I’d better get out of here, Gavin fretted. Some jerk might have seen me steering her back. Better just to take the bracelet than get tempted by other thoughts. After all, once he had a few bucks he might meet a beautiful younger woman with plenty of her own jewelry who would want him. He was smart enough to know that it would have to happen soon though, and it would only happen if he had a little money to throw around. His looks were fading fast. Some might say they had already taken a hike. His hair was graying more each day and his muscles were beginning to sag out of control. He had gotten the shock of his life when he had gone to a movie recently and had been offered the senior citizen’s discount. An offer he almost foolishly refused.

Shaking that ugly thought from his head, Gavin clutched the beloved trinket in his well-manicured hands and crept over to the closet. He slowly unlatched the door and cringed as a whiny creaking sound announced his arrival to the orange life preservers staring down at him from the shelf, mocking him, as if to say, “You’ll never get away with this.” His nerves screaming, he stood on his tiptoes like an aging ballerina and tossed the bracelet behind them to the distant corner of the high shelf.

“I shall return,” he murmured.

Like a cat he sprang across the room, blew a loving kiss at Beatrice Watkins, and slithered out the door.

The crew would be turning the ship upside down looking for that bracelet. But when the ship docked Sunday, they’d stop looking. They’d be sure someone had found it and, like any red-blooded thief, had kept it. He’d try to sneak up here and get the bracelet in the hours of the layover. But if he couldn’t manage that, on the trip back to New York he’d find a way to visit this suite and retrieve it.

Nothing was going to stop him from getting that bracelet back.

Chapter 2

SATURDAY, JUNE 20

OXFORD, ENGLAND

REGAN REILLY WOKE up slowly, blinked eyes that felt glued shut, and looked around trying to figure out where the heck she was. Forcing the fog from her brain she scanned the dormitory room before registering that the white-blond hair sticking out from the skimpy covers on the narrow bed across from her belonged to her best friend Kit.