“Anything you make, Cate, I guarantee I’ll like.”

There were compliments, and then there was flattery. She’d never had patience for the latter, and was pleased to see him bump his head on the narrow cabin door when he turned around. At the end of the narrow corridor was a bathroom-head, she reminded herself of the correct term-and then rapped on the cabin door after that.

Arthur looked just like his name. He was easily six feet, maybe fifty-five to sixty, with a handsome head of premature white hair and a long face with stress-dark eyes.

“Any special things I can make for you, Arthur? Food allergies? Types of food you really don’t like?”

“Nothing special, but I tend to get up early. How soon is coffee available?”

“Any time you want. I’ll have a pot of fresh in the salon by 6:00 a.m. If you want it earlier yet, no sweat, just say.”

“No, that’s fine.” Arthur seemed to look through her, not at her. Cate fully understood that some people treated staff as invisible, but Arthur appeared more preoccupied than rude or snobbish. She made a mental note to watch out for him, make sure she found things to tempt him at mealtimes.

The last aft cabin was hers-the sleeping area was the size of a closet, with an adjoining hatbox-size head. Normally, she’d sleep in the crew quarters, but when Ivan lost his regular chef and interviewed her…well, Cate wasn’t about to sleep in a bunk in the open crew quarters, not when there was a spare cabin with a locked door.

On the starboard side, again she knocked…and the last of Harm Connolly’s guys yanked open the door. Yale. Had to be. Easy to guess how the two youngest men had picked up Ivy-League-type monikers, no matter where they’d actually gone to school. Yale was blond to Purdue’s dark, thin rather than muscular, and had a trimmed beard where Purdue was clean-chinned. Still, they both looked like up-and-comers, duded up with expensive labels and styled haircuts, in the same early-thirties age bracket.