Andy interrupted. “Is it large enough for someone to crawl through the vent and gain access?”
Frank tapped his finger on top of the print. “It’s possible, but they would have to be pretty small and spry. I don’t think I could fit.” He turned his gaze to Annette. “What do you think?”
Annette shifted to the side and studied the print. “I might be able to navigate through the pipe. Is there any way to take a look at it first?”
Frank nodded. “Of course. We can go now.”
“No time like the present.” Annette shifted the chair back and stood.
Oscar scrambled to his feet. He patted Annette on the back. “This is gonna remind you of the good ole days.”
Annette shot him a dark look before shifting her gaze to Andy.
Millie tilted her head. She had always been suspicious her friend, Annette, had a story to tell, that there was more to her past than just being in the food and beverage business.
“The good ole days,” Millie remarked. “I would love to hear about the good ole days, Annette. I’m sure it had something to do with rappelling down the side of cliffs, installing surveillance equipment in ductwork and hooking recording devices to the bottom of room service dishes.”
Gloria grinned. “Sounds like some of my friends.”
The stranger turned to Oscar as he rose to his feet. “The women must go. This doesn’t concern them.”
Millie opened her mouth to speak and then promptly closed it.
Gloria tugged on her cousin’s arm. “Let’s go.”
Millie stomped across the stage and Gloria hurried behind her.
After the women left, the group made their way to the other end of the ship, passing by the chaos surrounding guest services.
“We have to do something about that,” Andy said. “Hold up.”
He made his way over to Nikki Tan, who looked as if she was about to burst into tears at any moment. Andy leaned forward and whispered in her ear.
Nikki swiped at her eyes and nodded.
“Poor thing,” Annette said when Andy returned.
“I told her we would make an announcement over the intercom soon to address the guests’ concerns.”
“What are you going to say?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Andy admitted. “I’m still working on it.”
When they reached the stairs near the rear of the ship, or aft, they descended the stairs to the lowest deck before heading down a small hall.
Frank opened a metal door that read, “Authorized Personnel Only.” He held it open while the others crossed the threshold.
On the other side of the door were more steps. These were even smaller and they ended abruptly in front of another metal door.
Frank twisted the knob and stepped inside. The others followed and crowded into the small space.
The group crept along the narrow hall single file, stopping every few feet when Frank would hold a finger to his lips. The rattle of pipes knocking against each other and the hiss of steam escaping the pipes caused an eerie, haunting sound.
They walked for several moments and then Frank abruptly stopped and pointed up. “There it is.”
Annette gazed at the round hatch. On the front of the hatch was a metal wheel.
Frank climbed the rungs of the ladder, grasped the wheel and turned. Next, he tugged on the edge of the wheel and opened the hatch.
He hopped off the ladder and wiped his hands on the front of his pants. “Have a look,” he said to Annette.
Annette climbed the rungs and stuck her head inside the hole for a quick look.
She pulled her head out of the hatch and hopped off the ladder. “I can do it. You say it leads to a catwalk inside the engine room?”
Frank nodded. “Yes.”
Oscar, the second in command of security, shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the opening. “We will have to give you a weapon,” he said.
“First, we have to come up with a plan,” Annette said. “A two-prong assault on the engine room and bridge.”
“Agreed.” Andy nodded. “Let’s head back upstairs to put a plan of attack together.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You said Gloria left here a couple hours ago and she was going to track Millie down?” Liz asked.
“Yep,” Dot nodded. “She was curious to find out if the person who went overboard was Danielle and if she was alright.”
Ruth awoke from her sleep and resumed her position in front of the computer monitor.
Andrea leaned over Ruth’s shoulder. “You see anything yet?”
“Quiet as a mouse, although I did see one thing I was going to run by Millie. It looked like someone delivered food to the engine room. At first, it looked like Danielle. Her hair was long and blonde, and she was wearing a uniform. She knocked on the door and then left.”
“Did anyone open the door to get it?” Margaret asked.
