No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (35 page)

“It’s me, Ryan! For God’s
sake, stop fighting me!” a male voice yelled. “I’m trying to save
you!”

I gave a small sob as I
realized Bob was pulling me back onto the ship. As soon as my feet
touched the deck, I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged
him.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.
Take a deep breath,” he encouraged me. “You’re safe
now.”

“Who was that? Why did he do
that?” I was stunned by the attack. “Where did he go?”

“All good questions. I’m
going to work on answers. But let’s start with the most important.
Someone just tried to kill you and he’s still on the ship. We need
to get to the security office. Maybe he showed up on surveillance
cameras.”

Bob led me through the
warren of interconnected staff hallways and offices until we got to
a large, windowless room with a long bank of monitors. A couple of
women and men sat watching the activities from the live feeds
throughout the ship.

“By the way, I never had a
chance to ask you your name,” he told me, as he settled into an
empty seat. He patted a chair, inviting me to sit.

“Mariem Dufours,” I
answered.

“What cabin are you
in?”

“619B.”

“We’re moving you. I want
you in a cabin where we can keep an eye out for you. We’ll kill two
birds with one stone, keeping an eye on 619B, to see if anyone
shows up.”

“Should I go pack my
things?” I wondered.

“The steward will do that.
Montcrieff, bring up the footage on 28HVK about ten minutes ago,”
Bob directed a young woman. She punched in some numbers and
letters, tapped on a few buttons, and suddenly I could see myself
talking in the hallway to Bob. There was no audio, but I could tell
we were having our first conversation. Bob directed her to go
forward. He studied the five people who used the passageway. I saw
two couples and a single woman. One of the couples was elderly, the
other middle-aged. The single woman looked like she was in her
twenties, slightly tipsy.

“Show me the adjoining
passageways, same time frame,” he commanded. He went through each
view three times before moving onto the next. Half an hour later, I
still had no idea who my assailant was, but Bob seemed energized.
“Pull up all the ID’s for those folks on 28HVK, 28HWK, and 29IVK.
I’ll be back for them in about an hour. In the meantime, get me
Fortuna and Thompson.”

Moments later, Bob huddled
with a man and a woman in an adjacent cubicle as I waited. I
watched the middle-aged woman nod a lot as he spoke. The glass
walls kept me from hearing their conversation, but I noticed the
younger man seemed very intense. When Bob was done, he hopped up,
crossed the distance in a few long strides, and held out a hand to
me.

“Let’s go have that drink.”
He took my elbow, steering me back through the “employees only”
passageways and out into the main public space. We took the
elevator up two floors and went into an intimate lounge. A cabaret
singer dressed in a black cocktail dress was belting out “La Vie en
Rose”, accompanied by a pianist and bass player. Bob led me to a
small table hidden behind a large potted palm. As we sank into a
pair of soft club chairs, the cocktail waitress sauntered over and
gave Bob a sultry smile. I suspected that Bob had used this private
nook with some regularity, perhaps to keep an eye on ship
passengers who warranted watching.

We ordered drinks and they
arrived minutes later with a clear glass bowl of spicy peanuts. I
was about to take a sip from my sombrero when Bob held up his
glass.

“Here’s to the late, great
Henri Dufours. May he rest in peace.” As our glasses clinked, I
felt a sudden stab of guilt hit me in the gut.

“Nous sommes relié
toujours,” I said without thinking. My companion looked at me
expectantly, so I translated. “We are always connected.”

A shadow crossed Bob’s face,
almost imperceptible. I suddenly wanted to know what he was
thinking, but I hesitated to ask. Was it because he was a stranger
or because he had been kind enough to pay attention to me? The
hungry often need food, and a starving soul is especially ravenous,
seeking a gentle word or a sympathetic glance wherever it may be
found.

“Tell me about your husband.
What was Henri like?”

“Henri?” I stalled, trying
to think of a way to avoid the subject without seeming like a
heartless woman. Bob must have sensed my reluctance, even though I
hadn’t said a word.

“How long were you
married?”

“Almost twenty
years.”

“Not all of them happy?” he
queried me. There was something about Bob’s eyes I found
particularly compelling. Was it because he was so physically
attractive or because, underneath the smart, carefully crafted
image, there was a man who had seen some of the darker side of life
and understood life isn’t always about easy choices?

“Have you ever been
married?” I asked him.

“Twice. Divorced twice,
too.”

“So you know marriage isn’t
always easy,” I decided.

“There’s an understatement.
My first wife left me for her law partner. My second marriage
lasted all of three months. She turned out to be hired by a
criminal organization that wanted to get close to me. Can’t really
count that as a marriage, though. We knew what they were up to, so
I was just going through the motions. I used to be a Treasury
agent.”

“Oh,” I nodded, relieved to
be off the subject of Henri.

“First marriage?”

“Yes.” I reached for
peanuts, hoping that by filling my mouth, I could avoid answering
awkward questions.

“Not made in heaven, I take
it.” Bob was sitting back in his chair, keeping it casual, but it
felt like he was interested in my answers.

“We were two very different
people.”

“Did you change over time or
were you always mismatched as a couple?” he wanted to know. That
was a question I had often asked myself. All of our family members
and friends talked about how good we looked together at the
wedding. That was the first, and for many, the only time they met
Henri Dufours. Our life as a couple was composed of orchestrated
public appearances and private separations that maintained the
fiction of happy-ever-after. The truth was I married a stranger,
and even after nearly twenty years of marriage, I still didn’t
understand him. Henri could be very cold. We often went for a whole
week without having a meaningful conversation. Sometimes the only
interaction between us was in the bedroom. Henri was never willing
to give up his own pleasure, even to punish me for my imaginary
sins. He took what he wanted, even when I was unwilling to give
it.

