Page 83 of Wait for Me

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Mrs. Ping had taken Jonas to the playroom, which was opened up for the kids after security ushered everyone back to the ship following the incident in the parking lot.

Incident?

Jonas’s friend and his mother had been abducted. It could have been Jonas or anyone—

Well, maybe not.

Those thoughts percolated through Logan’s head as he locked his stateroom door after the steward had dropped off their luggage. There were three pieces, plus Jonas’s backpack.

Logan lay down on the sofa, shoes still on, and rested his free arm over his forehead. His other arm, still in a cast, stuck to his side uncomfortably.

I didn’t ask for this, Lord.

There was nothing for him to do now but wait until the captain informed everyone that they could leave the ship.

The PA system came alive, startling him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. If you saw what happened in the parking lot this morning, would you please make your way to the lounge?”

Logan suspected that the local police would like to speak with eyewitnesses. He had seen something, but it was from a distance. If he talked to the police, he would have to say that Marie ran to offer assistance. Then they would ask him who Marie was, and he’d have to say, “I don’t know.”

And that’s the truth.

I have no idea what she really does to make a living.

All sorts of suspicions peppered Logan’s mind, ranging from Good Samaritan to Really Bad Person and everything in between.

If Marie did not tell him about her other job, they could never reconcile as a couple because they would not be on the same page.

It had gone back three, five, six years now, and she hadn’t come clean about her past or her present. Therefore, there would be no future for them together.

“I’m a simple businessman—well, a fortuitous one—but she knows who I am, what I do, everything,” Logan said aloud to no one. “I’m an open book, but she is a Pandora’s box.”

Somewhere in between disappointment and sadness, Logan feared knowing what was in her Pandora’s box.

Slowly, Logan sat up.

I better go to the lounge.

Before he reached the door, a text message arrived from Marie. She wanted to know where Jonas was and where they had put her suitcase.

Logan decided to wait for Marie to show up because she did not have the key to his stateroom.

The knock on his door made Logan recall the night they had been attacked in Marie’s stateroom. It had been an intense time for him, until the shipboard security personnel knocked, pretending to deliver their sandwich and snacks, which they hadn’t ordered.

Logan’s hands trembled. They had never trembled before, not even in billion-dollar merger meetings. Why were they trembling now?

One word: Marie.

Logan breathed in and out, praying for God to calm his nerves. He made his way across the carpeted floor, looked through the peephole, and opened the door for Marie.

She had streaks of blood on her olive-green blouse—

Olive green.

He hadn’t noticed it all morning. Why hadn’t he noticed the color of her blouse? Shouldn’t details matter when a man loved his woman…

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