Norway to Hide

by Maddy Hunter

  “That turned out well,” I mused when Jackie and I returned to our cabin. “Have you noticed how much more tolerant they are of each other than they used to be?”

  Jackie pulled a face as she detached her phone from its charger. “Yeah. The only thing that could have made the evening more enjoyable is if we’d hit an iceberg and been forced to run around in our carrot suits.”

  “C’mon, Jack. That couldn’t have happened.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Norway doesn’t have icebergs. It has glaciers.”

  “Whatever.” She sat on her bed, fiddling with her phone. “Emily? Can I ask you something?”

  Uh-oh. “You know you can always ask me anything, Jack.”

  She heaved a pathetic sigh. “Do you think I’ll ever be a successful novelist?”

  “Of course you’ll be successful!” I sat down next to her and gave her a sympathetic hug. “It could just take a little time for your name to become a household word.”

  “How much time?”

  “You want me to make an actual calculation?”

  “Go ahead. Give it a stab.”

  “I can’t do that. I don’t have any inside information. Don’t you have an easier question?”

  Her shoulders sagged, as if she were bearing the weight of the world. “Mona refuses to return my calls. The company president won’t answer my emails. My name’s not on any bestseller lists. Amazon readers hate me. I got less rejection when I was an unemployed actor. Why am I doing this?”

  I patted her back. “Because you won a contest?”

  “I wish I’d never entered. I wish—” Her voice trembled with emotion. “Why do people think they have the right to treat other people so badly?”

  “I don’t think they’re personal attacks, Jack. It’s just business. Hey, I wrote Mom’s number down for you. Do you want to call her to talk about the wedding? That might cheer you up.” Or induce a complete mental breakdown.

  “What’ll I do if my book bombs?” she sniffed. “I’ll be humiliated. Disgraced. What’ll happen to me?”

  “Nothing will happen to you unless you let it. You’ll shine no matter what you do. You’ve been blessed with some wonderful gifts.”

  “Like what?”

  Why did I always get stuck with the hard questions? “Well, you get along great with people. You even get along with Bernice. That could earn you a position in the diplomatic corps.”

  She nodded apathetically. “She really likes me, doesn’t she? What else?”

  “You have wonderful insights into the male psyche.”

  “I think it’s making me schizophrenic. What else?”

  I regarded her, at a complete loss. “You…you’re really tall.”

  “Mesdames et Monsieurs,” announced a hushed voice over the cabin intercom. Four translations later, we learned we were about to make a fifteen-minute stopover in Berlevag.

  “A port!” I encouraged. “Cell towers. I bet you’ll get through to Tom this time.”

  Jackie nodded like a wounded puppy. “Do you need to use the phone while we’re here?”

  “If we’re still in port when you finish your conversation, I’ll try Mom and Etienne.”

  She exhaled a weary breath. “Maybe I should forget about writing. Maybe I should just stay home and have babies.”

  “You could do that. International adoption has really taken off. You and Tom could adopt a Chinese baby, or a Romanian baby.”

  “But I want to have my own.”

  “I’m sure you know this already, Jack, but that would require a uterus.”

  “Could I use yours?”

  “No!” I pulled her off the bed and aimed her for the door.

  “But surrogacy is done all the time, Emily.”

  “Not with my uterus.”

  “I’ve probably caught you at a bad time. We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

  “No!”

  “What if I promised to name it Emily if it’s a girl?”

  I shoved her into the corridor, where passengers were already ambling toward the disembarkation point. “Say hi to Tom for me.”

  “Etienne if it’s a boy?”

  I shut the door and returned to my sofa to flip it into a duplicate of Jackie’s bed. I closed the porthole curtains, punched my pillow, kicked off my shoes, and stretched out on the duvet, my jetlag and sleepless nights hitting me like one of Nana’s flying drop kicks.

