Read Midnight Shimmer: A Toni Diamond Mystery (Toni Diamond Mysteries Book 3) for Free Online Page A

alone.
    She’d looked like she could really use a friend.
    Toni rapidly followed in Alicia’s wake, but she was still learning her way around the ship. She walked through the doors her new friend had passed through and didn’t see any sign of her. Ahead was a bank of elevators. Two passengers stood waiting, while four elevators made their leisurely trips up and down. Neither of the passengers was Alicia.
    She nibbled her lower lip. It was possible that Alicia had walked right into an open elevator. Otherwise, she’d taken the stairs, or her cabin was on this floor. Toni ran to port—not that she’d know port from her elbow, but a sign indicated she was on the port side. She glanced up the corridor. It was so long you could roll a bowling ball down it and the ball would disappear from human sight before hitting the other end.
    She saw several stewards, each with a cart; presumably they were making up staterooms. She glanced up and down. No sign of Alicia. She darted to the other side of the boat, but Alicia wasn’t in the long starboard corridor either.
    At this point, Toni gave up. If Alicia had taken the stairs, she had no idea which floor she’d gone to. Enough. Nothing terrible was going to happen if Toni didn’t find her. Perhaps the woman’s grandson was waiting in her stateroom. Or she’d lock herself in and have a good cry and emerge in time for lunch feeling much better.
    Toni returned to the coffee group and found her mother handing out their free makeover cards as though they were playing cards and she was the queen of Texas Hold ’Em.
    “Toni, honey.” She beamed at her daughter. “I’ve got Annabel and Deirdre both wanting facials and makeup application lessons at the same time.”
    Go, Linda!
    She glanced at Toni with appeal, as though it might be an imposition for her daughter to give up her time to help another woman learn how to apply her makeup, when in fact there was nothing Toni loved more. Especially if it led to a new customer or a home party or maybe even a new rep for the company.
    She pulled out her electronic calendar. “Sure, Mama. When were you thinking?”
    When the four of them had picked a time that suited them all, they said goodbye and promised to meet again tomorrow for Zumba.
    Maybe they only had two takers for their promotional services, but they’d barely started on the cruise. When they were out of sight of the other women, Toni high-fived her mom. “Way to go, Mama!”
    “We are going to have so much fun on this cruise.”
    “Oh, I know it.”
    “Now, I’m going to shower and then what do you think? Bingo or line dancing?”
    “Is that a serious question?”
    Linda chuckled. Bingo was a game of pure chance. It couldn’t be manipulated or controlled. But line dancing? Linda Plotnik had practically invented it. And Toni, growing up with Linda as a mother and then marrying a country and western singer, was certainly no slouch.
    “Do you think Tiffany will want to come?”
    Tiffany, like Toni, had grown up line dancing. She and Toni used to step to “Achy Breaky Heart” shortly after she learned to walk. She might try to deny her heritage, but line dancing was part of her DNA, just like Stetsons and a love for cosmetics and bling.
    However, when they got back to the stateroom, Tiff wasn’t there. “Never mind. If she hears the music she’ll be drawn to it, like the sirens to whatshisname.”
    Toni chuckled. “I think the sirens tried to entice Ulysses and his men to their deaths.”
    Linda turned and stared at her. “Well, look at you, all smarty-pants. Where did you learn a thing like that?” She wrinkled her nose. “Was it a movie starring Gerard Butler?”
    She shrugged. “Probably. Or else I got it from Tiffany.”
    After a quick shower, they redid their makeup and hair, donned tight jeans with sparkles on the derriere—Toni had never made the mistake of asking Luke whether
they
made her butt look fat—and headed to the Lido deck.
    Some women might