Deadly Reunion (15 page)

“These are expensive to use here, but I don’t care. Maybe ’cause I’ve been drinking,” Jane added with a grin. She listened a minute longer and closed her phone. “She’s not answering.”

“Let’s go look for her. Oops.” I stepped away from the bar and felt the ship shift under my foot.

“Do you need a wheelchair? I’m sure we can get one.”

“I can walk. It’s the liquor mixing with my brain and equilibrium. Or we’re moving. I’m fine.”

“Where do you think we should go? I swear, I’m rooming with the woman, but so far, I haven’t found out a thing about her, at least nothing important.”

“Like what major problem does she have that we are here to solve?” I said.

Jane nodded. “Tetter isn’t the chatterbox she used to be in school. For me to get her to talk, I have to ask questions and pull every word out of her. I haven’t gotten her to tell me anything personal.”

“Maybe we need to confront her. It’s time. And I’m afraid our friend Randy might be the cause of her stress.”

“Are you serious?”

“Surely you’ve noticed.”

“I think he’s doing a little innocent flirting, but they’re just friends. I came on this cruise to relax and have fun. Tetter’s trouble concerned me, too, but I thought with her as my roommate, I’d get her to open up fast and then we could fix things. That isn’t happening yet. She only clutters the place.”

“There’s another possibility of what might be her troubling situation.” I spoke quieter, and Jane leaned close. “She didn’t change into dressy clothes for formal night but kept on what she’d worn. Do you think maybe she doesn’t have dressier things and can’t afford them?”

“I hadn’t considered that possibility.” Jane’s vision appeared to go inward. “Maybe that’s why at first she said she couldn’t come. But then she wanted to join us so badly and learned she could share a room and the costs with me…”

“Exactly my thoughts.”

Her husband could have lost his job or any number of possibilities.”

I nodded. “She didn’t seem interesting in shopping and didn’t even check out any prices on clothes.”

“You might have something there, Cealie. If so, you and I might at least treat her to some things onboard.”

“Discreetly. And then if we learn she or her husband needs employment, maybe they’d fit well at one of my offices.” I glanced at growing numbers of people ambling around our area but didn’t spot Tetter. Peering at open areas of the decks above, I didn’t see her near the rail. “Let’s go up,” I said. “Randy was shopping. Maybe she’s in one of those stores.”

On the next deck up, we checked shops, searching for Tetter. Jane bought a pair of garnet earrings. No Tetter. We checked the library. Three young women and an elderly couple perused books. A foursome of teens sprawled on sofas, playing Monopoly.

“Let’s try the next deck,” I said, pointing above.

We stepped off the elevator and glanced at an open bar with passengers sitting on barstools and singing along with a guitarist playing a medley of ’60s and ’70s songs.

Hearing tunes we’d grown up with, Jane and I gripped each other, sang, and swayed to the beat. I hated to leave the music but knew we wouldn’t find Tetter if we remained.

Begrudgingly, I led the way on. We passed a game room for kids and heard their cheerful voices, then neared the casino.

“Randy was in there when I first saw him,” I said.

“Let’s see if he’s there now.” She stepped inside and checked people at machines.

I peered at those around card tables and shooting craps. The din of machines assailed my ears. Quarters and nickels clattered in trays of machines in one of the few places that still allowed coins. I swallowed secondhand smoke and coughed.

“Tetter!” Jane said from inside a cranny.

I rushed to her.

Tetter glanced at us from her stool in front of a red, white, and blue seven machine. The machine accepted quarters. She played the max. “Are you all playing?” she asked, and the sevens on her machine quit spinning. One white and two blues.

“No, actually—” Jane said.

“We’re just looking around,” I said, butting in, “and glad we found you.” I didn’t want to let her know how frantic I was to do that, mainly to make sure she was all right.

Where did that thought come from? Had I really feared for her? We hadn’t been in a rush to find her, but probably that scream I’d thought was hers lingered in the back of my mind.

“Did you think I was lost?” Tetter asked.

Jane glanced at me before answering, saw me shaking my head no, and did the same with hers before speaking. “We just hadn’t seen you in a while.”

