Page 29 of Wicked Trouble

“Why put the dead body in my room in the first place? The odds of me stumbling onto it would be pretty high.” Cammie tapped her finger to her lips. “There’s no security camera on my floor.”

Zane blinked hard. Of course she’d sussed that out already. “None at all?” He’d figured the cameras had been disabled.

“No sign of any, but there is a metal plate where one could have been.” Cammie pointed to Zane’s computer. “You should add Sherri to your list. She would know if one of her team was missing. Even if she’s not directly connected to whatever he’s working on, one of her managers would have reported him as a no-show for work. That’s the way it goes, in my experience, anyway. There’s always a chain of command, and information flows both up and down that chain. Everyone is accounted for and needs to check in regularly to make sure the event goes smoothly. On a ship like this, things have to be very tight. Everyone has their job to do. Someone knows Francesco is missing.”

Zane added Sherri to his mental list of suspects and planned to take a few moments to review her staff profile more closely like he’d already done for the captain and Chief Ross. “We’ve been into the infirmary and saw no one matching the description of your dead man there, so Francesco isn’t recovering from something. We can rule out him just being sick.”

‘Because he’s dead,’ Cammie’s eyes said to him.

“It’s part of the process. We have to eliminate all the possible places Francesco could be if he were alive and just sick, even if we know he’s actually dead,” he explained.

“This is a huge ship! He could be anywhere.” Cammie let out an exasperated huff. “How in the world are we going to look in every possible place that Francesco, if he were alive, could be?”

“We check the staff cabins for him. If he’s not there, then we know that someone should be able to tell us where he is.” He lifted his hand. “But we can’t be too obvious about asking about him, because if he has been murdered, we don’t want to alert the wrong people that we’re sniffing around.”

“What do we do now?” Cammie lifted both hands in a helpless gesture. “I know you say wait, but I need to do something. I need a plan.”

“We need a plan.” Zane pulled his computer back on his lap. “So, let’s come up with one together.”

“That just so happens to be something I’m good at.” Cammie beamed, her eyes alight like things were finally making sense to her.

“I know.” Zane winked and Cammie’s dimples popped, which did a lot of funny things to Zane’s body—first and foremost making his heart putter a little more hectically at the idea of doing something to make Cammie happy.

And that’s when he knew, with gut-sinking awareness, that he’d crossed the line at some point and let Cammie past his armor.

Not good for my heart. Nope. Not good at all.

“We need to confirm that Salis Collie is where he’s supposed to be.” Zane cleared his throat and tried commanding his heart to settle the fuck down. Not that his heart was in any state to listen to reason, but seriously, it had only been meant to be a fling. He’d only known Cammie for a little more than twenty-four hours and his heart was all haywire over her? Seriously? He hadn’t come on the cruise to find love or even to find a connection. Meeting up with Cammie right out of the gate had been a bonus, but it wasn’t supposed to be more than that. That’s all Cammie had said she’d wanted—a fling, short term—over in five days. Christ, that’s all Zane had wanted, as well. So, what had changed?

Too many things. His former therapist would be delighted, especially since Zane was completely baffled by how quickly Cammie had infiltrated his defenses—ones that had worked for years to keep people at a distance.

Zane had never been one to believe in love at first sight. Lust at first sight, absolutely, but never the whole heart taking a nosedive into the heart of another person. Nope. That kind of shit was not for him.

And yet, here he was, totally enthralled by Cammie.

“Anyone could, in theory, say he was at a session just as a cover, so let’s confirm he’s actually where he’s supposed to be.” Zane tapped a few things into his computer, trying to keep himself hyper-focused on the task at hand and not on how close Cammie was to him or how badly he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and roll her under his body.

“Let’s figure out what he signed up for tonight.” Cammie scrunched in closer to Zane, and he had to stifle the urge to move his arm so he could cuddle her onto his lap.

He refocused on his screen and tried not to take too many deep breaths to soak in her intoxicating scent.

Salis Collie was supposed to be at the Whips and Chains Dance Party in an hour. Without much thinking involved, and just a few clicks, Zane registered himself, along with Cammie, minutes before the registration window closed.

They had to figure out what to wear, because, of course, there was a dress code—one that required very little clothing from what Zane could tell. He didn’t mind some risk-taking, but this time he might have pushed his own boundaries a little too far. He definitely should have checked out the photos before he’d pushed the button.

“I might need to go shopping,” Cammie said as she gazed at the photos of past parties. “I brought a few things that could work, but I’m in the mood for something different. There’s a fetish wear store on the promenade deck.”

Cammie, on the other hand, seemed totally in her element.

“You’re not freaked out by having to dress up?” Zane closed his laptop, resigned to the reality that he was going to have to go shopping with Cammie if he wanted to attend the party with her. Unlike her, he hadn’t brought anything that could work.

“Nope.” Her eyes crinkled with her grin. “This is totally my thing. Kitty Cat parties are all about dressing up.”

He held his hand out for her to take as he heaved himself off the bed. “Then I guess you’re going to have to find something that’ll work on a bear like me.”

She laid her hand in his, her eyes gleaming. “That is definitely something I can do.”

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