Pastries and Pilfering

by Danielle Collins

  When he pushed the chair back a few clicks and laced his fingers behind his head, she let out a breath, closed her eyes for a few moments, then tried to refocus on the page.

  “What are you reading?”

  Heat rushed through her again. She knew she should tell him to mind his own business and get back to her book, but now the curiosity that was ingrained in her came to life. “David Baldacci’s latest.”

  “He’s good. Thrillers, huh?” His tone was conversational and her mind supplied an image of him in his latest action flick.

  “Yep,” she said, eyes still focused on the first page.

  Finally, after several minutes, he spoke again. “My name’s—”

  “I know who you are,” she interrupted then felt foolish.

  “Then I’m at a disadvantage.”

  Relegating herself to the reality that she obviously wasn’t going to get any reading done, she closed her book, keeping her finger in her place, and looked over at Brice.

  “Margot Durand.” She leveled her gaze on him.

  “Nice to meet you. Are you…traveling alone?”

  The urge to roll her eyes was strong again, but she resisted. “In a way, yes.”

  His eyebrows rose above his dark sunglasses. “I’m not sure I know what that means.”

  Then she saw them walking across the deck. Two women in bikinis with light, see-through wraps draped over their impossibly fit bodies. They were, no doubt, heading this way.

  “Well, I can see that you’re obviously not traveling alone, so I’ll just find another, quieter, area to read and let you have this extra chair. Looks like you’ll need it.” She forced a smile and stood, collecting her things just as the girls reached them.

  “There you are, sweetie,” one said, bending down to kiss him on the cheek, but he pushed her hand off his shoulder and sat up.

  “You don’t have to go. They aren’t—”

  “Who’s this?” the other girl asked, her gaze hard on Margot.

  “Really,” he said, standing as she turned to walk away. “They aren’t—”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Simmons. Your reputation precedes you.”

  And with that, she turned and left the handsome celebrity on the deck.

  Margot felt the heat of their exchange long after she had stepped into the coolness of the mezzanine area, but she would not be convinced by her fickle emotions. Sure, Brice Simmons was as handsome as they came and a talented actor too, but Margot was smarter than that. Smarter than to think his attention was anything other than a diversion to his otherwise planned out life. Wasn’t that how most celebrities lived?

  And then an image of Adam appeared in her mind and she smiled. Besides, when there was a man like Adam waiting for her back in Long Beach, and Virginia beyond that, Brice couldn’t compare.

  Pushing her tote further up on her shoulder, she trailed through the small shops and picked up a few small items for her friends back in North Bank. A crossword book with nautical terms for Bentley, a magnet for Rosie, and a postcard that she would send to the shop for them all. She intended to do more shopping in Ensenada, but for now, she enjoyed thinking of them as she shopped. A suitable gift for Dexter eluded her though.

  Then she ordered a latte and sat down at one of the more secluded tables on the main floor. Vibrant green plants sheltered her from those passing by and soon she was engrossed in the thriller that had proved so difficult to keep her focus on the deck. Occasionally sipping her coffee, she spent an hour reading before low voices broke into her concentration.

  “I don’t know. It’s just what I heard.”

  “But…I didn’t even know he was married,” another voice replied, this one higher pitched and nasally, making Margot think of a mouse.

  “Well, if it is true then she’s going to know about it the minute we get back to Long Beach,” the first voice said.

  “What makes you say that?” Mouse said.

  “For one, stuff like that doesn’t just stay on the ship. And secondly, I mean—hello,” the first woman paused for affect. “He’s the captain. And if someone saw him with her…well, it’s just going to get out. You’ll see.”

  “That’s so sad. I really liked her.”

  “Whatever. If she’s messing up his marriage, it serves them both right.”

  The voices trailed off and Margot saw two crewmembers walk past. Finding it unsettling that she’d just been privy to a very private conversation about none other than the ship’s captain, she closed her book and headed off to find Addie in the kitchen area.

  Trying to shake off the sad thoughts of a man cheating on his wife, Margot nearly missed the entrance to the kitchen. She pressed the door open soundlessly but stopped just inside when she heard low but forceful voices. They were coming from the back of the kitchen, but she couldn’t tell if it was Addie or not.

  Then her friend’s voice was clearly heard. “I just don’t understand!”

  Margot stepped forward, ready to go to her friend’s aid, when she bumped into the metal prep table in the middle of the room and sent the spatulas, spoons, and other utensils clattering to the floor.

  “I don’t know how many times I’ve told you to—” Addie stopped when she saw Margot with her hands outstretched to pick up the utensils. “Oh, Margot. I thought you were Noah.”

  Margot offered a forced smile as she righted the canister at the same time she heard a door closing. So there was another way out of the kitchen.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked, looking into her friend’s eyes.

  Addie avoided her direct gaze and fumbled with the edge of her apron. “Yeah. I’m just not…feeling well.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “For a headache?” Addie looked up, her wry smile unconvincing. “I don’t think so. But thank you anyway.” She stepped back, untying her apron. “Hey, why don’t I meet you for dinner tonight at The Acapella Room? I’ll get us reservations and we’ll catch up then. I think I’m just going to get some rest now. If you can fend for yourself?”

