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have shops on board,” Cherise assured me, and patted me kindly on the back.
    “Cherise, do you really think they’ll be opening the mall when we’re running for our lives?”
    “Why not? People got to shop. It’s like breathing.” It was to Cherise, anyway. “Okay, fine. I’ll tell myself that it’s a costume party and you came as a drowned rat.”
    I smacked her. She pretended it hurt. “Cher,” I said, and put an arm around her shoulders. “I really love you, you know. I don’t know what I’d be right now if I didn’t have you around to keep me sane.”
    We weren’t in the serious-talk business, me and Cher, but it seemed like this might be a good moment to make an attempt. She could have laughed it off; I wouldn’t have been upset if she did, because I just needed to say it.
    Instead, she fixed those deep blue eyes on me and said, “I don’t know what I’d be without you, either. Probably nothing half as good as I am.” She smiled faintly, and for just a moment, the storm lessened. Her smile was just that powerful. “Love you, too, you skanky, no-style tramp.”
    I smacked her again. Moment over.
    We went to try to solve the first-class problem.

Chapter Two

    The very rich are like everyone else, provided you classify “everyone else” as “spoiled rotten brats with vast incomes and little sense of responsibility.” There are exceptions, of course, but money gets you excused from all kinds of social constraints, just as fame does, and that never does a body good.
    We had a whole cadre of spoiled rotten brats holed up, refusing to leave their stash of gold bars, drugs, or folding money—whatever they had stored in the ship’s hold and safe. I wondered how they’d feel using it as life preservers.
    The harassed Chief Steward pointed me toward the first-class lounge area, where apparently a lot of our troublemakers had forsaken their magnificently opulent cabins and gathered to jointly declare their displeasure at being inconvenienced. You’d think that anyone could see it wasn’t a good idea to be riding out a storm on a boat, but then again, people do dumb crap all the time, and they always seem astonished that it turns out to be dangerous. Seriously. Look at YouTube.
    My first brush with the Richie Riches came in the form of a very famous singer, with aspirations of being an equally famous starlet. She was actually obeying orders, believe it or not, and she was on her way out, practically clawing the expensively paneled walls with frustration. She was surrounded by a milling entourage who scrambled to juggle her coffee, BlackBerry, bags, appointment diaries, and small yappy dogs. She was scowling as much as Botox would allow, and had her Swarovski crystal- encrusted cell phone at her ear.
    “I’m telling you, it’s outrageous !” she was saying. “I want a lawsuit in place before I hit the limo, do you hear me? I want to own this stupid ship, and then I want to use it for target practice. Just do it, Steve. And make sure that wherever I’m going, it’s five star. I am not going to some shelter with cots!—What? I don’t care what category the storm is, you find me a suite! What do I pay you for, idiot?”
    I suddenly had a great deal more sympathy for the business-suited corporate drones who had no choice but to smile and take it for the paycheck. Once the flood of minions was past, I approached an immaculately white-uniformed steward who stood helplessly at the entrance to the first-class lounge, looking in.
    “Joanne Baldwin,” I said, and presented ID. “I’ll be taking the room that Botox Diva just cleared.”
    He looked at me wearily. “Ma’am? Why that room in particular?”
    “Because she probably left Godiva chocolates and chilled Dom Perignon, not to mention random stacks of cash in the couch cushions,” I said, straight-faced. “I’ll guard it with my life.”
    That broke the ice a bit. He even managed to produce an anxious second cousin to a smile. “You’re