by Sharon Dunn
It would be safer for Maya not to be out in the open. “I like that idea.”
They hurried through the corridors of the ship. David stood outside Maya’s door while she slid the card key across the reader.
“Let me have a look around before I leave you here alone to go change out of my uniform.”
She stepped aside to let him go in first.
“If there is any kind of new smell in here, Sarge will alert to it.” She kneeled and released the Malinois from his leash.
Sarge took off with his nose to the carpet while David checked the tiny bathroom, pulling back the shower curtain, and then he returned to the main room and checked under the bed while Maya opened the closet door. The dog sat back on his hindquarters and looked to Maya for further instructions.
“Just give me a minute to get changed,” David murmured. “You can call into the staff kitchen and order something. I’m partial to the chicken parmesan.” When she smiled at that last part, he added, “I’ll give you the number code for staff to order. There should be a print menu for the staff kitchen in one of your drawers. Ask who the name of your server will be.”
“Got it.” After David gave her the five-digit number code for ordering, Maya headed across the room.
He had his hand on the doorknob that connected their two rooms. “Maya, remember to dead bolt the door until the delivery guy comes. And ask ahead of time what his or her name is when you order. Get verification that is the person at the door before you open it.” He didn’t like leaving her even for a moment. Hopefully, he would get changed before dinner even came.
“Will do. Those security measures make total sense.” Maya moved across the room and dead bolted it.
David returned to his own room. His time in the military had taught him to live a minimalist lifestyle, which meant his cabin was tidy and uncluttered. He’d noticed that Maya tended to fling her suitcase open and leave clothes and clutter around. As he slipped out of his uniform and changed into something more casual, he wondered why he was even taking note of their different habits and tolerance for clutter. He hung the uniform outside the door so it would be picked up for cleaning and returned.
Then he knocked on the door that separated his and Maya’s cabin.
“Come in. Food’s on its way.”
He opened the door. She had changed into an oversized orange sweater and jeans and she’d unbraided her long dark hair. It was the first time he’d seen her with her hair down. His heart fluttered at the sight of her. The faint smile she offered him only added to her beauty. Sarge lay at the foot of the bed. Maya had taken his service dog vest off. Though the dog was in a resting pose, his lifted head and straight ears suggested that he intended to be “on the job.”
“When the food comes, my cabin is a little bigger and there is a dining area. Maybe we could eat over there.”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
“These cabins are below the waterline of the ship so I’m sorry we don’t have a viewing deck or anything. Not exactly the same experience as the passengers.”
“I don’t mind. Dinner with you would be nice no matter what.”
The comment caused him to flush.
A second later, there was a knock at the door. And a female voice announced, “Room service from the staff kitchen.”
“Her name is Angie. You can get the meal if you want to. I’ll stay out of the way.”
Maya stepped out of view of the door.
David strode toward the door and flipped the dead bolt back. “Thanks, Angie. Much appreciated.” He pulled the room service cart inside and then dead bolted the door again. “What did your order?”
“You said the chicken parmesan was good, so I got that too.”
Maya held the door open for him while David pushed the cart into his suite. Together they placed everything on the little table and sat down. She called Sarge to come lie at her feet, and after saying grace, they dug into the meal.
David cut his chicken and took a bite, relishing the Italian spices and moistness of the meat. “Our staff chef does this so perfectly every time. Although it does taste a little different. I wonder if he changed the recipe.”
Maya took a bite as well. “It’s yummy.”
They shared small talk about different calls they had been on in their jobs, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. Maya was a hearty eater who seemed to enjoy the meal as much as he did.
Midway through their meal, his stomach started to twist. He had the sensation of heat rising up his face. When he looked over at Maya, her face was red too.
“I think something in the food was off.”
He ran for the bathroom. He heard Maya’s footsteps and she hurried to her own bathroom.
As he flushed the toilet, a dreadful thought entered his mind. They’d been poisoned. Because they both had ordered the same thing, both meals had been tampered with. Still feeling nauseated and weak, he crawled out into the main room and reached for his phone to call the ship doctor.
Through the open door that connected their rooms, he could hear Maya being sick and Sarge pacing and whimpering.
He dialed the number and spoke to the ship’s nurse even while his stomach threatened another eruption. “This is security officer Garrison. I’m in my cabin. I think I and a passenger have been poisoned. I need to arrange for transport. There is no way we can make it on our own.”
The nurse promised a speedy response.
He clicked off the phone and lay on the floor on his stomach. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He prayed that they were not too late in getting the poison flushed out of their systems.
SEVEN
Feeling weak and nauseated, Maya awoke in a dark room. The last few hours had been a blur. Medical personnel had come for her and David. They’d been transported on stretchers. At some point, she must have lost consciousness or been given something.
Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the dark. There were curtains on either side of her hospital bed, and she was hooked up to an IV. The doctor must have flushed the poison out of her system by pumping her stomach.
