Deadly Fate

5 (#uf7cabdbb-767e-507c-93db-abfd1370da9d)

The Alaska Hut wasn’t a bad place to stay, Clara thought. Actually, while its appearance was rustic, the decor was artistically warm and comfortable.

And her day had been...

Sitting. Going from the living room or parlor to the dining room or the kitchen. Of course, before that, she’d run like a crazy person through the snow.

Stumbled upon the corpse of a woman she’d met.

Bisected.

So, maybe it wasn’t such a ridiculous thing that she was both exhausted—and wide-awake.

She lay on a comfortable bed—the mattress was Tempur-Pedic, she was pretty sure—staring at the ceiling. She couldn’t have begun to sleep in the darkness then and so she had the television on. The police, she understood, were still trying to find the problem with the phone line and so actual communication was out of the question unless she borrowed a police radio.

She lay there grateful that she hadn’t mentioned being filmed for Vacation USA to her parents as of yet—if they heard about the murder in Seward and on the island, they wouldn’t know that she was in any way involved.

Her mom never said I told you so. She just worried about her. She hadn’t been so bad before the events on the Destiny; in fact, she had loved coming aboard the ships Clara had worked on for the last several years.

She wished, of course, that she worked at a local theater—or in New York. She had gone to an audition in New York, as her mom had suggested, and found herself in a cast on a ship. But she had loved sailing and kept at it.

She had great friends. Like Ralph and Larry and Simon. And Alexi, who she missed terribly. But Alexi was in love now, and Clara was delighted for her. Agent Jude McCoy was great; the two were wonderful together.

It was just that Alexi wasn’t here.

She shivered suddenly, then wondered why. Not that it was a strange thing to do, with what she had stumbled on that day, but she knew that wasn’t the reason.

She was shivering because of Kimball. Something about him made her feel slimy. His flipping hand had seemed slimy!

He hadn’t come on to her rudely. He hadn’t really come on to her. But she knew he intended to do so.