Deadly Reunion (24 page)

“You changed your mind and want to run?” She jogged in place in front of me.

“If I tried, I’d surely slip out there.” I glanced at the water and diverted my gaze so I wouldn’t swoon.

“Do you think that’s what happened to her?” Jane asked.

“She wasn’t here when you came up this morning?”

Jane sucked in a breath and shook her head. “Tetter was already down there.” Her gaze trailed toward the water we sailed through. “Cealie, I’ve never heard of anyone falling off a ship unless they leaned way out or tried some dangerous stunt. I can’t imagine her doing either one.”

“Did you find out anything from the security staff that questioned us?”

“All I know is they can ask about a lot of things.” She pursed her lips. “And that they bag all of her possessions. They’re doing that in my room right now. They have the room sealed off.”

“How horrible.” I grasped her hand. “Then you know she died.”

Diverting her eyes and retaining her pace, Jane nodded. “Since she was my roommate, they told me.” She sucked in air and met my gaze. “I separated her things and set them in the middle of the room so they could find everything that’s hers. They’ll give her possessions to her family.”

“My gosh, her family. Do they know about her yet?”

She stared at her running shoes, still lifting and hitting the outdoor turf track, and shrugged. “The chief purser was going to contact them and make arrangements for them to get her in a port.”

“I can’t believe this is all happening.”

“I can’t, either.” Her lips pressed together.

“Did she ever tell you what was really troubling her?” I asked, and Jane shook her head. “We’ll have to try to figure out what happened.”

“Yes. But first I’ve got to get rid of some of these jitters. I need to run.”

I experienced the strange sudden sensation that, since I was blocking her, she would run over me if I didn’t get out of her way. I stepped aside and backed away from the track. “Let’s talk later.”

She took off in a dash right where I’d been standing. I watched Jane dashing away, arms pumping, legs pounding, and could not envision myself doing that ever again.

There was a time
, I reminded myself, gripping the handrail and inching backward down the stairs, trying not to think of balconies and falls. There had been a time when I could run like that. Keeping my eyes on each step, I tried to recall running after I’d finished high school. Yes, during my college P.E. class called “Conditioning.” I was down on a lower deck. I dashed to the elevators and hopped in the first one that opened its door.

Where to now? How could I get information?

I pulled the ship’s newsletter from my purse, glanced at the large watch on a woman who joined me two decks down, and determined High Tea would be taking place in the Pacific Dining Room.

I didn’t need tea or food, but the dining room could hold people who had answers to some of my questions. The Executive Chef might be in there and explain why he’d sent me champagne. Gil could be there snacking. He’d tell me what troubles he was having with that chef and why they were together on the outer deck. Mainly I wanted to know whether he’d gotten any more information from the doctor. I headed for the dining room to find out.

Chapter 20

Cameras and reporters swarmed the deck. I peered straight ahead as I walked toward the mid-ship Pacific Dining Room.

Enthusiastic crowds gathered around camera crews made me notice the library and the guard still outside it. The security staff probably hadn’t finished questioning all of the people I’d seen in there. In fact, they might have summoned more passengers for their inquisition. Who saw her last, they might be asking.

I also wanted the answer.

Why and how had Tetter gone overboard?

Did anyone actually know?

“There she is,” a woman said, pointing at me.

Many in the gathering commented and snapped my picture. My stomach churned. I turned away. A bright light came at me, a bearded man gripping its source, a TV camera on his shoulder.

“Stop,” I said, thrusting my hands in front of my face.

“You knew the deceased?” a well-dressed attractive woman with the cameraman asked, the camera getting her face with mine.

I opened my mouth to scream that my good friend died. My peripheral vision let me see more people with cameras approaching.

“You went to school with her?” a woman with a microphone asked me.

“How did you know that?”

She smiled. “Many people on this ship met members of your group. Others saw all of you together. So you were here for a mini class reunion, and one of your classmates fell overboard.”

My chin tightened and quivered.

“I am so sorry about your loss,” the reporter said, but I determined the cameraman was getting a closer shot of my face. “And you are…?”

