Cashed In Part 14

"No," I snapped. Hans seemed like a cool guy, but Phil was a dolt and there's no telling how creepy their boss, the head of security, was. He was nameless and faceless even in the midst of Rick's and Rawhide's disappearances. Someone had known I ditched my pillow because of a security cam, or they'd come into the room and just gotten lucky. I scanned the ceiling and light fixtures for likely lenses and counted the times I'd wandered around the room naked. "It's okay."

Ingrid c.o.c.ked her head at me, skeptical but fortunately distracted enough by my dress not to pursue it. "What do you have on?"

"A sundress," I answered.

"No. No. No." She shook her head to punctuate each word. "That is cute. We don't do cute. That is not the Bee Cool image we are trying to portray."

I stood and floated the tiered skirt out. "But why not? I am being cool in it."

Ingrid tsked. "You are s.e.xy and untouchable. Bee Cool is too hot to handle. This is what I just told the People magazine researcher who e-mailed today for some background info."

Oh dear. Stay calm. "Whom did they e-mail?"

"Ask her at Bee Cool Hold 'Em dot com," Ingrid announced proudly.

"What is Bee Cool Hold 'Em dot com?" I asked with extreme patience.

"Your website. I've been working on it all day. You're going to love it," she said decisively.

"Ingrid, why are you doing this?"

"Being your fashionista isn't keeping me busy enough, so I decided to become your imagista and of course you need a website. Everybody has websites these days. Mys.p.a.ce is the new info mall. You have a fan club. They deserve something. I gave it to them."

"Ingrid, I can't let you do this for free," I began. "Besides, I'm not sure I want you to do this at all."

"This is the deal," she said, opening the shopping bags and laying out her purchases. I tried not to look. One disaster at a time. "You give me ten percent of your winnings and endors.e.m.e.nts starting today."

I felt relieved. At least she had a monetary motive; that I could understand. "Ingrid, ten percent of nothing is nothing. And nothing won't pay for the things you've already bought, not to mention for your time and trouble."

Ingrid waved one long tan arm in the air casually. "Don't worry about these things. You have an anonymous benefactor."

It was getting scary again. "You mean Ben?"

Ingrid laughed. "No way. He's too selfish to benefact anyone but himself."

Well, I had to like Ingrid a little better now. "Okay, who is it then?"

She shrugged. "That's what anonymous means. They are unidentifiable."

"You can't identify them or you won't?" I demanded.

Ingrid shrugged again, and pulled some white silk pants out of the closet. Not me in white again. I stained things just thinking about them. I forced myself to tackle the argument first, fashion next.

"Who're you working for anyway?"

"I'm working for your image."

"My image won't pay you ten percent, my play at the table will."

"Wanna bet?" She raised her eyebrows, shooting me a cool look. I saw then how smart she really was. "This is the media age. The Internet is changing the game. Your image is everything. You can make more in endors.e.m.e.nts than you can on the felt, if you play your cards right."

Unless she was lying, Ingrid had no reason to dump me into the Pacific, so I decided to trust her, just a bit. She talked me into the white silk pants (with the promise I would wear five napkins in my lap at dinner), a beaded, low-cut, loose-fitting emerald halter top and a wraparound gold chain laced with white beads that hung in five layers from my collarbone to my waist. Gold chain earrings hung from my ears. I was allowed my gold strappy Manolos. Grateful that only one chain and no zippers were involved, I acquiesced.

The hair caused some controversy. She wanted me to wear it down in my natural wavy curls. I thought I probably should wear it pulled back in a bun to hide the hunks the duct tape pulled out, which necessitated telling Ingrid sketchy details of my spa attack. Her face took on a protective anger, much like Marlboro Man's did. Of course, she had more cause since her potential 10 percent almost went out the ship window.

"Why and who would want to hurt you?" she asked as she watched me arrange my hair in the compromise-a sleeked-back ponytail.

"Maybe whoever hurt Rick and did something with Rawhide."

She raised her eyebrows again but didn't respond. She changed quickly into a pair of tangerine linen pants, a gorgeous, flowing, strapless organza top a slightly lighter shade of orange, ballerina slippers and a barrette holding her pale hair just off her face-an outfit that I couldn't make work if you paid me. Ingrid looked like she stepped off the cat-walk in Milan. She wore her six feet well.

