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СКАЧАТЬ closed my eyes for a second and told myself that I was a darned fool. I had walked off and left Ben Webster standing in front of the door like he was about to go in, but I hadn’t actually seen him enter the cabin. He’d waited until I was gone, then headed for somewhere else on the boat!

      “Is there a problem?” Vince Mallory asked.

      “No, not at all,” I lied. I had an unaccounted-for rogue tourist with a grudge, that was all. Ben Webster had to be hiding somewhere on the riverboat, and the only reason for him to do that would be if he wanted to cause trouble of some sort. To avenge his losses in the casino that he thought were caused by a rigged roulette wheel. To get back at Rafferty for threatening him. Heck, who knew what was going on in Ben Webster’s mind. All I knew was that it couldn’t be anything good.

      “I’d be glad to give you a hand if there’s anything I can do,” Vince Mallory said.

      “No, everything’s fine,” I said. I had thought of something else I could check. But first I forced myself back into tour director mode. “Are you heading into Hannibal to see some of the sights this afternoon?”

      “Yeah, I thought I would. I’ve been in the casino, but you can’t just gamble away the whole trip, now can you?” He waved a hand toward Hannibal. “Not with all this history waiting to be seen and experienced.”

      “You’re a history buff, are you?”

      “I had a double major in college: history and American literature. That was before I sort of got sidetracked into the military.”

      He had sort of a military look about him, all right. Probably the short hair and the fact that he was in really good shape. He didn’t really seem like the academic type, but he went on, “Mark Twain has always been a particular interest of mine. When I was doing graduate work I planned to write my doctoral thesis on him.”

      “But you got sidetracked,” I said.

      He grinned. “Yeah. Wound up an MP instead of a PhD. Funny how life works out sometimes, isn’t it?”

      “It sure is. Are you still in the service?”

      “No, I’ve been out for a while. I’ve been trying to decide whether to go back to school or maybe get into the security field.”

      He was a likable young guy, but I had a potential crisis on my hands. I had chatted long enough to do my duty as the tour director, so I said, “Well, I’ll see you later, more than likely. Enjoy your cruise, Mr. Mallory.”

      “Thank you.” He looked concerned. “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do to help you?”

      “No, thanks.” I smiled and turned to head for my cabin.

      When I got there I opened my laptop and called up the records for this cruise. I had a copy of the passenger manifest that someone in Charles Gallister’s office had e-mailed to me earlier in the day. In addition to giving me something to check against my own records, it provided the numbers of the cabins assigned to my clients. It took me only a second to scroll down the list to Ben Webster’s name and see that he was supposed to be in Cabin 135.

      That was on the second deck. The son of a gun had lied to me. He had picked Vince Mallory’s cabin at random and claimed it was his so he could get away from me and do whatever it was he planned to do—which couldn’t be anything good. Now I was stuck with not knowing where he was or what he was up to.

      I still had one thing I could check before giving up and going to Rafferty, though. I left my cabin and hurried up to the second deck again. Earlier I had walked all around it looking for Webster, but I hadn’t knocked on the door to Cabin 135. That’s what I did now.

      Somehow, I wasn’t the least bit surprised when there was no answer.

      I tried the knob, not expecting the door to be unlocked. But it was. I confess, I jumped a little in surprise when the knob turned in my hand. I didn’t know whether to open the door or not. It had occurred suddenly to me that I might not like what I found in there.

      But I had gone too far to back out now, I figured, so I eased the door open a couple of inches and knocked on it again, just in case. I even called out, “Mr. Webster? Ben? Are you in there?”

      When there was no answer, I really thought about closing the door and going for help, so I wouldn’t have to go in there by myself. I sort of wished now that I’d asked Vince Mallory to come with me. Having a big, strapping former MP with me would have done wonders for my confidence right then.

      It seemed like I stood there, torn by indecision, a lot longer than I actually did. Probably not more than a couple of seconds went by after I called out before I pushed the door all the way open and stepped into the cabin with my heart pounding.

      Nobody was in there.

      Unless they were in the bathroom, my nervous brain reminded me. The closed door loomed ominously in a corner of the room.

      I took a better look around first. There had been a suitcase sitting on the bed in Vince Mallory’s cabin, as there probably was in most of the passenger cabins on the boat. Not here, though. I didn’t see a bag anywhere. I opened the door to the tiny closet. No suitcase, no clothes hanging up, nothing. By the looks of the cabin, it could have been unoccupied.

      That left the bathroom. There’s an old saying in the South about being as nervous as a cat on a porch full of rocking chairs. That’s how I felt as I approached the bathroom door. I was ready to jump.

      I knocked on it first. “Mr. Webster? Are you in there?”

      Either he wasn’t, or he couldn’t answer.

      “Stop that,” I told myself out loud as that thought went through my head. “Just because you found a dead body that other time doesn’t mean you’re gonna find one now.”

      I knew that made sense, but I still felt a whole cloud of butterflies in my stomach as I reached out and grasped the knob. I swallowed hard and then turned it. I pushed the door open, halfway expecting to bump up against a corpse.

      Instead the door opened all the way, revealing a bathroom with a toilet, a tiny vanity, and a shower, just like the one in my cabin. The shower curtain was pulled across the opening. I started to push it back, then hesitated. I didn’t think the shower was big enough for a body to be hidden in it. The only way that would be possible would be if the body was stiff enough so it could be propped up against the wall and stay there.

      With a rasp of curtain rings on the rod, I shoved the curtain back.

      Then blew out a long breath because the shower was empty. Not just empty, but also dry, as if no one had used it since the passengers came on board.

      I looked around the bathroom. It didn’t take long. No shaving kit or anything else personal. The hand towel beside the vanity was damp, the only sign that this cabin had been occupied anytime recently. If not for that, it would have been like Ben Webster had never been here.

      So he had come to his cabin and cleaned it out after leaving me down on the main deck, I thought. Why? It made sense if he’d been planning to get off the boat at Hannibal, as he’d agreed to do. But he hadn’t gotten off. At least, I hadn’t seen him if he had.

      So where the heck was my missing tourist?

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