Then the picture went black. Not snow or fuzz like the connection had been severed. It just went black.
“What happened?” asked Army.
“I don’t know, Chief. The feed seems to be running but there’s no picture.”
“Maybe he covered the camera with something,” Danielle said.
“Another camera?” I asked.
More tapping. “If he went all the way down to I-95 there’s cameras. But those stairs also cut into the prep kitchens behind a couple of the bars. No cameras in the kitchens, but there are in the bars. But once he’s in there, he might be hard to spot.” She slid her chair to another keyboard and started tapping again.
“We’ve lost him?” I asked, somewhat rhetorically.
“We’ll find him. What do you have, Porter?” asked Army.
“That hatch. It’s not an emergency exit like the access you came through to get on that deck. It’s crew only. It’s keycard access.”
“So you can find out who opened the door?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Here. The log says the door was opened by Angel Rodriguez.”
“Who is Angel Rodriguez?” asked Army.
“Looks like he works food prep for the lounge and the sports bar.”
“That’s our man,” said Army. “Let’s find him.”
More tapping. “Um, Chief?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a problem.”
“Which is?”
“Angel Rodriguez isn’t on board.”
“What do you mean, he isn’t on board?”
“Just that. He’s rostered off for this voyage. He’s not on the boat.”
“But his card is,” said Army. “Someone’s using his card.”
“You don’t void them?” I asked.
“Not every voyage, not for crew. If he was fired or he quit, sure, his card would be voided. But not for a weekend off.”
“You know what that means,” I said.
Army looked at me. “Not necessarily.”
“You’ve got to consider it.”
“I’m considering it.”
“Considering what?” Danielle asked.
“It’s an inside job,” I said. “Someone’s helping Guy X. Or he’s crew himself.”
“Not necessarily,” Army said again.
“And that makes me very suspicious about the missing rings.”
“You think that could be an inside job?” asked Danielle.
“How do you get into a locked room? With a key.”
“There’s video,” said Army. “No one in or out.”
“Video can be altered,” I said. I’d seen it done.
“Not this,” said Porter. “It’s time stamped and encoded. We use it for legal proceedings if anything happens on board. It’s tamperproof.”
I said nothing about nothing being tamperproof. Everything could be got at. But I accepted the point that it would be hard to do, and all the more difficult at sea.
“Thanks, Porter,” said Army. “Keep at it. If we can’t see him leaving, maybe you can find him arriving.”
“I’m on it, Chief.”
“Miami, I’m sure you’re tired. But before you go, could you look at something else?”
Army sat me at a desk to the side with a laptop on it. I looked at photos of every passenger who had been issued a ship pass. Then I looked at all the crew. I was borderline comatose by the end.
“I saw about fifty possibles, two hundred if you cast the net a little wider. I’d know him if I saw him live, but on a photo I just can’t tell.”
“Worth a shot,” said Army. “You should get some rest.”
Danielle led me to the door. Then Army asked me to stop. He stepped over and handed me something. It was orange and looked like a chunky cell phone or walkie-talkie.
“It’s a satellite comms unit. You can text us and we can text you from anywhere on the planet, and anywhere on board via wifi. We’ll keep an eye on your passageway and buzz you if Mrs. Connors leaves her suite.”
“Thanks,” I said, and turned to follow Danielle out.
“And Miami, that comms unit,” said Army. “It’s also an emergency locator beacon. Water activated. Just in case you get any more ideas about jumping off my ship.”
“Thanks, Army, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime trip.”
Chapter Seventeen
Seeing Frederick going overboard on the video made me think about the isolation of a ship on the high seas. I had certainly felt a long way from anything when floating in the ocean. And thinking of myself in the water made me think of land, which made me long to reach some. My limited recollection of the layout of the Bahamas told me we were on the Bahama Banks somewhere south of Grand Bahama. Army had said we were headed for the cruise line’s private island, Paradise Cay, which was part of the Berry Island chain. To the south was Andros Island. But where the ship was floating now was in the middle of a great big bathtub. Which made me wonder about the rings.
If they were gone, then they weren’t really gone. They had to be on the ship. And if they were on the ship, then they had to get off, but the only place we were stopping was Paradise Cay, which itself was a tiny island in a chain of tiny islands in the middle of the ocean. Once there, there was nowhere to go. Which made the logic of the missing rings baffle me. Why would someone steal jewelry on a ship if they couldn’t then get away?
The answer was simple. They wouldn’t. There was no point.
And finding their way into a locked room on a ship did not smell of a crime of opportunity. It was all kinds of Ocean’s Eleven. It had been planned. I couldn’t see it any other way. But once the thief got the rings out of the locked room, and off the ship in the middle of the ocean, then where? Onto a private island? I couldn’t see anywhere else to go. Between us and Florida there was nothing. Nothing but some tiny dots of land that didn’t appear on most globes. The Biminis.
