Baked Alaska (8 page)

“Pete Cunningham,” Sadie said, her voice shaking as tears filled her eyes. She took as deep a breath as she could before she continued. “Not telling me what’s going on is only making me panic more. Don’t—”

Pete glanced down the hall again, but Shawn was almost out of sight. “Please trust me, Sadie. Please sleep.” He squeezed her hand quickly, then hurried down the hall, catching up with Shawn just as he rounded the corner toward the elevators.

Chapter 8

Sadie stood in the teeny-tiny bathroom of her cabin and held the small pill in the palm of her hand. She hadn’t taken one of her prescribed sleeping pills for a few months—not since the nightmares had subsided, at least the really bad ones that left her confused, sweating, and shaky in the middle of the night. When she’d packed her medications for the trip—bringing this one, just in case—she never imagined she’d need it because Shawn was talking to the ship’s security officers about a woman he didn’t want to tell Sadie about, and that he and Pete were in cahoots to keep her out of it.

She stared at the pill, considering her options. Instead of following Pete’s suggestion, she could leave the cabin and go to security herself. If she were obnoxious enough, they would likely take her to Shawn and Pete. They might even tell her something themselves—on purpose or on accident, depending on how she worked it. She could do obnoxious, even if it wasn’t her favorite part to play, and it might be worth it. But both Pete and Shawn had asked her to stay away. Would she betray their trust and perhaps complicate whatever it was they were doing?

Another option was to snoop around on her own and see what she could learn about this Tanice woman...at midnight...on a ship with three thousand passengers, not counting at least a thousand staff members. That didn’t seem like it would be a very effective use of her time.

She could wake up Breanna and force some answers regarding what
she
might know, but that was assuming what Breanna knew was connected to the woman. And Breanna had already been so stressed out tonight.

Why was Pete so supportive of the idea of waiting until tomorrow to tell her what he knew? That was perhaps the scariest part—whatever it was must be
so
bad that Pete needed time to figure out his approach.

Without thinking about it any longer, Sadie popped the pill into her mouth and chased it with a glass of water from the bathroom sink. She went through her nightly routine while obsessing over what Shawn and Pete were doing, wondering if Tanice was coming out of her stupor and, if so, what she and Shawn might talk about.

Not long after climbing into bed, her thoughts began jumping in and out of reality, a sign that the pill was kicking in. Hadn’t Jennifer Hudson once been a cruise ship performer? Was Jennifer Hudson on this ship? Was Steven Tyler a merman?

The final thought she had before she fell asleep, however, was remarkably lucid. What was Ben from the wine bottle gift tag doing right now? And why hadn’t he been in the welcome photo?

Chapter 9

Sadie’s brain woke up several minutes before her body recovered from the chemically induced sleep. It was why she’d stopped taking the pills unless she absolutely had to—waking up felt like swimming through oatmeal. Or Jell-O. Or the ship’s bread pudding.

Finally she was able to open one eye, then the other. She stared at the darkness since she couldn’t yet move her head. There wasn’t a window in the room, so there was no indication of daylight or time. She heard the movement of passengers in the hallway on the other side of the door, though it wasn’t loud.

She was eventually able to sit up, and a minute later, she stood, and once her brain accepted that she was officially awake and in motion, she moved toward the bathroom where she turned on the light, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the brightness. She undressed and then stepped into the shower. The water ran over her head for a solid five minutes before her brain finally remembered what had happened the night before. She straightened up so fast that she hit her head on the side of the tiny shower. She quickly washed her hair, then shut off the water, stepped out of the shower, and dried off as quickly as she possibly could. She hadn’t gone to bed until nearly midnight; it had to be close to eight o’clock by now. Shawn and Pete might already be waiting for her in the library.

Having not thought to bring her clothes into the bathroom with her, she wrapped herself up in a towel and opened the door slowly. She didn’t want to wake Breanna, so as soon as there was enough light in the cabin for her to see the drawers of the tiny dresser opposite the bathroom door, she moved as quickly and quietly as possible, gathering her underthings and a pair of jeans from the drawers before moving toward the closet for a shirt. A quick glance at Breanna’s bed caused her to do a double take, however.

Breanna’s bed was empty, her pajamas wadded up near the pillow. Sadie hit the main lights, illuminating the room. Where was Breanna? What time was it? She hurried for her cell phone on the nightstand. It didn’t have reception, but it still had the time.

“Ten fourteen!” she said aloud, then dropped the towel and proceeded to get dressed a whole lot faster. Once dressed, she returned to the bathroom and scrunched some gel into her hair. She’d spent a year transitioning from brown to salt-and-pepper gray with texturizing tones of blonde and brown throughout. It didn’t make her look as old as she’d once feared it would, and it worked well with her coloring. She usually blow-dried her hair with a large round brush to soften her natural curl into a stacked A-line bob—a more elegant style than she’d had the last few years—but there was no time for elegance today. She had to settle for curls she knew would dry as stiff as a Brillo pad.