“Yep. The door opened a few minutes later. All I could see was the top of someone’s head as they knelt down, grabbed the tray and then a couple seconds later, the door closed. It was right around eleven-thirty.”
The outer door to the suite flew open and Frances ran into the room. “The toilet in our cabin bathroom is overflowing!”
“What in the world?” Liz ran after a frantic Frances, following her to the suite across the hall.
Lucy shrugged. “Better them than us.” She stepped out onto the balcony and gazed around. She remembered how Millie had used the selfie stick and her cell phone to peek into the captain’s apartment directly below them.
Lucy tilted her head and peered over the side. It was a long way down. She wondered what it would feel like to fall off the balcony and into the water below. It would probably hurt…a lot.
Danielle had done it and survived. Perhaps it would depend on the fall itself and the angle of the person’s body when they hit the water. She hoped she never had to find out.
Dot appeared at Lucy’s side. “You’re back,” Lucy said.
Dot had gone down to guest services to check her account balance. “Whew! Guest services is a madhouse. People are pitching a fit that they can’t use their cell phones, that the ship is sitting in the water. You name it, they’re complaining.”
She shook her head. “While I was standing there, someone called to say their toilet was overflowing in their cabin. What a mess!”
“Liz and Frances,” Lucy grinned.
“Liz and Frances what?” Dot asked.
“It was Liz and Frances. Their toilet is overflowing.”
“Good heavens.” Dot shook her head. “I wonder how they managed that.”
She changed the subject. “Gloria hasn’t come back yet?”
“Nope.” Lucy ran her fingers through her hair. “I’m beginning to worry about her. You don’t think she concocted some brilliant rescue plan and struck out on her own…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t think her best friend would try to singlehandedly rescue the staff and crew, and capture the hijackers.
Andrea popped her head out the door. “I’m worried. Gloria should’ve come back by now. I think I’ll see if I can track her down.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lucy offered.
“Margaret, Ruth and I will hold down the fort,” Dot said. She walked Lucy and Andrea to the door and left them with a word of warning. “Be careful. You never know if you’ll run into one of the hijackers incognito.”
Andrea and Lucy headed to the top deck first, scouring the lido deck, the buffet and the pool area before heading down one deck. They searched from top to bottom and end to end without a single sign of Gloria – or Millie.
“You don’t think Gloria tracked down Millie and the two of them decided to embark on a seat-of-the-pants rescue mission and ended up getting caught, too?” Andrea voiced Lucy’s same concerns.
Gloria might not act impulsively on her own, but if someone, namely Millie, who knew the ship like the back of her hand, was involved, it was possible. “I was th
inking the same thing,” Lucy admitted. “It’s almost as if the two of them vanished into thin air.”
They passed through Waves, the buffet area. The smell of sesame oil and garlic filled the air. Lucy stared at the array of food on display. “The smell is torture.”
“Let’s grab a bite to eat,” Andrea suggested. The women walked over to the made-to-order Asian food station, Bamboo Wok, and joined the back of the line.
Andrea grabbed a large bowl, filled it with wonton noodles, along with baby corn, water chestnuts, julienne carrots and a small spoonful of bean sprouts.
“It looks delicious.” Lucy grabbed a bowl from the tall stack, added some noodles and vegetables and rounded the corner.
“I’ll have beef,” Lucy decided.
“And I’ll take shrimp,” Andrea told the wok chef.
The chef nodded, and then coated two empty pans with cooking spray. In one pan, he dumped a large portion of uncooked sirloin strips. In the other, he put the shrimp and then placed both pans on the heat.
The meat sizzled and Lucy’s mouth watered. Next, he dumped her bowl with the noodles and veggies inside the sizzling pan and mixed them with the beef before placing a cover on top.
He worked on Andrea’s meal while Lucy’s food cooked. When he finished cooking both dishes, he dumped Andrea’s food into her bowl and then Lucy’s lunch into her bowl.
