by Nancy Warren
She glanced at Linda, not exactly asking for advice, more gauging her expression, but her mother spoke up. “Grand Cayman’s a pretty safe island, from everything I’ve read.”
She looked to Tiffany and saw, not herself at that age, but her daughter as she was. Sensible, mature for her age, and beyond the stage where Toni could dictate her every move. She decided to trust her daughter’s instincts. “Okay. Have a wonderful time. But you make sure you’re back here by six o’clock, when the last tender comes back to the ship.”
Her daughter threw her arms around Toni in an impulsive hug. “I will, Mama. Thank you.” And then in an outburst that surprised them both, she said, “I love you.”
“Wait. Not so fast.”
Tiffany paused, her happy face getting ready to transition.
But Toni was still her mother and she had a lot of experience herself with dates who maybe weren’t as reliable or as full of integrity as she’d first thought. She had lived life as a single woman a lot longer than her daughter, and she’d developed a few tips of her own. “What are you wearing?”
“Really, Mother? Really? We’re going to the beach. What do you think I’m wearing?”
“A bikini. I’m guessing a bikini.”
“What? Are you going to forbid me to wear a bikini?”
Linda didn’t say anything, but she looked aghast.
“No. I have a little trick you should learn. Probably you’ll never need it, but a little extra safety is never a bad thing.”
Tiff glared at her, suspicion and a hint of embarrassment in her attitude.
Toni went to the table for her purse. Then turned to Linda. “Mama, do you have one of those little plastic bags? The ones we put the small moisturizer samples in?”
“Sure do.” Linda was as puzzled as Tiffany, but she went to her makeup kit and pulled out a small, resealable plastic bag.
“I also need a safety pin.”
That was easy. Linda went to the wardrobe where their clothes were hanging. She always kept a set of safety pins in case of mishaps, like high heels pulling out a hem, for instance.
Tiffany’s suspicion had muted to curiosity. Toni pulled out her wallet and retrieved a fifty-dollar bill. She folded it until the bill was tiny, pressed it as flat as it would go, then placed the bill into the tiny bag, squeezed out the air and pressed the seal tight. Linda passed her the safety pin. “I want you to safety-pin this money inside your bikini, somewhere where no one will be able to see it.”
“Why?”
“Just in case. Let’s say someone shoplifts your bag, or you forget your purse somewhere—” Or you end up running from your date in nothing but bare feet. “You can always get a cab back to the ship.”
Tiffany took the bag and the pin, but she shook her head too. “You are so psycho.”
“Do it for me, so I don’t worry.”
Tiffany disappeared into the bathroom and returned a couple of minutes later. “Okay? Anything else you want me to do? Implant a GPS in my arm so satellites can track me?”
“Not a bad idea. Glad you thought of it.”
Her daughter shook her head. “I am so out of here.”
When Tiffany waltzed out of their stateroom to meet Wade Templeton, Toni collapsed on the bed. Linda walked over and patted her on the shoulder. “It never gets easier. I still worry about you.”
“Thanks, Mama. It’s kind of nice to know you still worry about me. So? You going ashore? Why should my daughter get to be the only one who has fun?”
“Absolutely! We are going ashore and we are going to have so much fun. That darling young man, Errol the shopping coordinator, says the gemstones are well priced here. And they’re duty free.”
And, like her daughter before her, Toni threw her arms around Linda and said, “I love you, Mama.”
Toni was beginning to realize that when you take a cruise ship to the Caribbean, a lot of the ports are very similar. They stepped off the tender and once more lined up for a photo with a trio would could be extras from Pirates of the Caribbean. Once more, they were offered every possible opportunity to buy diamonds, watches, emeralds, loud shirts, cigarettes, alcohol and an enterprising pharmacy advertised medicines in bulk, including male performance enhancing drugs. There were restaurants and bars, white beaches to lounge on.
