Read Hot Button for Free Online Page B

You do know that, don’t you?”
    I slipped out of his embrace. “It’s my job. I should find that woman,” I said, already moving toward the stairway where I’d last seen her. “Only I don’t know who—”
    “Beth Howell.” He supplied the information before I could even ask, and I guess my openmouthed stare said it all, because Kaz added, “She was one of the people I checked in after you boarded the boat. Said it was her first conference.”
    “Beth Howell.” I committed the name to memory. “I need to make sure she’s all right.”
    I would have, too, if I’d been able to find Beth. I tried every ladies’ room on the boat, glanced around the knots of people who were chatting, went to the bar—twice—and even checked the kitchen. Either I wasn’t very good at picking out a tiny gray woman in a crowd or I had terrible timing and always ended up exactly where Beth wasn’t exactly when she wasn’t there.
    Either that or Beth Howell’s threat to Thad about endingup as fish food had gone awry, and she was the one who’d gone over the side of the boat and into the water.
    I had already mingled my way through the rest of the cruise, the boat was docked, and I was standing at the gangplank wishing folks a good evening when that thought hit. It took my breath away.
    “What is it, dear?” Helen was just walking by, and she took me aside. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “No. I was just thinking, that’s all, about—” From over Helen’s shoulder, I saw a wavering in the shadows, and the next thing I knew, a tiny gray figure slipped off the boat and hurried down the pier. I would have gone after Beth, right then and there, if not for the fact that the man who walked off after her was someone I had just sold an entire collection of Japanese satsuma buttons to. He couldn’t wait to thank me for my excellent service as well as my good taste in buttons, and by the time he was done, Beth was long gone.
    And I was breathing a sigh of relief.
    Beth hadn’t taken a header off the boat. Her argument with Thad hadn’t escalated further or continued later. Mayhem and murder didn’t happen at button conventions. By the time I was ready to head back to the hotel, my fears were calmed and I was smiling.
    Little did I know that within twenty-four hours, I would welcome a little mayhem. Because mayhem isn’t necessarily murder, and murder… Well, that was about to hit a little too close to home.
    A DRENALINE IS A wonderful thing.
    So is coffee.
    Though I didn’t get more than five hours of sleep that night, I was raring to go the next morning. I’d better be. Ihad to emcee the opening ceremony at ten, host a panel on scrimshaw buttons at eleven, introduce our luncheon speaker (a wonderful woman who knew everything there was to know about rubber buttons), and still be perky at six for the banquet and Thad’s keynote address.
    By eight in the morning, I was in the elevator and heading down to the hotel’s conference rooms, and when the doors swished open and the first thing I saw was a life-size picture of Thad on the poster that featured the huge headline “Geronimo!” in heavy block letters, I didn’t need to look at myself in the mirrored panels that lined the walls. I could feel my grin stretch from ear to ear.
    Sure, there had been some bumps on the proverbial conference road. And yes, I was still on the lookout for Beth Howell so I could try to figure out what had happened on the boat the night before. But all in all, I was handling things with poise and assurance. And besides—I passed another poster advertising Thad’s keynote—I had gone after and snagged the most coveted speaker on the button circuit.
    “Josie Giancola…” I shifted the briefcase I was carrying from one hand to the other and tugged my sage-green suit jacket into place, marching across the lobby. “You are doing an excellent job.”
    “You really are!”
    When I realized I’d spoken loud enough that the stranger