Read Online Dark Passage by Marcia Talley - Free Book Online

somebody’s gotta …’
    â€˜You were going to tell me what you wanted my sister’s picture for,’ I cut in. ‘Do you work for the cruise line?’
    â€˜In a way. C.L.I.A? It’s the cruise line association. They’re doing a coffee table book to hand out to VIPs – senators, congressmen and the like. They hired me to take the pictures.’ His eyes flicked toward Georgina, still blissfully unaware we were talking about her. ‘The sun lighting her hair? The white bathing suit? Irresistible to an old shutterbug like me.’
    Something in his gaze made me feel slightly uneasy, but where was the harm in a photograph? I nudged my sister gently on the shoulder. ‘Wake up, Georgina. This guy wants to know if it’s OK to take your picture. He wants to use it for a book he’s doing for the cruise lines.’
    Georgina opened an eye, gave the photographer a few seconds’ worth of attention, then buried her head between her forearms again. ‘Just as long as he doesn’t block my sun.’
    Buck raised his camera, aimed and took a rapid-fire series of shots. ‘Thank you,’ he drawled, stepping back toward the pool. ‘’Preciate that.’
    â€˜No problem,’ Georgina muttered into her lounger.
    After Buck wandered off, I returned to my novel, but had read only a paragraph when Ruth poked me with a finger. ‘Look who just came in. Isn’t that the David guy that Liz and Cliff were talking about at breakfast?’
    David Warren, still dressed like the manager of a country club, had wandered into the solarium. He glanced around the room, as if looking for someone, shook his head slightly, then retreated to a table on the other side of the pool, not far from where we were lounging. Once seated, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small notebook and began flipping through it until he came to a blank page. His eyes went on to scan mode: up to the solarium’s crystal canopy and down; one end of the glass enclosure to the other.
    â€˜He’s not looking for any
one
,’ I suddenly realized. ‘He’s looking for some
thing
.’
    Ruth agreed. ‘I’ll bet he’s an undercover inspector.’
    â€˜A mystery passenger,’ Georgina added. ‘Like one of those mystery shoppers, you know? Reports back to management?’
    Ruth swiped a rivulet of sweat from her brow. ‘Wonder what he’s looking for?’
    I shrugged. ‘Safety violations?’
    An attendant balancing a tray of drinks on the flat of his hand stopped beside David’s chair, but was waved off impatiently. The interruption must have broken the man’s concentration, because he tucked the notebook back into his breast pocket, stood, and shuffled out of the solarium the way he had come.
    â€˜If he’s an undercover inspector, he couldn’t be more obvious,’ I said. ‘One doesn’t usually wear a sports jacket, chinos and penny loafers when going to a swimming pool.’
    â€˜Funny how we keep running into the same people,’ Ruth muttered before returning to her book.
    â€˜Yeah, isn’t it?’ I agreed, thinking about the Rowes.
    Day one of an eight-day cruise. Somehow I suspected I hadn’t seen the last of David Warren.

SEVEN
    â€˜She vanished as quickly as an electric light goes out when the switch is turned.’
    David Devant,
Secrets of My Magic
,
Hutchinson
, 1936
    S itting for hours in a hot tub can suck the energy clean out of you. Add a gorgeous lunch of broiled lamb skewers, baby arugula and lemon vinaigrette, followed by a square of baklava, and all you can think about is a nap.
    Ruth had already headed off for her yoga session when I hauled myself off my bunk, collected my knitting and made my way aft to the Oracle.
    I was ten minutes early.
    The attractive barkeep I’d noticed there earlier that morning was alone, moving busily behind the bar, arranging empty glasses on