Page 65 of Waylaid in Whittier

Millie remembered Reef’s other comment about how she’d freaked out when he tried helping her with her bags and mentioned exploring the ship’s maintenance area. “Is it possible she brought something on board she doesn’t want you to know about?”

“I hate to admit it, but I was thinking the same thing. She spent the whole night talking about the Mount Baldie site.” He twirled his finger next to his forehead. “She’s obsessed with finding gold.”

“You knew that. She even found some nuggets,” Millie reminded him. “Did she show them to you?”

“Yeah. They were kinda small, but I guess she’s convinced there are more where those came from.”

“Maybe she showed you a few nuggets, but not all of them.”

“Could be. All I know is she’s super-obsessed, even more than normal.”

“Let’s start searching. If her comment to Reef was a clue about where she may have gone, at least we have a general vicinity of where to start looking for her.”

Reaching the main drag, the “I-95 corridor,” the pair split up, each going in opposite directions.

Millie swung by the crewmember’s dining room first, followed by the lounge. Thinking Elvira may have decided to use the employee work stations where the computers were located, she looked there next.

Backtracking, she ran into Suharto, the gangway supervisor. “Good morning, Millie. It is very early in the morning for you to be in my neck of the woods.”

“I’m looking for Sharky’s girlfriend, Elvira Cobb.” She gave Suharto a brief description of the woman.

“I remember her. Reef met her at the gangway,” Suharto said. “She was very…protective of her belongings.”

“Was there anything she brought on board that struck you as suspicious?” Millie asked.

“To be honest, I noticed she had a few unusual items.”

“Such as?”

“She had a bag of rocks.”

Millie’s scalp tingled. “Rocks?”

“Yes. They were in a special black bag.” Suharto told her the crewmember working at the scanning equipment had called him over. “She allowed me to look in the bag. It had dirty rocks.”

“Interesting.”

“I let her bring them through. It was very odd, and she seemed happy when she cleared security.”

“I bet. Do you know where she went after she left?”

“Reef was with her. I believe he escorted her to Sharky’s cabin,” Suharto said.

Millie thanked him and watched him walk away. Something told her Elvira hadn’t brought a pile of “rocks” with her. More like a pile of unwashed gold…gold she didn’t want Sharky to know about.

She tapped her lower lip. If she put herself in Elvira’s shoes, where would she hide the bag?

Thinking Sharky, who knew every square inch of the ship, might have a better idea where the best hiding spots were located, she radioed him, asking him to meet her in front of his office.

He showed up less than a minute later, looking even more stressed out.

“Any luck?”

“Nope. She’s still not answering my calls. How about you?”

Millie told him what Suharto had said. “I don’t think they were rocks. I think she brought unwashed gold on board and hid it before we got back last night, or maybe even this morning while you were taking a shower.”

“I can picture her doing something along those lines.”

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