Flawless(102)

Both men wore tailored shirts and pants, not the usual tourist apparel. But then, they weren’t tourists. They were bigwigs with Celtic American.

“Nice to meet you,” Alexi said.

“Have you seen a man?” Nolan asked her.

That made her laugh. “A man? Nolan, I’ve seen hundreds of men. It’s a cruise ship.”

She understood exactly what he meant. And yet, for some reason, she was loath to tell him that yes, a man—a strange-looking man—had just gone by. She wondered why company VIPs were so interested in him.

“He’s tall, bizarre make-up of some kind, sweat shirt and jeans,” Jude McCoy said.

She lifted her shoulders. “I believe I did see him earlier,” she admitted, “running through the piano bar when the passengers were boarding.”

She had seen that same man again, just minutes ago. And she wasn’t telling these men. Why? Instinct? Pity?

But there’d had been something even more peculiar about him than the prosthetic make-up or whatever it was he had on his face. A sense of anguish, perhaps.

She hesitated. She shouldn’t lie to these people. But the young man had seemed so desperate. In her heart, she felt that he’d come to her for help.

Still...

“Actually,” she said, “I think he was in this hallway. He ran in that direction. But where he is right now, I couldn’t say.”

That was mostly the truth. She didn’t know where he was. He’d run.

“Well, thank you, Ms. Cromwell. If you should see him again, can you report him to us, please? We’re in staterooms 312 and 314,” Jackson Crow said. “It’s imperative that we find him,” he added quietly. “But I’m not at liberty to discuss the details.”

“Of course,” she murmured.

As they walked down the hall, she was more suspicious than ever.

Why were company bigwigs staying down in the bowels of the ship with the crew? The larger rooms—staterooms with balconies, the suites—were on the upper decks.

She was about to return to her cabin when Clara came running down the hallway, leaning against the wall, gasping for breath. “Alexi! Did you have the news on?”

“The news? No, why?”

“Thank God we’re leaving! That guy, that horrible killer!” She gasped for more breath. “The Archangel—he murdered a woman in New Orleans!”