Marcia Talley - Dark Passage

I thought I knew the answer to this question, but I asked it anyway. ‘David, who ran the art auction on the Voyager ?’

‘I don’t even have to consult my files, Hannah. Eastaugh Galleries. The company belongs to Nicole Westfall. She inherited it from her father, an old-school art dealer out of London named Cyril Eastaugh. Moved the business to West Palm in the eighties. Jack sits on the board, but otherwise he just tags along for the ride.’

‘Do you realize what was going on yesterday when Julie was abducted? The art auction! As auctioneer, Nicole would have been busy, wouldn’t she? She would have been nowhere near their stateroom. What do you want to bet they have one of those suites that might look like “somebody’s living room” to a teenager totally spaced out on drugs? Jesus, I think I’m going to be sick!’

I didn’t realize that I had been gripping the table with both hands until I felt David’s hand on mine, squeezing gently. He kept his hand there while I continued to vent, running through a litany of medieval amusements that included thumbscrews, the rack, the wheel, and a device that could be heated in red-hot coals and applied to… well, never mind.

‘The auctions are always on the same day, you know,’ David said quietly. ‘The last day of the voyage but one. That’s the day Noelle Bursky disappeared, too.’

‘He put it in the straw,’ I said with conviction. ‘The sonofabitch put powdered Ketamine in a straw and stuck it into their drinks.’ I looked up and caught David’s eye. ‘What do we do?’

David took a deep breath. ‘What if we could get a positive I.D.?’

‘That means Julie.’

‘Yes.’

‘How the hell do we engineer that?’

‘They’ll be having a fire sale in the gallery today. Everything must go and all that crap. Jack Westfall is likely to be there. If not, you can try to catch him at dinner. The Westfalls are usually at the last seating, unless it’s lobster night at the Garuda Grill.’

‘How do you know all this, David?’

‘I’ve been watching these people for a long, long time.’

‘So, let’s say Julie identifies the creep. Then what?’

David’s gaze was steady. ‘Why don’t we cross that bridge when we come to it?’

‘A few great magicians … have always realized that these ephemeral, temporary miracles could be restorative for their audiences. They listened for the brief pause between the end of the trick and the start of the applause – the split second when the entire audience shares a gasp of genuine amazement. At that moment there’s always been an honorable quality in illusion.’

Jim Steinmeyer, Hiding the Elephant ,

Da Capo, 2004, p. 331

After I left David, I took the stairway down to deck six, waited in line for a cappuccino at Café Cino then carried it, casually sipping, as I wandered through the boutiques. I was heading for the art gallery.

Although a surprisingly large number of paintings had sold at the auction the previous day, the empty easels had been refilled, as if by magic, with equally unappealing offerings. I wondered if Nicole had artists chained in the bilges, churning them out.

She wasn’t there, but a young man who identified himself as Nicole’s assistant assured me that if I came back at two o’clock I could talk to Nicole directly.

‘I really, really like that Dutko over there,’ I gushed, pointing to a hideous oil of a dark-haired woman posing cheek-to-cheek with a horse to whom she bore an uncanny resemblance. ‘But Buddy would just murder me if I paid six hundred dollars for it.’

‘I’ll speak to Nicole about it. I’m sure she can do better than that.’ The man actually winked.

‘Thank you so much. It’s absolutely perfect for our family room.’

Back in our stateroom, I found Ruth sitting on her bed reading a book. When she saw me, she tossed the book to the floor. ‘There you are! It’s almost one o’clock! We were about to give up on you. I’m starving. Where do you want to go for lunch?’

I’d hustled and bustled so much that morning that the thought of fighting my way through the buffet lines at the Firebird, or trying to talk over the din, gave me instant indigestion. ‘Let’s be civilized and go up to the dining room,’ I said. ‘I’ll go collect the others.’

I stuck my head around the door. ‘Georgina?’

Breep-breep. Breep-breep . I nearly jumped out of my sandals. ‘What the heck is that?’

Georgina was rummaging through her cosmetic bag. ‘Get that for me, will you, Hannah?’

Ah, the phone. That white, ultra-mod moebius that sat on the desk in our cabins. I’d never heard it ring before.

I crossed to the desk and picked up. ‘Hello?’

‘I just wanted you to know I’m really glad you found your daughter,’ someone said.

‘I’m…’ I started to say, then thought better of it.

‘Look,’ the voice hurried on, low and urgent. ‘There’s something you need to… oh, shit!’

‘Who is this?’ I demanded, but the caller had already hung up.

‘Who was that?’ Georgina wanted to know.

I stared at the silent receiver, thinking that the voice sounded familiar. Male, for certain. Young, but not too young. Nervous. Connor Crawford? What was that all about?

Not wanting to send Georgina off on a killing spree, I shrugged and said, ‘Wrong number. Are you ready for lunch?’

‘Give us ten minutes,’ Georgina replied as she attacked her unruly mane with a hairbrush.

‘I’ll go ahead and get us a table, then,’ I told her. ‘Tell Ruth I’ll meet her there.’

Once I reached the dining room, I used the extra time to cruise among the tables, looking for David. I found him sitting alone at a table for two near a window, studying a menu. ‘May I?’ I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.

‘I’m expecting Oprah Winfrey to join me,’ he quipped, looking up at me over the top of the menu.

‘I won’t stay long, then,’ I said with a smile.

David Warren, cracking a joke. Would wonders ever cease? ‘A burden shared is a burden halved,’ someone a lot wiser than I had once said. Perhaps I had lightened his. I hoped so.

I leaned across the table and told David about the mysterious phone call I’d just received.

‘Who do you think it was?’ he asked after I’d finished.

‘Not sure. It could have been that young Crawford boy, the one who got Julie drunk.’

David tented his fingers and tapped his chin thoughtfully. ‘If the lad is interested in your niece, perhaps he’s been keeping tabs on her. It sounds like he may have seen something.’

‘My thoughts exactly.’

‘Only one way to find out,’ David said.

‘I know. Track him down and ask him.’

‘ There you are!’ It was Ruth.

‘Gotta go, David,’ I said, rising. ‘If you see him first…’ I didn’t need to finish the sentence.

‘I know what to do.’

Two minutes later, at my request, our waiter escorted Ruth and me to a table for four tucked away in a private corner near the sweeping staircase that led up to the balcony.

When Georgina and Julie finally joined us, I was happy to see that Julie’s appetite had returned. ‘I want one of everything,’ she told the waiter brightly, ‘but I guess I’ll settle for the moussaka. And the lamb!’

Between the avgolemono soup and the loukoumades , I updated my family on the information David and I had learned that morning. Up to a point, that is.

‘Julie,’ I said. ‘I think we have identified the man who attacked you. We’re not one hundred percent sure, but I was hoping that if you saw him again, you might be able to recognize him.’