Cabin Fever. Mary Leo
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Mediterranean NIGHTSTM
Mary Leo
CABIN FEVER
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
MILLS & BOON
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For my daughter, Jocelyn, and my son, Rich…
all my love
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank Kathryn Lye and Marsha Zinberg for offering me this great series, Janet Wellington for always being there when I need her most, my niece, Dionna Phillips, for being the beautiful visual inspiration for Tracy Irvine, my husband for coming up with the core conflict for my hero/heroine, the other eleven authors of this series who shared their ideas, thoughts and concerns on our loop, with a special shout-out to Ingrid Weaver for writing a fabulous opening book, Diana Duncan for starting the loop and keeping us informed throughout the process, and Marcia King-Gamble for generously sharing her intimate knowledge of cruise ships.
PROLOGUE
THE QUARTER MOON sat high in the sky as Alexandra’s dream slipped peacefully through the dark waters toward her next destination. She was an elegant vessel with sleek lines, a graceful chipper bow and a somewhat squared stern. This was her long, lazy repositioning voyage from Piraeus on the Greek coast to Miami Beach, Florida, where she would spend the winter months in the Caribbean.
Patti Kennedy sat alone in the crowded back office of the ship’s library, looking through a cardboard box filled with the remaining reproductions of antiques that the police and the FBI had left behind. Ariana Bennett, the ship’s librarian, had decided to send the larger pieces, a bust of one of the Caesars, a Greek vase and an Etruscan plate to a friend of hers who was interested in antiquities. She had asked Patti to go through the box one last time to see if there was anything she might want to keep.
Patti couldn’t sleep and decided at one in the morning that now was the time to go through the box. Her mind still raced with recent events aboard the ship that had brought her to this moment and she needed to find closure. She also needed to assuage the feeling of guilt she shared with other senior cruise staff. As cruise director, Patti felt she should have had some awareness that a smuggling operation had been taking place on board the ship during their entire Mediterranean segment.
The incidence had also eroded trust among staff members. Patti didn’t know who to believe anymore. First Officer Giorgio Tzekas had been arrested for his participation in the smuggling—an involvement partly motivated by gambling debts. Then there was Mike O’Connor a.k.a. Father Pat Connelly, who had smuggled aboard black market antiquities and displayed them with the reproductions he used for his library lectures. Both men worked for Anastasia Catomeris, who had set up the scheme to frame Elias Stamos, the ship’s owner and her former lover.
According to Ariana, Anastasia, or Tasia, had given birth to Elias’s child, Theo, forty years ago. Even though Elias had generously paid support for his illegitimate son, that wasn’t enough for Tasia. She wanted Elias to acknowledge Theo publicly as his son. Elias eventually did, and now father and son were busy building a relationship, despite Tasia and her devious ways.
But it was Mike O’Connor who had fooled everyone, even Gideon Dayan, the head of security. He’d had his suspicions but could find no evidence the guy was a fraud. Thanasi Kaldis, the hotel manager had actually defended the man at one point.
Patti sat back in her chair when she thought of Thanasi, and played with the silver necklace she’d found in the box. The man owned her heart, but there was no way she could even tell him, at least not in the foreseeable future. For now, it was enough they worked together and besides, as cruise director she didn’t have time for a love affair. But she could dream, couldn’t she?
The necklace slipped out of her hands to the floor, and when she bent over to retrieve it, a clear blue light flashed from the teardrop pendant.
“That’s odd,” she said out loud.
There was only a small window in the office, but as she glanced through it, she caught the sliver of moon winking in the dark sky.
As she sat upright again holding on to the silver pendant a shiver swept through her and she rubbed her arms to get rid of the tingling sensation.
When she carefully placed the pendant down on the desk in front of her, she remembered the Greek legend Mike O’Connor had said was attached to the pendant. It was something about the moon goddess and her love for the sheppard, Lexus, and how the sun god, jealous of their love, had the shepherd killed. The silver pendant was supposed to hold the diamond that had been in the clasp of a magic cloak the goddess had made to conceal her lover. After Lexus’s death, a teardrop from the moon goddess hardened over the diamond and covered it. The moon goddess told one of her attendants to hide it where she and Lexus had spent their days together and whoever found the pendant would have good luck, especially in love.
“That’s it!” Patti said, grabbing the pendant.
The rest of the stuff could be sent off to Ariana’s friend but the pendant, even though it required a little polishing and a few repairs would serve as a fun way for the crew to get past the scandal.
She’d hide it in a randomly selected stateroom and make a game out of it for the passengers. “Find the pendant and find your true love” or “Whoever finds the pendant will be lucky in love,” or something like that.
She’d have to get the details worked out, but she was hoping Ariana could help her with that. Now that Ariana had found her own true love, a former Italian undercover police officer, perhaps she would know what slogan to use.
She