Drowning Tides. Karen Harper

hallways. It was another world but it would provide privacy and safety.

      While the two men huddled at the dining room table over details, Claire stood at the point of the prow, remembering Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the movie Titanic shouting, “I’m the king of the world!” What a love story but a tragic one.

      She had not been able to say yes, she’d marry Nick, because he hadn’t asked, and it had been out of her control. But she’d said yes to living here, despite the fact the lounge had been the scene of a murder. At least this would work until Lexi started school and for the time it took them to clear Hazelton and tout Ames’s Youth products.

      But what if Hazelton wasn’t innocent? She’d have to help Nick find out the truth. As for keeping Lexi safe, they planned to hire an au pair, a sort of nanny, a Hispanic woman related to Heck Munez. They would be docked here, but possibly move to different island ports, or maybe even go to sea.

      She went back in and wandered to the master suite again. She’d insist that Nick take this stateroom, and she’d stay in the slightly smaller one next door. They could put Lexi next to hers and each have a cabin to use as an office, when they were here and not onshore at Goodland and beyond, working on the murder case. There would still be a guest bedroom here for Darcy and her family—if they would visit.

      As much as Claire feared and hated Clayton Ames, this part of their new situation was working out well. He wouldn’t know exactly where they were, and if they saw his drones hovering, Nick had joked, they could shoot them down with the setup for skeet shooting at the back—the aft—of the boat. They could move about at will without cameras and listening devices.

      She glanced at the king-size bed decked out in stark black-and-white with gold lightning strikes jagging across the pattern. She couldn’t recall much about the murder of the woman that had happened on this ship, so maybe she should try to find that episode of Nancy Grace on YouTube again. No, she wouldn’t think about all that. She had a lot to do, to get ready for.

      She stopped at the doorway to look back once again at the big bed. For the first time she noted there was a mirror on the ceiling over it.

      Her insides cartwheeled. She hurried out, closing the door behind her.