There were also tours and activities. Lots and lots of them. The tour operators vied for their business by holding out signs with colorful signs with their main attractions. There were island sightseeing tours, rum tours, snorkeling tours, mountain bike tours. If a passenger wanted to do something, and it was legal, there was probably a tour.
“What do you think? Should we do something?”
“Why not? We’ve got the whole day.”
A man came forward, waving a large sign covered in photographs. “Ladies, where can I take you today? Stingray City is most amazing attraction on the island. You will swim with the stingrays. I can take you there, and also there will be some sight seeing and snorkeling our famous reef. All for one amazing price.” He wore a short sleeved white shirt with a logo on the pocket. It said, Royal Caymen Tours. He wore neatly pressed black pants.
“How much is your amazing price?” Linda asked.
He told them and they exchanged glances. “Sounds reasonable. And will you promise to have us back in plenty of time to get back on board Duchess of the Caribbean? We have to be back by six o’clock.”
“Yes, of course. We work with your cruise ship schedule, naturally.”
Three other women and a family of four, parents with teenaged kids, stood nearby. As soon as Toni and Linda agreed on the tour, they joined the others and watched as their guide recruited a few more passengers. Then he came toward them, dropped his sign to his side and said, “Okay. Let’s go.” They walked outside the secure compound and to a parking lot where a white passenger van sat parked among a throng of other sight seeing vans and buses. The same logo, Royal Caymen Tours was printed on the side of the van.
They got in and soon headed out, bumping over the back roads. The van delivered them to a boat with a British driver who kept them laughing with jokes and stories. The two of them had a wonderful time playing with the wild stingrays who hung out there, knowing the tour boats would feed them.
The water was warm and buoyant, the stingrays like large wet puppies, brushing against their legs and angling for treats. Toni hoped her daughter was having as much fun as she and Linda were. When they returned from the tour, they still had time for some shopping. Linda bought herself a fashion watch and Toni bought her daughter a pair of silver earrings in the shape of dolphins. She’d seen Tiffany staring at a similar pair in the Bahamas, so she felt confident her daughter would like them.
They grabbed the tender back and Toni refused to worry about her daughter. She and Linda headed back to their stateroom to shower and begin getting ready for their evening meal. Maybe only half the passengers would even show up for meals in the dining room, but they still dressed and made themselves up as though everything were fine.
“When is the last tender?” Toni asked Linda, checking her watch. Tiffany should have been back by now.
Linda looked as worried as she felt. “It’s twenty after six,” she said, glancing at her brand-new watch.
“Probably they’re back on deck and talking about what a great time they had.”
The Glinda the Good Witch tinkle sounded. “Would passengers Wade Templeton and Tiffany Diamond please report to a crew member. Repeat: Would passengers Wade Templeton and Tiffany Diamond report to a crew member.”
Linda and Toni exchanged horrified glances. “They didn’t make it back! What could have happened? I never should have let her go with him. I knew better. I’m a terrible, terrible mother and this is a judgment on me.”
Linda walked forward and grasped her shoulders. “Would you pull yourself together? You are not a terrible mother. But you need to get your ass out there and figure out what happened to your daughter.”
Toni nodded.
She had plenty of time to beat herself up later, like in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep.
“I’ll call her right now.” Her index finger wasn’t quite steady but she managed to push speed dial one. Tiffany’s phone rang three times and went to voicemail. Toni left a message for her daughter to call her.
Linda had gone out on the balcony. “There are men standing by with those thick ropes that tie the boat to the dock. Looks like they’re waiting for the order to untie.”
“I’m going to the bridge. I need to speak to the captain. This ship is not leaving without my daughter.”
Toni stopped the first person she could find in a uniform. When she explained her problem, the young man nodded as though he knew all about her daughter and the hold up. “We’re holding a last tender but we can’t hold it much longer. They can always meet us at the next stop.”
“If my daughter is not on the ship when you leave, then you better let me off it. She is sixteen years old and I am not leaving without her.”