“Wanting my friend back.” I bumped against the cameraman’s arm as I dashed away. I darted off amidst the swell of comments from passengers watching and reporters who surely made annoying comments into their mikes.

I slowed as I neared the room where they’d questioned me. The same security guard stood at the door. He eyed me, and I gave him a curt nod as I passed. Relieved that I didn’t get stopped, I yanked open a door to the Pacific Dining Room.

It looked identical to our dining room, the same chandeliers and glitter and colors and crystal on tables. The chief difference was now reporters were scattered everywhere.

I was ready to do like a crayfish and back from trouble. My glance through the room, however, let me spy Gil. He stood and spoke to a reporter while being filmed by a cameraman.

I imagined quills springing up on my back. Then I would bend over and fling them at him.

What was he telling the world—he knew a woman who was friends with the person who fell off the ship?

The Executive Chef did not like Gil or Cajun food. Was Gil trying to call attention to his own chef and his dishes?

Okay, Cealie
,
Gil is not the kind of man who would do that.
I believed what I told myself, believed it with all my heart, yet the ornery, judgmental part of my nature took hold. I needed to rid myself of that negative part of me, but meanwhile, there it was.

More annoyance built. Not long ago, Gil put me to bed, saying I needed to rest. He had something to do. Is this what he’d intended? Get coverage on television?

He wouldn’t do that, but I couldn’t make the nasty part of my mind stop that line of thinking.

I studied the room once more. A tall white cap was rising. Executive Chef Andrew Sandkeep stepped away from a table where he’d sat. With my aunt!

Before he could escape the room or the area near her table, I rushed to him.

“Chef Sandkeep,” I called, and he turned. So did Sue. I pretended not to notice her and spoke to him as he watched me, thick eyebrows wrinkled, giving me a curious expression.

“Yes?” he said.

I couldn’t tell whether he knew me or not. If I told him my name, Sue would realize we were almost strangers. For some unfathomable reason, I wanted her to believe otherwise. I also hoped Gil was seeing us and wondering why I wasn’t still in his bed.

I stepped closer to the chef and took hold of his soft hand. “I really want to thank you for the champagne. It was so kind of you to send the bottle to my room.”

Skin at the outer edge of his eyes crinkled. Would he laugh and say he had no idea who I was?

After a long moment, he lowered his head. Lifting my hand, he kissed it. “I hoped you would enjoy it.”

“I’m sure I will enjoy it.” My peripheral vision let me spy Sue watching from her table. I wanted to ask the chef questions but did not want her to hear the replies.

I tugged on the chef’s hand to get him farther from her. Nearby dining room stewards glanced at him and smiled, seeming to make extra effort at their tables. Our maître d’ gave the Executive Chef a nod and straightened in a stance of attention. He appeared to snap his heels together.

Surely the man I stood with commanded respect from a large number of people.

“They admire you,” I said. “Or maybe fear your reprisal?”

He awarded me a generous smile. “Every one of us shares mutual esteem.”

“How admirable.” I considered asking if he sent many people champagne but thought that an inappropriate question. I’d seen a number of bottles awarded to passengers as prizes on cruises. But I had done nothing to win a prize.

“You seem confused,” he said, watching my face.

“Well, I am.” I swung my gaze toward Gil. He was gone. So was the reporter. “Mr. Sandkeep,” I continued, returning my attention to the man before me.

“Please call me Andrew.”

“All right. And I believe you know my name is Cealie.”

“I do.”

“Okay, Andrew, why did you send me champagne and that note? I don’t even know you. And you don’t know me.”

He chuckled. “Maybe I know much more than you think.”

My face relaxed. “Maybe you sent it as a peace offering for Gil and me.”

“Or anyone else you might want to share some bubblies with.” One edge of his lips cocked up. His gaze held onto mine.

Was he suggesting I share the liquor with him?

Our maître d’ waved to call him.

“If you will excuse me.” Andrew Sandkeep snagged my hand and kissed it. “I am wanted elsewhere.”

“Sure, go ahead. And again, thank you.”

