I apologize for waking you," I said when Nana answered.
"Tilly's hurlin' in the bathroom again, dear, so I'm wide-awake. Are you doin' any better?"
"You bet. Nana, when you went down to the computer room, did you hear someone running the photocopier in the business center?"
"Nope. Was I s'posed to?"
"Did you notice if anyone was working in there when you passed by?"
"The place was empty. I know 'cause I looked through the window."
So Jennifer had left by then. Did that mean she'd finished up her work and gone back to her cabin, or that she'd followed me?
"By the way, dear, I never got to tell you earlier, but I done your computer search and I didn't come up with nothin'. It took me a while, too. About ten minutes."
"You searched twenty-two thousand eight hundred references to Broomhead in ten minutes?"
"What can I say? Response time was a little slow tonight. Anything else you want me to search for tomorrow? I already got a request from Tilly. She wants me to pull up some information on eighteenth-century puzzle boxes so's maybe we can figure out how to open --"
Puzzle box? My heart thudded to a stop. "Oh, my God! The puzzle box! It didn't fall onto the floor and break, did it?"
"It can't break, dear." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's in the refrigerator."
"No, it's not. I found it when I was looking for bottled water, and...and I took it out. I left it on the sofa when I answered the door." I hesitated nervously. "It's still there...isn't it?"
"Hold on." I heard feet shuffling away, then back. She picked the receiver up again. "It mighta been there when you answered the door, dear, but it's not there now."
"It's gone?" I said in a small, guilt-ridden voice.
"The only thing on the sofa is the cushions, and a few cracker crumbs, on account a I'm force-feedin' saltines to Tilly when she's not in the bathroom."
Damn! Damn, damn, damn! Why hadn't I made the connection sooner? Jennifer French hadn't been after Nana or me.
She'd been after the treasure.
Twelve hours after being admitted to the infirmary, I was released with a clean bill of health and bags under my eyes that rivaled twenty-five-pound sacks of flour. The rain had stopped, but the seas were still heavy enough to confine guests to their cabins, which was a blessing in disguise, because when I arrived at the Picture Gallery on deck five, I didn't have to fight the crowd. Unlike the other night, I had the whole place to myself.
I wasn't sure what I was hoping to find, but as I located the section entitled DAY THREE -- KAUAI, I had a gut feeling that if I looked closely enough, something would leap out at me. The ship's photographer had been so relentless in his pursuit of the perfect Kodak moment that I expected to find some surprises amid the hundreds of photos posted in the display cases. Yet, as I eyeballed the array of glossy prints, I hoped my goal wasn't too ambitious. Geesch. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack. But I considered it my duty, since I was the one who'd dragged the puzzle box out of its hiding place. I felt it was up to me to track it down and get it back.
I searched scads of happy faces leaving the ship for the morning excursions, and a few faces that didn't look so happy. Bailey was posed against the "Welcome to Kauai" panel all by herself, her mouth zipper straight, her eyes anxious. No surprise there. I found all of my group in sequential photos, wearing their standard seed corn hats, wind suits, and leis. Leis? No one gave me a lei. Shoot. Maybe they'd run out by the time I disembarked.
I found Duncan and reminded myself to call him when I got back to my cabin to see how he was feeling. Scanning some more, I discovered Gjurd in a solo shot without Nils or Ansgar, and Shelly looking good enough to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. She wasn't wearing a lei either, which confirmed my suspicion that the supply had run out by the time I'd left for my helicopter tour.
I spotted Percy and Basil looking goofily English in a picture high above my head and wondered where they'd gone yesterday. They were both wearing leis, so they must have left fairly early -- though according to Duncan, not with his tour group. Had they