Read Baked Alaska for Free Online Page A

earning a curious look from a few of her fellow passengers who seemed shocked to see someone hurrying at all; this was a cruise after all.
    Sadie turned the corner to see the woman one last time just as the elevator doors closed. She ran to push the button, hoping to reach the elevator quickly enough that the doors would open before the car left the deck, but she was too late.
    “Biscuits,” she muttered under her breath, then stepped back to watch the digital display above the elevator. It stopped on deck eleven, but did that mean the woman had gotten off? Or had someone else gotten on?
    Another elevator opened in response to her button pushing, but she ignored it, waiting until the doors had closed before she pushed the button again. Two more elevators had come and gone before the original elevator finally returned after making a stop on deck nine. The woman with braids wasn’t inside, rather there were two Caucasian women with perfect makeup and tailored clothes.
    “Did you get on at deck eleven, by chance?” Sadie asked.
    “I did,” the younger of the two said.
    “Did you see a black woman, with black and pink braids?”
    “Don’t you mean African-American?” the older woman said. Her age was difficult to determine, and Sadie guessed she had a plastic surgeon on retainer.
    Sadie was embarrassed to have inadvertently used the wrong terminology. “Yes, sorry, African-American. She just went up on this elevator.”
    “And you’re waiting for her?”
    “Yes, kind of. Did you see her?”
    “She got off when I got on,” the younger woman said with a cute drawling accent. “On deck eleven, like I said.”
    “Thank you,” Sadie said, then stepped back so the doors would close.
    “Aren’t you coming?” the older woman asked. Sadie thought she might be trying to raise her eyebrows—there was the faintest crease toward the top of her forehead—but the Botox made the expression awkward.
    “No, I’m sorry. I’m going up. Thank you for your help, though.”
    As soon as the doors closed, Sadie hit the button again, this time getting into the first elevator going up and hitting the button for deck eleven. It was the same level where she’d seen Shawn talking to the woman yesterday afternoon. Did that mean something? Was this woman’s cabin on deck eleven?
    She spent fifteen minutes walking forward to aft in search of the mysterious woman, only to give up when a steward turning down beds on the starboard-aft side started looking at her funny on her third pass. She smiled at him and took the stairs down to deck seven, where she headed back to the photo gallery. She graciously thanked the clerk for holding on to the photo of Pete and Shawn and then explained she needed to buy another photo before he rang her up.
    She found the black and pink braids easily enough; the woman had arrived in the same time period as Pete and Shawn. There was another woman in the photograph as well: younger, shorter, and darker-skinned, but with clearer skin, brighter eyes, and better teeth. The two women had their arms around each other’s backs, their heads leaned in while they smiled for the camera. Mother and daughter, perhaps? Sadie stared at the image for several seconds, then pulled the photo from the rack. There was another copy behind it, which made her decision to buy this one a little easier. She wasn’t taking away their chance to own a copy too.
    She worried the clerk wouldn’t let her buy someone else’s photos, but he was happy to charge her ship-card $34.99 for the two photographs. She thanked him and slid the photos, complete with cheap cardboard frames, into the shoulder bag she wore slung across her chest.
    She would need to think of a good reason why she’d bought the photo in case she ended up needing to explain herself, but she wasn’t sure she had a good explanation. Maybe she just wanted proof that the woman was real. Maybe she’d show Shawn the photo to remind him that he couldn’t pretend the woman in