“I’m playing a little. Are y’all trying your luck, too?” Tetter pressed the Play Max button, and her sevens spun. I hoped she’d have luck but knew the odds were against it. One white and two reds stopped. She’d lost almost a dollar to watch those numbers spin.

“I don’t play,” I said, “except once in a while I might decide to throw a few dollars away. Today’s not my day.”

Jane gave the same type response, and I took the opportunity to glance around, seeing if I spotted Randy. I didn’t, but he could be in another part of the casino.

“We were passing through and checking out things to do now,” I told Tetter, which was almost the truth. “Do you want to join us?”

“No, I’ll keep trying my luck.” She punched the button again to let the machine swallow seventy-five cents. “I’ll see you all at dinner.”

“Good luck,” Jane said, and I tilted my head toward the rear of the casino, letting Jane know I wanted to go that way.

Out of Tetter’s hearing, I said, “Let’s find out if Randy’s here.”

Jane looked at me strangely, like what’s-the-deal, but we trailed through rows of machines. We found smoke and clanging machines, many with funny creatures and oil wells and jewels and such, but no Randy.

“I only noticed a few people winning. I like to hear the coins fall,” she said, “but I don’t like the mess or smell of them on my hands.”

“And we didn’t find Randy.”

“Maybe you’re way off about something going on between him and Tetter.”

“You could be right,” I said, but still believed my first instinct about the pair.

We reached the rear of the ship. The only thing open behind the casino was that sports bar. I snuck a peek inside. Almost everyone watched baseball on the wall-mounted TV. No familiar faces.

We ambled back the way we’d come. Tetter still punched the large button on the right, the Max.

“Maybe her problem is gambling,” I suggested. “She seems to get really into the game. That machine is swallowing lots of her money. It’s time for us to find out what’s wrong with her.”

Jane shoved back her bangs. “If she doesn’t want to tell us, that’s fine. At least we can go on and have fun on this trip without constantly worrying about helping her.”

“It would be hard to be of assistance if she doesn’t want help.” I glanced back. Three white sevens rolled to a stop across her screen. Tetter threw both arms up and pumped her fists, the most excited I’d seen her on this ship. “I doubt that we can get her attention enough right now to leave her machine and confide in us. Let’s get her tonight.”

“I’ll get her to talk first,” Jane said with a grin.

“No, I will.”

Jane stopped walking and crooked out her pinkie finger, waiting to hook it on mine.

I hadn’t made a pinky bet since childhood. Doing it brought out my smile and also, I found, my youthful attitude. Ordinarily I felt younger than my actual age, but the leg I’d injured from my trying to act like a really young woman and concerns about people on this boat, but especially off the boat with Tommy, all drained my spirit.

I didn’t want to think about my son and what I could or could not do about his troubling situation. I missed staying around him and seeing the rest of his family.

“Let’s sing,” I said as we neared the crooning guitar player in his corner near the open-air bar. Singing would help rid us of tension. The young man belted out “Hey Jude” by the Beatles. Women our age, older, and younger gripped tall glasses with tiny umbrellas and swayed and sang with him, as did many people at the bar.

Jane held me around the waist. “This will be just like in high school.”

I nodded, determined the next words of the song, and spotted Randy and Sue on barstools next to each other. Each one held a glass of foam-topped beer. Strange to see those two together.

“Hey, come sing with us,” I called to them.

“It’ll be like old times,” Jane said, tugging Sue’s hand.

Sue drew her hand away. “I’ll watch you all and try to remember,” she said rather nastily.

Randy shook his head. He swigged his drink and motioned that we should go ahead with our song and dance.

Jane drew me closer toward the singer in the corner. She swayed, leaning in toward my shoulder. “So what do you think now? Do you believe Randy and Sue also have something going on together?” she asked with a giant grin.

I drew my eyebrows together with a don’t-be-silly grimace and shook my head. I faced the musician and belted out the last words of the song with him, pretending I was totally vested in the music.

People applauded as the song ended. Those on the dance area remained in place, sipping drinks, watching the musician prepare for the next number.

