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regret. Just deserts. No matter how much misery the man endured, it would be nothing compared to the horrors he’d inflicted on her and possibly others. Though it wasn’t very admirable of her, she found it gratifying to watch her handsome, treacherous husband squirm as he fielded questions from reporters. Some enterprising newsperson had dug up information on Peter’s first two marriages, and it was now gossip fodder for the tabloids as well as prime-time news anchors that Peter’s former wives had died mysterious deaths and left him huge sums of money. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Peter.
    For Rainie, walking away from what remained of her father’s estate had been extremely difficult. Her dad had worked his entire life for that money, and Peter Danning didn’t deserve a single cent of it. But it had bothered her even more to turn her back on Peter’s first two wives. During one of his brutal fits of temper, Peter had once confessed to Rainie that he’d murdered her predecessors because they’d been planning to divorce him. At the time, Rainie had prayed he was lying in an attempt to intimidate her. I’ll never let you leave me. I’ll see you dead first. But old Internet news archives hinted that Peter’s incredible confession might be true. His first wife had died of a lingering illness that baffled her doctors. The result of some obscure, undetectable poison, possibly? The second wife had perished in a car wreck when her brakes had failed on a curvy mountain road during a rainstorm. Accident or design? Rainie had very good reason to suspect that her husband had killed both women and walked away with their inheritances. If so, he deserved to squirm. No misfortune that befell him was too severe a punishment if he had ended the lives of two healthy young women.
    During those first news broadcasts, Rainie had huddled on the sofa, smiling through tears. Thanks to the help of Margaret Bresslar and Janet Teague, Rainie had actually pulled it off and given Peter the slip. What had she ever done to deserve such faithful and devoted friends? They’d risked so much for her, so very much. Oh, how she missed e-mailing them or talking with them on the phone. Margaret, the more serious one, had been Rainie’s rock during the final days of her marital imprisonment, and Janet, the funny, irreverent one, who’d often been mistaken for Rainie’s sister in college because they looked so much alike, had always managed to keep Rainie laughing. Don’t lace the bastard’s coffee with rat poison yet, she’d cautioned. We’re going to get you out of there.
    In the end, Janet had kept that promise, putting her career and her freedom on the line. Wearing an Elvira wig, sunglasses, and punk-rocker clothing, she had boarded the ship as Anna Pritchard, flashed fake identification, deposited the luggage in a cabin where Rainie could later go to hide, and then changed into the stretchy-back sheath that Rainie would later don in the ladies’ lounge. For the intervening hours before dinner, Janet had called in sick to delay reporting in for work and browsed in the ship’s classy boutiques while wearing the disguise, thus establishing the existence of Anna Pritchard by passing in front of countless cameras. Then, at the beginning of the seven-course meal in the opulent dining room, Janet had excused herself from her table and gone to the lounge only minutes before Rainie had. Once inside, safely hidden from electronic surveillance, Rainie and Janet had switched clothing. Familiar with the ship’s surveillance system, Janet had gone to an area where there were no cameras, changed into her work uniform, stashed Rainie’s sequined gown, heels, jewelry, and evening bag in her oversize purse, and then resumed her duties as ship operations coordinator.
    Just like that, Lorraina Hall Danning had vanished without a trace.
    Sometimes Rainie actually picked up the phone and almost dialed Margaret’s or Janet’s number. But sanity always