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to bet no one will give her a second glance when she arrives at the ship in ten minutes. Even if the crew scanning ID cards noticed Molly coming and going over the past couple of days, chances are they don’t know her well enough—and will be too busy getting thousands of passengers back on board—to suspect anything is amiss. After all, Carrie looks like Molly, she’s wearing Molly’s clothes, offering Molly’s ID . . .
    As for Molly herself . . .
    Carrie has never been prone to backward glances. Even on September 11, she didn’t spend more than a couple of moments watching the north tower burn from her vantage point across the river in Jersey before she went on her way.
    Now, though, she shoots a quick last look at the upstairs windows above the bar, just making sure that Molly Temple hasn’t suddenly appeared in one.
    The windows are empty. Molly is much too far gone to bat an eye, let alone get to her feet and scramble to save herself.
    The sedative had hit her so hard that Carrie was lucky to get her out of the bar at all. Seeing her start to slump on her stool, she’d reached Molly’s side just in the nick of time, escorting her outside “for some fresh air” before she keeled over. From there, she managed to walk/drag the woman up the steps to the apartment, where she now lies on Carrie’s bed, wearing Carrie’s clothes, with Carrie’s keys and ID in her pocket and the distinctive larimar bracelet on her wrist.
    Molly will be burned beyond recognition, but the blue gemstone bracelet will remain intact. Anyone in this tiny harbor town who’s ever met “Jane” will remember seeing it glinting on her wrist at one time or another as she mixed drinks behind the bar.
    Smiling to herself, Carrie slips down a side alley that leads to the sparkling white ships in the harbor. Emerging in the glare of late day sun on the pier, she feels dangerously exposed and fights the urge to turn back to the sheltering shadows. Hundreds of passengers are streaming back to the Carousel, where two gangways are set up to admit them to the lowest deck adjacent to the dock. She allows the crowd to swallow her and sweep her toward the ship.
    As planned, she chooses the fore gangway, which is closer and thus busier, with a long line of overweight American tourists too lazy to walk in this heat to the aft gangway, where there is no line at all.
    Carrie isn’t lazy, by any means. But she’s watched this reboarding process many times from afar, and is well aware that it suits her purpose to get lost in the crowd that’s being hustled along by the nautical-white-uniformed human assembly line crew.
    When it’s her turn, she hands Molly’s ID card to the waiting officer and holds her breath. He takes a cursory glance at the photo, then at her, swipes it through the slot on the reentry kiosk, and nods her through. Suppressing a sigh of relief, she puts the straw bag onto the conveyor belt to be X-rayed and dutifully holds up her hands for the mandatory squirt of antibacterial spray.
    After rubbing her palms together to ward off germs that could sicken an entire ship full of passengers, she retrieves her bag from the X-ray machine and can’t help but marvel that the Carousel’s security force has thought of everything.
    Almost everything.
    I’m the one who’s thought of everything.
    Calliope music plays merrily on the speakers as Carrie makes a left toward the midship elevator banks and stairwell, having memorized the deck plans that are conveniently mapped out on the cruise line’s Web site. No one would ever guess she hasn’t been navigating the ship’s passageways and levels every day of this weeklong cruise.
    She waits a few minutes for the elevator, but ducks her head and opts for the stairs the moment she’s joined by a boisterous crowd of fellow passengers who reek of coconut oil and booze. For all she knows,