“What list?”
“Potential targets.”
My fingers tightened around the chair.
“How many?”
“Twelve people on this sailing.”
“Mostly older?”
“Yes.”
“Mostly traveling without spouses?”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the photographs.
“So security was watching all twelve.”
“Yes.”
“But you were watching me.”
Richard didn’t look away.
“Yes.”
“Before we met.”
“Yes.”
That answer hurt more than it should have.
Because six days earlier, when Richard sat beside me at dinner and complained that cruise ships somehow managed to serve both too much food and nothing he actually wanted to eat, I thought it had happened by chance.
When he appeared at breakfast the next morning, I thought perhaps he was hoping to see me.
When he asked me to walk around the promenade, I had allowed myself to believe I had been chosen.
Now I wasn’t sure any of it had belonged to me.
“Was anything real?”
His face changed.
“Margaret.”
“No. Answer me.”
He hesitated.
“I sat near you that first evening because I was supposed to.”
There it was.
I stood.
“Thank you.”
“But breakfast wasn’t part of the assignment.”
I stopped.
“The champagne wasn’t part of it either.”
I looked back.
“Neither was dancing with you Tuesday night. Telling you about Ellen wasn’t part of it. Asking where you would live if you could choose anywhere wasn’t part of it.”
“Then what were you actually supposed to do?”
“Watch. Report. Intervene only if there was an immediate threat.”
“And somewhere along the way, falling for me became investigative procedure?”
A sad smile appeared.
“No.”
Neither of us spoke.
Then I remembered the suitcase.
“How did it get here?”
Richard’s expression hardened.
“Jason entered your cabin while you were at dinner.”
“How?”
“Probably a cloned keycard.”
“And you followed him?”
“Security did.”
“He brought my suitcase here?”
“No.”
Richard pointed toward another door near the rear of the room.
“I intercepted him in the service corridor outside.”
I stared at him.
“He saw me, dropped the suitcase, and ran.”
“And my scarf?”
