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I touched Frank to get his attention, as he’d had his back to me, then pointed to the shiny thing. “Hey, what do you think that is?”

He looked, eyes narrowing. “Part of a knife blade? Could be anything really. Don’t touch it yet.”

He went into the bathroom and came out with a few sheets of toilet roll, which he used to pick up the sliver of silver. He shook his head as soon as he touched it. “Too flimsy to be part of a blade. More likely it’s a piece of a wrapper. Feels like foil.”

I looked around the room. There were food and snack wrappers hanging out of the waste bin, an empty cup by the Instachef, several piles of clothes, a towel dangling on the bathroom doorknob … what was more trash on the floor? “By the state of things, I’d say that was a decent guess.”

He dropped the scrap back onto the floor, and we returned to searching. The air in the room carried the faint tang of body odor and aftershave. We repeated everything we’d done in the first room, right down to Frank checking the air vent.

“So much for that,” he said, getting down off the chair. “Nothing in either room.”

I sighed. I’d had high hopes, but we’d gotten nowhere. “Now what?”

“Now we get out of here.”

A few seconds later, we were back in the corridor on our way to the elevators. Cruisers passed us, lost in their own conversations.

Even so, I kept my voice soft. “The Star has to be on board somewhere. Problem is, there are a lot of places to hide a thing like that. And this is a big ship.”

Frank nodded. “This is huge vessel, Els. There’s still an enormous pool of possible spots.”

“Where would you hide it?”

His jaw worked, and his eyes narrowed. “Somewhere no one would think to look. So not in my quarters. Not in a place that was associated with me, either, so nowhere in Mechanical Engineering. Nowhere in the undercarriage of the ship. Too hard to get to. It would have to be a place I had easy access to.”

“So a public area? Like a common space.”

“Yeah, I think so. The guards are classified as cruisers, so it makes sense that they’d have the most access to Decks 30 through 39.”

“We can eliminate Deck 39.” I grabbed his arm as we stopped at the elevator bay. “Or can we? What if that’s exactly where they hid it? Would be perfect, really. The last place anyone would look is where it was stolen from.”

He pushed the button to call a car. “True. But we can’t exactly waltz back in there and have a look around. Not unless we put our formalwear back on.”

“Tomorrow morning? First thing?”

“Not a bad idea. I might have a better one. But it’s not going to be fun.”

“This is already not fun.”

A car arrived, the doors opening as a soft chime announced its arrival. We stepped on after the occupants departed, and we had the car to ourselves. The doors slid shut.

“What’s your idea?”

He glanced toward the ceiling, reminding me that we were potentially being recorded.

“Right.”

We didn’t say another word until we were back in his quarters. He made us some decaf. “What time do you think the gala will be over?”

I glanced at my wristband. It was a little after nine. “I think, officially, it ends at ten. Cleanup will begin immediately. Maybe another hour after that until the deck is back to its usual?”

“If someone had hidden something in there, they’d want to wait until the place was empty of everyone. Say eleven fifteen for good measure.”

I nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”

“We need to be back there by ten forty-five.”

“All right. And then what? We just hang out?”

He brought me a cup of coffee, fixed the way I liked it. “Yes. We position ourselves on the balcony where we can’t be seen and wait. See who comes back.”

I sipped my coffee. It was so good—his own special brand, which he’d started sharing with me so that we could have it at my place, too, but the taste never got old. It reminded me of dark chocolate. Heavenly. “I like it.”

“Then you’re in? It will mean a lot of doing nothing. And might not get us any results.”

“I know that. But at least we can keep each other company.”

He smiled. “True.”

“And tomorrow is Saturday, so why not?”

We watched a little television while we waited. I also sent Hazel a message to let her know we had no new information but were still working on it.

She thanked me and said she had nothing new either.

Frank had changed into darker clothing: black jeans and a black and gray flannel shirt.

I raised my brows. “Very stealthy.”

“Couldn’t hurt. But I brought a little tech along, too.”

