by Diane Noble
“She’s here, then.” He handed the bracelet back.
“And not of her own accord. She would have contacted me by now.”
We moved back to the path. “I’ve got to get back to the ship.” I told him about what I’d overheard Max and Price talking about—from the note to their plans for Gus.
“I’m planning to stay nearby—someplace where I can lie low. Though I didn’t find anything unusual at the clinic last night, I can’t shake the feeling that something’s going on there.”
“How can I get in touch with you?”
He studied my eyes as if gauging the measure of trust he could place in me. Finally, he said, “The first hairpin curve after leaving the guard gate. There’s a two-track road leading into a coffee plantation. I’ve rented a room from a family. It’s out back, attached to a barn. You can’t miss it.” He paused. “I just ask one thing.”
I waited.
“Don’t lead anyone there. If you do come, be careful that no one follows you. I’m doing this thing for Holly. I can’t fail.”
We walked a short distance, then he paused. “You never did tell me how you got so much information so fast.”
“Someone besides me remembered the headlines, suspected that you were involved, and had you investigated. Also had enough clout to get an early look at Easton’s autopsy report.”
“Someone?”
“Dr. Baptiste.”
A quick burst of anger lit his face. “The guy has an exaggerated sense of self-importance.”
“He’s close to discovering a cure for leukemia. I suppose he thinks he has a right to play God once in a while.”
“No one has a right to play God, no matter what miracles they think they may hold in their hand.” There was no humor in his voice.
He gazed at me one long moment. Around us birds trilled, and in the distance a macaw squawked. He reached for my hand and squeezed it. Then just as quickly he let it go, squared his shoulders, and gave me a half smile and a small salute. Then he disappeared into the foliage.
I hurried to the reception area, and as I turned in my room key, I asked about getting a taxi to the harbor.
Carmen smiled and said, “Oh, I wish you’d been here earlier. Two boys from the Shepparton group had me call a cab for them. They left just minutes ago. You could have shared the ride.”
“Max Pribble and Price Alexander?” I hid my annoyance.
“Yes, yes. You are right. Such nice young men.”
“Can you call another cab for me? Please ask the driver to hurry.”
She glanced at the clock. “I will be happy to, but a van is on its way to take the rest of your group to the harbor. I would say it will be here in ten minutes, maybe twenty. I doubt that a taxi can get here any sooner.”
Twenty-three minutes later the van pulled up to reception. By now, those who were left in our group—the Browns, the Doyles, the Quilps, and Zoë Shire—had joined me in the waiting area. Zoë looked more forlorn than usual and barely spoke to the other couples. As the driver pulled away from the resort, she leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. Before we rounded the third hairpin curve, she was asleep.
I chatted politely with the others, though my mind was anywhere but inside this van. The topic moved from where Kate could possibly have gone to the storm that was forecast for the following day.
“Not a hurricane,” Ed Brown said. “Too early in the season. But I heard folks talking about the storm warnings already going out. Small-craft advisories, that sort of thing.”
“Hope our captain doesn’t play John Wayne and take us out in it,” Betty Brown said.
“Especially if he’s had a nip or two,” Barbara Doyle said.
“Hunh,” Adele Quilp grunted.
They laughed, though in reality it wasn’t a laughing matter. I remembered what happened to the Exxon Valdez several years ago after the captain had a few dozen nips, or more.
I stared through the window, beside myself with worry over Gus. To get my mind off what I planned to do to those two hoodlums if they harmed him, I thought about what I had learned from Adam and how it related to Carly and Kate. But the puzzle bits flew around my mind, refusing to come together in any cohesive manner.
Fact: Carly had disappeared in Parisima and was brought to Playa Negra airport.
Fact: Harry Easton, slightly shady PI and self-proclaimed finder of lost children, was poisoned to death on the same night we discovered Carly was missing.
Fact: Easton had caused Adam Hartsfield to lose his job and his family and had ruined Adam’s reputation.