Which made me think of Lucas. He was there on North Bimini, probably sipping on a cool beer in a bar in Alice Town. He knew the Bahamas. He knew every fishing spot and escape route in the region. Fortunately Danielle had Lucas’s numbers, both his cell phone and his satellite phone, which was the one Danielle called whenever I went missing in action down in Miami, or thereabouts. I asked her if I could borrow her phone and connected to the ship’s satellite system.
“Don’t take too long,” Danielle said. “It’s like ten dollars a minute.”
“Billable.” I smiled and I wandered to the window to look over the ocean. It was dark and all I saw was my reflection in the glass. I turned away from it.
The call connected. “Yeah?”
“Lucas?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Miami.”
“Mate, how’s it going?”
“It’s been an adventure.”
“Always is with you.”
I had to agree. I told him about the rings, how they had gone missing, and how I couldn’t see how the thieves would get them off. I didn’t mention jumping off the boat. I figured that was a conversation for a time when I wasn’t charging the client ten bucks a minute.
“Where are you going?”
“We stop at a private island tomorrow. Paradise Cay. You know it?”
“I do. It used to be paradise.”
“What is it now?”
“Disneyland.”
“So could someone get the rings off the cay?”
“Depends on the security. That’s officially the Bahamas, so they might have passport control.”
“Might?”
“It’s a private island, so the government might waive full passport control in return for a landing fee. But even then, it’s an island.”
“Right. So if they got the stuff off the ship and onto the island, then what? A getaway boat?”
“Possible, but the business side of the island is where the deep dock is. They dredged it out so the cruise ships can dock right on the island. But you couldn’t get a boat in there without being
seen, and the only boats with permission will be the cruise line’s.”
“Is there an airstrip?”
“Nah. It’s all vegetation on the interior. Nowhere to land. Hang on.”
“What?”
“There’s no buildings on the east side of the cay. All the action is on the west side. But there is a beach. You could get a speedboat in there.”
“And there’s no one there to see?”
“No buildings at all, as I remember it.”
“Maybe that’s it.”
“Who do think has the rings?” he asked.
“I have no idea. I don’t even know for sure they’ve left the room. But they have to leave the ship eventually, so this is my best bet.”
“You could hide over there and see if anyone comes.”
“I could, but the ring thing technically isn’t why I was hired.”
“Oh, right. The sheila having the affair.”
“Exactly. I should be keeping my eye out for this mystery guy.”
“No worries. If you want, I can pop over there in the morning and hang off the island, watch it for you.”
“I thought you were fixing a boat in Bimini?”
“Done. Just a clogged fuel line. Some people seriously shouldn’t own boats. So I’m done.”
“I can’t ask you come all this way.”
“Not that far, mate. I can be there in a couple of hours. I’ll leave before dawn and be there before all you lot get off your barge.”
“You don’t have to work?”
“I’m fixing a client’s boat in Bimini, remember? You can bill your client for my fuel, bait and beer. I’ll get a spot of fishing in.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“All right, thanks. I’ve got a communication locator device thing they gave me on the ship. It can send text messages. If I can figure it out, I’ll send you a message so you have the number. Just let me know when you get there tomorrow.”
“Will do.”
We said we would touch base the following day and then I took out the communication device Army had given me. It had a screen and some buttons on it. The screen didn’t respond to touch, so I tried the buttons. They seemed to do the trick. I found a message screen and typed in a quick message to Lucas and hit send. I wasn’t sure whether my message would float off into the ether or land somewhere useful, but I returned the device to my pocket and Danielle’s phone to her.
Then I had a thought. I went back to the security control room and knocked. Army opened the door.
“Do we go through passport control tomorrow?” I asked.
“We were just talking about that,” said Army. “No, is the answer. The government of the Bahamas doesn’t require it since it’s a private island. We pay a landing fee for each passenger. But we do check everyone off and on with their ship passes. We don’t want to leave anyone behind. We do have the option to set up a metal detector and search bags. We’re going to do that.”
“Don’t people get spooked?” asked Danielle.
“We tell them it’s a government requirement. Bureaucracy generally placates people. I was thinking maybe you should set up on the dock and see if you recognize the guy who pushed Mr. Connors.”
“Guy X. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. What time can folks get off?”
“We’ll be in dock by seven, but passengers can disembark from 8 a.m. on.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
Danielle and I left them to it and took the elevator down to our deck. I wasn’t in a stairs kind of mood. Danielle took my hand and led me down to our suite. She used her ship pass to open the door, and I was about to follow when I stopped and looked down the corridor.
“MJ?”
“I’m just going to check on Fred.”
I wandered down to the Connors’ suite and knocked on the door. There was no response and I looked at Danielle.
“Maybe they’re asleep,” she said.
