“Have you been crying?” he asks.
“What?”
“You look like you’ve been crying.”
“No—just allergies. I get allergies.”
“What kind of allergies?”
“Can I get you anything, Carter?”
“Oh no, I’m good. I’m just doing reconnaissance. Getting my bearings.” He lifts his notebook. “Making a map of the elite deck. Seeing who’s where and what’s what.”
“Right. Well, I’ll see you later.”
“Yessiree, Roshaan.”
She swears under her breath as she hurries to the elevator. She stabs the button, checks her watch. She’s running out of time. Her urge to see Theo grows hotter, overwhelming, all-consuming. Sheneedsto be assured she’s doing the right thing. Yet in her marrow she knows it’s wrong. A terrible mistake. And it’s probably almost impossible for her to turn back the tide now.
As she jabs the button again, an announcement comes over the PA system.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, fellow voyagers. This is your cruise director, Dimitri Markou, speaking. On behalf of Captain Sophia Bellini and the rest of the Black Orchid officers and crew, welcome aboard. We’re currently experiencing a brief delay as we await the arrival of two more guests. We appreciate your patience and invite you to relax ...”
The elevator arrives. Roshaan hurries in, punches the button for the staff deck. The elevator begins to slide down. Her heart pumps faster. Tension tightens. The elevator halts on Deck 9.
One of her elites, Hendrick Lodewijk, a suave antiquities dealer from Amsterdam, steps in.
“Oh, hello, Roshaan,” he says in his Dutch accent.
“Mr. Lodewijk, are you finding your way around okay?”
“Hendrick, please. Yes, I’m taking myself on a tour of the murals.” He presses the button for Deck 5, and Roshaan silently curses. “I’m now going down to see theReflections of Arrogancemural.”
“Right. Yes, Nemesis watching Narcissus waste away.”
“Do you have a favorite? Among the murals?” he asks.
All Roshaan can see in her mind’s eye is Zeus zapping his lightning bolt at her sinful soul.
“I like them all.”
He laughs, and it crumples his face in a lovely way. Hendrick might be in his late seventies, but there’s a youthful enigma and energy about him. When she welcomed him on board earlier, he told her he’d been born in Palembang on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, to a Dutch father and Indonesian mother. His parents both died in Japanese concentration camps during the Second World War, and after the war he was sent as a child, alone, to the Netherlands—a country he did not know—to live with a Dutch aunt he’d never met. It was not an easy time, he explained. “I was neither Dutch nor Indo. Neither white nor properly brown. But we survive when we need to, don’t we? Even thrive.”
Whether Hendrick was opening a window for Roshaan to divulge her own cultural background or aligning himself with her lot—she being from mixed Portuguese, Mozambican, and Malaysian stock—Roshaan isn’t sure. And right now she doesn’t care. She just needs to see Theo. So she forces a smile, checks her watch again.
“You’re in a rush?”
“Always lots to do on departure day.”
“Of course.” The elevator stops, and relief rushes through her as Hendrick gets off.
“Tot ziens,” he says.
She hammers the button, but before the elevator can sink farther, a voice crackles in her earpiece.
“Roshaan. Finally! Your delayed elites are here! The Fairfax party has arrived at the terminal and will be boarding in moments. Where are you?”
Fuck.
