Burn (Page 33)

She had tried to call Syd from Dallas, to let her know about the storm delay, but the calls went straight to voice mail. Syd was scrupulous about turning her phone off when she was in a restaurant or any other social situation, because she was so hypersensitive about disturbing or annoying others, but she often forgot to turn the phone back on right away. Jenner wasn’t as polite; she would set her phone to vibrate instead of ring, but she never turned it off. What had once been a luxury was now an absolute necessity, like air, water, and Stuart Weitzman shoes.

By now, though, when Jenner hadn’t shown up on time, Syd would have remembered to turn on the phone and tried to contact her. As the plane taxied toward the terminal, Jenner thumbed the power button on her phone and waited for the system to connect. All over the first-class cabin, she could hear the various tones that signaled almost every other passenger was doing the same thing.

There was no message. Maybe downloading messages from her carrier took a few minutes, though the guy beside her was intently listening to his messages. Just before the plane reached the Jetway she checked again. Still no message.

Surely Syd should have called by now. Maybe her message had been dropped. Jenner thumbed in Syd’s cell number as the tone sounded that released passengers from their seats and everyone stepped into the aisle, gathering their carry-on bags. Jenner followed suit, slinging her bag over her shoulder and nodding a thank-you to the man who stepped back to allow her to join the queue that jostled and snaked its way forward. She still held the phone to her ear as she stepped off the plane, listening as the ringing stopped and the call went to voice mail. She left another message, then clicked off and slipped the phone back into her bag.

Even if Syd were late, too, which wouldn’t have surprised Jenner, she would have called. Jenner began to feel a little worried.

Still, things could have happened. Syd’s cell phone could have a dead battery, or have completely stopped working, and she hadn’t discovered either of those possibilities until she was already on the ship. Her purse could have been stolen. Or she was on the ship, had been leaning on the rail of their balcony, and had dropped the phone overboard. Any number of things could have happened, which were all not only more likely but were also all better than the real worry she had, that Syd had been in an accident and couldn’t call.

Jenner had notified the limo company that her flight would be late, but its actual arrival time had pretty much been anyone’s guess, so she hoped no wires had gotten crossed there. The first thing she saw when she reached the baggage claim area, though, was a uniformed Hispanic man holding a sign that said "RED-WINE." She signaled him and he hustled over to collect her luggage, which took its own sweet time arriving. The carousel didn’t start turning for a good fifteen minutes, and while one of her bags appeared almost immediately, the other didn’t show up until most of the other bags were gone.

Every additional delay ate at her nerves. She hated being late, even by as much as one minute. The discipline of getting to work on time, clocking in, getting docked money if she was late, and the possibility of getting fired if she was late more than a few times a year, had drilled punctuality into her brain and habits. The fact that none of these delays were her fault, or under her control, almost made it worse because that meant she was helpless. She had to go with the flow, and the flow today was sluggish.

"Is this all your luggage?" the driver asked, pulling out the telescoping handles of each suitcase and gripping each one.

"Yes, that’s all." Syd had taken a mountain of luggage, but Jenner had repacked several times so she could fit everything into just two bags. They were big bags, though, and so heavy she couldn’t lift them. She just hoped she hadn’t forgotten anything vital, because it wasn’t as if she could run out and pick up whatever it was, though she imagined any decent cruise ship would be well stocked with whatever necessities might be forgotten by careless passengers. This particular cruise didn’t include as many port calls as most cruises did, due to their destination and the nature of the cruise, so surely the shops onboard would carry a larger variety of items.

"How long will it take to get to the cruise ship terminal?" she asked the driver, once more checking her watch. Time was slipping away from her. "I don’t want the ship to sail without me."

He grinned, a flash of white teeth in his dark face. "I’ll get you there in plenty of time, I promise."

Thank goodness, traffic cooperated by being delay-free, helped by the fact that lunch hour had already come and gone and the evening rush hour hadn’t begun yet. Sooner than she’d expected, the limo was pulling into the impressive loading area. The Silver Mist loomed over the terminal, which was itself easily three or four stories high. Jenner caught her breath at her first sight of the ship. While she knew it wasn’t a huge ship, going more for luxury than quantity, the size of the thing still took her by surprise. She saw ships all the time, living where she did, but she’d never been this close to one before.

And the Silver Mist was beautiful. All of the cruise ships she’d seen were gleaming white, with different trim and sterns, but this one wasn’t exactly white. It wasn’t exactly gray, either, but somewhere in between. The paint gleamed and shimmered, almost like … a silver mist. Duh.

An enormous parking lot was across the street, but she imagined very few, if any, of the passengers on this cruise had driven themselves to the terminal. The only vehicles she saw were limos. Her driver pulled up to the luggage area where a swarm of men were unloading, tagging, and reloading a mountain of luggage. She had printed her luggage tags from the Internet site, and the tags listed the suite number, which was how the bags were delivered to the correct staterooms.