—-
Three men sat at one of the tables in the bar area of the stern deck. Two of the husky men sat off to one end of the table listening to their boss.
“You’ll do as I tell you,” said their well-dressed boss. He pulled down on his white straw hat to one side.
“She’s the one, Mr. McCarthy. Do you think she’s our contact?” said another large henchman as he watched the thirtyish aged woman leave the table near the buffet room.
“Maybe, she was pretty tight with some friends of hers at our drop-off sight,” replied the self-assured man in the shiny suit. “I’ll find out.”
“Where’s Greg?” asked the other big man hunched over the table with his folded arms.
“He’s doing a job for me,” replied their boss, who turned to one of his employees. “You, call our contact in town and find if she’s the one he made the drop on.”
The larger man pulled out his phone and made the call.
“Yeah, I need to make sure on the description of your drop. Yeah, talk to you later,” he said over the phone.
“Yeah, boss, she’s the one. He said you can’t miss that head of curly blond hair.”
“Okay, then you, Salvador, know what to do next,” their boss replied, looking at his other robust employee to his left at the table.
Chapter 11
The Next Day
Daylight and hallway noise woke me up from a deep sleep. I had slept in until seven thirty. Taking my time to dress, I felt like this morning’s adventure was a dream, but I knew it wasn’t. I made a cup of hot chocolate and decided to sit outside on my balcony.
I took a few sips of the hot liquid when I heard a familiar voice calling my name. I rose out of my chair and looking over my veranda around the right balcony divider and I could see Trisha waving at me two rooms away.
“Hi, neighbor, had breakfast yet?” she called.
“No, can you give me ten minutes?” I asked.
“No problem,” she replied and ducked back into her room.
I wanted to enjoy this solitude for a moment longer. I’m not a big breakfast eater. I prefer to browse in the morning until lunchtime. When my Henry was alive, we always had to be on a regular meal schedule due to his job at the insurance company. Times have changed.
I sipped some more warm cocoa from my cup and set it back down on the table savoring the taste. I inhaled a deep breath of the clean air, I already I began to feel invigorated. By the time I was ready to meet Trisha, I had finished my hot chocolate.
Returning into the room, I remembered my dot earrings lying on the nightstand tabletop and slipped them on my earlobes. I walked over to the closet and after rummaging around where I laid my purchases from the day before. I pulled out a small empty tote bag I can use for my hat and sunglasses in case Trisha wants to take a walk around the ship. I pinned on my dolphin pin to my blouse and left my cabin.
When I walked down to knock on the Paige’s door, I didn’t see either Lynn or Ivan in the hallway. Trisha opened her door and greeted me.
“We’re ready. Did you have a good night’s sleep?” she asked.
“Not really. I had a bad dream that woke me up at two, so I got up and walked around on the ship. It’s nice and quiet at that time of night.”
Larry stepped out behind her. We were heading for the elevators when she asked, “Wasn’t it scary?”
“Not really and I had a nice steward come to my table. I guess they work all hours of the night.”
“Was he cute?”
“Trisha,” Larry said, furrowing his eyebrows.
I could tell he didn’t want to enter into this conversation.
“I was just asking for Susan, Sweetie,” she said to him and returned to look at me
“I don’t think so. It was too dark to see his face much but I think he is a few years older than me.”
“So you’ve been up since two o’clock?” Larry asked.
“No, after an hour I went back to bed. It was a boring morning on the stern deck except when I heard some men arguing, and that’s when I left the fifth floor.”
“Honey, do you have a tissue?” Trisha asked her husband.
“Yeah, in my pocket.”
She reached into his jacket and drew out a slim tube.
“Larry, what are you doing with this?”
“Oh, I forgot that sample tester was in there. Here, here’s a tissue,” he offered.
“You always carry a tester with you?” I asked.
“Yeah, and a plastic bag if I need one.”
“Really, Larry, we’re on vacation,” Trisha chided him.
We arrived at the entrance to the cafeteria where a thin young girl wore a steward’s uniform and held out a sanitizing spray bottle toward us. She said “Washy, Washy.”
We held out our hands to receive the liquid disinfectant and proceeded to rub our hands together. Ever since the outbreak of norovirus a few years ago, the ships had to be extra clean. I remembered I saw crewmembers wiping down the banisters and the elevator buttons. I’ve never realized how many locations we put our hands on in a cruise ship.
“Oh, after breakfast I want to see what else the library has,” I remarked, holding out the tote bag in my hand.
We chose our breakfast of bran muffins, scrambled eggs and cantaloupe sliced into wedges, and found a cleared table to sit down near one of the windows. I don’t know why but I looked