I began imagining what
old times in school
probably meant to Sue. Back then she had been Stu, short for Stuart. He’d been cute in a simple sort of way, like the boy next door, tall with an average build and average looks, nothing to stand out or repel a person. But his personality annoyed most guys and girls, and eventually we’d discovered why. He’d always felt like a girl trapped inside a boy’s body. How tough that must have been. How alone he must have felt. And who accepted him right after a doctor’s scalpels altered his body into the lovely, curvaceous Sue?

My school friends and I had been shocked. We were so young, more concerned about our own bodies and lives than anyone else’s.

Recalling those days filled me with shame. Probably no one in the rowdy crowd with us noticed, but I felt my cheeks flush. With renewed empathy, I glanced at Sue, leaning her head toward Randy, still beside her at the bar. I gave her a big smile and wave.

Meeting my gaze, Randy nodded.

Sue’s face remained solemn. She did not reward me with any type of acknowledgement.

I turned away, shame clinging like a leech. I was not in a mood to dance or remain around cheerful music. “I’m going to my room,” I told Jane, whose eyes brightened and shoulders swung as the singer belted out “Yellow Submarine.”

She placed her face close to mine. Eyebrows lifted, she sang the song’s refrain, certainly trying to tempt me into staying.

I did love the music. These were songs we had danced to while we fell in love over and over when we were young. Now concerns about my horrible attitude toward Sue drained me. “I need to go and rest my leg before dinner,” I said in Jane’s ear.

She snapped her fingers and danced in place, answering me with a nod.

I hobbled off, wobbling more than I needed to. I was hurting inside and maybe made my body match my mood. I did wrong by not taking up for Stu when we were kids, and not being his friend now that he’d come out to be himself, a gorgeous woman calling herself Sue.

I had even been jealous of her looks and, maybe because of that, judged her to be capable of killing a man who’d fallen down the stairwell, which was probably accidental.

“Sad. Sad, Cealie,” I muttered, not meeting the gazes of adolescents in swimsuits riding the elevator with me. Surely they thought I was mentally unstable. They could be right.

Shoulders drooping, I wobbled to my stateroom. I grabbed the ship’s newsletter in the plastic mailbox beside the door, slid my key card into the slot, and pushed inside.

Tossing papers across the bed, I was ready to lie in bed and rest my leg. I needed to rid my mind of concerns. I would love a nap, even though it was late afternoon. I could sleep through dinner, which might be a good thing. Then I wouldn’t need to face Sue with all of the others.

I had to apologize for all the years I didn’t show my support for what she was going through as Stu. I wouldn’t do that in front of everyone.

I sucked in a deep breath and threw my hips back onto the bed.

And then noticed something different in my room.

It was not that it was cleaner than before, which it certainly was. A jacket I’d carelessly let drop this morning now hung on the back of a chair. The ship’s robe that I’d worn and left on the bed wasn’t there. Someone surely had hung it in my closet. Items I’d left on the built-in vanity remained, but were much more orderly than before. The ice bucket was still up there. But instead of it being closed, the top had been removed. Leaning inside it was a tall green bottle with a ribbon tied near its cork.

“Champagne!” I said, hopping off the bed.

I had missed Gil after he’d left me today. Obviously he’d also missed me.

Fresh ice filled the bucket, chilling the champagne. The long stems of two fluted glasses crossed each other near the bottle.

Giddiness replaced my doldrums. I grabbed the phone on my wall, charged the call to my room, and punched in numbers for Gil’s cell.

“Hey, Cealie,” he answered after the second ring. “Can I call you back later? I’m caught up in a meeting right now.”

“Call as soon as you can. Or come up to my room. We can share what you sent me.” I laughed and lowered my voice in a sexy tone. “You naughty boy.”

“Naughty?” Quiet seconds ensued. “What did I send you?”

“Don’t play around with me, although you might do that after we share a glass or two. Champagne bubbles do tend to make me sizzle. I might take some clothes off.”

“What are you talking about?” Irritation filled his tone.

I didn’t understand why he was getting riled. I slid on my bifocals and read the card attached to the bow on the bottle. The card said A GIFT FOR YOU.

“Who sent you champagne?” Gil sounded incensed.

“You,” I said, but then read the signature. “Executive Chef Andrew Sandkeep.”

“What? Why would he send you champagne?” Gil huffed.

Why indeed?

Chapter 13