Undercover Mission

by Sharon Dunn

  There was no one in this part of the ship. She walked past several doors. The signs indicated that they were used for different kinds of storage.

  She pulled her phone out and pressed David’s number. It rang once.

  A body slammed into hers. The masked man. He must have been following her. She caught the glint of a knife right before her back slammed against a door.

  Sarge barked. The man turned slightly, threatening the dog with the knife. Sarge kept barking but backed up. The momentary distraction was enough time for her to lunge at the man, reaching for the hand that held the knife.

  The man whirled around focusing his energy back on her.

  Maya could see Sarge in her peripheral vision as the dog leaped at the masked man and latched onto a pant leg. The dog continued to growl and tug while Maya tried to extract the knife from the man’s hand. First by pinching the nerves in his wrist and then clawing at the fist that held the knife. Her nails drew blood, but the man held on.

  Laughter and the sound of many voices floated up the corridor from around the corner. The assailant lifted his head to the noise of people coming toward them. He pulled his hand away and pushed Maya against the wall with intense force. Her back slammed against the hard wall and pain shot through her, momentarily paralyzing her.

  She watched in horror as the man yanked his pant leg away from Sarge’s grasp and then kicked toward the dog’s head. Sarge jumped away before the boot could find its target.

  The attacker pushed again just as she straightened up. “You and your dog are in my way.”

  The man took off running as chatter and laughter from the crowd of people came from the other direction. Maya struggled to get a breath while her assailant’s words echoed through her head. Now it was clear that he had figured out she was a cop.

  At least ten people, some dressed in uniforms for work, came around the corner just as the man who had attacked her disappeared in the other direction. They were so focused on interacting with each other that they barely noticed Maya. As they walked past her through the narrow hallway, blocking the possibility of her chasing the masked man, she doubted she could catch him. Maybe security cameras would show where he had gone. Sarge had moved to sit at her feet where she was still using the wall for support.

  The group of people made their way up the corridor and around the corner, their voices growing fainter.

  Finally, she was able to take in air and get a deep breath. Her stomach still felt like it was tied up in knots. Sarge offered a supportive whimper. She reached down and patted his head.

  Her phone lay on the carpet where she had dropped it close to the opposite wall. She stepped across the corridor to pick it up.

  David’s voice came from far away. “Maya, Sarge where are you?”

  Feeling the sense of relief, she ran toward his voice. She looked around for the sign that would indicate which hallway she was in but didn’t see one. “David, we’re here.”

  She heard pounding footsteps and then she saw him as he stepped into the hallway. The tall, handsome man in uniform was a welcome sight. A look of intense concern crossed his features.

  He hurried toward her. “What happened? The phone rang—I picked up. I heard pounding noises and Sarge barking.”

  “It was him. The man in mask attacked me.” Her legs felt weak. She fell into his arms and he held her.

  “I was afraid of that. I knew you were close to the office, so I went looking. Maya, I was worried about you.” His voice wavered from the intensity of his emotions.

  His arms enveloped her. She felt safe now.

  He pulled away but still stood close to her looking from her toes to her face. “Are you hurt? Do we need to get you medical attention?” His voice filled with concern.

  “I’m okay physically. Just very shaken up.”

  “From now on, you need an escort 24/7. That’s all there is to it.”

  She nodded. If even walking to his office was not safe, he was probably right. Still, she didn’t like the loss of freedom and knew it would make conducting the investigation that much harder.

  “He must have been following me and waiting for his chance. He’d stick out like a sore thumb with that mask on, so he must have put it on at the last second.”

  * * *

  David gazed down at the beautiful dark-eyed woman, trying to take in what she was saying. The fear he’d seen on Maya’s face when he’d come around the corner had sent a wave of rage through him toward the attacker.

  She glanced up. “There’s no security cameras? I thought we might be able to catch him on tape before he put his mask on.”

  “This floor is mostly for staff and crew. The security cameras are mounted in public areas that the passengers use.”

  Maya nodded. It was clear from her body language, the tightness in her features, that she was still shaken by the attack.

  Why was this murderer constantly able to evade him? Wanting to reassure her, he purged the intense emotion from his voice. “My office is just a couple of twists and turns from here. Let’s go sit down, maybe get you a hot cup of tea. We’ll talk.” He turned and started walking.

  “A couple of twists and turns?” Her voice wavered.

  He slowed down and offered her an arm for support when she struggled to keep pace with him. Sarge walked a foot in front of them.

  “I don’t know how you find your way around here,” she said. “I keep getting confused especially on these two bottom decks.”

  “You get used to it,” he told her. “The lack of windows on the bottom decks sometimes disorients people. The narrow hallways don’t help either, but space is at a premium on the ship.”

  As she followed David, her mind returned to the case. “If we could figure out why he attacks the kind of women he goes after, that might help us narrow down the possibilities.”