  Every intuition Margot had told her that her friend was lying, but she wasn’t sure that she should press the issue. Yet.

  “All right, honey, you go on. I’ll meet you there tonight, okay?”

  “Thank you,” Addie said, grabbing Margot’s hand and squeezing for a moment. “I’ll see you there tonight.”

  Margot watched her go, her suspicions aroused. Something was definitely wrong with her friend, but she wasn’t sure what. And who had she been talking to in the backroom?

  Her curiosity got the best of her and she made her way to the small office space at the back of the kitchen. There was another door. Margot opened it and popped her head into the hall, looking up and down it both ways. What corridor was this? She couldn’t be sure unless she reached the end of the hall where additional directions were usually posted, but she had checked the door handle and it was locked from the inside. Without a key, she’d be locked out and likely more than a little lost.

  Instead, she pulled the door closed behind her and went back into the kitchen. She was about to leave when she heard the office door open. A moment later, Noah came into the room.

  “Oh, Margot.” He stumbled back a few steps. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “I was just about to leave. I…” She fought for a good explanation but couldn’t find one. “Were you here earlier?”

  He frowned. “Earlier? No.” He shook his head, looking genuinely confused. “I was, uh, making my rounds between the kitchens and our bakery shop in the mezzanine. Why? Did you need something?”

  “No,” Margot was quick to reply. “Sounds like you’ve been busy.”

  “I’m always busy. It’s the nature of the beast,” he said with a grin that didn’t quite meet his eyes.

  “You said you’ve worked here three years?” she asked.

  “Yes, but before that, I was on a few different cruise lines. I feel like I practically grew up on a boat.”

 
“Seems like it,” she mused. “Well, I’d better get going. I’m going to do a lap or two around the ship—I hear that’s great exercise.”

  “It is,” he said, nodding with knowledge. “Enjoy it.”

  She left the kitchen feeling his gaze on her back. He probably wondered what she was doing in the kitchen without Addie, but as soon as she’d asked if he had been there earlier, she felt as if she’d locked herself into a bit of a trap. Since Noah hadn’t been the voice from earlier—or he hadn’t admitted to it—then if she’d said she’d seen Addie, he’d know Addie had been there with someone. Maybe she was being paranoid, but on a ship that put so much stock in gossip, she wasn’t going to risk her friend’s reputation.

  Shaking her head, she mentally berated herself. She was doing it again. Meddling. Poking her nose where it didn’t belong. Why couldn’t her friend have just had a disagreement? Those happened all the time. There was no need to read more into it.

  Besides, she was on vacation. It was time to start acting like it.

  Chapter 4

  Margot slipped on a long, cotton shift dress with tiny blue and white stripes. Accented with a golden anchor necklace and a lightweight grey cardigan, she slipped into her sandals and walked to dinner. The evening was cool, but not unpleasant, and she breathed in the salty air as she walked along the outside deck to reach The Acapella Room.

  She’d read up on the menu and requested attire of this particular restaurant and looked forward to seeing the chef’s creations. Her stomach growled in response and she secretly hoped that Addie was already there with their seat.

  The walkway curved with the ship and, as she stepped past a young couple walking with their arms around one another, she caught a glimpse of a tall man in a dark blazer and jeans a hundred yards in front of her. What caught her attention were the jeans. They were distinctive—a specific designer that liked to make flashy pockets on the back of all of his jeans—and she’d seen those jeans before.

  Or, at least, she thought she had, on Gabe Williams.

  But what would Gabe be doing on board a ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Unless he was on a vacation, she reasoned. That was likely, seeing as he lived in Long Beach and he had said he would be busy this week and for Adam to call him the next week…but it seemed odd to her that he hadn’t said anything about the cruise. She hadn’t mentioned hers, but that was because she didn’t know Gabe.

  Frowning as she passed the hall that she needed to turn down, she took one glance in the direction of The Acapella Room and then kept walking. He appeared to be alone and in no hurry, but she followed at a discrete distance anyway. Still, she wasn’t positive it was him. How could she explain following him if he turned around and found her standing there? Then again, she could have been going in the same direction as he was and then she’d play the surprised act about meeting a friend of a friend and what a small world it really was.

  Could she pull that off though? Unlike Brice Simmons, she was no actress.

  Up ahead, Maybe Gabe opened a door and slipped into the interior of the ship. After waiting a moment, she followed suit, hoping it wasn’t going to be a long hallway with no place to hide, in case he turned around. But when she stepped inside the hallway, she was faced with an empty corridor in both directions.

  Where had he gone? She hadn’t even seen his face clearly enough to know if it really was Gabe either.

  Feeling frustrated that she’d missed her opportunity, she was about to go back outside and make her way to dinner when she heard a door close down the hall to her left. Only after a moment’s hesitation did she set off in that direction. She relaxed her shoulders and, rather than looking inquisitive, she tried to look like she was simply lost. That way, if Gabe did come around a corner or out of a room, she would be able to feign misunderstanding of directions. Though, if he were anything like Adam, he’d see right through that.