We decided to meet after Softer Secrets to go to drinks and dinner together. I did have to meet Ian and hopefully Jack too, at the bar first. Ingrid could help. I figured that I would orchestrate the conversation so she could talk to Ian while I quizzed Jack. As we made our way down the hallway to the elevator, Ingrid told me about my website, which she was going to work on while I did my workshop. I felt a tickly feeling at the back of my neck as I had lately whenever I walked down the hallway. I started to look over my shoulder but Ingrid dragged me forward to make the elevator. We squeezed in with a carful of people including the Santobellas, who'd been separated in the crush by a couple of people. Delia glared and a pale Rick threw me a meaningful look I unfortunately couldn't interpret.

When the elevator opened on the ninth floor, we got pushed out first and I angled myself off to the right where Rick would be disembarking. Delia was one step ahead of me, though, elbowing the two between them, grabbing his arm and guiding him off to the left past Ingrid, who'd gotten moved off along with the flow of bodies.

Ingrid waited for everyone to pa.s.s, then walked over to me, shaking her head. "That guy handed me something . . ."

"Which man?" I asked, stopping and turning around.

She pointed at Rick. He'd seen us get in the elevator together. I looked at her hand. "What does the paper say?"

Ingrid opened up the sc.r.a.p of paper.

RG 4200 AT.

Ingrid looked at me as she handed it over. "What kind of code is this?"

I shrugged, taking the paper and tucking it in my clutch. "Maybe if I think about it for a while I'll understand."

"Good luck."

"She won't need to be wished that for the tournament. She had a bad enough day to be lucky tonight."

I paused as Richard came up on our left. "How do you know I had a bad day?"

He smiled. "I saw you in the Vegas pool. Stinky."

"I promise you, my day was lots worse than that."

"Super! I'll bet on you then," Richard chortled.

"Bet on me? Figure of speech or are you really betting?"

"I've got a good pool going. You are at twelve-to-one odds right now behind the Indian kid, and any amateur."

"Who thought of this idea?" I asked, laughing at the absurdity. "Gambling on gambling?"

"You did," Richard threw back cheerfully. I threw Ingrid a hard look that she met with an unapologetic shrug as he continued. "The advice on your website that says watching the game, knowing the players and betting on who will win will teach you to play better by showing you how to read the game. Of course, my own twisted version of that is: I'm checking out all the player's days to see if you've ridden the end of your lucky wave or whether you are due the next set. I think you're due the next set."

"So do I. Nice ocean a.n.a.logy by the way." I observed, jostling him with my hip.

"I like to keep with the theme," Richard said as he walked on.

"See," Ingrid said. "People are already reading your website."

"Scary, since I've never seen it and don't know what I am supposedly saying on it."

"I'll meet you at the bar in an hour," Ingrid informed me as she turned and walked away.

I realized I didn't know where the seminar would be, so I sank into a chair next to the window and rifled through my purse for the itinerary Kinkaid had given me. I was speaking in a lobby area adjacent to the poker room, obviously in the hopes of filling up tables for the ship. Rising, I made my way to the stairs. I had just put my hand on the railing when the boat lurched, taking a hard bank left, which threw my body against the railing, then over it. I screamed, but I was so busy trying to hang onto the slippery wood that I don't think it came out very loud.

Seventeen.

My stiletto-clad feet scrambled for purchase along the curving staircase railing. My arms trembled with growing weakness. I foolishly looked down. If-no, when-I fell, I would be landing on the next curve in railing before I hit the deck. Ouch. This was going to hurt. People were running, confused and scared, up and down the stairs, either not seeing or ignoring me in favor of their own panic.

Two hysterical women stopped on the stairs, gripping each other.

"We're sinking."

"It's the t.i.tanic all over again."

"I don't think so," I offered, hoping to get their attention. "Since there aren't usually any icebergs in the Gulf of Mexico in summer."

The women rolled their eyes at me and ran down the stairs. I guess I couldn't hope they would catch me when I lost my last vestige of strength. I closed my eyes and felt my fingers slipping the rest of the way off the slick wood. Then I was flying through the air. But I was going up . . . .

How did that happen?