  “Do you have any theories?”

  He turned down another hallway, which brought them outside the security office. David swiped his card key over the locked door and pushed it open, stepping to the side so she could go in first.

  She and Sarge walked in. Maya looked at the monitors. “Do you have a view of the entire ship?”

  “Cameras are only set up in the public areas. I only have eight monitors—one for each of the decks where the passengers are. I can switch between cameras to show the different areas on each deck.” He moved past her and placed his hands on the keyboard to show her how quickly he could click through the different parts of the ship. Then he pulled a chair out for her. Though the color had returned to her face, something about Maya seemed changed from this last attack. The threat was very personal.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay to say you’re afraid.”

  She massaged her temples. “I’m a police officer. I should be able to handle this.”

  “Everyone has a breaking point, Maya. I know I reached mine when I was in the army. How about I get you that hot cup of tea and you can take a moment to collect yourself?”

  “Okay.” She sat down and nodded, still watching the monitors.

  He strode across the room to where there was a two-burner coffee maker. One carafe held coffee that was mostly bitter by this time of day and the other kept water hot. He grabbed a tea bag from the assortment and placed it in a coffee cup.

  “You said you were in the military?”

  The question made his stomach clench. But he was the one who had brought it up. Though it made him afraid, he wanted to open up to her. Maya had a tenderness that he had never experienced before. He poured the hot water into the cup watching it turn brown.

  “I thought I was going to be a career officer.” He turned and carried the steaming mug toward her. He placed it on the counter beside the keyboard. Sarge lay at Maya’s feet, resting his chin on the toe of her shoe.

  She lifted the mug and blew on it but d
idn’t take a sip. “What happened?”

  “An IED happened.”

  “Your leg? I noticed you favor it sometimes.” She gazed at him before putting the mug down. “You really can’t tell unless you’re running.”

  Her voice held such a tone of compassion and nonjudgment that the tightness in his stomach disappeared. “Thank you for saying that. I worked hard with the physical therapist to get back as much mobility as I could. I guess I have a memory of what I used to be capable of physically.”

  “Loss is never easy. I’m sure it was hard to reroute your career path.”

  The way she looked at him made his heart beat faster and that scared him. He jerked to his feet and turned away. “I don’t mind it.” He shrugged. “I like not being settled anywhere. The scenery and the passengers changing every ten to twenty-one days—it suits me.”

  “My job has some travel involved but I’m kind of a homebody.” She let out a sigh. “I just had my thirtieth birthday. I thought I’d be married and with kids by now. That was always my dream.”

  Was she hinting at something? Though his feet remained planted, David felt like he was running a hundred miles an hour and the cavalcade of relationships that had turned sour played out in his mind. “Not me. I like being an unattached nomad.”

  Her expression changed as she drew her eyebrows together and leaned back. “Oh, I see. We all make different choices...have different dreams.”

  “Look, why don’t we look through those reports? I can tell you off the top of my head nothing comes to mind that resembles these attacks and the murder.”

  “I just thought if there was something on a previous cruise, we could eliminate the passengers as suspects. You said crew personnel stays the same, right?”

  “For the most part. Everyone has a contract, most of which run a year. People go on vacation or get sick, some people quit and we have to replace them,” he said. “But I would say the core group of people stays the same.”

  “We’re dealing with such a huge group of suspects. There has to be a way to narrow our focus,” Maya reiterated.

  “If we’re assuming the attacks only started when we left Seattle. That means both passengers and crew members could be suspects.” David shifted in his chair. Green eyes aren’t that common, but I still think we’re talking about hundreds of suspects.”

  “The upper deck where I was attacked that first night was a public area. Did the security footage show anything?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. And very little on the night Crystal was killed either.”

  “Almost like he is aware of where the cameras are.”

  Feeling a rising frustration, David shook his head. “All passengers and crew members have to have a photo ID, but I don’t have software that would sort IDs for green eyes. We’d have to do that by hand. My onboard resources are kind of limited... Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. We’ll just have to do good old-fashioned detective work, right?”

  He appreciated her optimism since he tended to be a glass half-empty guy.

  “Right.” David scooted his chair toward a computer. “I can look and see if there were any new hires for this cruise.” He clicked the keyboard and looked at the screen. “We had one woman, a waitress named Tiffany Swarthout, who quit right before we sailed. There was not time to find a replacement.”

  “Okay, so that was a dead end.”

  Noah’s voice rose above the static of the radio. It sounded like he was running. “Purse snatcher fourth floor. Headed toward the third. Let’s cut him off.”

  “On my way,” David said. He bolted to his feet.

  Maya got up as well, picking up Sarge’s leash.

  “Where do you think you are going?”

  “With you. We agreed I shouldn’t be alone, right? Sarge might be a help.”