  Why was she suspicious of him anyway? It was her nature to question and investigate, one of the things her late husband Julian had loved about her—or so he’d said. But it went back to his conversation with Adam at the restaurant and the fact that he looked as if he worked for a multimillion-dollar company, not the Long Beach police force. Or had she read into that? No, Adam had clearly said he was one of “Long Beach’s finest,” hadn’t he?

  The closer she came to what looked like a bend in the hall the more anxious she felt. Would she turn the hall and come face to face with him? Did he know she was following him? Was she being overly worried for no reason?

  At the end of the hall, she read the sign that denoted what she would find if she turned in that direction. She was on the southeast wing, level five, or so the sign said. The arrow pointing around the corner indicated that it led to the sports equipment area. What did that mean?

  Taking a risk, she did a quick peek around the corner to find the short hallway closed. Then the sound of something falling, muffled by the closed door, could clearly be heard. Someone was in the sports equipment room. But who? Maybe Gabe? And would they come back out this door? Her stomach clenched and she looked around. Aside from a very thin, very fake looking plant, and a door marked Housekeeping Closet, there was nowhere but back.

  She heard another sound, this time something moving in the sports room followed by footsteps coming toward the door.

  It was now or never. She was either going to pretend to be lost and risk whoever it was seeing through her cover, or she was going to…

  Her gaze snagged on the housekeeping closet again and without thought, she pulled the door open. Thankful to see it was large enough to stand in, she stepped inside and closed the door, praying it wouldn’t somehow be locked, not allowing her back out. Then she waited, holding her breath.

  Moments later, she heard a door open then close and then rapid footsteps heading back down the hall. Hoping to catch a glimpse of who it was, she went to open the door but it wouldn't move. Panic surged through her. Was she locked in to this small closet?

  Taking in a steadying breath, she gripped the handle more firmly and shoved. The door burst open, taking her with it into the hall. Her first thought was relief at not being locked in the closet, but the second was whether or not she’d alerted whoever it was to her presence. She looked around and found that the halls were empty. It wasn’t far back to the outside door, she reasoned, and the person had already made it outside.

  Letting out a shaky breath, she closed the closet door and went toward the sports storage area. The door was closed, but when she tried the handle, it moved easily and opened out toward her. She stepped inside, the only lights that of an exit sign across the room and then the light flooding in from the hallway.

  Margot pulled out her cellphone and tapped on the flashlight app, stepping inside the room but keeping the door open. She wasn’t about to risk getting trapped in another room, even if only for a moment.

  It looked like the room housed all sorts of sports equipment, hence its name, for guest’s recreation while on board and probably even for when they docked in Mexico. In front of her she saw what must have fallen, alerting her to the person’s presence in the room. A set of golf clubs lay on the ground, another set standing upright beside them.

  She gingerly stepped over them then stopped, frozen in place. There, sticking out between a bin of beach balls and a wrapped up pool volleyball net, were a pair of ruby red high heels still attached to a pair of legs.

  Slowly, careful not to disturb anything else, Margot stepped around the equipment and froze. It was a woman lying face down on the ground. She wasn’t moving.

  “You say you were lost?”

  Margot swallowed. She didn’t like lying and made a habit not to, but in this instance, she wasn’t sure it was appropriate, or in her best interests, to point out she was following a man that she thought to be a Long Beach police officer…and she hadn’t actually seen him go into the room. She’d only heard someone.

  “In a manner of speaking. I mean, there are so many halls on this ship.
” She gave a light laugh even though that felt wrong in the presence of a dead body.

  “Right.” The ship’s lead security officer, Harvey Pearson, was a grizzled older man with weathered features she’d expect to see on a man who had fished for a living, but he assured her that he’d been a cop before taking his ‘cushy gig’ on board the Carousel Luxury.

  “And was it exactly that drew you to come into the sports storage facility?” His eyebrows rose at the question but she didn’t feel as if he doubted her story, only that he was trying to understand it.

  “I heard someone in there and then the sound of something falling. I assume it was those clubs.” She indicated the fallen golf clubs.

  “And you didn’t see anyone?”

  “No.” She flushed and looked down. “I actually stepped into the, um, housekeeping closet.”

  His eyebrows shot up even higher. “And may I ask why?”

  “I felt foolish,” she said, embellishing on one of her feelings, even if it wasn’t the main reason. “I mean, I was lost at the end of a hall and…” She shrugged.

  He pursed his lips. “Look, if there’s something you aren’t telling me—”

  Just then the door opened and a tall, handsome man strode in. He wore a navy blue jacket with gold braiding indicating he was the captain. Margot assessed him, her mind flitting to what she’d overheard that very day. He was good looking, probably in his early forties—maybe late thirties—and had a commanding presence about him. Then again, she knew she wouldn’t be able to see unfaithfulness on a man. Though sometimes…

  “Pearson, what is going on?” he said. His manner was direct, if not a little gruff, and his voice reminded her of something but she wasn’t sure what.

  “Drugs. Looks like we’ve got an overdose.”

  The captain sighed. “Not again.”

  Margot’s eyebrows shot up. “Again?”

  “I’m sorry,” the captain said, looking down at her. “Who are you?”