I had to salvage this somehow. “Not for very long,” I said, moving toward the bed. I needed to sit, get myself anchored. “Just, you know, for a few minutes.” I plopped onto the bed but was too close to the edge and ended up banging down onto the floor. Stinging pain lanced up from my tailbone. “Ow!”
Sam rushed over, squatting next to me. “You okay?”
Could this possibly get any worse? I covered my face with my hands. This whole situation was a perfect illustration of why I should never be alone with any boy ever. I was sure to screw it up somehow. “Fine,” I mumbled behind my palms.
He let out a quiet laugh. “Right. That move had to hurt.”
In more ways than one. I peeked between my fingers. “I’ll live.”
“Good to hear.”
He sat down beside me, stretching his long legs out across the floor. He took up all the floor space in the room. In a good way, of course. Sam always seemed to fill up my entire awareness whenever he was around. It was both odd and thrilling. Like now, warmth from his body seeped into me even though we weren’t touching, and part of me wanted to launch myself into his arms. Thank goodness another part kept me rooted to the floor. I moved my hands away from my face. Sam had bent one knee and was resting his arm on it, letting his hand dangle.
“Do you want to talk?” he asked quietly. “Or is the plan to sit here in silence?”
I nudged him with my elbow.
“Hey, just asking,” he said, laughter in his voice.
“Yeah, let’s talk.”
“Okay. About what?”
You. I suddenly needed to know everything about him. “It’s your senior year coming up, right?”
“Really?” He tugged on a piece of my hair. “You want to talk about school?”
“I want to talk about you.”
He angled his head, his look intense. “And I want to talk about you.”
Humor filled his hazel eyes, but there was something else there I couldn’t identify. Something that made me melt inside. I held his gaze for as long as I could. I mean, a girl has to breathe every now and then. I cleared my throat. “Well, as usual, I asked first so …”
He folded his arms across his chest and looked straight ahead. “Okay. Senior year. I don’t much care. Don’t know where I’m going to college. I visited UT in Austin last spring, but it’s so big that I don’t think I want to go there.”
“What do you want to major in?”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh, come on. There must be something you like, something you’re interested in.”
Without even looking at me, he picked up my hand, pushed the hoodie sleeve out of the way, and laced his warm fingers with mine. Whoa. I hadn’t realized how big his hands were until one of them engulfed mine. And I wasn’t a small girl. He rubbed his thumb idly across mine, and I slowly let my fingers touch the back of his hand. Such a small movement, but I shut my eyes for a second, savoring the sensation of his skin. My pulse pounded in my temples, and I struggled to focus on what he was saying.
“… swimming, but I don’t feel like pushing it to the collegiate level. It would take too much work. I’m thinking about taking a gap year after I graduate, but my father would probably have a whole litter of kittens over that.”
“Why?” I asked, my voice sounding hoarse.
“Because he wants me to be a lawyer just like him and my uncle and now Alexis.”
“And you don’t want to?”
He scooted a little closer, resting our clasped hands on his thigh. “I don’t know. Maybe. I just need time to decide.”
“Hence the gap year.”
He gave me his lopsided smile. “Yeah, hence.”
“So what would you do during a gap year?”
“Get a job or travel maybe. I’ve always wanted to see how other people live. I’ve been thinking about volunteering with some kind of charity, you know, the kind that goes overseas and helps people.”
“That’s cool.”
“I think it could be.” He stared down at his lap for several seconds, and then over at me. “Your turn, Mulligan. What do you want to do when you graduate?”
“Go to college and major in something fascinating.”
“Do they really have majors like that?”
“I hope so.”
He ran the fingers of his free hand along my forearm. Even through the hoodie, goose bumps danced across my skin. “You know,” he said, “I thought you would’ve had everything planned out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your future. I thought you were going to say you wanted to be a detective, that you would major in whatever let you do that.”
I shook my head. “Nah. I mean, I like trying to figure things out, but I don’t think I could really do it. Not in the real world. I’m more comfortable just reading about mysteries.”
“You sell yourself too short, you know.”
I squeezed his hand briefly. “I doubt it, but you’re nice to say so.”
For a second it looked like he was going to argue that point, but he let it go. Instead, he cupped my hand in both of his. “Listen, Rose. There’s something I have to say.”
He sounded strange, so I tried to make a joke out of it. “Sounds serious.”
“No, it’s just … I just—” He released my hand, and I instantly missed the warmth. He met my gaze. “I’m just really glad you’re on this trip, that I got the chance to meet you.”
“Oh.” It was a sweet thing to say but had the tone of a good-bye. At least I thought it did. But what did I know about guys? “I’m glad you’re here too.”
He smiled awkwardly before climbing to his feet. “I’d better get going.” He held out a hand and helped me up.
“Thanks.” It was my turn to look like I’d been hit upside the head. What had just happened? We’d been having a perfectly good conversation. Had I said something that upset him? My mind raced over our words, not finding one thing that would’ve bothered anybody. I followed him to the door.
“Don’t forget to use the locking bar,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
His lips curved into a more normal-looking smile.