A sense of panic made her more alert. What had happened to Sarge? Had David survived the poisoning? She tried to sit up, but the room spun around her, forcing her to slump back down. Her head sank even deeper into the pillow.
She padded the area around her on the bed. There must be a call button somewhere. She couldn’t find it, and she didn’t have the strength to roll on her side to see if it was on the tray beside her bed.
Footsteps tapped toward her.
“Nurse? Doctor?” Her voice was hoarse and faint. Her throat was raw from throwing up.
The footsteps grew louder coming toward her. A shadow appeared on the other side of the curtain.
“Nurse? I could use some help.” She rested her hands on her stomach which wasn’t churning anymore but still hurt.
Whoever was outside her curtain didn’t respond. Instead he or she walked almost a full circle around her. They got to the place where the two curtains came together creating an opening.
“Hello?”
He or she continued to stand just outside the opening. Maya’s heartbeat revved up a notch. She had a feeling whoever was on the other side of the curtain was not medical personnel. Having found out that she’d survived the poisoning, the attacker had come to finish the job.
She summoned all her strength to cry out. “Nurse? Somebody?” Her voice sounded weak. She wondered if anyone would even hear her.
A light came on at the far end of the room. The silhouette of the man outside her curtain retreated. But the footsteps were not rapid, almost as if the attacker were trying to appear casual as he made his escape.
Again, she heard tapping footsteps coming from the opposite direction that the attacker had gone.
A man pulled back her curtain a few inches and poked his
head in. “Everything all right here?”
“I...” Talking still took substantial effort. She lifted her hand and pointed in the direction the assailant had gone. “Did you see a man leaving...that way?”
The man shook his head. “I was focused on you. I thought I heard you cry out.”
She nodded.
“Is everything okay?” he asked. “I’m the night duty nurse. My name is John.”
She nodded. “David Garrison? Is he okay?” She braced for bad news.
“He’s three beds over and still unconscious from the sedation. Both of you had a rough go at it. But I think we got you flushed out fast enough.”
She relaxed. David had made it.
“We took samples, but we won’t know what it was until we can get it to a lab. At first we thought food poisoning, but no one else who ate the chicken parmesan got sick.”
Her mind still felt foggy. She’d known right away that it was poison. That meant between the time the food had been prepared and then brought to her door someone had tampered with it. It was unlikely that a passenger would have had access to the crew kitchen. And how would they have known that she and David had put in an order? That meant that the attacker was a member of staff or crew. As her thinking became clearer, she felt a fresh wave of panic. “My dog?”
John shook his head. “I’m sorry I don’t know anything about a dog.”
She placed her hand on her chest. “There was a service dog, Sarge.” The K-9 was well-trained enough that he would have remained in the room until he was commanded to do otherwise. Her fear was that the attacker had taken the opportunity to harm Sarge since he saw the dog as an obstacle to taking her out of the picture.
The nurse stepped toward her. “I can ask around about the dog. Now why don’t you let me take your vitals and then you can get some sleep?”
“I won’t be able to sleep until I know that Sarge is okay. How long have I been out of it?”
“It’s past nine p.m.” John lifted her hand and put a device on her finger to measure her pulse. After he finished checking her blood pressure and her stomach sounds, he turned to go, promising to ask around about her dog.
Maya managed to get herself into a sitting position. She stared at the ceiling and tried to not let her mind wander to all the bad things that could have happened to Sarge. “David? Are you awake?”
“Hey,” David’s voice sounded weak and far away. All the same, it was a welcome sound. “I just now woke up. Still feel groggy from the sedative.”
“Why don’t you ask the nurse to open the curtains between us? Maybe they can scoot your bed closer.”
“Okay. Just give me a minute. It takes all my brain and muscle power to push the call button and talk.”
She let out a breath that sufficed for laughter. “I know the feeling.”
While she waited in the near darkness, she prayed for Sarge’s safety. The bond to her partner was just as strong as if Sarge had been human. The thought of anything happening to him filled her with despair.
It was hard enough to be away from the rest of the K-9 unit. To not know if Sarge was okay was heartbreaking.
She heard the patter of footsteps and the sound of David’s voice though he spoke in such a low voice she couldn’t understand his words.
A few minutes later a different nurse, an older woman, and John were pulling curtains out of the way. Seeing David two beds over lifted her spirits. He offered her a wave and a faint smile.
Together the two nurses worked to get the empty bed out of the way and push David’s hospital bed closer to Maya. They turned on the lights over her bed.
“Don’t visit too long,” John said. “Both of you need your rest. Your bodies have been severely traumatized.”
“Any news on Sarge?”
“The dog was not in the room. We’re still trying to track down what happened to him.”
Her fear came back tenfold. Sarge would not have left the room on his own.
Once the two nurses were gone, Maya shared her theory that it was a crew member not a passenger who was behind the attacks.
