“What was her mood?”
“Withdrawn. Quiet. She and I frequently gamble together, but last night she sent me onto the casino by myself. The last thing she said to me was, ‘Enjoy yourself, sweetheart.’Ю” Anthony swallowed; touched the thumb and forefinger of one hand to the bridge of his nose, then drew a breath and composed himself. A nicely acted piece of business, he thought to himself.
“When I returned around three in the morning,” Anthony continued, “she wasn’t there, and the bed hadn’t been slept in.”
“Not a good sign,” Lausen said, looking thoughtful for a moment. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Anthony swallowed. “Well,” he began hesitantly. “There is something else.”
The security man gazed at him with his ball-bearing eyes.
“Last year we took this very same cruise, and... Margaret threatened to jump overboard.” The first part was true, the second a lie.
“Why?”
“...Why?”
A non-smile twitched under Lausen’s mustache. “When people threaten to kill themselves, there’s usually a reason. What reason did your wife give you, Mr. Vane?”
“I feel... awkward discussing this, Mr. Lausen. As if I might be... betraying my wife’s confidence.”
“This situation is a little beyond social niceties, Mr. Vane. Why did your wife threaten to kill herself last year?”
Anthony heaved a sigh. “She was once a very beautiful woman, Mr. Lausen. She still is... to me. But she was very unhappy with the way her last cosmetic surgery came out, and as you may have suspected, there’s something of an age difference between us... At any rate, her seventieth birthday was fast approaching, and she became... despondent.”
All of this was true, more or less — except for the threat of suicide. Margaret had been depressed about her fading beauty — and her husband’s roving eye.
“Did you get your wife any help?”
“Of course. She’s been seeing a psychiatrist, and has been on anti-depressant medication for almost a year. Well, but then, you know that already, from Dr. Swayze...”
“Yeah. She ever threaten to kill herself again?”
“No. Never.”
“Not even last night?”
“No. But... I shouldn’t say.”
“By all means, Mr. Vane, ‘say’ away.”
Another sigh. “I thought perhaps that this cruise... being as we’d taken it before, and she’d made that threat, walking on the very deck where we strolled last night... this cruise had brought all that unpleasantness back to mind.”
The small room fell silent, with Lausen staring down at Anthony from his perch. Then the security chief stood up and went around behind the desk and sat.
“Well, your wife isn’t on the ship, Mr. Vane. We’ve done a cabin-to-cabin canvas, and she didn’t disembark in Nassau this morning.” He paused. “That leaves only one other place she could be.”
Anthony hung his head. “Oh, my God,” he said softly. His hands were shaking; he hoped Lausen would see that as sorrow, and not the unexpected nervousness Lausen’s hard gaze had engendered in him.
“There’s a procedure we follow when a passenger turns up missing, Mr. Vane. I’ll have to ask you to remain on board today. I’ll want to talk to you again later, and sign some missing person’s papers.”
Anthony nodded solemnly. “I understand.”
“I hope I’m wrong,” Lausen said. “And that she turns up. Otherwise... sorry for your loss, sir.”
But he didn’t sound very sorry.
“Thank you,” Anthony said, as if the expression of condolence had been sincere. “Should you need me, I’ll be in our stateroom.”
Anthony hated the thought of that — missing the Nassau stop, losing out on a sumptuous meal at Greycliff, the only five-star restaurant in the Bahamas, and a fun-filled evening in the casinos on Paradise Island. But it was a sacrifice he could live with; after all, with Margaret’s money he could come back any time he wanted.
He strolled down the narrow corridor, away from the security office, wondering if Lausen harbored any major suspicions about him. Perhaps that sour demeanor, that terminal cynicism, simply went with the job.
But so what if Lausen did suspect him? That insignificant little bastard couldn’t prove anything. There was only one person on earth — one person on this ship — who could.
He went in search of her.
He was beginning to think she’d gotten off the boat already and gone into Nassau for the day, when he spotted her flaming red hair. Cora and her daughter were up on the sun deck. They were in casual attire, the mother in a knit turquoise pants suit, her daughter in a sunny floral-print sundress, next to each other in deck chairs, big straw hats on their heads, big straw handbags at their feet; their slender, shapely figures were almost identical. When the daughter saw him, her face lighted up and she called out to him.
“Oh, Mr. Vane!” She motioned with one hand. “Could you come here?”
“Good morning, ladies,” he said as he approached them, rather surprised by this greeting from the younger woman, who’d barely seemed to notice him last night. “Isn’t this sun lovely, after that cold wet evening?”
“Could you do me a tremendous favor?” the pretty blonde woman asked.
“Anything.”
“You remember my mother — Cora?”
“How could I forget?”
Cora, that minx, looked up at him with a blank expression, as if he were a stranger.
The daughter said, “Would you please keep her company while I run to the gift shop? I need to pick up some suntan lotion before we head into town.”
He beamed at her. “I’d be delighted. Simply delighted.” Then he smiled at the mother, who looked back at him with an expression as blank as a doll’s.
“I’ll be only a minute or so,” the daughter said, leaving the two behind.
“Take all the time you need, my dear,” he responded.
Anthony settled into the vacated deck chair next to Cora, who was staring out at the magnificent view of Nassau which lay before them, a tourist’s dream come true.
He leaned toward her. “And how are you today, my love?”
She turned to him. “Do I know you?” she asked.
He half-smiled at her. She was good; so very good. “You don’t have to pretend, now. We don’t have to be strangers.”
The woman shrugged and looked back at the view.
“What are you going to do with the money?”
She looked at him and blinked. “What money?”
He laughed out loud. “Oh, so that’s how you’re going to play it? I told you last night... if you agree to keep our little secret, there will be plenty more where that came from. The question is, Cora — will we be business partners, or could we explore a more pleasant option?”
She didn’t respond to that, which unnerved him a little. He’d better find out how much her silence was going to cost him.
“What do you want from me, Cora?” he asked quietly. Gently, he placed a hand on her thigh. “There’s so much more than money that I can give you...”
Cora turned back to him and her placid face came suddenly alive. “I want My Very Own Vanity!” she said.
Such poetry in her speech — her own vanity, indeed. She had that ability so many vixens had, to seem at once a woman and yet child-like in her energy, and her greed.
And he found that beguiling; something about her told him she was a kindred spirit, and he hoped they would not be adversaries.
“What specifically can I give you, my love?”
“I want a Cruisin’ Car Convertible.”
Now that was specific. Wanting a car was more along the lines he’d expected, but a convertible? She was a remarkable lady; young, at any age...