The room applauded and cheered. Amy scooted her chair back in, crossed her legs, and glared defiantly up at Sean. Sean had failed to force Amy’s hand and had to cover instead.
Amy’s eyes shone bright, and beamed white-hot anger at Sean.
Sean concluded: “He trusted and mentored and tutored all those who came to him. It was that openness that got him in the end. Thank you, Otto. We just wish you were here, alive and in person, to receive this award.”
Applause overwhelmed the room. In unison, each and every writer stood. The standing ovation swelled and cheers were scattered about.
Our table stood also—all but Amy.
“Good try,” Mary whispered in my ear.
“Yes,” I lied, and thought only of the Prolixin Amy still possessed.
Amy finally stood, but it was to leave.
“Excuse me.” Heather said. “Amy’s upset. She owed so much to Otto.”
Heather followed the still unexposed murderer out of the awards ceremony.
⌘
Chapter 45
Champagne Gone Flat
After the ceremony, our quartet made for the bar. I wanted an explanation from Sean. What was his rationale for stirring the beehive that was Amy—especially after Niall’s unexpected comments had lulled her? However, any explanation would have to wait until we had found a table and some privacy. It was the last night of our cruise and the bar was crowded.
As we wove our way into the celebratory bar, I spotted Curtis at a large table across the room entertaining his usual clients. My heart leaped. Of course it did. I had fallen for him. He was smiling and talking animatedly to an attractive woman with short graying hair. Her eyes twinkled as she listened. I knew that twinkle. And I knew the twinkle tingled down into her body.
I thought of throwing caution to the wind and going over. But then, we had not integrated our groups. Or, more accurately, I unexpectedly realized he had consciously not integrated me into his group. I quickly rationalized that his business of finance was serious and perhaps my quest for a murderer might be considered frivolous or, possibly, less than credible to his group.
I smiled. I must appear to be an exciting woman to him with the constant interruption and overriding necessities of death and murder—not to mention my world-renowned friends. Then, as Curtis turned his head to signal the server for another round, he saw me.
Instantaneously, his face crinkled into a broad smile. That was the look of a man captivated by me. I was delighted. Delighted by Curtis and that my authorial persona had assumed another dimension, the dimension of an alluring, magnetic femme fatale.
“We’ll find a table,” Mary said. “Go ahead with your knight in shining armor coming.”
“Thanks.”
Sean, Elias, and Mary went to the back to grab a table for four.
I waited as Curtis excused himself and came over. The graying-haired woman glowered at me. I nodded and smiled at her. I had emerged as the conqueror woman.
“Veronica! It’s all over the ship. Brent’s dead.”
“Yes, I . . . I . . .”
“Speechless?”
“A little . . .”
“Come on. Does your little group always have bodies popping up, or should I say, plummeting?”
“Well, I . . .”
“What happened?”
I was speechless. I did not want to blurt out the truth—that I was lucky not to be one of the bodies he was mocking. And, I also I didn’t want the evening to be about Brent or death sailing the Atlantic with the MWW. I wanted it to be about us, Curtis and me.
Curtis marshaled me to a small window table abutted to the black expanse of night sea beyond. The ship’s reflected lights hit on the intermittent white foam popping where the sea clashed with the ship’s hull. Curtis signaled for the server.
“Champagne?”
“Wonderful!”
Curtis ordered a bottle of 2002 Louis Roederer Cristal Brut. He was certainly going all out tonight.
I noticed he cast the same winning smile at the server that he had at the woman with graying hair and was now shining down on me. I didn’t care if it seemed indiscriminate. It was for me now.
I was enthused. Champagne signaled more of what I had wanted since we first met at the airport and what I got on shipboard—romance and lovemaking beyond my experience, beyond my fictional fantasies. I downplayed the Brent incident and Curtis seemed satisfied after expressing his male protective reflexes and outrage. I did not want the focus to be on all of that.
“Enough about death,” I said. “Tell me, did you pick up more investing or clients or whatever you call it?”
“I can take a hint. And I agree. Enough about the morbid. And the short answer is ‘yes’.”
“That’s wonderful.”
As we drank our Champagne, I enjoyed the successes of his day as I had with my husband for so many years.
“Tell me more,” I said. “How do you reel them in?”
I wanted to be a part of Curtis’s life. I wanted our relationship to be more than a shipboard romance. I thought he wanted that too. But it was transparent to me that he was captivated with a woman of intrigue of excitement, of danger. I needed him to know the real me and me to know the real him. I needed him to share my real self with him—the me that didn’t trade on murders because I knew the sad truth of my daily routine.
“It’s not that hard . . . for me. I’m an expert reeler,” Curtis touched my hand and leaned forward. “Now . . . give me the inside track on Brent.”
Curtis’s dark eyes searched for the excitement of a murder mystery and not the excitement of getting to know me. Disappointed that my attempt at deflection had failed, I gave it to him because he was indeed a master reeler.
“Pony up, Veronica. And don’t leave the Heather angle out.”
“Heather angle?”
