Shell Game

Chapter Four

"Hurry up. I want a good seat poolside."

"What seat?" Sharla followed her grandmother. "Every passenger on the ship has to be on deck." This morning on her way to the fitness center, Sharla had been surprised to see so many deck chairs already occupied. She loved the sun as much as the next guy, but some of those people must have been up at the crack of dawn to reserve their spot.

"Always glass half empty." Her grandmother shook her head and eased her way ahead of Sharla to the open area by the pool, then looked around at the—as predicted—occupied chairs.

Her fingers to her forehead, Nana dramatically wiped nonexistent sweat from her brow, and the hairs on Sharla's neck prickled with awareness. She couldn't.

Slowing her gait, Nana walked from one deck chair to another, holding on to the backs like a railing.

She wouldn't. Sharla picked up her pace in an effort to catch up with her grandmother.

Pausing behind a chair with a middle-aged man reading a paperback, Nana scanned the area, and...

Crap. She did.

Like a two-ton anvil, Sophia Garibaldi dropped to the ground with a well-practiced thud.

Any hopes Sharla might have had of reaching her grandmother first faded into oblivion as a crowd of sunbathers swarmed the little old lady gracefully sprawled across the deck. If nothing else, Sharla had to give her grandmother credit. The woman knew how to take a dive.

"Excuse me." Sharla pushed through the growing group of onlookers. "That's my grandmother."

Few people moved.

Sharla had never learned the art of slithering through a crowd undetected. That skill had ended a generation before with her mom. Though trained in the family business, Sharla's mother had fallen in love and followed the straight-and-narrow, if not somewhat nomadic, lifestyle of Sharla's archeologist father.

Once in a while one of the old-timers in the family would try to teach Sharla some of the arts, but Nana didn't want to upset her son-in-law and risk being banned from visiting Sharla. Especially when she reached school age, and her mom would go off with her dad on some expedition or other and leave Sharla with Nana.

The cruise ship version of poolside Muzak came to an abrupt stop. "Alpha, alpha, alpha. Midship pool, deck eleven. Alpha, alpha, alpha."

Double crap. Sharla had no idea what the code word alpha meant, but she did understand pool, deck eleven. The cavalry was being called out for her con-artist grandmother. Marvelous.

Finally squeezing between the last two oversize passengers between her and her grandmother, Sharla was able to see up close how pale the old woman looked. A sudden sense of panic raced from her stomach and gripped her by the throat. Could the collapse have been real? Was her spunky seventy-five-year-old grandmother not as healthy as Sharla had thought?

Propelled by fear for her beloved Nana, Sharla shoved aside the samurai-sized passenger still in her way and stood at her grandmother's feet. Dropping to the ground, Sharla studied Nana quickly.

Another passenger had his fingers on Nana's neck while staring at the watch on his other arm. "Probably dehydration," he muttered to no one in particular.

"Excuse me." A deep male voice sounded past the curious onlookers still hovering closely around.

Sharla glanced away from the man checking Nana's pulse to see a ship's officer slip in beside him, then, after a single glance, signal to the staff who had accompanied him. While her heart stuttered to a normal beat, she watched her grandmother carefully. No movement of any kind. Damn it.