  When I opened my eyes again and squinted at my travel clock, the time read 8:11, which caused me to realize two things: I’d just enjoyed my first good night’s sleep since arriving in Scandinavia, and Jackie wasn’t in her bed.

  From the looks of things, it hadn’t even been slept in.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Has anyone seen Jackie?”

  My Iowans were seated at the good tables by the window in the dining salon, and they were happily snapping pictures of each other as they drank their morning coffee.

  “Last time I seen her was last night,” said Nana.

  “Here’s Emily,” said Dick Stolee, focusing his camcorder on me. “Doesn’t look like she bothered to comb her hair this morning.”

  “At least she’s got hair,” mocked Bernice.

  “Her bed wasn’t slept in last night,” I said in a breathless rush. “She went to call Tom when we arrived in Berlevag, and she never came back. I’m really worried.”

  “Have you checked the rest of the dining room?” asked Tilly.

  I cast a long look from starboard to port. “I made one pass, but I’ll make another one.”

  “A little late to start looking for her, isn’t it?” asked Dick Teig.

  “I only realized she was missing about ten minutes ago! I fell asleep after she left and slept right through the night.”

  Mouths fell open. Eyes widened. “You hear that, Dick?” Helen thwacked his arm. “Not everyone has to be up all night going potty.”

  “That’s ’cause Emily don’t got a prostate,” said Nana.

  “Have you asked Annika or the Hamlets people if they’ve seen her?” asked Tilly.

  “I haven’t run into any of them yet this morning, but that’ll be my next move.”

  “I bet she got off the ship at Berlevag and got left behind,” said George.

  “She was terribly depressed about her Amazon reviews yesterday,” said Tilly. “I hope her depression didn’t cause her to do something—” Her voice faded into silence. She cleared her throat. “Never mind. I’ve never known anyone to adore themselves as much as Jackie. I’m sure that’s not the case.”

  “I bet one of those wackos from Florida offed her,” charged Bernice. “If you’re getting away with murder, why stop at two?”

  “Show of hands,” said Osmond, rising to his feet. “How many folks think—”

  Nana grabbed his elbow and wrenched him down into his seat. “You don’t wanna go there, on account a if you do, I’ll take Tilly’s cane and wrap it around your neck.”

  “We need to form search teams to look for Jackie,” said George. “How do you want us to split up, Emily?”

  Bless his little heart. It was wonderful having responsible adults around in moments of personal panic. “We have access to six decks, so let’s divide up into six two-person teams, one team for each deck.”

  “I hosey anyone except Bernice,” Margi called out.

  “Could I be paired with someone other than Dick?” asked Grace Stolee. “We’re still not speaking.”

  “I don’t want to be paired with anyone,” said Bernice.

  “You have to pair up with someone,” complained Lucille. “If you don’t, we’ll have an uneven number of people and everything’ll get thrown off.”

  Bernice smiled archly and continued to drink her coffee.

  Dick Stolee panned his camcorder in her direction. “Here’s Bernice, acting like a pain in the ass.”

  I flashed a time-out sign. “No cherry-picking partners. We’ll do it alphabetically.” Mom would be so proud
of me. I drew imaginary lines in the air, coupling people. “Osmond and George, Tilly and Lucille, Nana and Dick Stolee.”

  Margi looked confused. “M comes before O. Shouldn’t my name come before Osmond’s?”

  “Alphabetical by last name,” I explained. “Grace and Margi, Dick and Helen.” I narrowed my gaze at Helen. “Are you speaking to Dick today?”

  “Yeah. I forgot I was mad at him.”

  “And Alice and Bernice. If the twelve of you will search the indoor areas of your deck, I’ll search all the outdoor areas.”

  “Do we get to choose what deck we want?” asked Margi.

  “No!” If they did that, we wouldn’t get out of here until we reached Bergen. I pulled a pad of sticky notes from my shoulder bag, wrote a number on each sheet, and handed them out. “That’s the deck you’re responsible for.”

  “Can I be a team leader?” asked Dick Teig.