“Of course. Don’t worry. We’ll get you back to the island if we need to. And you can all meet us at the next stop.”
She called Tiffany’s cell phone again, and then she started to pace.
While she was in the middle of pacing, becoming so agitated that she paced faster and faster until she was out of breath, she received a call on her cell phone. “Thank God,” she said, thinking it was Tiffany. But when she glanced at her display it was Luke calling.
She fumbled to answer. “Have you heard from Tiffany?”
“What are you talking about? You want me to tell Tiffany about the background check I ran on her boyfriend?”
“No. She’s out with him and the ship is about to leave and they aren’t back yet. That’s why I’m acting crazy. Tell me Wade Templeton is not a deranged serial killer who preys on young girls on cruise ships.”
“He’s definitely not.” The calm voice soothed her a little, making it possible for her to listen. “Wade Templeton is your classic trust fund baby. He’s from a rich, entitled family. You know Templeton department stores?”
Toni’s eyes widened. “He’s one of those Templetons?”
“He is. He’s traveling with his grandmother.”
“His grandmother?” Toni closed her eyes as though a meteor were heading for earth and she wanted to avoid looking at the impact. “Is her name Alicia?”
“Why the hell did you get me to do a background check if you already knew who the kid was?”
“I didn’t until now.” What were the odds that Alicia’s grandson and the boy Tiffany was interested in would be the same person?
“He’s probably no worse a reprobate than any other rich kid. But why aren’t they back?”
That was the question that Toni also wanted answered. And fast. “I don’t know, but she’s out there with him now and they haven’t come back on board yet. The ship won’t wait much longer. I’m going to have to get off and search for them.”
“Don’t panic,” Luke said, in his calm way, obviously hearing the panic in her tone. “They’re kids—they probably forgot the time.”
“But she promised me.” And the unease she’d felt ever since Alicia hadn’t shown up for Zumba intensified. “I’m going ashore. I have to find my daughter. I can’t leave her on some island in the Caribbean.”
“Call me,” he said. That was all, but there was a world of support and understanding in those two words.
“Thanks. I will.”
There was no way she was going to leave her daughter for one more minute on a Caribbean island with some trust fund charmer. Her cruise bag still contained her ID and her wallet. A change of underwear would have been nice, but she didn’t have time to go back to her stateroom. She sprinted to the fourth floor and the gangway.
She was arguing with the security staff, telling them in no uncertain terms that she needed to go back to the island to find her daughter, when she saw the tender heading for their ship, looking like her last, forlorn hope.
Chapter Eleven
After forty a woman has to choose between losing her figure, or losing her face. My advice is to keep your face, and stay sitting down.
– Barbara Cartland
She held her breath as the tender pulled up next to the ship. A smattering of people got off, one by one, agonizingly slowly. She saw a couple arguing. The woman snapped, “How could you not know your watch had stopped?”
“Who made me the time keeper? Your nagging is killing me.”
“Luckily, there’s a morgue on board.” And she stalked onto the gangway.
Another couple got off, giggling so hard they had to hold each other up. Toni suspected they’d been waylaid at the bar. Two crew members manhandled a heavy-looking box labeled Liquor, Duchess of the Caribbean, and as she headed for the tender, determined to grab a ride back to shore, her daughter emerged, looking strained. Behind her stepped Wade Templeton, his young mouth set in a hard line.
Toni’s tension melted and all she could think was Thank God, she’s safe. “Tiff,” she cried, running forward. “I was so worried about you.”
Tiffany looked close to tears and Toni had a sudden and unfamiliar attack of tact. Her daughter so clearly didn’t want to be treated like a child. She was upset, but safe.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said quietly. Then she glanced from one to the other. There was clearly a story there and she decided to play it cool and let Tiffany tell her what was going on when she was ready. When she’d watched Tiff head out earlier, she’d been carrying one of the bright red canvas bags with the Duchess logo that every person on board had been given upon boarding the ship. It was nowhere in sight. Wade Templeton also had no bag. She found it hard to believe he’d headed out on a shore excursion in nothing but a pair of shorts and a navy T-shirt.
