Read Online Baked Alaska by Josi S. Kilpack - Free Book Online

the bathroom and scrunched some gel into her hair. She’d spent a year transitioning from brown to salt-and-pepper gray with texturizing tones of blonde and brown throughout. It didn’t make her look as old as she’d once feared it would, and it worked well with her coloring. She usually blow-dried her hair with a large round brush to soften her natural curl into a stacked A-line bob—a more elegant style than she’d had the last few years—but there was no time for elegance today. She had to settle for curls she knew would dry as stiff as a Brillo pad.
    Her skin had tightened as it dried, so she rubbed moisturizer into her cheeks and forehead while using her feet to kick her shoes out of the closet. There wasn’t time for her full makeup regime; she was eager to get to the library and learn the answers she’d been wanting since first getting onto this ship. By the time she ran out of the cabin, slinging her bag over her head and shoulder, it was 10:28.
    The library was on deck twelve, and she had to pass the hot tubs and the chair Tanice had been in on her way. There were people soaking in the tubs, eating at the tables that flanked the windows, and lounging in the chairs.
    The library was the second door on the right once she passed through the interior doors at the forward end of the open deck. She pulled the glass door open and then stopped at the threshold, scanning the dozen or so people inside the room. Her shoulders slumped as she realized that Pete, Shawn, and Breanna were not here. She knew she was two and a half hours late, but couldn’t they have waited? Or left a note or something?
    Had she taken the time to actually look for a note in her room?
    What she wouldn’t give for cell phone reception that could put her in touch with anyone in her family in mere seconds. She blew out a breath, loudly, which earned her disapproving looks from a few of the library patrons. She didn’t know where to start looking, and after standing there for several seconds, she headed back to her cabin—the only option she could think of. She let out another exasperated breath when she found a note sitting on top of Breanna’s computer.
    Mom,
    Didn’t want to wake you. We went to the security office but will come back here if we don’t see you there.
    Love you,
    Bre
    She knew where they were, that was good, but knowing they were at security was uncomfortable. Shawn and Pete had headed there last night and still went back this morning? What did that mean? Tanice should be sober by now, right?
    Sadie hurried up the aft stairs to deck eleven while half a dozen scenarios of what Shawn was hiding—and Pete and Breanna were in on it, too!—ran through her mind. She should never have taken that pill last night.
    When she reached deck eleven, she saw the sign for security beside the starboard hall and headed toward the front of the ship, mindful that deck eleven was where she’d first seen Shawn and Tanice on Sunday—the same deck she’d walked around and around last night.
    Her steps slowed, and she walked more carefully, as though there might be a clue on the carpet somewhere that would explain everything that had happened in these hallways. Of course, finding that kind of clue rarely happened outside of Agatha Christie novels, but it was always a possibility.
    She passed a room steward who nodded at her before entering a cabin, propping the door open. It was several yards before Sadie passed the doorway leading to the forward elevators. She passed by the place where the hallway jogged right—where Tanice had disappeared on Sunday. It felt surreal to be covering the same ground after so much had happened. A door opened farther down the hall, and a woman stepped out, causing Sadie to slow down even more.
    “I know, alright? I’ll be back in an hour,” the woman said into the open doorway.
    She pulled the door shut and turned in Sadie’s direction. They both recognized each other at the same time—the woman had been in