When she entered the galley area where the classes would take place, Chloe was greeted by Darlene Jordan, the young student she had met on the bus trip to the falls.
“Hey, so... you’re learning to cook, too?” Chloe asked her, grinning.
“Yeah,” Darlene told her. “I’m not in a dorm. My friends and I have an apartment with two bedrooms, two of us per bedroom.” She grimaced and smiled. “Keeps us on the straight and narrow as far as getting too close to the wrong boys, but sometimes... Anyway! Even state schools can be expensive, and we all try to take a night creating some kind of dinner. Maybe I can get good!”
Chloe laughed. “Yeah, I remember. My folks helped, but, yeah, if you want any spending money while you’re in school, you need to be careful. Unless you’re born filthy rich. I wasn’t.”
“But I guess you do all right now?” Darlene asked her.
“I’m happy. I love art. And Wes has his business... We get along.”
“But no kids yet?”
“Not yet. But since we are both established in what we do, they might be on the horizon!”
Darlene nodded. “I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do when I graduate. Mass communication! Once upon a time, I wanted a job with the best newspaper out there. Now, social media is huge! I’m trying to figure out if I can get off the ground as an influencer who tells the news—just the news. Not my opinion of the news, but what has actually happened. I feel like everything is skewed these days. I don’t want to do that!”
“I will be very impressed, and wherever you are, I’ll be keeping an eye out for you!” Chloe assured her.
“I’d love to get out there with one big story. I mean, I’ve got different channels now on various apps, I’ve done video—I’m really good with my phone—to get a lot of what goes on during one of these trips and I have a following...” She broke off, shrugging. “And, of course,” she added softly, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not—most people haven’t, they’re just here for the classes—they have signs up asking that no pictures or video be taken. And I had wanted to get a lot of what was going on in these classes! I mean, you heard about what happened to those computer folk in Broward County, right?”
Chloe felt an instant pang of unease.
Darlene was such a bright, attractive and eager young woman.
And if they were right and a killer was on the ship, just like Sally with her “Sherlockians,” Darlene could be putting herself in danger.
“What happened was absolutely horrible, but we must let the police and other law enforcement deal with it,” Chloe said. “Darlene, seriously—”
“You made it!”
The call from halfway across the room alerted Chloe to the fact that Celia Henderson had arrived.
“I made it!” Chloe said, laughing. “I was here first! You were the one who had to return to her cabin!”
“She’s so cool!” Darlene, still close to Chloe, murmured.
“She knows her stuff!” Chloe agreed, and she spoke quickly, hoping to end it all before Celia reached them. “Please, kid, be careful. Whoever was behind it all, that person—or those persons—are dangerous!”
She did speak quickly enough; she had finished her warning while Celia was still several feet away.
But Darlene wasn’t done.
She greeted Celia enthusiastically, complimenting her on her classes, on all that she had learned from her and Jeff.
“And it’s so important for me!” Darlene said. “I’m going to be a journalist, maybe live, maybe on paper, maybe both! But I was just telling Chloe how I wanted to get the news out there, news, not skewed news, about what’s happening, what’s fun, dog shows, you name it—and what’s deadly serious, like those murders in Broward County!”
“Right! Using trustworthy apps, seeing what information you disclose about yourself will be very important. You’re not going to want people to know where to find you if you’re doing hard-hitting reporting!” Celia said.
“I was just warning her to be careful!” Chloe said sweetly.
Amelia was behind Celia then and she looked around the woman.
“Hey! They just told us to pick our places! If we’re going to get good spots in the center of the room, we need to move!” she said.
“Amelia’s favorite—we’re heading to the bakery part ofthis deal,” Celia said. “Why not? I can actually kind of cook! But desserts are fun, and I’m supposed to be having fun when we’re not giving classes.”
“Desserts sound good to me!” Chloe assured her.
