Sailing to Capri by Elizabeth Adler

very much ‘guy’ weekends—no women, lots of booze and food and man-talk over port after dinner. They certainly didn’t want me there; I’d make sure everything was organized then head back down to London, out of their way.”
    “You have friends in London?”
    “Sure, one or two; career women like myself, tied to their bosses’ whims and lives and travels. It doesn’t leave much time for a private life, but we get together occasionally—lunch, shopping, that sort of thing.”
    “No special friend then?”
    “Bob was my special friend. And Bordelaise, of course.”
    Montana raised his brows at her ridiculous name so I told him the story of how she got it.
    He laughed. “And is Bordelaise
saucy
then?”
    “As all get-out. She’ll charm you in half a minute. You’ll fall in love with her. Everyone does.”
    “She’s alone and fancy-free?”
    “Two husbands down and one on his way out. She gets bored easily.”
    Montana leaned closer, elbows on his knees, hands held loosely in front of him. His eyes had an intensity that I found disturbing and I went quickly on to the next name.
    “Marius Dopplemann.” I glanced up again. Obviously Montana knew the name, everyone did. Dopplemann was a genius, a German national who’d taken American citizenship andbecome famous and influential, first in the space program, then in other top-secret projects. “The German scientist?” I said. “I never met him and Bob never talked about him except once to say he admired his work. I’ve no idea of a possible motive.”
    “And the last name?”
    “Rosalia Alonzo Ybarra. The first I heard of her was in his letter to me. She’s his long-lost first love.”
    Montana said, “There’s no address for her, or for Dopplemann. Nor for Clement and Farrell.”
    I shrugged. “They might be on Bob’s personal Rolodexes.”
    It was time to go. Montana helped me on with my jacket; he lifted my hair off my neck and settled the collar snugly. I felt myself go warm all over and turned my face away so he wouldn’t see that I was blushing. It was silly to react this way simply at the touch of a man’s hands. I decided I really must get out in the world more.
    Montana walked over to the bar to pay, stopping to chat with Ginny and Reg while I collected Rats from his chosen spot in front of the fire.
    I waved my good-byes and stepped outside to wait for Montana. The cold bit my nose and sneaked down my throat, and I almost turned around and went right back inside, but then Montana swung through the door, buttoning Bob’s jacket. I figured he might as well keep it now, but maybe the expensive black cashmere coat was more his true urban style. Hadn’t he said he was a city guy? I realized I had no idea even in which country he lived. Perhaps he was simply “a man of the world.”
    We walked back to the Hall, each lost in our own thoughts. I was wondering how I was going to cope with the scary cruise,and I assumed Montana was wondering how he was going to find all these people and persuade them to come on that cruise.
    “If necessary, you’ll have to do the persuading,” he said.
    He’d read my thoughts again. “Me?” I asked in a voice squeaky with nerves.
    “You’re the person closest to Bob. You’re also the hostess, the person inviting them on this memorial cruise.”
    “The wake,” I said gloomily, sniffing up my runny nose and pulling my woolen ski cap farther over my ears against the icy wind.
    “Exactly. They’ll call you, of course, wanting to know more. Tell them it’ll all be very jolly; say that Bob wanted to make them happy after he’d gone. It was his dying wish and he left you a letter asking you to do this for him. Your one final task.”
    “Okay.” With the toe of my hot pink Moon Boot I kicked moodily at the snow piled by the Hall’s iron gates. Stanley, the gardener, was outside the gatehouse where he lived with his wife and three black cats, two of whom hurtled at Rats, spitting and snarling. Tail