Early in our relationship, I
tried to get him to open up, to tell me what was wrong, why he was
so miserable. He brushed me off abruptly, uninterested in sharing
his feelings with me. A very angry confrontation one weekend
resulted in Henri storming out of the house as I sat crumpled on
the floor, red-faced from frustration. He didn’t come home for
three weeks. Every call I made to his office was rebuffed by his
administrative assistant. He returned at midnight on a Thursday,
appearing in the doorway of our bedroom. Without a word to me, he
got undressed and crawled into bed beside me, as if the last three
weeks had never happened. In frustration, I sought counseling, but
Henri refused to join me for sessions with the therapist. After six
months of little progress in changing the dynamics of our
communications, I threw in the towel. As the years slipped away, I
stopped trying to change my husband. We silently agreed to live
together as we were, warts and all.

“Always,” I admitted. “We
had a complicated relationship.”

“Define complicated.” Bob
pressed me for details.

“I never knew what Henri was
thinking or feeling. I was forever guessing. He kept me in the dark
about everything.”

“Why didn’t you divorce
him?” Bob’s determined eyes focused on my face, closing in on every
wince, every sigh, every frown. It felt like he had trained a
powerful spotlight on me, revealing everything, concealing nothing,
and as I sat there, I suddenly realized he was far too interested
in the answer.

Chapter Two --

“Divorce him?” It was such a
simple question, why was it so hard to answer?

“It what most people do when
they can’t get their marriages to work.” Bob shrugged. To him,
marriage seemed to be black or white, good or bad. It either worked
or it didn’t.

“It wasn’t an option for
us,” I told Bob.

“Religious
reasons?”

For a moment, I paused,
flashing back to that terrifying night three years ago. Henri and I
were cruising down the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar in our deluxe
cabin on the Mandalay Empress. I wanted to believe Henri’s purpose
in booking the trip was to celebrate our anniversary. He had been
fairly cheerful in the weeks before we flew to Thailand. But I
found out the hard way this was a really just a business trip and I
was along to make it all look legitimate. Henri scheduled a meeting
with a man called Wan Liu, a fellow passenger. He directed me to
stay in our cabin until he got back, and then we would go to dinner
together.

“How long will you be gone?
I’ll go for a swim,” I decided, rising from the chair to change
into my bathing suit.

“Stay in the cabin,” Henri
insisted. His voice had an ugly edge to it. He was in one of his
moods. “I’ll be back within the hour.”

“Well, I don’t want to,” I
snapped. I had reached my emotional breaking point, after being
dragged along on the trip to play the role of wife, not because
Henri loved me, but because he needed a companion. I decided I had
to draw a line in the sand and redefine our relationship. At least
that was my intention when I defied Henri.

“You will do as I say,” he
warned me.

“Or what?” I
demanded.

“Or maybe you will
accidentally fall into the river and be eaten by the crocodiles.”
There was a dark, dangerous look in Henri’s eyes and I suddenly
wondered if he was serious.

“That’s a terrible thing to
say,” I replied, my eyes filling with tears. “I cannot believe you
said that to me. It’s our anniversary. How hurtful!”

“Then be a good girl and do
not anger me!” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I have an
important business meeting. When I am done, I will return and you
can have your gift.”

“The only gift I want from
you is kindness!” I cried.

“And the only gift I want
from you is cooperation,” was his retort. He reached out and shoved
me back into my chair. The shock of his action left me stunned. “Do
I have it, Mariem?”

“Just go,” I snapped, unable
to bear the sight of him. “Go! Do what you have to do. What do I
care?”

“You have much to care about
and much to lose if you anger me!” my husband warned me menacingly.
He picked up his sport coat from the back of the desk chair and
slipped it on as I watched his reflection in the mirror. I didn’t
dare look up at him as he stood so close to me. I was afraid of
what I would see in those eyes. Something told me Henri was capable
of tossing me over the railing, into the deep, dark, swirling
waters of the Irrawaddy River.

“Is that too personal a
question?” Bob said, suddenly bringing me back to reality. I took a
sip of my drink, trying to recover my equilibrium, remembering how
terrified I was of Henri that night. “Are you okay?”

I nodded weakly. Was I? I
realized that what happened this evening was too close a call for
comfort. Henri had threatened to throw me overboard three years
ago, and tonight someone almost succeeded in doing just that. Was
there a connection?

“You look like you just saw
a ghost,” Bob confided. “Thinking about Henri?”

I took a deep breath. I
didn’t trust myself to speak, afraid that all of my marital secrets
would spill out. I felt an invisible chill touch my skin and I
started to shiver.

“You’re cold, Mariem. We
should move to another table,” Bob suggested. “We’re sitting under
the air vent.”

I let him escort me to
another table a few feet away. I let him believe that cold air was
the only reason for my goose bumps. I let him believe that Henri
was a decent man and we were just two people who couldn’t get
along. Maybe I didn’t want to admit to myself that I thought the
late Henri Dufours was capable of murdering me, any more than I
wanted to admit he might have hired someone to do it for him, had
he not died almost two and a half years ago.

“Shall I walk you to your
new cabin?” Bob offered. I nodded, wondering if I was ever going to
feel like the Mariem I used to be, long before I ever set eyes on
Henri Dufours.

We walked down the hall and
took the stairs one flight down. He unlocked the door of 819B. The
new cabin was almost a mirror image of the one I was forced to
abandon.

“We’ve got a camera aimed at
your door, and a couple of our people are sleeping on this floor.
Anything happens, we’ll be able to respond right away.” Bob gave me
a reassuring pat on the arm, opened the closet door to show me all
of my clothes had been hung in my new cabin closet, and then opened
up the bathroom door to show me that my toiletries had also
arrived. “You should be okay, so get some rest. Let us worry about
the bad guy. Sleep well, Mariem.”