“Oh, wait.” I started to shrug out of his hoodie, but he held up a hand.
“No. Keep it for tonight. I don’t want to worry about you being cold.”
“Sam, I’ll be under the covers. I won’t need it.”
He leaned close to my ear. “Humor me.”
I shivered. “All right,” I whispered.
He straightened. “See you tomorrow.”
I nodded because words were stuck in my throat like peanut butter. In seconds, he was out the door, and it had shut behind him. I turned the deadbolt, moved the locking bar, and then just stood there, the fake wood surface before me more like a wall than a door. We’d been connecting. I was sure of it. But all of a sudden Sam had thrown on the brakes, turned off the car, and hopped out.
I made myself leave the entryway and went into the bathroom to wash up before bed. If only I understood guys better. If only Lindsey were here. Heh. My mantra for the entire trip. Still, she could tell me what it all meant. But would she be right? Would she really understand Sam any better than I did?
He liked me. He more or less said so when we were in Alexis’s room. But he’d certainly stopped whatever might have happened between us tonight. Which meant that he didn’t think we had a future. My stomach clenched. He was probably right. After this trip, I’d go home, and he’d go home, and we might talk or text each other, but our friendship would slowly drift away because of distance.
I brushed my teeth, and after I’d set my toothbrush on the basin, I made the mistake of looking at my reflection. That hollow-eyed girl in the mirror was scary. And, as if on cue, Lindsey’s voice rang out in my head. Snap out of it. He’s just one guy. There’ll be others. Right. My social life was so overloaded with boys.
I finished up in the bathro
om and headed for bed. I climbed under the covers still wearing Sam’s hoodie. For tonight, it was mine.
I’d let go of the jacket and the boy who came with it, tomorrow.
***
After a late breakfast, in which I didn’t run into anybody I knew—grateful sigh—I headed back to my room. I still had more than an hour before I was supposed to meet Alexis, and I needed all of that time to get my head in the right frame of mind. We were going on an excursion. We would be watching our suspects. We would be eavesdropping. We would not be flirting with cute boys who continually run hot and cold.
In the hall, blue laundry bags on stands signaled that the cabin stewards were cleaning the rooms. That was one of the things I’d miss when I got home. No sense thinking about the other thing. Because I needed to toughen up and fight this crush with everything I had in me. Sam couldn’t get away from me fast enough last night. So be it. Starting today, there’d be no more trying to make him laugh, no more searching for his smile, no more making sure we walked or sat near each other. I rubbed my palm against the ache in my chest. How hard could it be?
I’d just reached my room when Darl came out of the cabin across the hall, his arms full of towels. “Good morning, Miss Rose,” he said and smiled.
“Morning, Darl.” I pulled out my keycard.
Darl paused in the act of walking away. “Miss Rose, did you see your book?”
I turned slowly. “My book?”
“Yes. I put it on the bed last night. Someone had left it on the door.” He lifted a hand toward the slim wooden holder that cruise staff used to deliver extra papers or excursion passes. It would’ve been a pain to wedge a book in there. “It fell as I was working and I thought it best to put it in the room.” He frowned. “I hope that was all right.”
He had to be talking about the journal, which meant that whoever returned it, hadn’t come into my room. “Oh. Yes. That’s fine.”
He nodded and turned to go.
“Um, Darl, do you remember what time this was?”
“I do not know for certain. I usually start the evening work between seven and seven thirty. I would’ve put the book in your room no later than eight fifteen I believe.”
“And you didn’t see who brought it?”
“No, miss.”
That would’ve been too much to hope for. “Thank you, Darl.”
He smiled and resumed his work. I slipped into my room. I’d left Sam’s hoodie in a clump on the bed. Now it was folded neatly and the bed freshly made. Why couldn’t everything else be so simple? One minute it was a mess; the next it was all cleaned up. I’d been so freaked out at the thought that someone scary had been in my room. Now that person might never have been in here at all. He or she could’ve even stolen the journal from my tote bag during the times I carried it around the ship with me.
On one hand, that was totally great. I could now breathe easier when I left my room, not worrying that some creeper was hanging out in there. On the other hand, this widened the suspect pool. The person who took the journal no longer had to have access to the rooms or room keys. Yup. Widened the pool so much that everyone could jump in.
Fanfreakingtastic. More people to muddy the waters.
But hey, with any luck, Alexis might have found out something helpful from Nora.
I ran my hand across the soft sweatshirt fabric of Sam’s hoodie, sighed, and dug out the mystery novel I’d been reading at the beginning of the trip. Time to get lost in someone else’s detective work for a while.
Twenty-Three
Sam
Rose and Alexis were already sitting on the side of a lounge chair with their heads tilted toward each other when I got to the forward deck. If I hadn’t had to pretend to be interested in Marie’s flirting, I would’ve been there earlier. It had been freaking hard to leave without her coming with me.
Alexis looked up as I approached. “It’s about time.”
