She closes her mouth, nods.
“I’ve seen him,” Carter says. “This man in the picture. He’s on the ship. Wait—” He fishes his notebook out of his backpack, opens it to the map he drew of the elite deck. He points to the diagram.
“He’s staying in this suite.” He meets her gaze. “He’s right on our deck. Have you also seen him?”
She opens her mouth to say something when Carter hears his mother’s voice.
“Carter!”
He quickly shoves his phone and notebook into his pack as his mother comes marching over.
“What are you doing? I’ve been calling you. Why didn’t you answer?”
“Sorry, Mom. Sound must be off. This is Poppy.”
She glances at Poppy, smiles tightly. “Nice to meet you.” She grabs his hand. “Come on. You shouldn’t talk to strange adults.”
“It’s a cruise, Mom. And I haven’t found any other kids to talk to.”
He glances back over his shoulder as she pulls him away.
Poppy sits there—frozen. Like someone who’s just stuck a finger in a socket and gotten electrified. He did that once. He knows how it feels.
Roshaan
Roshaan carefully shuts the door to Hendrick Lodewijk’s suite behind her. She glances up and down the hall. All clear. The tiny camera she retrieved from his room is in her pocket along with the bug she removed from Patrick and Arrabella’s suite.
She opens her tablet and quickly scans her elite reservations. Sarah Frost has booked a table for three at Captain Zorba’s. They should be down there now. She goes to Sarah’s suite, taps gently on the door, then uses the intercom. She announces that she’ll be entering for a routine check. No reply. She slips inside.
The suite is neat—workbooks stacked in a pile on the desk. A sun hat and scarf draped artistically over the back of a chair. The faint scent of women’s perfume in the air. She doesn’t linger. Sarah’s cam is hidden under the top shelf of the bar—the same place as the one in Poppy’s suite. Roshaan climbs on a chair, wiggles the device loose, then slips it into her pocket.
She crosses to the connecting door and raps on it lightly. No answer.
She opens it, enters Dr. Gideon Marsh’s suite, and moves directly to where she hid the cam. As she pries the bug loose, Dr. Marsh’s words loop through her mind.
There is a line. When someone knowingly allows others to suffer, they have crossed from victim to villain ... Give him up. Or go down with him.
She exits. Sweat dampens her underarms. She’s trembling.Dear Allah, what have I gotten into?She scans the corridor again, trying to calm herself,trying to appear as though she’s just checking her tablet, just doing a routine suite inspection after embarkation—that will be her story.
Poppy and Lillith have not made any reservations, according to her tablet. They could be inside their suites.
She passes the Orion. Anxiety squeezes her chest as Theo’s warning surfaces in her brain.
He’s dangerous ... hired-killer-type shit. He carries a garrote in his pocket. And some kind of injection pens. God knows what’s in them.
She knocks lightly on Poppy’s door. No reply.
Again she uses the intercom, then enters cautiously.
She startles at the sight of Poppy’s suite. It looks like something exploded in it. Crumpled piles of clothes bulge from an open suitcase on her bed. Around the bag is a debris field of underwear, cosmetics, a hairbrush, books.
Roshaan hesitates. She’s feeling sick at the idea of Theo watching this woman inside her room, and spying on the private lives of the others. The voyeurism—the violation of it—makes her stomach turn.
She climbs up on a chair and finds the bug she secreted beneath the top shelf of the bar. She slips the bug into her pocket, climbs down, and repositions the chair by the desk.
Feeling slightly bolstered by her success so far, she knocks on the door that connects Poppy’s suite to Lillith’s. No answer. She unlocks it and steps into the Elysium Sky Villa, the most magnificent of her elite suites—all pale luxury with clean lines and mirrors that make everything appear even lighter and larger.
Roshaan mounts a stool, and reaches for the last bug hidden up near the blinds mechanism above one of the deck windows.