I was dumped onto the pointy stairs, knocking the air out of me for a moment. My nose was buried in the carpet. I sucked in a breath, opened my eyes and blinked. By the time I looked up all I could see were a pair of black cowboy boots rounding the corner at the top of the stairs. I swear they were lizard. Their soles said Lucchese. At least my savior had taste.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" a cruise employee whose nametag read Rita stooped over me to ask.

I nodded and took a deep breath. "Did you see who helped me?"

She shrugged. "Some guy."

"What did he look like?"

"I didn't notice, I was more worried about you."

"Thanks." I said, rising gingerly. Ouch. I was going to have a mother of a bruise on my right shin. "What's going on? Is this still the turbulence from the storm?"

Rita shook her head. "I don't think so, I was told we left that a long time ago. I was just going to check with my boss when I saw you."

"Let's go."

I limped to the top of the stairs and we made it out on deck. The ship had done a 180-degree turn, which is why I'd been thrown head over tea kettle.

"I heard someone fell overboard and we're going back to get him," a man peering over the railing told us. The ship had slowed to almost a complete stop by now. We searched the sea alongside the ship as dozens more joined us, murmuring, concerned and excited-a bunch of sea-going rubberneckers. I heard a commotion from the stern. I left Rita chatting with a pair of pa.s.sengers and made my way through the crowd. Cruise engineers had produced a large metal basket that they were lowering to the water from a pole off the side of the ship. They'd already dropped a rubber dingy. I worried for the poor guys who drew the short straws and had to be out on the treacherous-looking sea. They motored over the roiling waves in what looked like a grid pattern for about ten minutes.

"What are they looking for?" I asked a woman next to me.

"I heard they saw a treasure chest floating in the water."

Uh-huh, mister, and I have some oceanfront property in Amarillo for sale.

"No, it was a mermaid," a woman slurred.

Have another margarita, mama.

"I heard someone fell overboard," someone else reported.

Now we were getting somewhere.

"That's true," a third man said. "My girlfriend talked to the guy who saw something fly by his window."

Oops, hope it wasn't my pillow he saw. I'd feel bad for the rescue team getting soaked for a little goosedown.

"There it is!" A voice shouted to my right. A little girl pointed out at something bobbing in the water about five hundred yards off the ship. We all squinted as the rescue team motored toward it. I squinted at the blob. I couldn't tell what it was. We watched the pair review it and then pull it onto the dingy. It sure looked human to me. Two legs, two arms. It also looked dead to me. Limp, still. One of the guys started CPR.

The driver made it back to the side of the ship where the metal cage had been lowered to water level. The man doing CPR with no visible results stopped and, with the help of the other rescuer, flipped the body into the cage, where it wound up faceup. The cage began to rise. Too young and too much hair to be Rawhide.

The cage paused a few decks below us. I leaned over the railing and watched as a door slid open on the side of the ship and the rig disappeared into the bowels of the boat.

"It was the insurance investigator."

Ben had oozed in next to me at some point. I looked at him in shock. "How do you know?"

"How many guys on the boat would be wearing a bow tie, handle bar mustache and green bowling shoes?"

Before I could answer we were all silenced by the sound of the PA system.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Santiago. I apologize for keeping you uninformed as to the recent turn of events on board, but my attention has been focused on saving one of your fellow pa.s.sengers. Unfortunately, it appears that he fell overboard. As many of you have seen, due to the heroic efforts of our trained crew, we did manage to rescue him. Resuscitation attempts are underway now, the ship's doctor is with him and an investigation will ensue. We encourage all of you to follow the cruise ship guidelines for safety and anyone with any information about this incident is asked to notify the ship security immediately. Now, please return to your activities and enjoy the rest of your day."

Sure. No problem.

Actually most pa.s.sengers seemed more than willing to do just that, filtering back into the interior of the ship to dress for dinner or find an empty table in the casino. Drive by the wreck and onto the party. It wasn't that easy for me to let it go, but it never was. I'd long yearned for better emotional blocks. My fairy G.o.dmother had yet to grant my wish.

"I hope he makes it," I murmured, although he didn't look too good.

Ben shook his head. "It's pretty hard to survive a five to ten-story fall."

"But he fell into water."