Fact: Adam was about to be charged by Interpol with the murder of Harry Easton.
Fact: Dr. Jean Baptiste portrayed Hartsfield’s background information with a certain slant, leaving out important information.
Fact: Adam thought his daughter’s disappearance was somehow connected to the spring break cruise run by Shepparton College, the students and/or faculty.
Fact: Adam thought the girls’ disappearances might be related to other missing coeds outside Shepparton.
Fact: The last two “facts” were based on what Adam had told me. Had he told me everything he knew? Or had he conveniently left out some important information, just as Baptiste had?
My head ached with the elusive nature of it all. It hit me how much I just wanted to forget about everything, gather up Gus in his carrier, and go home. Charter a boat to take me north to a U.S. port—any port would do. Catch a train back to California. No flights, no risk. As Captain Richter told me so condescendingly, leave the investigation to the proper authorities, to those who knew what they were doing. It was the easy way out. I didn’t care. I was coming close to throwing in the towel.
I could make arrangements in port and be on my way in the morning—before the storm moved in. Contact the FBI with what I knew. Drop it in their laps and go back to preparing a gorgeous rosemary-eggplant napoleon and dancing around my kitchen to “Hey Jude.”
My eyes flew open. Captain Richter!
It hadn’t taken any of us longer than twelve hours onboard to see the man was barely hanging on to his job. The first officer was at the bridge more often than not. After that first day at sea, I remembered thinking, wryly, Richter must know where the body was buried, so to speak, at the parent company.
Maybe I was right. What if he did know something? I made a mental note to find out how many student cruises Richter had captained. I suddenly wished Adam was here beside me to swap details. Maybe he already knew about Richter and had checked him out.
The van rattled along, and soon the harbor came into sight. I leaned back in my seat, looking out at the Sun Spirit gleaming on a sparkling aqua sea. Only five days into this cruise, and it already felt like a lifetime. Except for the clouds building to the northwest, the scene looked as harmless as a Thomas Kinkade seascape, with the blue-green beauty of the ocean, the breakers crashing against the distant shore, the wheeling gulls with their mournful cries.
Even before my gaze moved to the dark, brooding wharf, the seriousness of the girls’ plights, even that of Adam, settled heavily on my already burdened heart. I glanced across the van at Zoë, her face relaxed in sleep.
She seemed to feel my gaze and opened her eyes, stretched, then stared at me curiously. For a quick second, our spirits seemed to touch before hers shied away, emotional barrier back in place. But in that fraction of a heartbeat, I saw beyond the thick glasses and the large gray eyes into the frightened, bitter heart of a little girl with great big needs.
In that split second, I decided I couldn’t leave Costa Rica. Not yet.
I almost changed my mind forty minutes later. Our small group arrived by tender just as the sun was deepening its descent into a tropical sunset. I hurried to my stateroom, one little creature on my mind.
Gus.
All I wanted was to make sure he was okay, to scoop him into my arms and hear him purr.
My heart caught when I turned down my hallway and saw my stateroom door st
anding wide open. I picked up my pace and broke into a trot. I shot through the doorway, tossed my backpack on the bed, and cried out, “Gus!”
I stared at my empty stateroom. Nothing was out of place. The feeders were exactly as I had left them—one full of water, the other half full of sensitive-stomach cat food, with a few crumbs scattered on the floor nearby. I checked the closet, under the bed, behind the drapes.
“Gus,” I called. “Hey, bud, don’t scare me this way. Where are you?”
No answering meow. No swish of the elegant tail. No peering at me through those round, wise eyes.
Max and Price. I pictured them laughing somewhere, hiding poor frightened Gus. I hoped that was all that had happened to him. What if they let him go in Playa Negra? Or dropped him overboard? Would they do something so cruel? I sank to the little sofa and dropped my head into my hands, trying not to think the unthinkable. If I had been a little kinder to Price, this wouldn’t have happened. My temper had gotten the best of me. I had laid into him, embarrassed him in front of his friends, and now an innocent animal was paying the price. Tears formed, but I refused to cry. I would go after the two bullies, had to go after them, but first I needed to calm down.
