I was contacted by investigators from the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Henri had been subpoenaed the month before to testify about one of the accounts he managed, Sea Bounty International, suspected of being a money laundering front for the Chapo drug cartel. The government had offered him full immunity if he would testify about his knowledge of the sources of their income. Henri had met twice with the assistant US attorney, Megan Plourde, in an effort to come to an agreement.

  “We suspect the cartel killed your husband, Mariem,” a young, overly-earnest agent told me. “We may never be able to prove it. We want you to grant us permission to search your husband’s financial records, his electronic devices, and any safe deposit boxes he held.”

  “But I don’t have access to those,” I was forced to admit. “To be honest, my husband never discussed to me about his business. I didn’t even know he was talking to you.”

  “Who would have access to that information?” A second investigator asked. She was about my age, with a hawk-like manner that made me feel like I was her next meal. I thought about the question.