Undercover Mission

by Sharon Dunn

  He escorted Hannah down to the infirmary. The older couple stayed with her.

  David headed out of the infirmary with a heavy heart. He had some important decisions to make before morning, but first he knew he needed to get some sleep, at least a couple of hours.

  He texted Noah to let him know he was returning to his cabin but would be up in a couple of hours. Then he asked about Sarge.

  The reply text came just as David opened the door to his cabin.

  No sign of the dog. We will continue the search. Maya refuses to give up.

  It felt like a knife had gone into his chest. More than anything he wanted to be with her to help and to console. But going without sleep for so long meant he would be no good to anyone.

  All the same, there was no place in the world he would rather be than with Maya. He hated seeing her so torn up.

  As he fell asleep, he prayed that Sarge was okay.

  THIRTEEN

  Maya sat in front of the monitors feeling her eyelids grow heavy. When she and Noah finally had to call the search for Sarge off, Noah had agreed to let her into the security office so she could watch the screens for any sign of her dog. She promised to call him if she saw any sign of Sarge. As long as David was getting some much-needed sleep, Noah would be there to guard her and help in finding Sarge.

  She watched the screens and clicked through the various areas on the deck where the wave pool was. Then she searched all the other areas on the ship that had security cameras. The only thing she saw was Noah walking a patrol on an empty deck.

  Sarge just had to be somewhere on this ship. What scared her though was that maybe he had been taken again. It just seemed like a dog on the run would be spotted sooner or later even with most of the passengers asleep.

  As her eyes closed, her head snapped back and then forward. Resting her cheek on her hand she laid her head on the counter by the keyboard. Maybe if she took a power nap, she’d get her energy back.

  The next thing she was aware of was the smell of fresh coffee. She raised her head. David was standing beside her and had placed a steaming mug on the counter by her.

  He smiled.

  She laughed. “You seem really perky.”

  “I only needed a couple hours sleep to get my mojo back. Looks like you got a little shut-eye too.”

  Maya self-consciously wiped her mouth, wondering if she’d been drooling in her sleep. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was four in the morning. She’d been asleep for an hour. “Not on purpose.”

  She stared at the screen. Still no activity. She knew that as soon as the hour was reasonable, she was going to have to call Lorenza and let her know Sarge was missing. The thought made her feel even more hopeless.

  David took a sip of his coffee. “In another hour the morning kitchen crews will be in full force getting ready for the breakfast crowd. Then you’ll see the shop owners opening up. There is a rhythm to life on the Alaska Dream.”

  “That sounds kind of neat. It’s like a floating village...and you are the village constable.”

  David laughed and sat down beside her. He ran his hands through his hair and let out a heavy breath. “As soon as the hour is decent, I’m going to need to call the owner and have a serious talk. He wanted all of this to be under the radar as much as possible. But given that last attack on Hannah, I think we will have to put out a general warning for women to not be alone on decks or anywhere they might be vulnerable.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “It may cost me my job, but the safety of the passengers has to be my top priority.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” As she stared into David’s blue eyes, she felt a deep admiration for him. “But a tough choice all the same.”

  David nodded. He pointed to the dorm-size fridge with the microwave on top of it. “I think we have some precooked sausage and egg sandwiches I can heat up if you’re hungry.”

  “Sure, that sounds good.” While he pulled food out of the little freezer and put it the microwave, she drew her attention back to the security screens. Maya took a sip of her coffee, enjoying the warmth and taste, then leaned forward to study each picture more intently. A man in a chef uniform walked across one of the screens. “What if Sarge has been taken to crew living quarters. Is there any way we could see that, at least the hallways, dining hall and laundry?”

  “There are no security cameras in the crew area. We can search it on foot.” He set a sausage sandwich on a paper plate in front of her. “First breakfast.”

  “Okay good, that’s what we will do.”

  David turned his chair, so it faced her. “You know, Maya, I want to find Sarge as badly as you do, but at some point, we might have to accept that he’s not on the ship anymore.”

  Though his comment was spoken with great tenderness, it still felt like a knife through her heart. She did not want to face that possibility. “I think it’s too early to give up. If he’s running free, he would have shown up somewhere or been spotted. I think the attacker saw him and grabbed him.” She touched her hand to her heart. “I feel it in here. He’s still alive.”

  He nodded. “Okay, we’ll keep looking. If I get security calls, I’ll have to deal with them.”

  “I get that,” Maya said as the heaviness of despair filled her. “I just think that someone would have to have a really black heart to kill a dog or throw it overboard. The accomplice couldn’t bring himself to do it.”

  “We are dealing with a man who has killed a woman.”

  The tightness through Maya’s chest was so intense that she laid her palm on her heart. Nothing David was saying was untrue—she was just having a hard time accepting it.

