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KIAN
"Whiskey?" Toven asked.
"Definitely." Kian pulled out a chair at the round dining table in Toven and Mia's cabin.
The cabins were equipped with only five dining chairs, so Dalhu brought the missing ones from his and Amanda's cabin. There wasn't enough room around the dining table for the eight of them, but there wasn't much they could do about that.
Mia had chosen to stay by the couch to give them room, but she wasn't going to last long, even though she was worried about her friend. Her eyes were closing, and from time to time, her head was lolling forward.
"You should go to sleep, love." Toven walked over to her and crouched next to her. "Your body is working hard on re-growing your legs, and you know what happens when you deprive it of rest. The growth slows down."
She shook her head. "I need to stay awake. There isn't much I can contribute to the battle plans, but I know Margo. She is resourceful and brave, and if she can find a way to communicate where she is, she will. That's why it's important for me to stay by the phone. And if I fall asleep, you need to answer it for me right away."
Toven nodded. "I'll bring a pillow and a blanket from the bedroom so you can lie down on the couch. Will that work for you?"
"Yes. Thank you."
Casting a sidelong glance at Negal, Kian noted that the god looked pleased by Mia's praise of Margo.
Could he really be feeling a connection to the girl even though he had never met her?
Doubtful.
He'd seen Negal dancing with Gertrude, and the two seemed very cozy. He had no doubt that the god would be later invited to the nurse's bed.
"So, what's the deal?" Onegus asked.
"Let's wait for Toven to be done." Kian took a sip from the whiskey. "I don't want to have to say everything twice."
Once Mia was comfortable on the couch and Toven had sat down next to the table, Kian told everyone what Mia had told him and then glanced at her. "Am I missing anything?"
"No. You've got it all right. I just got a text from Lynda that the hotel security didn't do much to find Margo. Her suitcase and her satchel are still in her hotel room, and Lynda says that they are both packed like Margo was ready to leave, but her purse and her phone are not there. The hotel security people assume she's either partying in one of the clubs or shacking up with a guy, and they are not concerned. They told Lynda to inform the police after Margo had been missing for more than twenty-four hours. Lynda and her friends have early flights tomorrow, and she doesn't know what to do."
"Tell her to go home," Kian said. "There isn't much she can do. She's just going to be in the way, but don't tell her that. I don't want her to know that we are coming. I suspect that the Doomers might have found out who Margo is. She probably talked about joining a cruise ship, and even if she didn't, Lynda or her friends might have talked about it and been overheard."
Mia frowned. "So, you don't think it's the boyfriend?"
"It might be him, but it could also be the Doomers, and in my opinion, they are the more likely suspects. With all due respect to Margo's theory about the boyfriend, it's a little far-fetched."
"I don't think so," Mia insisted. "He took Jasmine's passport, her driver's license, and her credit cards. Why would he do that if he didn't want to do something nefarious to her?"
"Why did she allow it?" Dalhu asked. "She should have refused and called hotel security."
Mia cast him a sad smile. "It's not that simple for women who think that they are in a loving relationship. Her boyfriend gave her a logical excuse, and at that moment, she didn't think it through. Later, she might have thought he was overbearing and that maybe she shouldn't be with him, but she didn't feel an urgency to act immediately until Margo planted in her head the idea of him wanting to trade her."
"Mia is right." Kian let out a breath. "Ella had a similar experience. She met a guy who seemed like a loving boyfriend. He invested a lot of time in her, and she agreed to go with him to visit his family in New York, thinking she was just going for a weekend. She had no idea that she was walking into a trap. Still, that was a very unique situation. The oligarch who ordered her delivery saw her picture in an advertisement and got obsessed with her because she was the spitting image of the love of his life, who had died when he was still a young man. I doubt Jasmine's story is the same."
Toven leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "You know the saying about great minds thinking alike? It's true whether those great minds are good or evil. Perhaps someone ordered Jasmine's abduction."
"That's possible," Kian agreed. "But then why would they also take Margo?"
"So she wouldn't spill?" Kalugal offered. "Margo was a witness. I assume that she's a good-looking young lady, so the perpetrator might have thought to kill two birds with one stone. He eliminated the only witness to Jasmine's abduction and made more money by selling another woman. Win-win for him."
"I still think it's the Doomers," Kian said. "We know that they are in the hotel and that they know we are picking up a woman from there. It's logical to assume that they asked around and heard that there was a woman who talked about getting picked up by a cruise ship." He grimaced. "That means that they know we are arriving by ship, and figuring out which of the ships that left Acapulco earlier today is ours won't be too difficult."
"I don't think the Doomers took her," Dalhu said. "Margo is useless to them as a hostage because they don't know how to contact us. If they could, they would have already done so and stated their demands. The best thing for them to do is to leave her be, watch who she interacts with, wait until she either leaves or gets collected by someone, and then let her lead them to us. My bet is on the boyfriend, although following that logic, the Doomers should have intervened and freed her, so that's a hole in my theory."
"There is another possibility," Kian said. "The Doomers could have decided to do what their brethren in Acapulco did with Luis. Perhaps they wanted to set a trap for us and lure as many of us as possible into coming to search for Margo, expecting us to show up with a big search and rescue team."