  “No leaders! You’re all co-captains.”

  “If we don’t want to be co-captains, can we be cheerleaders?” asked Margi.

  “How long do you want us to search?” George asked me.

  “Until you find Jackie,” I said. “If you can’t find her, head to the library. We’ll regroup in there and assess what to do next.”

  They stared at me, immobilized by what appeared to be a sudden onset of communal paralysis. I stared back. “What?”

  “You’d best give us a time to meet in the library,” said Osmond. “We gotta have a deadline.”

  “It’s easier on our nerves if we know we can avoid being late,” said Alice.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’s eight-thirty now, so let’s plan to meet in the library in an hour and a half. Any more questions?”

  “I been thinkin’, dear,” Nana said a little hesitantly. “Could be another reason why Jackie’s not here no more.”

  My breath lodged in my throat at the thought of a fate even more horrible than suicide or murder. “What’s that?”

  “Could be she got raptured.”

  No way had she been raptured.

  I wrestled with the scenario as I made a second pass of the dining salon.

  I didn’t care if she was the only person on earth who liked Bernice. When our marriage fell apart, I’d had to take a job in phone solicitations to support myself. Phone solicitations! Shouldn’t that earn her some time splitting rocks in Purgatory before she got admitted to the Pearly Gates?

  I finished my search of the dining area, quickly consulted my tour notes, headed for the deck below, and knocked on the door of cabin number three-ninety-two. “We have a problem,” I said when Annika answered. “Jackie’s missing.”

  She waved me into the cabin. “Come in, come in. I would be dishonest if I told you I wasn’t expecting news like this.”

  “You knew Jackie was going to disappear?”

  “We had avoided a major incident in over fifteen hours. I somehow knew we were overdue. Tell me what happened.”

  When I finished filling her in, she riffled through a stack of papers in her briefcase and handed me one. “This is a printout of our groups’ cabin numbers. I suggest you knock on doors to see if anyone has seen Jackie.” She paused meaningfully. “Perhaps Mrs. Thum decided to spend the night with another guest and was seduced into sleeping late. It wouldn’t be the first time a wife has cheated on her husband on one of my tours.”

  My mouth fell open. “Jackie wouldn’t do that!” Of course, she’d done it to me, but she wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it again, would she? “She loves her husband. She’s even talking about having a baby. Besides, she’d never sleep with anyone shorter than she is—which eliminates all the men on the tour except Jimbob, and I don’t think he’s her type.”

  “Just a warning. Do not be surprised at anything you find. However, I will notify the captain and have him radio back an inquiry to see if we have left behind someone other than the German passenger. I suspect that is our most likely scenario.”

  “So you don’t think she’s been murdered?” I needed to hear it from someone else’s lips.

  “I think it would take a great deal of effort to overpower Mrs. Thum. She’s quite large-boned for a woman.”

  I guess that was a small comfort.

  “While you’re here, Emily, I spoke with Officer Vitikkohuhta a couple of hours ago. He has given me permission to share new details with you. Concerning Mr. Manning’s sister—”

  “Is her name May?” I asked eagerly.

  “Her name is Sister Christine Marie.”

  I stared at her, nonplussed. “She’s a nun?”

  “A cloistered nun, which is why it was so difficult to contact her. But the wheels are now in motion, so Mr. Manning’s body will soon be making its way back to America.”

  So there was no connection between Gus and someone named May? Shoot. This was so frustrating.

  “Also, the crime lab has finished testing the rope used to strangle Mr. Manning.”

  “Did they find the killer’s fingerprints on it?”

  “Probably the killer’s and every Midnight Sun Adventures guest who ever tried to lasso Emppu’s reindeer. There were countless prints smeared up and down the rope, but none that could be identified, so the police are unable to draw any conclusions.”

  “Damn.” I studied the list of cabin numbers. “Not to state the obvious, but when I do my door-to-door canvassing, I’m a little concerned that I might be walking in on our killer.”

