the elevator to the atrium, found an empty deck chair, and sat, staring out the windows at the flat, unmoving ocean.
She could feel another headache coming on. One of several she’d had to fight off in the last couple of months. Probably stress from the job. And the divorce.
But a headache was the least of her concerns.
She knew she was often too quick to dismiss Jen’s feelings, and the joke she’d made at lunch had been insensitive and maybe even a little cruel. So it made sense that Jen was mad at her.
But that didn’t keep the uneasiness from rising in her chest. A feeling that something might be wrong.
Don’t worry.
I’m not gonna go mental on you.
Beth took her phone out of her purse and tried calling again.
As before, she was transferred straight to voice mail. Which only compounded her uneasiness.
She didn’t bother waiting for the beep. Instead, she clicked off, then punched in a quick text message: WTF?
It wasn’t like her sister to shut off her phone or let the battery go dead. But then, Beth had to remember that they were in Mexico and neither of them had expected to use their cell phones all that much.
Still, wouldn’t Jen have found a way to call her by now?
When she couldn’t take staring out at the ocean anymore, she went back downstairs and checked their stateroom again.
Still empty.
Stepping into the corridor, she noticed that their steward, a young, pleasant-faced Ethiopian man, was busy cleaning the cabin three doors down from theirs.
Beth stuck her head in the doorway.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m in cabin eight-twenty-nine?”
He turned, trash basket in hand. Nodded politely. “You need something, ma’am?”
“I’m looking for my sister. Have you seen her come by the room?”
“No, ma’am. I see her this morning, but she don’t come again.”
“What time this morning?”
“Before breakfast. Right before we dock.”
Disappointed, Beth nodded thanks, letting him get back to work.
She was turning away when the steward said, “Her name is Jennifer, yes?”
Beth stopped. “Yes. How did you know?”
“She tell me last night when I come to turn down the beds. And earlier this morning, two people come knocking on your door, calling her name.”
“What two people?”
As if Beth had to guess.
“A man and woman.”
Ugh.
Why couldn’t those sleazoids just go away?
“If I see her,” the steward said, “I tell her you look for her.”
Beth thanked him a second time and moved back down the corridor. She went inside the stateroom again and flicked on the light, conscious for the first time that the place had been cleaned and her suitcase, which she’d left open on her bunk, had been closed and tucked in a corner.
God, this place was small. Borderline claustrophobic. And she sure as hell didn’t feel like hanging around in here, waiting for her phone to ring.
She was about to leave when she remembered that Jen had forgotten her wallet.
Closing the door behind her, Beth checked the dresser top and the nightstand but saw no sign of it. She opened Jen’s dresser drawer and found three pairs of panties, some socks, two barely there bikinis, Jen’s cruise line voucher and passport, and nothing else.
Did that mean she’d come back to get the wallet? Or had she left it somewhere else-like the Santiagos’ stateroom?
Maybe that was the reason they’d been knocking on the door.
But why, then, hadn’t Rafael said anything about the wallet when he saw Beth at the restaurant? Wouldn’t he have given it to her?
Unless, of course, he had already given it to Jen.
Or Marta had.
Could they have run into Jen at the leather-goods shop as Beth waited at the restaurant? Had Rafael merely been distracting Beth so Jen and Marta could sneak away for a date with some Jell-O shooters?
The notion seemed so goddamned juvenile it wasn’t funny. But it was also within the realm of possibility. Maybe Beth’s earlier thought had been right. She really had been ditched.
As she stood there feeling anger start to boil up, her gaze drifted to her suitcase, and she had half a mind to scoop it up and follow through on the threat she’d made in the dining room. Find the nearest airport and go home.
The ultimate ditch.
The quintessential “fuck you.”
But what if she was wrong? What if this wasn’t a junior high prank at all?
What if Jen was in some kind of trouble?
They were, after all, in a foreign country. And while Beth had never had a xenophobic bone in her body, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she’d felt just the slightest bit of trepidation as they’d walked the streets of Playa Azul.
She thought of the gangbangers who had been ogling Jen with undisguised lust.
Could one of them have followed her? Confronted her when she was alone?
Beth’s anger dissipated as the uneasiness grew inside her stomach. She tried to talk herself down.
She was, after all, in a profession that examined the worst of people. Her natural instinct was to look at the dark side of human nature, simply because she was always surrounded by it. She’d interviewed enough rape victims and prosecuted enough of their assailants to permanently color her view of the world.
She’d always tried not to let this carry over into her private life, but how could it not?
Yet she knew it was still too early for panic.
Much too early.
She considered heading back into town to have another look around but decided to check the ship first, from top to bottom, stern to bow-every restaurant and bar and extracurricular activity in progress-in hopes that she’d find Jen hiding out.
Or getting drunk.
Because a drunk, unhappy Jen was better than no Jen at all.
34
“ May I help you, ma’am?”
The purser was a gray-haired, distinguished-looking gentleman in a crisp white uniform. He stood behind a narrow counter, typing something into a computer.
Beth had waited five minutes to speak to him, but now that she was at the front of the line she wasn’t sure how to start without sounding melodramatic.
“I…I’m a little worried about my sister,” she said.
The purser continued typing, barely glanced up. “Is she ill? Would you like some seasick tablets?”
He started to reach under the counter, but Beth put a hand up, stopping him.
“No, it’s not that,” she said. “We went into town this morning, and…well…I guess you could say I’ve misplaced her.”