Andrea reached for a set of chopsticks near the end of the counter. “Oh my gosh! This looks yummy.”
The girls each grabbed a set of wrapped silverware and glass of iced tea before settling in at a table for two near the window.
After the girls prayed over their food, Lucy reached for her fork and Andrea removed the paper wrap from the chopsticks.
“The girls are missing out.” Andrea squeezed a piece of shrimp between her chopsticks and popped it into her mouth. “I need to learn how to make this.”
“Maybe you can have Alice give it a shot,” Lucy suggested.
Alice was Andrea’s former housekeeper who now lived with Andrea in her big, beautiful home in Belhaven, Michigan.
Andrea rolled her eyes. “Oh no! She would add so much spice to this dish it would singe the ends of my hair,” she joked.
The girls gobbled their food, placed their dirty plates, napkins and silverware, along with the chopsticks Andrea had used, on top of their trays and stood. “We better head to the room to see if Gloria ever made it back.”
The two women zig zagged through the throng of passengers and strolled past the packed pool as they made their way to the front of the ship.
The door to their suite was wide open. Next to the open door and lined up against one wall was a towering stack of suitcases.
Lucy stepped into the suite and pointed at the bags. “What is all this?”
Margaret hurried over. She glanced at Liz and Frances, who were standing out on the balcony. “Liz and Frances’s suite flooded with water. They had to move out while maintenance cleans and dries the carpets.”
Lucy’s eyes widened in horror. “Move to where?”
“In with you,” Margaret whispered. “The ship is full. There’s nowhere else for them to go.”
Andrea clutched her chest. “Does Gloria know?”
“Does Gloria know what?” Gloria, who had been MIA, suddenly appeared in the doorway.
Chapter Seventeen
“There you are!” Liz marched across the floor to the door. “This ship is a hunk of junk!” She whined. “Our bathroom and bedroom both flooded and maintenance made us move all of our stuff out until they can clean it up and dry the floors.”
Frances crossed the room and tapped the top of the mound of suitcases. “I’m sorry Gloria. We had nowhere else to go.”
“Don’t apologize,” Liz snapped. “It’s all her fault we’re on this rusty bucket of bolts in the first place!”
Gloria saw red as she had reached the upper limits of her tolerance level with her sister and Lucy, recognizing the look in her friend’s eyes, took a step back.
Gloria shook her finger at her sister. “You! You invited yourself on this cruise in the first place so don’t start on me about this being all my fault!”
She kicked the side of the luggage with the tip of her sandal. “If you don’t watch it, I’m going to toss you and your crap out of my cabin and you can go sleep on the balcony for all I care.”
Liz, on the receiving end of Gloria’s wrath, shrunk back and then burst into tears. She wailed loudly at her younger sister’s stern scolding.
Gloria, accustomed to her sister’s extreme levels of drama, crossed her arms and rolled her eyes as she waited for the meltdown to taper off.
“You probably wish the hijackers had captured me,” Liz sobbed.
Her sister smiled. “Now that’s an idea.”
The tears vanished. Liz lifted her head and stomped her foot. “You’re so mean,” she pouted.
“Come on, Liz. I was kidding!” Gloria, feeling guilty for snapping at her sister, quickly caved. “If you stop with the drama, you can stay, but only if you behave yourself.”
Frances grasped Liz’s arm and tugged. “I’ll make sure she straightens up.” She led Liz to the balcony and away from the fuming Gloria.
Lucy quickly changed the subject. “Andrea and I have been looking for you. We were worried Millie and you had attempted a rescue on your own.”
“No.” Gloria shook her head. “I wish I could say we had managed a successful rescue mission, but we didn’t.” She waved them into Margaret’s cabin. “I’ll tell everyone what is going on in the other room.”
The girls assembled in the suite next door: Gloria, Lucy, Andrea, Margaret, Dot and Ruth. Liz and Frances hovered out on the balcony, not daring to come back in…yet.