  “You don’t have to go inside. Ask them to hold the door open, and you can observe the room from the passageway.”

  I winced at the suggestion. “It’s just that—I’ve had a few close calls in hotel rooms over the last couple of years, so barreling into them Hell bent for election is at the top of my ‘Things to Avoid’ list.”

  “Hell bent for election? What does that mean?”

  “Umm…damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead?”

  “Ah, full speed ahead. I understand that. You Americans have far too many idioms.”

  “My fiancé tells me there’s a new dictionary of American slang. You can probably order it on Amazon.”

  She escorted me to the door. “We arrive in Hammerfest at eleven o’clock. If you haven’t found Jackie by then, please remain on the ship, because the captain will probably want to talk to you. If he receives confirmation that we’ve left her behind, I’ll have you paged over the intercom.”

  “What happens if I disappear while I’m searching?”

  “Has your grandmother taught you her flying drop kick?”

  “No.”

  She tsked her disappointment. “That’s too bad.”

  Halfway through my list and batting zero, I decided that all the Floridians must have gone up to breakfast while I’d been talking with Annika.

  When I finished with not one response, I checked the dining salon again, finding no familiar faces at any of the tables. This was so weird. Where was everyone?

  I ran into Tilly and Lucille along the starboard arcade. “Find anything?”

  “Some passengers sleeping in the bar area,” said Tilly, “none of whom are Jackie.”

  “We checked the two conference rooms and both ladies’ rooms,” said Lucille. “They’re all empty. We’ll need to drag the fellas down here to check out the men’s rooms.”

  “We’re going to explore the ship’s store next,” Tilly informed me. “There’s a Norwegian sweater in the window that’s speaking to Lucille.”

  We cut through the café to the opposite side of the ship, and while Tilly and Lucille slipped into the store, I eyed the passengers who were seated at tables in the public area, drinking coffee and watching some international version of CNN on the ship’s only television.

  “In business news from America,” announced the female commentator in a crisp British accent, “as we reported earlier, publishing powerhouse Hightower Books, which has seen flagging sales since its corporate reshuffling last year, has filed for bankruptcy and is immediately closing its doors. This will
affect over one hundred fifty employees who were given pink slips yesterday, with no promise of future pensions. Hightower is best known for publishing such popular classics as Nucular: You Don’t Get To Use It Until You Can Pronounce It, which was a former Oprah selection. In other business news—”

  I stared at the television screen, not hearing another word. Hightower Books was filing for bankruptcy? Hightower was Jackie’s publisher! Oh, my God. She was going to be devastated. All the work she’d put into that book, all her hopes and expectations—

  I blinked at the woman on the TV screen. “As we reported earlier…” Oh, no. Had Jackie heard the report earlier in the morning when she’d been trying to call Tom? If she’d been depressed before, this could have been the clincher, especially with her hormones the way they were. Oh, God, what if—

  I peered at the choppy sea, fearful that a size fourteen stiletto heel might be floating in our wake.

  The thought took my breath away.

  She can’t be dead.

  I raced up the main staircase and pushed open the bulkhead door, my hair flying around my head as a blast of wind whipped across the promenade deck. The mainland might have been sizzling at a hot ninety degrees, but on the open sea it felt more like Iowa in January. People in sensible coats and hoods stood at the rail, taking pictures of the granite headlands, while I brushed past them, hugging my arms to myself and shivering.

  I circled around to the bow and looked down on the foredeck to find an orderly clutter of capstans, chains, cables, and black metal cylinders that resembled oversized spools of thread. I leaned far over the rail, darting looks left and right, but there was nothing out of order. No shoes. No phones. No Jackie.

  I continued my search down the starboard side, running into only a couple of shutterbugs who were willing to brave the cold for a shot of the open sea. I paused at the stern to look back at the aquamarine water churned up in our wake, then followed the port rail back to midships, where I scooted inside, teeth chattering and goose bumps wearing goose bumps.