“You mean you never noticed? You’re the one with the investigator’s mind, the detecting nose!”
“I . . . I . . .”
I was at a loss. I thought back to the interaction and contact between Heather and Brent. It was arguably too familiar, but only on his part. Helga was right about that. To me Brent’s attentions were well costumed in politeness and appropriate wine-enriched, evening dinner banter. Heather’s reactions were charming but only polite.
“You’re the mystery writer and keen observer of human nature.” Curtis set down his flute and took the bottle to fill his glass and top off mine. “You mean you never noticed the heat between them?”
“Of course . . . from Brent . . . but . . . but I didn’t realize it was requited heat.”
I reran the Heather-Brent moments in my mind. Curtis was wrong. But, then, he was not one of us. I didn’t argue. I didn’t want to.
“Oh, it was requited.” Curtis leaned close to me over the table and whispered, “Much like ours.”
“Like ours?”
“Well, not like ours. In my entire life, I have never been so completely and fascinatingly requited as with you.” Curtis’s deep bass tremolo voice vibrated through my body.
“Nor I.” I put down my champagne and looked at him for a very long, and very short, moment filled with expectation, but also disappointment that his ardor was feeding on a woman—a persona that I was not.
My whole body felt the sense memory of our three nights together. My surprise that the momentum had spurred each of us to try new territories of experimentation. It was as if the cozy cocoon of Curtis’s cabin isolated in the wide Atlantic took on a passionate, new life of its own. I attributed it to our chemistry, our pairing, our hunger, and our loneliness. Or, at least, my own loneliness.
“To tonight and more requiting.” Curtis clicked his flute on mine.
My heart and mind raced to find a colorable compromise that would let the me that Curtis wanted, the me disguised as an exciting writer, slip into his world for another night of love. I picked up my champagne flute and drank in hopes of finding that compromise. Then, I put it back down with a
hollow heart. He did not feel the same about me as I did about him. I recognized the gamesmanship, the insincerity, and hated his cute use of the word requited when it came to us.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got to get back to my friends. Mary and I have to stick together. The murderer is still free and we want to disembark without being shrouded in a body bag.” I decided right then and there that the solidarity of my cohorts was the most important thing, as well as being with Mary who had no one in her stateroom.
“I . . . I thought . . .”
“I’m sorry, but we have London.”
“London?”
“Yes. I’ll be staying three days. Theatre and all.”
“I have a few business meetings and then I have to get back.”
“Oh.”
“Tonight?”
I looked over at my friends and used them as an excuse to depart with my deflated heart. If he felt about me like I did about him, I would hear from him back in California.
“I can’t.”
“I understand.”
“I just wanted a chance to say good-bye and thank you for all your help. I didn’t want to miss you tomorrow and not have said goodbye.”
I thought, “And give you a chance to make a date for when we were home, you idiot. This is the moment.”
“Sure.” Curtis was disappointed and his winning white smile disappeared. “I understand. I’ve got to get back to my clients anyway. I shouldn’t abandon them on the last night, either.”
I saw him look over at the woman with the short gray hair who he had been charming.
“Yes, I can see that.” I glanced at the woman who had kept an intermittent eye on us. “I’m sorry. I . . .”
“I am too, Veronica,” Curtis said. “You were the only thing that made this cruise bearable.”
“Bearable?” I was incredulous at the word choice.
“That isn’t what I meant. I meant you’re the only person on this cruise who I found . . . and still find . . . interesting.” Curtis smiled and then emptied the champagne bottle into our flutes. “Here’s to a woman I find not only interesting, but intoxicating, intriguing, attractive, and very, very charming.”
He picked up his flute and added, “Maybe we can go sailing back home and have dinner at the yacht club?”
“I’d like that.”
“Bingo,” I thought. We would be seeing each other at home. I knew there had been a deeper connection.
I lifted my flute slowly and held it out and he touched his rim very gently to mine and held it there.
Our eyes locked. Suddenly, the sparkle came back into his eyes. He smiled that smile as he put his card on the table. I picked it up.
I took a long drink of my champagne. The card and seeing each other back home turned my disappointment into elation.
The night had been negotiated, but the stakes had changed—there was a connection. He liked me.
I had changed my mind about being with Curtis and said, “You know, my friends can take care of themselves tonight.”
* * *
Or, could they? Sean ambled over to our table. There were greetings all around.
“Champagne?” Sean remarked. “Veronica, I hate to interrupt, but we have plans to make.”
“Right.”
“Plans?” Curtis asked. “More bodies popping up?”
“No,” Sean laughed. “But the night is young.”
“Ah, sounds intriguing,” Curtis said.
“Not so much, but we do need Veronica.”
“But . . .” All I thought was that Curtis wanted to see me back home and now I wanted to be with him tonight.
“Veronica, please,” Sean insisted in his most polite police directive.
“I have to go.” Even in my bubbly state, I knew I had to go with Sean and did.
Curtis called, “Let me know if you find another body!”
The night had been negotiated and renegotiated, but was now lost to Curtis and me.