“Hey, I was only following orders.” I sat on the deck in front of them, crossed my legs, and tried to smile at Rose. But she wouldn’t make eye contact. Just stared off into the distance. What was wrong? Was it me?
“Find out anything?” Alexis asked.
“Yeah, but nothing we didn’t already know. Sophie and Jacques are disgustingly sappy with each other, and Marie flirts with every male in sight except her brother.”
Alexis slid her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Including you?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“Anything else?”
“No,” I said. “I doubt Jacques and Marie are stealing things—when would they have time? They’re acting like people on vacation, sitting in the sun all morning, with Sophie wearing her humongous hat that Jacques is using as a shield to hide when he kisses her.”
“At least he’s trying to hide it,” Alexis said. “Sophie hates too much PDA.”
She didn’t look like she hated it. In fact, I wanted to tell them to get a room, but I was afraid they actually would. “Well, it made Marie giggle. A lot. And we all know how fun that sound is.”
A faint smile crossed Rose’s lips, but she wiped it away. At least she was listening.
“Right,” Alexis said, and then leaned forward. “I was just updating Rose on what I found out from Nora this morning. Apparently, a lot of people have been losing things on this trip. She didn’t come right out and say it, but it was obvious she meant they were stolen.”
“What kind of things?” I asked.
“Jewelry and watches.”
“Stuff that’s easy to fence.”
Alexis’s eyes gleamed. “Yes, and get this. When I asked her how long Clio has been working on the ship, she said three months, and that she’s always liked her but that for the past few weeks, Clio has been withdrawn and keeping to herself. She doesn’t hang out with the others much anymore.”
“Keeping to yourself doesn’t mean you’re a thief,” Rose said, fixing her gaze on Alexis.
Why was she defending Clio all of a sudden?
“True,” Alexis said, angling her head toward Rose. “But the change of behavior has to be important. You know that as well as I do.”
“Still,” Rose said, “she might just be having personal problems.”
“Which could make her need to steal stuff,” Alexis said. “Why aren’t you excited about this piece of news?”
Rose picked up a glass of iced tea from the deck but then put it back down. “I’m just so frustrated. We don’t know what we’re doing. I found out a little while ago that our cabin steward found my journal stuck in that wooden holder on the outside of the door. And that means no one had to have access to my room to steal the journal—one of the things that pointed to someone like Clio—they could’ve simply taken it out of my tote bag.” She gestured to said tote bag and almost knocked over her glass. “The thief could be anybody. Absolutely anybody.”
The fact that nobody had been in Rose’s room was like bursting out of the water and taking in a full breath of air. I swayed from the force of it. Still, that bleak look on her face made me want to hug her. I settled for giving her ankle a quick squeeze. “Hey, that’s what we’re doing today. Figuring out whether our suspects really are suspects. And if they’re not, then no harm done.”
“I guess,” she said, moving her sandaled foot away from me. Okay, it wasn’t my imagination. Rose was having trouble with me. Probably because I’d left so abruptly last night, but I’d had to. If I’d sat there another minute more, I would’ve been all over her, and a heavy make-out session was the last thing either of us needed. No matter how much I wanted it.
“I don’t think this rules Clio out,” Alexis said quietly, watching a middle-aged couple pass by. They stopped ten feet away from us and leaned against the ship’s railing. “I agree with Sam. We’ll reassess after the excursion this afternoon. We might be wrong, but we might be right. And if we are, we’re gonna need to decide what to do about it.”
Rose
’s eyes went wide. “That’s true.”
“But we don’t need to think about that right now,” I said. “Do we, Alex?” I didn’t want Rose to add one more thing to her worry basket.
“Nope,” Alexis said. “One thing at a time. By the way, did your cabin steward see who left the journal?”
Rose shook her head. “I asked him. I left the room at five thirty-five to go to the cruise update thingy. Darl was in our hallway by seven. So someone had a good hour and a half—while most of us were at dinner—to return the journal.”
“Hmm,” Alexis said. “I know our entire tour group was in the lounge and the dining room during that time. All except Clio and Nick, of course.”
“And Nick showed up late to the birthday party,” I said.
“But Clio was even later,” Alexis said, “and she didn’t stay.”
Rose picked up her glass and held it in both hands. “You don’t think Clio would make Nick do the dirty work for her, do you? He’s only a kid.”
Alexis’s features twisted into her “you’ve got to be kidding me” face. “No, she couldn’t possibly. Beside the fact that it would be wrong, how could she trust Nick to keep quiet about it?”
“I agree,” Rose said. “But there’s been a lot of tension between the two of them.”
“I saw that too,” I said, mostly to get Rose to look at me. She didn’t.
“I didn’t notice anything other than the normal ‘kid doesn’t want to obey authority figure’ behavior,” Alexis said.
“Let’s watch for that anyway,” Rose said. “See if we can overhear any conversations between Clio and Nick.”
“Good idea,” Alexis said.
“And on that note,” I said, getting to my feet, “let’s go have lunch. We’re supposed to meet for the tour at one, right?”
“Yeah,” Alexis said. “Food does sound good.”
Life in the Danger Zone Page 16