Ivan stood beside her, slouched against the wood cabinet. “You like this, don’t you?”
Stephanie laughed. “It’s hard work being a ship’s cook, but it’s fun.” She wiped her hands on her clean sweats, never thinking about the new blueberry stains she was acquiring. When she spoke she kept her voice low so the conversation didn’t carry past Ivan. “I was a narc for a long time, and my world was really very small. My work environment was frantic. The station house was noisy and chaotic, with a bunch of dedicated, underpaid, overworked cops living on candy bars and coffee. When I wasn’t at the station house, I was in a school that was even noisier and more chaotic. After a while you get to thinking all of it is normal. You wonder if the whole world lives on fast food and works eighteen-hour days.”
“What about your family and friends outside of work? What about those Sunday chicken dinners?”
Stephanie cut another pie while she talked. “I had personal reasons for becoming a cop, but once I started working, the personal reasons weren’t important anymore. It was the kids who were important. I liked them. They needed help. They needed someone to get the pushers far away from them. They needed education. They needed enough confidence in themselves not to succumb to peer pressure. It wasn’t as if I was God and could solve all those problems, but I made a small contribution. Anyway, it was very consuming. I visited my family, but I lived in the high school hallways. Then I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, and realized I was getting too old to pass for a teenager.”
There was a lot more to it than that, but she didn’t feel like relating it. They’d moved her from one school to another, prolonging her career. In the end, she’d almost been killed because she hadn’t been smart enough to quit while she was ahead.
She shrugged away the memory of it. Almost killed didn’t count, she told herself. Everything had worked out okay, and here she was, cutting pie.
“I’ve missed a whole chunk of my life,” she said. “I spent my twenties masquerading as a teenager. I didn’t mind that so much, but I did mind the rat race existence I’d become used to. When I quit the police force and did some long-overdue introspection, I found myself feeling absolutely starved for things that were wholesome. Clean air, healthy food, good people. The one thing I’ve missed at Haben has been the people. I haven’t been able to open for business because of the repairs, and I’ve been lonely.”
She handed him the pie to take to the table. “This is great. This is like a pajama party!”
Loretta Pease and Lena Neilson squeezed down the galley stairs. “We saw her!” Lena shouted. “She was on the deck. She had the knife, and there was blood on it!”
Ivan started toward the stairs, but Lena stopped him. “Don’t bother rushing up there,” she said. “She’s gone.”
He moved aside for the rest of the passengers filing in for blueberry pie. “Where’d she go?”
“Disappeared. Poof,” Lena said.
Mrs. Pease agreed. “It’s true. We came up from Lena’s cabin, and there she was, all dressed in black, just like last time. She was standing at the back of the ship with the knife, and when she saw us, she jumped overboard, but we didn’t hear a splash.” Loretta Pease gave an involuntary shudder. “I got a pretty good look at her this time. She was creepy-looking. Her skin was white as a sheet, and she had lots of hair that was wild and had a blue tint to it. She looked like pictures you see of people who’ve risen from the dead.”
“And when we went to look over the rail, we couldn’t find her,” Lena said.
Stephanie checked the people in the room. Everyone was accounted for, including Ace and the first mate. They’d both come in with Mr. Kramer. No one looked as if they’d been stabbed with a carving knife. “Maybe we should have a look around anyway,” she said to Ivan.
“Okay, who gets pie? Who gets coffee?” Ace asked, taking over.
Stephanie and Ivan slipped away and walked the deck in silence while Ivan played the searchlight over every nook and cranny, along the gunwales, up the tall masts.
“You think Lena and Loretta were into the sherry?” he finally asked. “That part about the wild blue hair doesn’t play.”
“It’s a little bizarre, but Loretta Pease doesn’t strike me as a person who would make up stories.”
Ivan skipped the light across the oak water casks and mahogany planking. “I don’t like having some ghoul running around on my ship. And I like the part about the bloody carving knife even less.”
“I don’t like it either. I think, until we know otherwise, we have to assume she’s dangerous, although my own personal instincts lean more in the direction of it being a prank. Of course, it could always be Aunt Tess. Or maybe it’s a new ghoul? Ghosts in your bedroom, ghouls on your ship. You must be popular when Halloween rolls around.”
“You think it could actually be a ghoul?”
Stephanie looked at him sideways. “Are you serious?”
“Does the thought of having a ghoul on board frighten you? Does it make you want to throw yourself into my strong arms for protection?”
“The thought of you believing in a ghoul frightens me. It makes me want to call the Coast Guard.”
Ivan curled his hand around her neck, stroking the nape with his thumb. “I bet you go to horror movies and never scream. You’re one of those people who sit there and say it’s all done with special effects.”
He had great hands, Stephanie thought. Warm and strong and clever. “It is all done with special effects.”
He pulled her closer. “Hmmm. Do you believe in Santa Claus? The Easter bunny? The tooth fairy? Jaws?”
“Maybe Santa Claus…”
He leaned forward and kissed her. He’d intended the kiss to be light and provoking, but it immediately turned serious, devouring whatever good intentions he’d had up to that point. He set the flashlight aside and pulled her to him, needing to feel the length of her against his body.
Stephanie had wanted to be kissed. Ivan Rasmussen made her feel sexy in a wonderful way, and she wanted to explore that feeling. She liked the way his mouth moved over hers, coaxing, demanding, exciting. He wasn’t stingy with his emotions, and he wasn’t afraid to put himself on the line. She liked that, too. Their tongues touched, and her hands roamed his smooth, muscled back.
She was losing it. Losing control, losing perspective. It happened when you fell in lust, and she knew she was in lust. No big deal, she told herself. People fell in lust all the time, and it was all right as long as you didn’t mistake it for something more serious.
She leaned backward to look at him. “So this is what I’ve been missing all these years.”
“This is nothing. It gets better as you go along.”
She didn’t doubt him for a second. “How far along do you think we should go?”
He studied her for a moment. “I’ll let you decide that.”
“My original plan was to save myself for marriage.”
“Is this a proposal?”
Stephanie laughed. “No. Marriage seems a little drastic. I’m thinking of changing my game plan.”
Her hand strayed to the rope rigging at her side, and her fingers closed around a coil that felt oddly sticky. She brought the hand forward and stared at it. Curiosity was replaced by horror, crawling along her spine and knifing through her stomach. It was blood, she thought. Dark and fresh, staining her palm, seeping between her fingers. “Oh Lord,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with revulsion. “It’s blood.”
Ivan took a closer look and smiled. “No. It’s blueberry.” He put a finger into his mouth and sucked on it. “Yum.”
Stephanie put her hand to her head and closed her eyes until her heartbeat returned to normal.
Ivan stood beside her. “Are you okay?”
“We’ve got to stop kissing like that. It stops the oxygen flow to my brain. I thought it was blood.”