Warmth remained on my hand where his lips had pressed. Once more I looked for Gil. He wasn’t around. If he’d seen me with the chef, annoyance could have sent him away. He didn’t like this chef and had declared that the chef didn’t like him. He usually had good instincts about people. Possibly this time he was wrong.

I wasn’t certain of my own feelings about Chef Sandkeep.

“Cealie, come here.” Sue waved from her small table.

“How are you?” I sat beside her.

“Too full. I need to get them to take all of this food away.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, noting the sweet mint and cinnamon scents of flaky scones piled on a platter. Chocolate coatings and drizzles on strawberries made the pastries extra tempting. I set a cinnamon roll and one flaky chocolate dessert on a napkin.

A waiter slid a saucer in front of me. “Coffee or cold or hot tea?”

“Coffee please.”

Sue watched me eat a goodie. “I’ll wait before sending them away. Maybe you’ll make all of them disappear.”

I swallowed the final bite of chocolate. “That’s rude.”

“I was never known for my tact in school, was I? Or in our family, either.”

Calling up a vision of Sue as Stu, I recalled the smart-mouthed boy who often told people things that offended them. The insulted person gave an angry retort, and he would snort and say he’d been just kidding, and why did they take things so seriously. No one ever appeared to believe he was funny.

Many in our class had displayed antagonism toward him.

In fact, I realized, hands shaking, if a fortune-teller would have predicted someone would kill a person from our class on this trip, I would have guessed the victim to be Sue.

Someone from our class would
kill
a person?

My mouth zapped dry. Tetter had not fallen off the ship. I was certain somebody pushed her.

“Good grief, Cealie, you can eat more of these sweets. Don’t look so damned morose.” Sue shoved the platter in front of me.

“Who do you think killed her?”

“Tetter?”

I nodded, leaning toward her.

“I guess you think I did.” Sue narrowed her eyes. “Damn, you decided I killed Jonathan Mill and now I knocked off Tetter. How did I ever stay out of prison?”

“I don’t believe you killed those people.”

“Of course you do.” She shoved back from the table and stood. Even when angry, she was a gorgeous woman. “And I guess you and our classmates and our extended family all wonder if I had every part of my body altered with the surgery.”

The kind part of my nature told me to shake my head and say,
Absolutely not
. But there was that nasty part, which took over much more often than I wanted. I waited, not saying a thing.

“Well, you can all keep wondering.” She snapped up her purse and stomped away.

People at nearby tables stared at me. They’d probably heard Sue’s last statement about altered body parts and found that a curious subject.

Experiencing shame, I left the table. I did not need to know about Sue’s body and certainly didn’t believe she had anything to do with the death of our shipmate.

I stopped in mid step. Two people from this ship had died since we embarked.

I’d had contact with both of them—Jonathan, briefly when he and Sue flirted during our drill on the Lido Deck before we left shore. I knew Tetter much better—or had known her well in school…maybe.

Maybe not, I considered, walking on. Tetter had been the Most Popular, friends-with-everyone girl in our high school. As such, I knew her, and she knew me.

But had we really known each other?

I paused at a bench near a large window and gazed out at water, trying to recall any instances of really being close to her. We’d seen each other in groups at recess. She was normally the center of attention, cheering up everyone who seemed sad. In the halls we had all called out her name when we saw her, and she’d given a bubbly yell back at us. Having Tetter know you was a thrill.

Had she known me?

She knew my name and where I lived but had never come to my house, even when I’d invited her to my birthday parties. Those parties felt less sparkly because she never attended. Her absence made me feel I wasn’t special enough for Tetter to come. I now watched the water roll, smelled coffee, and heard a little girl and a woman talking as they walked behind me. The realization struck—Tetter had never invited me to her house.

Some of my classmates went there. Never me.

Anguish wrenched in my chest as though a large hand reached inside and twisted, attempting to yank out my heart.

Good grief, Cealie
,
why don’t you feel sorry for yourself? Your friend and a man have died, and you’re the one feeling pain?

Only then did my inner vision return to locating the teenager I once was—the girl who’d tried to act so self-assured, but wasn’t. I’d wanted to know who I was and where I wanted to go with my life and had often pretended I knew both.