Curtis went back to his table and the animated, attractive woman with short graying hair.
As I sat at their table with Sean, Elias and Mary, I watched as Curtis and the woman started another bottle of champagne. I feared that their own night was being negotiated.
* * *
“Veronica, pay attention here,” Elias said. “We have to keep you girls safe until morning.”
“I haven’t seen Amy since the banquet,” I said. “I think she’s had enough. She’s gotten what she wanted.”
“I don’t.” Sean had the authoritative presence that came from his years on the force. “Elias and I are moving into the same cabin and that is what you and Mary have to do.”
“Okay.” That was a far cry from waking up with Curtis.
“And no one is to open their door or order room service or anything else tonight.” Sean looked directly at me. “We don’t know how far her tentacles reach.”
⌘
Chapter 46
No Morning After,
But No Mourning Either
The next morning, I awoke early in Mary’s luxury stateroom. I was still alive and so was Mary, who was showering. I peeked out the balcony curtains and saw the Southampton dock lights through the mist. I had to have my suitcase out by five a.m. for it to be transported ashore.
I left Mary a note that I’d meet up with her in the cafeteria for breakfast. I disobeyed Sean’s orders and went back to my stateroom to pack. But I carefully replaced Mary’s Do Not Disturb sign on the door handle, where it had been all night.
As I made my way down the passageway, the cold Atlantic wind invaded the warmth of the Queen Anne’s halls. The crew willy-nilly opened doors, racing about preparing for our landing and gathering suitcases.
Back in my stateroom, Mavis was in the bathroom.
I peeled off my evening clothes, very glad Mavis wasn’t front and center to question me about where I had been last night. I didn’t want any more of the attacks Mavis inflicted on me. I put on my light travel robe and saved an outfit for the disembarkation. I threw everything into my large suitcase and rolled it outside the cabin door. I left it next to Mavis’s oversized suitcase already out in the hall. A half-full luggage trolley was being pushed down our hallway from the elevators. I made it just in time.
As I stepped back into the cabin, Mavis was hanging up the phone.
* * *
“You’re here!” Mavis was dressed and ready for disembarkation at Southampton. “When did you get back?”
“What?” I murmured as I packed my small roller case with my remaining things. Given our fears about luggage loss had proven unfounded, I put it next to my large suitcase outside our stateroom. So much for “The Power of the Luggage.” I did not want to have to drag it up or down any steps when we disembarked, an added incentive.
“Well, that was Mary. She wanted me to remind you to meet her at six for breakfast in the cafeteria.”
“Thanks.” I started for the bathroom.
Mavis stepped up, blocking me in the small hall. “Where were you?”
I ignored her question again. I was through with her. I had no intention of answering her queries “Done with the bathroom?”
“Curtis again?” Mavis demanded again as-of-right—posturing with her teacher-student voice, as if I had a duty to respond.
“Excuse me. I can’t be late.” I started to walk right through her.
“Humph,” Mavis snorted and moved. “I told Mary I was meeting Esther at five-thirty, so we couldn’t join you. We have to get out the awards press releases we did last night.”
“Too bad.”
I closed the door, locked it, and turned on the shower. Any relationship I may have had with her was over, whether it was teacher-student, mentor, or friend. I knew Mary had not asked her to join us. I also knew Mary must have been amused as Mavis slathered on her self-importance over reasons why she and Esther could not join us.
Mavis called out, “Someone has to take care of the business.”
As t
he warm water washed over my head and body, Mavis was drowned out. This was the last time I would be cornered into a conversation with her. We would have encounters of the formal kind at future MWW meetings, but that’s what I would keep them, formal. I would fend off any familiarity she might try to inject after I won the best unpublished mystery novel award. I didn’t wish her ill, but I couldn’t forget or, frankly, forgive her demeaning, brutal attacks on me.
The warm water relaxed my entire body and my thoughts went from Mavis to Curtis. I flashed on that attractive woman sharing what should have been my champagne and, I hoped, not my night with him.
I stayed in the shower until I was sure Mavis was gone.
“Mavis,” I called through the bathroom door to make sure she had actually left for her five-thirty obsequious breakfast with Esther.
There was no answer.
* * *
I cracked the bathroom door and peeked out. No Mavis. She was gone for good with her carry-on that she had so expertly advised me always to keep with me. It was good advice, except that my large suitcase had arrived timely for our first dinner.
On the electric clock the minute number rotated to five-forty. I was late. I blew dry my hair for two minutes and brushed it to air dry. I put on blush and mascara. Then, I crammed all my toiletries into their case and stuffed it and my robe into the carry-on.
I put on my disembarkation outfit; my cherry red wool pants and matching red sweater. The cafeteria was the only place to coffee-up this morning and Curtis had to be there. I anticipated a warm good-bye, one that wasn’t really a goodbye at all. I paused from my flurry and looked at myself in the mirror. I was pleased. Curtis would be enticed to follow through on our dating arrangement post-cruise. After all, last night, he had offered to take me sailing and have dinner at the yacht club in Marina del Rey.
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