David nodded. “I think you’re probably right. If a passenger had been down in the crew area someone would have directed them to leave.”
“How are the room service meals set up and delivered?”
“There is a board with room numbers up for delivery on it,” he told her. “Anyone in the kitchen would have seen that. I think the food has a room number place card with it when it’s placed on a cart for delivery. Might even be sitting on the cart for a while.”
“So plenty of chances to sprinkle something toxic.”
“We need to talk to the woman who delivered it,” David said. “She’s not a suspect, but maybe she saw something.”
Maya adjusted her pillow behind her back. She could feel herself getting weaker from the exertion of sitting up. “The problem is the culprit would have totally blended in. Is it only the cooks and servers who go into the kitchen area?”
“All the staff and crew have access to that kitchen. Some like to cook their own meals because of dietary restriction or preferences. It could have been a crime of opportunity. The culprit was down there, saw that we had ordered a meal and grabbed whatever poison was available.”
“It has to have been something that didn’t alter the flavor of the food much. Nothing tasted off to me,” she said.
“You hadn’t had that dish before. It did taste different to me.”
David’s skin was pale, and his eyes didn’t seem to have much life in them. “Are you feeling as tired as I am?”
He nodded. “I heard you talking about Sarge. I’ll wait with you until we get some news.”
She smiled despite herself. His desire to be supportive of her despite his weakened state touched her deeply. They continued to talk about the case as both their voices faded and the response time grew longer. Despite her concern for Sarge’s welfare, the heaviness of sleep took over and she nodded off. Hours later she awoke in the darkness. David snored faintly.
Where was Sarge? Where was her partner?
* * *
The sound of voices at the far end of the room forced David to climb out of his deep slumber. In the dim light, he could just make out Maya in her hospital bed. The IV allowed her to sleep only on her back. Her hands rested on top of each other over her heart.
Footsteps came toward them.
Maya stirred awake lifting her head. “Who is it?” Fear permeated her voice.
“Not sure.” Maybe her fear made sense. They were both in no condition to fend off any kind of an attack. He wouldn’t put it past the assailant to take advantage of their weakened state and the lack of security around them.
He tuned his ears to the sounds around him. At least two sets of footsteps were coming toward them. Maybe that was a good sign.
A curtain was pulled back. John, the male nurse, stuck his head in. “Maya, I have a surprise for you.”
She struggled to push herself into a sitting position. The curtain was pulled back even more revealing Noah and Sarge. The dog wagged his tail and whined.
Maya let out a cry of joy.
“It’s against regulations to let a dog in here, but I thought we could let it slide for just a minute,” John said.
Maya looked at Noah. “What happened? How did Sarge end up with you?”
The dog wouldn’t stop wagging his tail and whining but he remained beside Noah.
“Just as I was getting off shift, I saw the call on the board that was from David’s room number. You guys had already been transported. I went to the room and found your dog just sitting there waiting. When I called in to the infirmary, they said they would let me know when you two were out of the woods and awake.”
“Someone else must have taken the call,” John mused.
“Anyway, Sarge has been good comp
any,” Noah said. “He mostly slept at the foot my bed while I tried to get some shut-eye. Would have been here sooner, but I only woke up a bit ago.”
Maya directed her question to the nurse. “Can he come over and say hello to me?”
“Sure,” John replied.
Maya commanded Sarge to come over to the side of her bed that was opposite of where the IV was. The dog stood up and put his paws up on the bed and Maya leaned forward so she could get some doggie kisses. “I missed you.”
David felt a sense of joy at witnessing the reunion between the two partners.
John excused himself, saying he had another patient he needed to deal with.
Maya commanded Sarge to get down. The dog returned to Noah.
The officer leaned over and grasped the leash. “I’ll watch him until you two are released.”
“Hopefully, that will be in a few hours. We really can’t afford to stay here much longer.” The one thing that was clear to David was that Noah could be taken off the suspect list. He had had an opportunity to take Sarge out of the picture and instead had made sure the dog was taken care of.
David signaled for Noah to come closer. He spoke in a low tone. “I need you to go back on duty. See if you can track down the woman who delivered our meal. Her name’s Angie.”
“I know Angie.”
“Then if you can talk to the kitchen staff that was on duty when our meal was prepared, see if anyone saw anything unusual, if there’s anything poisonous that is missing and if anyone acts suspicious when you question them. I’m not sure what would be in a kitchen that could poison someone so quickly. Cleaning products maybe.”
“Got it. You two take care of yourselves.” He left with the dog in tow.
Maya let out a heavy breath. “I wish Sarge could stay here with me.”
“Why don’t we both get a few hours’ rest and then get out of here and see if we can track down our poisoner.”
“I agree. We can’t waste any more time. The killer is out there, and I have a feeling he is going to escalate as we get closer to catching him.”