“It’s not that late.”
“It’s not that early, either. And he did have a pretty traumatic evening.” She put her hand on my cheek. “And so did you.”
The door opened and I found myself looking at Anastasia Connors. She was dressed in a tracksuit that was remarkably similar to the one I had on, except for the thousands of sequins.
“You,” she said.
“Me,” I said. It was witty repartee at its finest.
“Frederick is sleeping.”
“Good.”
She didn’t seem that enthusiastic about letting us in. I wasn’t planning on kicking off a room party.
“Is there something you wanted?” she asked.
“How are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“How are you? Are you okay?”
“Nothing happened to me.”
“Your husband went overboard on a cruise ship. That’s pretty traumatic for everyone. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She frowned at me. Her face said she was annoyed by the question, but her eyes said something else. They were searching for comprehension. I got the distinct impression that few people ever genuinely asked after her well-being. I supposed that was a result of her holier-than-thou countenance. It didn’t really drive people to care much about her. She lifted her chin and regained her composure, to the limited extent she had lost it.
“I am fine, Mr. Jones.”
I nodded and gave her a moment. I was curious to see if she said anything about me rescuing her husband. I certainly didn’t do it for her thanks, or his. Or anyone else’s. I wasn’t really sure why I had jumped off the cruise ship, other than the fact that I knew I could swim and I knew that Frederick Connors could not. It was as simple as that. But Lenny always said you could tell a lot about someone based on whether they chose to say thank you or not, even for the little things.
She said nothing. Instead, she raised an eyebrow.
“Before I go, one quick question. Do you know why Frederick was out on the deck?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s just, I thought he was staying in your cabin because he wasn’t well.”
“That was my impression, but when I got back from the auction room I assumed he was in bed, and I didn’t want to disturb him.”
“So you went out again?”
“How do you know that?”
I didn’t want to tell her I had watched her on the security video. Even though everyone knew security video was there, they chose not to think about the watching eyes. Plus Army’s crew was still watching, and I didn’t want her second-guessing herself or her movements.
“The crew came to find you when Frederick went overboard.”
“They did find me.”
“The first time,” I lied.
“Oh. Well, if you must know, I got a call.”
“A call?”
“About the rings.”
“Your rings? The stolen rings?”
“No, Mr. Jones, the Lord of the Rings.”
I hadn’t known she did humor. I hoped she was a good jeweler. Stand-up wasn’t going to put pasta in her pot.
“Who called you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they say?”
“They said they had information about my rings.”
“And?”
“And I should meet them.”
“Meet them where?”
“In the ladies’ bathroom beside the spa.”
“It was a woman who called you?”
“No. It was a man.”
“A man wanted to meet in the women’s room?”
“I assumed a lady would be present.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this to security?”
“No, I didn’t. Security seems to be a bit of an afterthought on this boat.”
I nodded, ignoring the jab. “And what happened in the bathroom?”
“Nothing. I went, I waited, no one came. It was a waste of my time.�
�
“Well, thank you, Mrs. Connors. I hope Fred’s feeling better.”
“It’s Frederick, and I don’t think he’ll be better until he gets onto solid land.”
“Listen, would you like to join us for dinner?”
The confounded face returned. “No, thank you. I must stay in with my husband.”
I wished her a good night and we stepped away and the door closed behind us.
“That was weird,” said Danielle.
“Which part?”
“All of it. But did you hear her? She must stay in with her husband?”
“So?”
“I wouldn’t say it like that.”
“How would you say it?”
“I want to stay with my husband.”
I thought about the difference as we reached our suite. Small but important. Then I looked up as the door down the corridor opened again. Mrs. Connors stepped halfway out.
“Mr. Jones,” she said.
“Yes, Mrs. Connors?”
“Thank you.”
I nodded and she stepped back inside and closed her door. Danielle gave me a grin.
“People never cease to amaze me,” I said.
“You’re telling me. You want that beer now?” she asked, opening our door.
“I do. But you know what I want more?”
She gave me the half smile that lit me up. “We already did that, but I’m game.”
“No, not that. Well, not this minute. I just want to be somewhere where there are people. You know? I don’t need to talk to them. I just want them to be there.”
Danielle nodded. “Okay. Let’s find a bar.”
Chapter Eighteen
We got to the bar by the pool but I didn’t get my drink. Instead, I caught the eye of someone I vaguely recognized, walking toward us.
“You,” she said. She looked me up and down and was a bit confused. I couldn’t fault her for that. When we had seen each other last time I was in a tux, and now I was in a fashionista track suit.
“You were with Adrian and D’Vante in the casino,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. Miami Jones, and this is Danielle Castle.”
“Have you seen Adrian?”
“Not since you left the casino. Is there a problem?”
“He’s gone missing.”
I suppressed a groan. I couldn’t handle another man overboard.
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