Gloria explained there were several staff being held against their will inside the bridge: Captain Armati, Staff Captain Vitale, Purser Donovan Sweeney, along with Head of Security, Dave Patterson, Amit, the kitchen staff and finally the only woman they knew of, Ingrid Kozlov.
“We don’t know how many captors there are. Danielle counted three, but there may have been more. She didn’t have much time to look inside before one of them started chasing her and she fell off the side of the ship.”
“She’s lucky she survived,” Dot said.
Gloria agreed. “Yes, she is. I asked her about it and she said it was the way she fell that saved her.” She stiffened her back, pressed her arms close to her sides and lifted her head to demonstrate. “Straight down with toes pointed. And try not to panic,” Gloria added.
Margaret shuddered. “Whew! Well, I don’t plan on falling overboard.”
“Me either,” Gloria said. “Which is why I’m going to have a rope tied around me when they lower me to the deck below.”
Ruth jerked her head and shifted her gaze away from the monitor as she stared at Gloria. “You’re going to try to sneak into the captain’s apartment?”
Gloria nodded. “Only long enough to place a mic inside and then sneak back out. Someone in the bridge is a mole and we have to figure out whom that someone is.”
“But what if they catch you?” Dot asked.
“We can lower the phone first, to make sure the apartment is empty.”
Lucy shifted her feet. “Why not someone else, namely security?”
“Because this is my suite and I want to do it,” Gloria said.
Liz, her meltdown forgotten, overheard the conversation and made her way into the room. “You have lost your mind! You’re not a spring chicken, Gloria. What if you break another bone…or worse yet, fall into the ocean and drown?”
Gloria shrugged. “Nah! It’ll be over before you know it. I’m just waiting for Millie to get here.” She turned to Ruth. “I thought I saw a mic in your bag of tricks.”
Ruth nodded. “Yeah, I have one, but I’m not sure about this either,” she said as she slid out of the chair and headed to the closet.
“My ears are burning,” Millie strolled into the room, rope in hand.
“For the record, I am totally against Gloria doing this but she insisted.”
Gloria reached for the rope. “We need to get the phone set up first.”
Millie plucked her phone out of her pocket while Andrea headed to the other suite to get the selfie stick.
The two women quickly assembled the makeshift spy camera, complete with a couple more pieces of duct tape.
Ruth returned and handed Gloria a small silver object. “This is it.”
Millie finished tightening the screws on the end of the selfie stick. “Oh! I almost forgot. Here.” She handed Gloria a long, metal rod. On one end was a hook.
Gloria turned it over in her hand. “This looks like a…”
“It’s one of those hanger hooks, or as we used to call them, a shepherd’s hook,” Millie explained. “You can hook it onto the handrail and pull yourself to the balcony.”
“Gotcha! I’m ready. Tie me up!”
Andrea groaned.
Dot shook her head.
Lucy snorted.
“I wish I could go,” Ruth admitted.
“Maybe next time,” Gloria grinned.
Millie held up what appeared to be a jumble of straps. She flipped them around a couple times. “I think I have this right. Slip your legs in here.”
Gloria slipped her legs in the harness while Millie adjusted the back straps and then flung a black strap over each of her cousin’s shoulders.
Millie shifted to the front, clicked the metal latches to the belt and tugged. “For a brief time, we had a high wire theatrics show and they used this harness to keep the performers safe.”
“You don’t have the show anymore?” Lucy asked.
Millie shook her head. “Nope. One of the latches broke. The performer fell onto the stage below and suffered a concussion.” She gave Gloria a quick glance. “But they fixed the harness. It’s as good as new.”
Liz snorted and Gloria shot her a death look.
“I’ll run the phone video,” Dot offered and darted outside with the selfie stick. She eased it over the edge of the balcony, keeping an eye on it to make sure it wasn’t down too far and visible from the balcony below.
Cruise Control (Cruise Ship Christian Cozy Mysteries Series Book 6) Page 11