“What kind of tech?” He’d been in his office for a few minutes, but I thought he was just doing … whatever he did in there.

“You’ll see.”

We went back to Deck 39 promptly at ten forty-five. We walked cautiously forward. The observation loop was empty, and there were no signs that anything had happened here in the last few hours. The tables and chairs were gone, the decorations had been removed, even the stage had been dismantled and whisked away.

The rows of outward-facing seats had been returned to the center of the deck below the balcony. The pedestal holding the fake Star was still in place, the counterfeit gem on display under a shaft of light. But there were no guards.

I approached the pedestal. What would stop someone from stealing this version? I reached for it. The moment my fingers entered the shaft of light, a computerized voice announced, “Please back up. You are too close.”

Frank chuckled. “Do that again, and a beam will be electrified.”

“Seriously?”

He nodded. “I overheard a couple guys talking about it at work yesterday.”

I stuck my hands in my pockets. “They should have set it up that way during the gala.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered when the power went down.”

“True.” I looked around with an eye toward a hiding spot. Nothing jumped out at me. Frank seemed to be doing the same thing.

He caught my gaze. “We should get upstairs and get into position.”

“Let’s go.”

We hustled up the steps to the balcony. Not a trace of the bar that had been set up for the gala. It had been replaced by the long, double-sided couch that usually sat there. But because of that, there really was no place for us to hide. Unless we were on the other side of it, and then we wouldn’t be able to see what was going on downstairs.

The soft whirr of the elevators made us both turn. It didn’t mean someone was getting off on this deck, but it certainly got us motivated.

“Where are we going to hide?” I asked. “We’ll be seen up here.”

Frank dug into his pocket and pulled out a small, brushed chrome box. He held his hand out. “Come closer.”

I took his hand, unsure what he planned to do. He moved us into a shadow that fell across the balcony from one of the window frames. “Stay right here,” he said.

I had no problem with that. We were toe to toe, facing each other.

He set the box on the floor between us and tapped it with his foot. It emitted a faint whirring sound, then it shot out a narrow stream of light that spun around like a tiny tornado before disappearing. The air around us wavered the way hot air did sometimes, but I felt no heat.

“What is that?” I whispered.

“Cloaking device,” he whispered back.

“Seriously? I thought you needed fabric or a lens for that.”

“You do. Usually. This is still … experimental. As long as we don’t move too much, we should be fine.”

I grinned. “You’re a little crazy, you know that?”

He smiled in a way that could only be described as smug. “Anything else would be boring, wouldn’t it?”

“Agreed. Also, very impressive.”

“Quickly now, we should go back-to-back. Better coverage that way. Small movements.”

I nodded and turned carefully. We were touching, but I didn’t mind being pressed up against him. From my vantage point, I could see nearly the entire left side of the deck below. I imagined Frank could see most of the right side. Of course, if someone had hidden the gem under the balcony, we’d have no idea.

Hopefully, if someone did come to retrieve the gem, we’d get a good enough look at them to identify them.

The observation loop remained empty for a while. Standing there doing nothing while also trying not to focus on being in such close proximity to Frank was not the easiest. He was warm and muscled. Being pressed up against him was making me warm. I said a little prayer that he didn’t push me into a hot flash.

Being quiet was easier. I was a librarian, after all.

The elevators were a lot harder to hear from the balcony, so we weren’t going to have any advance notice if someone did come. We had no option but to hang out here and wait.

I contented myself with studying the nebula. It was still the most amazingly beautiful thing I’d ever seen in space. Possibly anywhere. It was truly awe-inspiring. I smiled, realizing Frank had set us up so I could see it.

He was just staring at space, and sure, that was interesting in its own way, but not like the nebula.

That was very much him. He definitely went out of his way to make sure I had the best of things.

It was almost like he was trying to make me fall for him. I already had, whether he realized it or not. I had to confess, I wasn’t sure Frank was actually trying. I couldn’t tell if he did these things for me or just because that was who he was.

