My sister Mary, a nun herself-well, ex-nun now-leaned forward, pulling my attention back to the party. “You’re getting to be such a professional with an exciting job, Pauline. Imagine. A cruise.” She leaned back and shut her eyes. She talked a good talk, but I figured Mary was saying a Hail Mary for my safety. She never did quite lose that “religious” persona.

Several nieces and nephews stabbed at the cake’s white waves fashioned out of cream cheese and frosting. Mother had outdone herself. Everyone ate and laughed and chatted.

I turned to see Uncle Walt, my favorite uncle who had lived with us forever, smiling. He leaned near and tucked a white envelope into my hand. “Meet some nice young man and have a ball.” His bald head grew ruddy.

“I’m going to be working, Uncle Walt.” I fingered the envelope. Had to be money. God bless Uncle Walt.

“Work. Ha!” He forked a piece of cake, ate it and said, “How sick can passengers get? A little seasickness? Meet someone. Dance. Eat. Old Widow Kolinsky tells me that cruises are the best. She said she danced so much heading to St. Martin, she wore out her shoes.” He chuckled. “Wore out her shoooooes!”

I smiled, leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be sure to bring a spare pair. Thanks for the gift.” I winked at him just in time to catch Jagger in my view.

My face burned hotter than the candles on the cake my mother insisted on lighting even though I’d argued it wasn’t my birthday. I hoped Jagger didn’t think I was winking at him! I felt my tea rising in my throat at the thought.

He sat down opposite me and graciously smiled when my mother set a plate in front of him with half of the cake and a tidal wave of frosting on it.

“Here you go, Mr. Jagger,” she said.

Actually she gushed like a teenybopper, but no way was I going to admit to myself that my mother was flirting with “Mister” Jagger! Yuck! Even though he had only the one name-that we knew about-she insisted on using the title. I couldn’t help but cut her some slack because, well, Jagger had a way with women and obviously Stella Sokol was not immune. Guess I should have been glad my mother was a “normal” female and not think of his affect on her as icky.

“So, Sherlock, any questions before you set sail?” He took a sip of his beer. Gotta admire a guy who drinks beer with his cake-and damn, but I admired lots of things about Jagger.

I looked at him and realized that I was finally working on a case by myself. Jagger usually ended up involved. But not this time.

My heart skipped a few needed beats.

I was really going on my own.

Back in my condo, I flopped on my white-covered bed and looked into the dark little eyes of my joint-custody dog. Weighed in at seven pounds now after a doggie diet. “When’s the last time a cruise ship sank, Spanky?”

He looked at me, curled into a ball, and shut his eyes.

“Right. The Titanic. Ages ago. I know there have been fires onboard and epidemics of gastrointestinal problems, but in this day of modern-” I hugged my pillow.

Spanky snored.

I had to smile while I petted his squirrel-sized head. “Modern technology. No problem. Where’s my grocery list?” I leaned over, grabbed my paper and pencil and added bracelet thingie for motion sickness. God, I hoped the ship’s movement wouldn’t affect me, since admittedly, I couldn’t sit in the backseat of a car without needing Dramamine. Damn.

Spanky snored on, so I continued packing, making sure to grab my stethoscope, bandage scissors and several pens. Back to nursing. I knew it made sense that my skills would be best suited to the medical-fraud cases, but hell, Jagger wasn’t a nurse and he did fabulously. At least I didn’t think he was a nurse. No one really knew who he worked for.

I’d learned not to care.

Besides, male-nurse Jagger? Naw.

After several hours, I stood back and looked at my luggage. Full to the brim. I used the extra strap, which wrapped around the bag in case the zipper popped, that my mother had insisted on buying after seeing it advertised on television. I assured her my luggage wasn’t going to get thrown around like on an airplane, but being Mother, she had convinced me I didn’t want the world to see my panties if, God forbid, the zipper gave way. Not that I expected that tragedy, but I’d learned from infancy that when Stella Sokol said something was going to happen, look out-because it always did.

As kids we used to cringe and fuss when she’d say, “Don’t go out in the rain because you’ll catch your death of a cold.”

Even at our young age, we knew you had to come in contact with the cold virus in order to catch a cold, but inevitably, we’d go out, and the next day (always a Saturday), we’d get sick and have to spend our day off in bed.

So, I yanked at the strap to make sure my “essentials” weren’t going to be exposed, and shoved the biggest suitcase with my foot until it was at the doorway.

Tomorrow Goldie and Miles would drive me to the dock in New York City to start my next case.

That alone was reason to lose sleep tonight.

My night was not as sleepless and fitful as I had expected. It was worse. But the next morning, once my roomies had the car packed-and they wouldn’t let me lift a finger to help-we were well on our way.

The traffic on Interstate 95 was at its usual standstill near Bridgeport, so I snuggled up to Goldie’s shoulder while Miles drove. I shut my eyes.

“Suga. Suga?”

“Hmmm?”

Something nudged at my arm. I peeked out at Goldie and realized the car had stopped. I yawned, stretched-and screamed.

Goldie grabbed my arms and hugged me. “It just looks so big because we’re so close up.”

I looked out the window to see the “ship” I was going to be living on for the next few weeks or so-and strained my neck without being able to see the end of it. There had to be a million decks. “Don’t heavy objects sink like rocks in the water?” I mumbled.

They laughed, and Miles gave me a quick physics lesson and assured me that the Golden Dolphin, the mother ship of the Sailing Dolphin line out of the United States, was quite safe. Having done some Internet research about the private American line, he proceeded to tell us much more than we wanted to know.

I think Goldie even dozed off.

We shook him back to consciousness, and after Miles found a parking space, we all got out and stared at the ship.

The gigantic mass of white sat proudly at the dock, dwarfing the surrounding buildings. At least that’s how I saw it from that angle. Hundreds of passengers were waiting in lines for what I guessed was some kind of processing before embarkation. We asked one of the staff what was going on and found out they were checking passports and getting credit card info and whatever else was needed.

I looked at my friends. “Well, this is it.” After tearful goodbyes (mine) to Miles and Goldie, I turned to walk away then looked back. “I’m going to miss you guys.” I sniffled.

Both had dry eyes.

Now that hurt.

And it really wasn’t like them. Nope. Inside, they both had to be blubbering fools. “Well, I’ll keep in touch, although I have no idea how-”

Goldie waved a hand. “I can’t stand it any longer!”

“About time. I thought you two weren’t going to even shed one tear to see me go.”

They gave me a collective grin.

“What the hell is wrong with you guys? You’re acting…weird. Weirder than usual.” I chuckled.

Goldie grabbed my arm and spun me around. Despite my shouts to stop, Miles joined in the hug.

“What the hell? You’re going to make me seasick before I even get on the ship.” I yanked free.

Miles laughed. “You have your anti-nausea bracelet on. And”-he leaned near-“where’d you get that pink locket?”

“You like it?” I fingered it and smiled.

“It’s you. Not too pretentious. Not too much like real jewelry.”