Her skin had tightened as it dried, so she rubbed moisturizer into her cheeks and forehead while using her feet to kick her shoes out of the closet. There wasn’t time for her full makeup regime; she was eager to get to the library and learn the answers she’d been wanting since first getting onto this ship. By the time she ran out of the cabin, slinging her bag over her head and shoulder, it was 10:28.

The library was on deck twelve, and she had to pass the hot tubs and the chair Tanice had been in on her way. There were people soaking in the tubs, eating at the tables that flanked the windows, and lounging in the chairs.

The library was the second door on the right once she passed through the interior doors at the forward end of the open deck. She pulled the glass door open and then stopped at the threshold, scanning the dozen or so people inside the room. Her shoulders slumped as she realized that Pete, Shawn, and Breanna were not here. She knew she was two and a half hours late, but couldn’t they have waited? Or left a note or something?

Had she taken the time to actually look for a note in her room?

What she wouldn’t give for cell phone reception that could put her in touch with anyone in her family in mere seconds. She blew out a breath, loudly, which earned her disapproving looks from a few of the library patrons. She didn’t know where to start looking, and after standing there for several seconds, she headed back to her cabin—the only option she could think of. She let out another exasperated breath when she found a note sitting on top of Breanna’s computer.

Mom,

Didn’t want to wake you. We went to the security office but will come back here if we don’t see you there.

Love you,

Bre

She knew where they were, that was good, but knowing they were at security was uncomfortable. Shawn and Pete had headed there last night and still went
back
this morning? What did that mean? Tanice should be sober by now, right?

Sadie hurried up the aft stairs to deck eleven while half a dozen scenarios of what Shawn was hiding—and Pete and Breanna were in on it, too!—ran through her mind. She should never have taken that pill last night.

When she reached deck eleven, she saw the sign for security beside the starboard hall and headed toward the front of the ship, mindful that deck eleven was where she’d first seen Shawn and Tanice on Sunday—the same deck she’d walked around and around last night.

Her steps slowed, and she walked more carefully, as though there might be a clue on the carpet somewhere that would explain everything that had happened in these hallways. Of course, finding that kind of clue rarely happened outside of Agatha Christie novels, but it was always a possibility.

She passed a room steward who nodded at her before entering a cabin, propping the door open. It was several yards before Sadie passed the doorway leading to the forward elevators. She passed by the place where the hallway jogged right—where Tanice had disappeared on Sunday. It felt surreal to be covering the same ground after so much had happened. A door opened farther down the hall, and a woman stepped out, causing Sadie to slow down even more.

“I know, alright? I’ll be back in an hour,” the woman said into the open doorway.

She pulled the door shut and turned in Sadie’s direction. They both recognized each other at the same time—the woman had been in the elevator last night—and Sadie smiled politely.

“Hi, there,” the young woman said with her cute Texan drawl.

“Hi, again,” Sadie said.

“Did you find your friend last night?”

“Um, eventually, yes.”

“Oh, good,” the woman said, showing her bright white teeth. She was a beautiful girl with large green eyes and chestnut hair that fell in big loopy curls down her back. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Sadie stepped aside so the woman could pass her. “Have a lovely day,” the girl said as they continued in opposite directions.

“You too,” Sadie said back, then hurried farther down the hall, her thoughts centered on her son and the events of last night.

There was a curtain at the end of the hall, and she slowed down again, then pulled it to the side when she saw the sign confirming that she had reached the security office. It fell back into place behind her, separating a twenty-foot section of hall from where the cabins had been. The carpet and wall paneling matched the rest of the deck, but the two doors—one marked “Security” and the other marked “Staff Only”—were stark white against the more colorful décor.

The security office was a small room, utilitarian, about eight feet by twelve feet, with white walls and the same flat carpet as the rest of the ship. A desk was set in one corner and four plastic chairs were lined up against the opposite wall just past the doorway. A hallway led to the left.

A young woman with her dark hair pulled into a bun so perfect it looked plastic was seated behind the desk. She was dressed in a maroon-colored uniform shirt and black slacks; all the staff members wore something similar, though the colors of their shirts seemed to be different depending on their position. Her name tag said her name was Hazel, from Turkey. She said hello with a Middle Eastern accent.

“Hi,” Sadie said as she approached the desk and looked down the hallway lined with four solid white doors. Which room was Shawn in? What about Breanna and Pete? Or had they already left and she’d have to track them down all over again? “I’m looking for my son, Shawn Hoffmiller. Is he still here?”

“Ah, yes. You must be his mother. He said you might come.” She picked up the receiver of the phone on her desk. “I’ll let the investigator know you’re here. Your daughter and husband are here as well.”

“Thank you,” Sadie said, barely acknowledging the tenderness she felt at having Pete referred to as her husband.

“Please have a seat.”

Sadie sat in the chair she was waved toward and tried to focus on remaining calm. Knowing her loved ones were safe and accounted for should have helped her relax, but relaxation was hard to come by. It felt as though her anxiety had been put into a soda bottle that was being shaken, and shaken, and shaken, and at any minute the lid would come off and she’d explode. She focused on her de-escalation exercises: ignoring the shaken-bottle imagery, and concentrating on breathing, counting, and thinking happy thoughts.