He grabbed his pillow and his blanket and was just getting ready to throw them on the sofa when there was a tap on his door.
He hadn’t carried his weapon—the gun which had been created from plastic with a 3D printer—out on deck and while hanging out in groups, because Chloe had easily been able to carry hers in her bag. At the tap, he hurried to his small suitcase to dig around his clothing and find it, holding it to his back as he went to the door.
He looked through the peephole and frowned.
It was Markowitz.
Sliding the gun into the front of his pants, covered by his shirt, he quietly opened the door.
“I’m so sorry to bother you!” Markowitz said.
“It’s all right. What is it?”
“I just... well, I wanted to warn you. I mean, you and your wife, you seem like really nice, good people. That guy... the big guy, Thompson, he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you two.”
“I know that you’re getting off the ship and I respect you doing so, but—”
“No, I know you two don’t want to leave your cruise. Butbe careful. I don’t like that lady. I wanted you to know that she was having a big fight with her husband in the casino. He pretended it was over money. But I heard them. And she just told him to shut up, that she was the breadwinner, he was lucky that she let him hang around. I think that you need to be very careful around her, and I know that I sound like a paranoid kook, but...”
“No, no, I can understand your feelings. She can be very rude to him, but some people are just like that and—”
“Why does anyone stay? Unless she is promising something big!” Markowitz said.
Wes shook his head. “Who knows? All kinds make the world go around. But thank you. And the best to you and your wife. I hope you’re able to have a good vacation sometime soon!”
Markowitz nodded. “I hope I’m just being paranoid. Well, please, do be careful. You have a brave and beautiful wife, sir. Take care of her!”
“Not to worry, I intend to,” Wes assured him.
“Well, good night, then,” Markowitz told him. “The best to you, too.”
Markowitz turned to leave. Wes watched as he walked down the long hallway to the elevator.
He closed and locked the door.
He swung around, almost drawing his plastic weapon, but he smiled because he expected what he saw.
Chloe was there. She had changed into a long nightdress, but he knew that she stood by the door to the bedroom, half opened, because she had her plastic gun out and she’d been standing there, quietly listening.
“You had my back,” he said.
“Always,” she promised him.“Did I miss anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing we didn’t know. Celia Henderson is a narcistic ballbuster and when people hear what she says to her husband, they don’t like her very much.”
“But it is possible that she’s much more. Possible that she’s been responsible for these deaths and that he’s scared, too, doesn’t want to go to jail or wind up dead himself, and falls right into line so that something like that doesn’t happen.”
“He could go to the police,” Wes said.
“He could be too scared. Then again, maybe somewhere along the line, if she is the mastermind behind some imagined takeover, he has plans to turn against her.”
Wes nodded. “Possibly,” he said softly.
“My fault. We should have gone dancing with them tonight.”
“How could you have known?”
“And, of course, we will be with them on an hour and a half bus ride!”
