Cabin Fever. Mary Leo

      Mediterranean NIGHTS^TM

      Mary Leo

      CABIN FEVER

      TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

       AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

      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 wanted to go to Ariana’s cabin and talk about it right now but she knew she needed to wait until morning.

      Patti grabbed the necklace closed the box of reproductions, turned out the light and headed for her own cabin, tired but feeling content.

      As she walked by a bank of windows and gazed up at the crescent moon, she had to smile at the romance of it all. It was childish to think a piece of inexpensive jewelry could change a person’s life, but with all her heart she wished and hoped it was true, not only for the passenger who would find the pendant, but for her, as well.

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE ONLY REASON Becky Montgomery had agreed to this Caribbean Christmas cruise aboard Alexandra’s Dream, with her late husband’s family was because of Laura, her fifteen-year-old niece. The girl knew her way around Becky like