  They finished their breakfast and coffee. No security calls had yet come in. “Let’s go search the crew area.” She stood up and gave a final glance at the screen. Movement caught her eye. Sarge dragging his leash raced across the screen. “Did you see that?” She pointed to the screen where she’d seen her dog. “He was there! Where is that?”

  David looked at the screen. “That’s the corridor by the botanical gardens and the kids’ activity room. But it’s not on the same deck as the wave pool. Wonder how he got up there.”

  Feeling a joy she almost couldn’t contain, Maya moved toward the door. “Let’s go get him.”

  They raced through the ship, passing early rising passengers and crew members getting ready for a day of work. Once they got to the botanical gardens Maya called out Sarge’s name. She heard barking but could not see him anywhere. They were in a jungle.

  Both of them moved toward the sound of Sarge’s barking.

  “Why isn’t he coming to me?” She couldn’t contain her excitement.

  The botanical gardens were beneath a dome. The room was kept warm to aid the growth of the tropical plants. The air was thick and humid. Maya pushed past the plants, running ahead of David.

  Sarge’s barking got louder as she hurried around a display of orchids. The K-9 was there tied to an iron bench. Something clicked in her brain. When they’d seen Sarge on the screen he’d been running free. He could not have gotten to the deck alone. “This is a trap.” Sarge had been used as bait to lure her there. She turned to warn David, but all she saw was his arm on the floor sticking out from a bush. Her brain barely registered that he’d been knocked out when the masked man jumped out from behind a lattice wall of flowers.

  Maya screamed. Sarge barked and jerked on his leash. The assailant came at her with the knife. She dodged out of the way, then reached her leg out to try and hit him behind the knees so he would fall to the ground. He avoided her and raised the knife above his head. As the knife came toward her shoulder, she blocked the move by grabbing the man’s wrist and then landing a blow to his stomach with her other hand. She pressed on the nerves of his hand to try to get him to drop the knife.

  As they struggled, she was only inches from the masked man’s face. His eyes held a
wild dancing quality. “You’re going to die.”

  She reached up with her free hand to grab his mask.

  He stepped back to prevent her from seeing who he was. The distraction gave her time to bang the hand that held the knife against the wall. He dropped the knife and grabbed his wrist.

  A moaning sound came from where David had been disabled.

  The attacker tilted his head and then took off running still holding his hand, probably frightened at the prospect of having to fight two people. Maya hurried to free Sarge, taking note of where the attacker had gone. David, who still seemed wobbly on his feet, came and stood beside her. “You okay?”

  David nodded.

  “Sarge can track that knife,” said Maya. “The trail is still hot.”

  “Let’s go.”

  With Sarge taking the lead, they sprinted through corridors and down a deck. The direction they were going felt vaguely familiar. Then she remembered, that first night when she’d been attacked this was where Sarge had taken her. They ended up outside the same main kitchen on deck three.

  Sarge alerted.

  David opened the door. The place was busy with crew preparing breakfast. Grills sizzled and the smell of bacon was heavy in the air.

  The dog whined. David let go of the swinging door and peered down at the trash can outside the kitchen.

  He pointed. “I’m going to need an evidence bag.”

  Maya peered into the garbage can where the knife had been tossed.

  “I can probably find something in the kitchen to use as an evidence bag. Let’s go in and see if we can find a man with green eyes.”

  Maya had a feeling that the perp had probably passed through the kitchen out a back entrance or the service elevator just like the first time. They entered the kitchen where David retrieved a plastic bag to store the knife along with some disposable gloves used to handle the food. While he questioned the busy kitchen staff, Maya wandered around the counters making eye contact with every man of medium build. The attacker had been dressed in black pants and a gray shirt. No one here was dressed like that. Though it would have been easy enough to don a white chef’s smock. None of the men avoided her gaze. None of them appeared to have green eyes.

  David came over to her. “From talking to the folks in here, there is a ton of crew traffic this time of day. No one going through was a strange face. You know what that means?”

  Her mood lifted. “Our suspect works out of this kitchen. That narrows down the possibilities substantially.” They were getting closer to catching this guy.

  “I’ll grab that knife, and we can go look at employee records.”

  After retrieving the knife from the garbage and placing it in the bag, they hurried back to the security office to look through employee records. They stopped to grab some food for Sarge. Once in the security office, David found some containers for the food and water. Sarge ate heartily. Maya sat down on the floor beside him and rubbed his ears. There hadn’t been time to show how happy she was that he was safe and sound until now. “I don’t think he’s been fed since they took him. Poor guy.”

  Sarge stopped eating long enough to lean into her touch as she petted his back and front shoulder. “So glad to have you back on duty, buddy.”

  The dog wagged his tail.

  Maya drew her attention back up to where David was tapping the keyboard and scrutinizing the computer screen. “This shouldn’t take long. We are looking at thirty guys who work out of the kitchen. We can eliminate anyone who is not of average build. I’m going to print out all the employee IDs, which will list their eye color.” He pushed several buttons.

