Dark Passage Read Online Free PDF Page A

pass through the security checkpoints. The last time I’d seen lines that long was at Baltimore-Washington Airport on the day before Thanksgiving. As we snaked our way along the barriers toward the X-ray machines, Julie kept busy with her iPhone, alternating between texting and snapping photos which she uploaded almost immediately to Facebook.
    â€˜For Julie’s sake, I hope there’ll be a reasonable number of young people on board.’ Georgina’s eyes swept the backs and the faces of the people in line around us. ‘What do you think the average age is here? Fifty? Sixty?’
    I shrugged. ‘Maybe more. But school’s already let out for the summer, so I imagine there will be plenty of families on the cruise.’ As if to illustrate my remark, a child somewhere began to wail miserably. ‘See?’
    â€˜And, look over there,’ Ruth added, nodding her head toward the entrance.
    A boisterous group of young people and adults began streaming into the terminal, wearing identical red T-shirts imprinted in white with a stylized family tree and the words, ‘OMG, I Survived Another Crawford Family Reunion.’
    â€˜Eleven, twelve, thirteen …’ Ruth counted. ‘My God, there must be thirty or forty of them. Haven’t the Crawfords heard about birth control?’
    I punched Ruth’s arm. ‘Don’t be mean.’
    While we’d been fooling around, a gap had opened in the line in front of us. I eased my bag forward, but it snagged on something. I stooped for a closer look. A rainbow-colored luggage strap embroidered with the name ‘Elizabeth Rowe’ had wrapped itself tightly around two of my wheels. I extricated the strap, then looked around for its likely owner.
    Just ahead of me in line was a woman with short-cropped white hair; a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head. I tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Are you Elizabeth Rowe?’
    The woman started, then turned to look at me, her eyebrows raised.
    I held out the luggage strap.
    â€˜Oh, thank you!’ she said, taking it from me. ‘Cliff, look. I told you that clasp wasn’t secure.’
    The man I took to be Elizabeth’s husband wore a blue-striped short-sleeve shirt that matched the color of the eyes that peered at me through his aviator eyeglasses. ‘What did you say, Liz?’
    Liz waved the strap under his nose. ‘The clasp. It’s broken.’
    Cliff relieved his wife of the strap, opened and closed the clasp a few times experimentally, then handed it back. ‘Looks fine to me. Maybe you didn’t fasten it securely.’
    Liz took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. I could almost read her thoughts. Not wanting to dive headlong into the middle of a family squabble, I smiled and asked, ‘Is this your first cruise?’
    â€˜Oh dear, no. Since we retired, Cliff and I have been fortunate enough to be able to travel fairly extensively.’
    â€˜Do you live in Baltimore?’
    â€˜We spend most of the winter in Florida,’ Cliff chimed in. ‘But, when we get back from this cruise, we’ll be heading back to our home in Maine.’
    â€˜Where in Maine?’ Ruth wanted to know. ‘My husband’s family is from Limington, near Lake Sebago.’
    â€˜We live in Lovell,’ Cliff said. ‘A tiny town near the New Hampshire border.’
    â€˜Kezar Lake’s in Lovell! I know it well,’ Ruth said, surprising me. ‘Hutch and I have stayed at the Lodge.’ She eased around me to ask, ‘Have you ever met Stephen King?’
    Stephen King?
Had my sister lost her mind? ‘Don’t be silly, Ruth,’ I said. ‘Everybody knows that Stephen King lives in Bangor. In a big, spooky house with a spider web on the gate.’
    â€˜He has a house on the lake in Lovell, too,’ Liz informed me kindly. ‘In fact, Lovell is where King was struck by a van and nearly killed back in