Chapter 15
Annie dug underneath her cupboard and pulled out her box that held the menorah and other items she used for Hanukkah. She just wanted to have them on hand for tomorrow.
Mike passed by her and patted her on the rear end. “I’m heading for bed. Are you coming?”
“I’ll be there soon,” she said. “I have one more load of laundry coming out of the dryer.”
“Okay,” he said, and headed for bed, knowing better than to suggest she leave it for tomorrow. She was particular about some of the laundry. The boys’ shirts needed to be folded immediately after they came out of the dryer or their sons would walk around a wrinkled mess, giving people even more reason to talk about them—the only Jewish boys in town.
It was getting a bit easier for them, thank goodness. Ben was becoming more popular with the boys his age because he excelled at soccer. Annie was glad it was soccer and not football. Sam was starting to play a lot of soccer, too, but he didn’t take to it as much as Ben.
The dryer’s buzzer went off and Annie pulled out the clothes. Hot. Fresh smelling. She scooped them into a basket and decided to take them into the living room and catch some news while she folded the clothes. A wave of weariness overtook her. Bed soon, she told herself. And in the morning, one more chapter on the book.
She sat the basket down on the coffee table and clicked on the remote. The TV was turned to the Disney Channel. She flipped around the stations until she reached CNN. Then she pulled some T-shirts out of the basket and listened to the news as she folded. The stock market seemed to be rallying. That was good news. Gas prices still skyrocketing. Grrr. That she knew. She folded clothes and the world turned.
She was trying to ignore this creeping sensation in her belly. She was worried about Hannah going to New York. But she was even more worried about her friends on the cruise ship. She hadn’t been worried before they left—but since there had been a murder on the ship, Annie’s hackles were raised. And then the really odd thing with the FBI agents visiting Beatrice and trying to tell her Sheila was dead . . . Talk about screwed up.
Maybe it was just an honest mistake.
If there was anything she’d learned by dealing with law enforcement that people would find surprising, it was how many mistakes they actually made every day. Of course most of them were good, adequate folks, but mistakes happened, just as they did in every profession.
But maybe it wasn’t an honest mistake. That thought ticked at Annie as she folded yet another T-shirt. Maybe it was something else. But what?
She caught herself. Rolled her eyes at herself. Get it together, Annie, you are getting paranoid. Still it couldn’t hurt to use her press credentials to get a copy of the report.
She picked up the remote and flipped the television to the Weather Channel. It had become a habit. She loved to watch weather patterns. God, she was becoming her parents, who could talk for hours about the weather.
She folded a pair of jeans and then another. The talking head on the Weather Channel said that Virginia was in for some snow. The boys would be thrilled.
“In other news, we are watching a tropical storm in the western Caribbean as it makes its way to the east coast of Mexico,” said the talking head.
“Mexico?” Annie said out loud. “Isn’t that where the Jezebel’s heading?”
Suddenly, instead of the news being a backdrop in her domestic scene, her attention honed in on the TV. Her friends were headed for a storm. A freaky, huge storm. Surely the ship’s crew watched the weather, right? The same crew who had misinformed the FBI about who had died on the ship. Annie’s stomach flipped a bit.
The weatherman droned on: “This storm appeared out of nowhere and we are really not certain if it will hit the coast or if it will turn toward the islands. If it hits the Mexican coast at full force, it will be devastating. If it runs in the other direction, the storm may lose momentum as it heads toward the islands. We are keeping a close eye on this system. Several ships in the area have turned around or have adjusted their routes. At this time, we have no further information on individual ships.”
Annie folded the last pair of jeans as her heart began to race. She wished she had more confidence in this ship’s crew. Of course they knew what they were doing when it came to weather and the sea and so on. Of course they did—or else they wouldn’t be sailors.
When a murder happened, fear took over and mistakes sometimes would be made, especially by people who’d never dealt with that type of death before. She could see the errors in dealing with the murder case.
She placed the folded clothes back in the basket. Her hands felt warm from the clothes, but they were a bit sweaty, too. She didn’t want to think about Sheila, Paige, Vera, Randy, and Eric on the high seas during this storm. She couldn’t think too hard about it. It would make her panic.
Instead, she decided to call Vera. She knew it would be expensive, but she needed to hear her friend’s voice.
Of course, she couldn’t get through.
Annie called Sheila next. Then Paige.
All of the cell phones gave no message, no signal, nothing.
Annie headed for her computer.
Mike was already asleep. He was snoring softly in the background when she turned her computer on. He wouldn’t wake up. He was used to the soft blue light of the screen and the clicking of her keyboard.
She clicked on the Skype icon and the wheel kept spinning. Nobody was available on Skype either.
She searched online to see if there was any news. Nothing recent. Just the news of Allie Monroe’s death.
Annie drew in a breath. What was going on?