I struggled to take a deep and calming breath. It didn’t work. Grief pricked at the edges of my heart, threatening to spark into a fury even worse than what had hit me at the rain-forest bridge. That wouldn’t do Gus—or me—any good.
I went to the window. The sun had finished its descent into the ocean, and the sky had turned gray; the water, deep navy blue. Lights onshore were flickering on, and in the distance, fishing boats glided across the dark waters on their way back to port.
Then without shedding a tear, I spun and headed for the door. Beware, bullies, I growled to myself as I trotted down the corridor.
“Okay, it’s time to fess up,” I said. “I know you two are involved, and if I have to, I’ll go to Dean Williams.”
I had found the boys in the Clipper Lounge. Max sat back in an easy chair, his feet propped on a plastic coffee table. From the far side of the same table, Price shot me an innocent look. An open textbook was draped across one thigh. Biology, I gathered from the photos.
He raked his fingers through his hair, adjusting the tips of his spikes. “What are you talking about?”
“My cat. What did you do with him?”
They looked at each other, seeming perplexed. I didn’t trust the look. “Spill,” I said. Come on, make my day.
“Dean Williams?” Price sneered. “You know him personally, huh? Just like you know the president of Shepparton?”
Beware, your sins will find you out.
My breath caught in my throat, just as my lie should have the day before. I swallowed hard, deciding on a course of action. No contest. I had to come clean. “Okay, guys. I was pretty perturbed. You scared Zoë to the point she couldn’t even move off the bridge.”
They stared at me. Sneering.
“It was the first thing that came to mind. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied.”
“We don’t know anything about your cat,” Max said.
“I heard you talking about getting even with me. My cat was mentioned as the means.”
They looked at each other. It was a look of triumph. I waited for one to give the other a high-five.
“I told you it would work,” Max said to Price.
“Yeah, whatever,” Price said with an indifferent shrug. But he was grinning.
“Didn’t I? I told you, man. And it worked like a charm. Just like I said.”
Anger was replacing chagrin. Fast. I clamped my lips together and gave them The Look. It had worked on my kids through their teens, but they weren’t the immature hoodlums these two were. “Explain what you mean by ‘it,’ ” I said after a long pause, “in the context of ‘I told you it would work.’ ”
Again they exchanged glances, then Price leaned forward, hands dangling between his knees. His books slid to the floor with a thud. “Yeah, well, it was Max’s idea.”
“It?”
“Yeah, well, we saw you go into your room, the pagoda suite, or whatever it’s called. Max thought it would be funny if we followed you, hoping you’d do just what you did—hide. Then we’d lay some lies on you.” He shrugged. “That’s all. We just—”
“—wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine,” Max finished for him. His face colored when Price looked at the ceiling. “Well, that’s what my mom always says when she’s ready to fly at me for some reason or another. ‘I’m gonna give you a little taste of your own medicine, mister.’ ” He laughed at his nasal-toned imitation. The little hoodlum.
I didn’t laugh. “And the note,” I pressed. “It’s important you tell me who contacted you. Kate’s life may be in danger.”
“We made that up too,” Max said.
“So no one told you to get Kate’s note?” I frowned. “How did you know about the note, anyway?”
“Easy,” Price said. “We overheard Mr. Hartsfield tell the front office manager about you two finding it. He even told him what Kate wrote.”
I stared at them, willing my lie meter to kick in. It had never failed with my kids. But that was because I knew their faces well and could read every drifting-over-my-shoulder glance, every over-the-top, honeyed tone, every wide-eyed look of feigned innocence as easily as I read the front page of the Town Crier.
“So you didn’t intend to kidnap my cat?”
“We may do bad stuff to geeks,” Max said, “but we’d never do that to an animal.” The meter cleared him.
“Gus is gone,” I said. “I found my stateroom door open.”