As much as every alarm signal in her body was pealing out loud and clear, she turned and headed for the gangway, knowing the two young people were following along with the porters carrying rest of the supplies that had come back with the last tender.
“Where’s your cruise card, miss?” the security officer patrolling the gangway asked when Tiffany arrived.
“I don’t have it. It was stolen.”
Toni was glad she was there as she was able to show her card, show some extra ID, and prove that her daughter was who she said she was.
Wade Templeton, however, was not someone she could vouch for.
Luckily, she didn’t have to.
“My card was stolen as well,” he said. She waited for him to call Alicia, but he didn’t. He said, “The captain will vouch for me. We know him personally.”
Sure enough, Captain DuFresne spoke briefly to Wade on the phone. Wade passed the phone back to the security person, who immediately let the young man through, all but bowing and scraping.
Her tactful mood continued and she said, “I’ll see you back at the cabin, Tiff.”
Tiffany wasn’t far behind her. When she fell into the cabin she didn’t even wait for her mother to begin speaking. She cried out, “It wasn’t our fault!”
Keeping her voice calm, which was much easier now that she knew her daughter was safe, she asked, “What happened?”
Tiffany shook her head, looking puzzled and a little scared. “I’m not exactly sure. We got off the boat and we weren’t going to take one of those lame excursions with everybody from the cruise ship, so we walked down the road that leads into town. Wade’s done it before, and he said that was the best way to find a local guide.”
“Did you find a guide?”
“Yes. He seemed perfect. You know how they all line up? And they have signs? And they start calling you over? It’s all super confusing. But this guy was cool. He was young, like us, he was clean, nicely dressed, and his sign was really simple. It said Snorkeling, Secluded beaches, Under twenty-fives. When we asked about the price, it was really reasonable.”
Linda had been sitting quietly in one of the room’s club chairs. She spoke up now. “
Under twenty-five? I don’t remember seeing a sign like that.”
Neither had Toni. “Then what happened?”
“He said he had a van nearby. We gave him the money, we got in the van and we headed for the beach.” Tiffany picked at one of her fingernails, a nervous habit she’d nearly grown out of. “First, he drove us to this great little beach and we went snorkeling for a long time. When we got back, he offered us a beer.” She glanced up from under her lashes. “I didn’t have one.”
“How many other under twenty-fives were on this tour?”
Tiffany shook her head. “Only the two of us.”
When she thought of all the things that could have happened, Toni’s skin went cold. “Did he offer you anything else?”
“I had a Coke from out of the cooler. I ate a big breakfast this morning so I wasn’t hungry.” She went back to picking at her thumbnail. “Then he said he was going to take us to this really nice sunbathing beach. We got back into the van and we drove for quite a long way. Wade reminded him that we had to be back at the boat before six and he said yeah, sure, no problem.”
An announcement over the loudspeakers interrupted her story. “This is Captain Craig DuFresne speaking to you from the bridge. All our passengers are now back on board and we will soon be underway.”
Tiffany waited until his voice died away. “So he drove us to this really pretty deserted beach. We went for a swim and then the guy told us that if we walked around the headland we’d be able to see dolphins playing. They hang out there a lot.”
She glanced from one to the other, her face tight. “So we walked away. We left him there, with all our stuff. We were so stupid. We walked around the headland and watched the dolphins and admired the view and then, after maybe an hour, we figured we really needed to get going.”
Linda was now sitting on the bed, facing Tiffany, her whole body one line of tension. Toni felt the same.
“So, we walked back and the beach was deserted. Our stuff was gone. The guy was gone. The van was gone.” She threw back her head and let out a cry of frustration. “I can’t believe we trusted him.”