He seemed to treat all women with the same kind of care. Although, as far as I knew, I was the only one he spent this much time with. But he was a chivalrous man, a somewhat rare creature in this modern age.

Minutes ticked by. I moved just enough to see my wristband and realized we’d only been in position about twenty-five minutes.

“You doing okay?” Frank whispered.

“Yes. Bored, but fine. You?”

“Same.”

I went back to enjoying the nebula and wondering how Frank was entertaining himself. I started trying to pick out shapes in the nebula. Near the top was a cluster of gas and dust that sort of looked like a fat duck if you squinted just right.

Footsteps. Soft and faint but definitely footsteps.

Frank’s hand reached back to grab mine and give it a squeeze. I squeezed back, signaling that I’d heard the sound, too.

The silence got loud as I strained to hear better. The footsteps grew more muffled as the person left the elevators behind and entered the observation loop. Much like the one on Deck 18, this was designed to be a quiet space and had a lot of sound-absorbing panels. The gala was the exception, of course, but normally, people talked in hushed tones when they were here.

It was meant to be a place of reflection and contemplation. A place to take in the vastness of the universe while being made aware of your relative insignificance. And also get some steps in.

I watched the deck below, so intently focused that I almost forgot to breathe. A dark shape emerged from the shadows. My first thought was that it was a man. Tall. Slim but broad- shouldered and narrow-hipped with a masculine gait as he went closer to the windows.

He wore a hooded sweatshirt, the hood up and tugged low, making it impossible from this angle to see his face or any of his features, really.

In the quietest voice I could manage, I said, “This side.”

Frank squeezed my hand in understanding.

The hooded figure looked around, but I could have told him he was alone, except for me and Frank. He turned and glanced up at the balcony. I froze. His face was in shadow. I couldn’t tell who it was. If he would just take a step forward…

He did but dropped his head as he moved. He soon disappeared under the balcony and out of my sight.

“He’s under,” I muttered. Another squeeze of my hand answered me. I felt like I should do something, but I didn’t know what. For all I knew, the guy below was just a cruiser having a look around.

Frank whispered, “I see him.”

I frowned. Maybe I was right. Maybe he was just a random cruiser. Minutes ticked by, and, finally, the faint sound of footsteps retreating reached us. Our visitor was leaving.

I carefully tipped my head back until I touched Frank’s shoulder. “What did you see?”

“Just a guy looking around. Maybe he had the same theory we did. That someone hid the Star on this deck, so he came to check it out. I don’t think he found anything. He left empty-handed, as best I could tell.”

“You saw him leave?”

“I did.”

I heaved out a disappointed sigh. I felt movement. The wavering air around us disappeared.

I turned to see Frank with the chrome box in his hand. He tucked it into his pocket. “I suppose we should call it a night.”

Reluctantly, I nodded. I wasn’t really ready to give up.

“Or …”

I looked at him, curious about what came next.

“We could go to my place and start a board.” He shrugged. “No murder, but there’s no rule you have to have one just to write things down.”

I smiled. “I vote for that. After we do a loop and have a close look at this place for ourselves.”

“You’re on.”

Frank had gotten in the habit of walking the loop on Deck 18 with me once or twice a week. I’d also started going to the gym with him twice a week. He was showing me things to do, mostly how to lift weights to build strength. I liked the idea of being stronger. I’d already seen improvements.

This loop wasn’t as familiar to us, but it was nearly an exact replica of the one on eighteen. The balcony was the only difference. But the balcony provided more possibilities for hiding something.

We slowly made our way around, ignoring the incredible view outside and focusing on the floor, the wall, and as we finished the loop, the underside of the balcony.

“I don’t see anything,” Frank muttered.

“Neither do I. Nothing that looks like it could be a hiding space, anyway.” My wristband vibrated. I glanced at the incoming message.

Mom, are you still up? Would love to talk. My place or yours, either is fine.

I’m up, but Frank’s with me.

Come to mine. Bring him with you.