Price looked puzzled and started to speak, but static from the intercom interrupted him. It was the first officer announcing a mandatory gathering in the Clipper Lounge in a half hour.
“You were about to say?” I prompted, focusing on Price as I stood.
They looked at each other, then after a slight shrug, Price said, “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” He pulled his Swiss army knife out and tossed it from hand to hand.
Price Alexander III didn’t pass the lie-meter test.
I headed to the bridge to intercept the captain before the meeting. We spoke for a few minutes about Kate’s disappearance. He had already met with Dr. Baptiste, so he knew about the Interpol warrant for Adam. I didn’t tell him what I knew about Adam going into hiding. Richter might be a key player in the disappearances. I needed to discover all I could about his involvement, and I didn’t want to put him on the defensive.
So I changed the topic to Gus and told him what the boys had said at the pagoda. He looked sympathetic, but unconcerned. My heart was growing more achingly hollow with each passing minute. Gus was everything to me. He might be just a purring bundle of fur to some, but to me he was the most unique feline God ever created. I loved him.
“I’ll mention it to housekeeping,” he said, “but I probably don’t need to tell you how often pets disappear on cruise ships. Most don’t allow them—except for Seeing Eye dogs and the like. They fall overboard, explore refrigerated sections … you know, slip in when no one’s looking, get trapped, and by the time they’re found—” It must have been the green hue of my face that made him stop. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was insensitive.”
“You think?” I had a sudden urge to throttle him. I decided I’d better leave.
“By the way,” he called after me. “Carly Lowe’s mother called about an hour ago, ship to shore. I explained that we’re worried about her daughter. She asked that you call her right away.”
He waited till now to tell me? I almost ripped the phone from his hand.
I stepped to the deck just outside the bridge.
“Tange,” I said when she picked up.
“Oh, Harriet. Tell me everything, every detail.”
I did, paused to let it sink in, then said, “You need to come.”
“I’ve already made reservations. I fly out tonight, but with connections and the time di
fference, it will be tomorrow afternoon by the time I get to San José. I’ll have to get a charter from there to Playa Negra.”
“The last leg may be a problem,” I said, hoping I was wrong. “We’re expecting a storm to move in tomorrow. The little airport here isn’t equipped for an instrument landing. If you can’t get out of San José, hold tight and know that I’m doing everything I can on this end. We have the police involved, plus I’m exploring some leads. We’re going to find her, Tange.”
“I know.” Her voice sounded small, not at all her usual robust, go-getter tone.
“It’s only been a couple days,” I reminded her. “And I think she may be close.” I told Tangi about the bracelet.
She didn’t speak for a moment, and I thought she might be crying.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t get in touch sooner. I tried to get you at work and at home.”
“I twisted my ankle—I was out on a story about some corrupt developers—stepped in a hole. Spent the day in emergency.”
“Sounds worse than twisted.”
“I broke it. Three places.”
“Oh, Tangi, I’m sorry. Are you okay to travel?”
She assured me wild gorillas couldn’t keep her from getting to her daughter as fast as she could. We talked a few minutes longer, then she said, “How’s Gus taking the cruise?”
I swallowed hard, unwilling to give her any more bad news. “He’s handled it well,” I finally said. “Not a sign of seasickness.”
We hung up, and clutching the phone in my hand, I leaned against the metal rail that framed the bow of the ship. I looked out at the dark water, the sharp whitecaps, and felt the sting of wind in my face. I refused to let myself consider the depth of the harbor waters, the teeming life within them. Or the predators that lurked there.
Jean was standing at the door to the Clipper Lounge, and when he saw me in the hallway, he stepped to my side. We walked into the room together and sat near the aisle in the next to the last row. Several of the older passengers filed by and sat down around us. Students, speaking in worried tones, began arriving in twos and threes. I saw Zoë move to the front of the room. Holding a clipboard in one hand and some files in the other, she sat down next to Dean Williams. He stroked his beard, a habit I had noticed, and smiled at her.