  She heard a printer running but wasn’t sure where it was kept. David opened a cabinet underneath the counter and pulled out a stack of papers. He divided them and handed her a stack.

  The IDs were printed out in black-and-white but referenced eye color. Maya sorted through her stack coming up with two men whose eye color was listed as green. She studied each picture ID feeling a chill run down her spine. “I got two.”

  “I got two possibilities as well.” He reached over for her stack. “So now we text each of these four men saying we want to question them. I won’t say why, just that the security office wants to talk to them.”

  “Do you have an interview room?”

  “No, but there’s a small conference room in one of the administrative rooms that will suffice. Let me send out the texts.”

  Maya knew that a smart criminal would show up for the interview and tell lies. She’d had some training in watching body language to figure out if a man was being honest in his answers. “I’d like to help with the interviews.”

  Again, David offered her his forty-watt smile. “Of course, that goes without saying. Your help has been invaluable.”

  He sent off the texts. All four men responded, and a time was set up to interview each one of them. Maya, Sarge and David left the office on several calls, including a case of a teenage boy stealing from a shop and that of an older man who had lost his wallet. As they worked together, Maya was struck by how compassionate David was in dealing with the teenager and the senior citizen.

  Once Hans was on duty to take the calls that came in, they hurried to the interview room. The first two men came in. David asked each man the same set of questions about their whereabouts at the times the attacks had taken place along with some other inquiries that might expose their guilt.

  For the most part, Maya remained silent and simply studied the reactions of the men. From the moment they came into the room, she watched their expressions when they saw her. None of them showed any sign of recognition. She did see a little fear in one of the men’s eyes when his gaze landed on Sarge as he sat at attention beside her, a very normal reaction. Despite his size, Sarge could be intimidating when he wanted to be. He seemed to understand that that was his role for these interviews.

  The second suspect left, and they waited for the third man. The interviews were set up to last twenty minutes. Five minutes went by.

  “Who is it we are waiting for?”

  David sifted through the stack of papers and pushed one across the table. Maya stared down at the black-and-white copy of the photo ID, Joel Morris. They waited for Joel. Five minutes passed then five more.

  “Our number three suspect is not going to show,” said Maya.

  “No, he’s not.” David tapped his fingers on the table. “And unless he has a real good reason for not showing, it kind of makes him look guilty.”

  Then the fourth suspect came in for questioning. David interviewed the man for only five minutes and then told him he was free to go. That crew member clearly was not culpable.

  They were both thinking the same thing. Joel Morris was the man they were after.

  FOURTEEN

  Though it seemed like a futile activity, David, Maya and Sarge all hurried down to the crew living quarters to Joel Morris’s cabin. If Joel knew they were on to him, he was probably hiding out somewhere on the ship. Maybe it would have been smarter to track down each of the men and question them. Hard to say.

  They came to the door of Joel’s cabin. David glanced in Maya’s direction. “You and Sarge be on high alert? We know what kind of violence he’s capable of. Just in case he is in his cabin...”

  “We’re ready for anything,” Maya said.

  He knocked on the cabin door. “Joel Morris, this is David Garrison, head of ship security. We need to talk to you.”

  A groggy male voice came from behind the door. “Joel isn’t here.”

  Must be Joel’s cabinmate. “Sir, can you please open the door? We need to talk to you.”

  David heard some shuffling and banging and an expletive. All the cabins had only one exit. The man wasn’t going anywhere.

  The door swung open and a disheveled man with uncombed hair stood on the threshold. He blinked over and over again
.

  “Sorry we woke you up, but we need to ask you some questions about Joel Morris. Is he your roommate?”

  “Yes.”

  Maya stepped forward. “And can you tell us your name?”

  The man lifted his head and blinked several times. “I’m Wayne Hawkins.”

  “When was the last time you saw Joel?” David asked.

  “The reason why we make such good roommates is because we work opposite shifts. He starts in the early morning and I work the concert venues at night as a bartender.” Wayne ran his hands through his messy hair. “We haven’t run into each other for like a day.”

  Maya stepped sideways so she was visible to the man. “How long have you been his roommate?”

  “Eight months.”

  “Have you noticed any changes in the last week or so,” she asked.

  Wayne tilted his head to the side. “Right before we left Seattle, he was pretty torn up about his girlfriend finding someone else and then quitting the ship.”

  “How torn up?” she murmured.

  “He threw things around the room, put a fist through the wall and called her every name in the book.” He shrugged. “I guess I should have reported it.”

  “Can I ask what the girlfriend looked like?” Maya spoke up.

  “She was way out of Joel’s league. Supermodel material.”

  “Did she have long brown hair?” David asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  Now they had a motive for the attacks and the murder. Joel was going after women who reminded him of the one who had betrayed him.