  There was no time to argue the finer points of her staying in the locked office. So with Maya and Sarge beside him, David hurried through the corridors of the ship until he came to the elevator that would take them to deck three. They stepped into the elevator.

  Maya stood close enough that her shoulder was almost touching his as they watched the numbers light up. Something about her being with him, working beside him, created a sense of peace he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Even though he knew that she was a trained officer who could take care of herself, he felt protective of her. He only hoped he’d made the right choice in letting her come with him.

  SIX

  Before the number three lit up, Maya stepped toward the closed doors of the elevator. Her heart raced. This was what she loved about police work. The doors slid open, and she, David and Sarge all stepped out in unison.

  “There are two or three ways he could go once he gets down here. How will we find him?”

  “We block the most likely exit to the second floor. Noah will watch so he can’t go back up. He’s probably trying to blend in at this point. Which means he may have taken the money out of the purse and ditched it.” David got back on his radio while he walked. “Do you have a description of our perp?”

  “Yellow shirt. Red shorts. Young and athletic.”

  A man matching that description would be easy to spot. “Is there a chance he could slip into a cabin? Maybe Sarge and I could search,” Maya said.

  “No, the deal is you stay close to me.” He softened his voice. “I don’t want to risk you being attacked again. Plus, searching the cabins is a little more involved legally unless someone is in immediate danger.”

  His protectiveness touched her.

  David came to the stairwell exit that led back down to the second floor.

  “He could take the elevator down as well, right?”

  “Sure,” David replied. “The thing about a ship is he can’t go far and his crime was probably caught on the security cameras. It would just be nice to wrap this up and get the purse back to its owner, but we’ll catch the guy before we get to the next port.”

  He got back on the radio. “We’re at the north stairwell.”

  “Far as I can tell he is headed your way based on where I last saw him,” Noah said. “He’s slowed down and he doesn’t know I’m tailing him. I’m hanging back so I don’t arouse suspicion.”

  David signed off and looked at her. “We’ll wait inside the stairwell. He’ll turn and run if he sees us.”

  They took up a position on opposite walls where they could peer out the window on the door that led to the stairwell. Maya studied the area. There was one hallway the perp could veer off into if he realized he was trapped.

  A man matching the description of the purse snatcher came around the corner. David stepped out and identified himself. “Security. Put your hands up where I can see them.”

  Her heart beat faster as she and Sarge stepped out as well.

  As she had predicted, the purse snatcher veered off toward the side corridor. She and Sarge chased after him, blocking his escape. Sarge barked only once, but the tone of threat was clear.

  “You might want to put your hands up like the security officer suggested,” she said.

  The purse snatcher complied.

  “Hands behind your back.” David pulled out the zip ties that sufficed for handcuffs. “What did you do with the purse?”

  “I ditched it in the trash.”

  “And the money?”

  “Wallet in my left pocket. Am I going to jail?”

  David drew out the wallet. “Theft is still theft even on a cruise ship. You’ll wear an ankle bracelet and be confined to your cabin until we reach the next port where you will be taken into custody.”

  Noah came around the corner and headed up the hallway. “Caught him?”

  “Yes,” David said. “Thanks to Maya and her dog.”

  “Why is she hanging so close to you?”

  “I’m a journalist doing
a story on security on board a ship.” It was the first time she’d had to vocalize the deception.

  Noah stared at Maya long enough to make her uncomfortable. “You and your service dog make quite a team.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “The dog is pretty protective of you... I noticed earlier when I saw you.”

  What an odd thing to say at a moment like this. Despite the elation and excitement of catching the purse snatcher, she was reminded that a killer was still at large on the ship and she might be looking at him right now.

  Her pulse sped up as Noah continued to study her. Maybe he just wasn’t buying that she was a journalist or maybe there was something more sinister going on.

  She turned toward David. “Do you need to take this guy somewhere?” she asked, purging her voice of the fear that had encroached on her. Right now, no one with green eyes was above suspicion of being a killer.

  * * *

  David glanced over at Noah after noticing how Maya’s expression had changed when he looked at her. Just because he worked with Noah didn’t mean they could take him off the suspect list.

  “I can take this guy in for processing if you want,” Noah offered.

  “That would be great.” David handed the perp over to the other officer who escorted him down the stairwell.

  “I’m too wound up to head back to the security office. We can go grab a bite to eat if you’d like.” Maybe it was just the adrenaline from having caught the purse snatcher, but he found himself not wanting to end his time with Maya.

  “Are you still on duty?”

  “Actually, I was off hours ago,” he answered. “Noah still has half a shift to finish and the night guy will be coming on in a couple of hours.”

  “I could use an early dinner since we haven’t had lunch, but maybe we could order in,” Maya said. “That way Sarge can eat too.”