“I’ll do my best,” Abby said.

He grinned. “Well, you’re a child of the Dragonslayer. You’ve been a pirate before, I’m sure.”

“Aye, mate, we’re all pirates at heart, aren’t we?” she responded.

He smiled again. “They’ll be boarding soon. The concept is that they’re all prisoners being held for a fine ransom. We’re good to them because they might be worth a lot.” He grimaced as he added, “Dirk’s character is probably based on Blue Anderson.”

“Could be,” Abby said.

“Just greet people as they come up the gangplank,” he told her, turning to walk back to the dock himself; he took tickets there with Dirk.

Abby looked around. Besides the performers, there were four men and two young women dressed up to man the ship. Unpiratelike, Dirk had plenty of automatic winches to deal with his sails. She watched as they made last-minute preparations to move the ship out onto the river.

She turned to see that their third performer, Blake Stewart, was seated at one of the benches by the hull. He seemed somehow lost. She thought he was young, maybe around twenty-one, the age Dirk required for anyone serving on his ship, since a lot of his money was made on alcohol.

Young and, yes, lost.

She sat down next to him and he gazed at her with wide brown eyes. “Nice of you to do this,” he said.

“It’ll be fun, won’t it?”

He nodded but he didn’t smile.

“You’re worried about Helen?”

Again, he nodded. “It’s not like her. Did you ever meet Helen? She’s very responsible. She really wants to be an actress. She told me once that work ethic is everything. If she’s not here, it’s because something’s wrong.”

“You really care about her.”

He flushed and said, “I’m crazy about her. But she won’t go out with me. Said it’s no good to date people you work with, and besides, she doesn’t expect to be here forever. So, instead, she went online.” His expression was a little desperate. “Who knows what kind of crazy she might’ve met online?”

“Don’t give up hope, Blake.”

He changed his tone abruptly. “Showtime—captives aboard.” He pointed to the gangplank and went straight into action, putting on his best pirate face as he greeted those boarding the ship. “Step lively, step lively! Now, no trouble from you landlubbers, and there be smooth sailing ahead. Eh! And that means you, my fine lad!” He stopped a boy of about ten who was getting on and reached for his ear, pulling out a “pirate coin.” “Ah, we’ll be watching you! You are the treasure, lad! The ransom we’ll be getting for a fine lad like you. Don’t be trying to out-pirate a pirate!”

The Black Swan took a maximum of fifty people per trip. Soon all had boarded and the crew rushed about to set sail. During the first twenty minutes, Abby dipped grog and soda, warned the passengers of dire consequences if they should act up and, as much as possible, talked to the crew.

Everyone, it seemed, loved Helen Long.

No one could fathom where she might have gone.

All of them feared the worst; she was just so responsible.

When they were full out on the river, a good breeze sprang up. Dirk suddenly clanged a bell, calling attention to the show that was about to start. It began with Dirk and the parrot as he told his tale of being a poor lad, shanghaied into the ways of pirate life. He spoke to individual members of the crowd, asking questions, interacting. The parrot was perfectly trained to make wisecracks to him and he responded, bringing delighted giggles from the children aboard. Then he picked up his guitar and sang a sea shanty—and as his rollicking song came to an end, his two key pirates, Jack and Blake, began a loud and boisterous argument, cutting into Dirk’s territory.

“I say you leave her be—the wench is mine!” Blake shouted.

“Not so says the wench!” Jack argued.

“That’s you!” one of the crew whispered to Abby.

She strode forward between them. “Ah, cut the whining, ye scurvy lot!” she told them. “This wench belongs to no man!”

“Um, yes, you do!” Blake said.

“I don’t belong to any man. I can sail these seas on my own!” she declared.

“Technically,” Jack said, addressing the crowd, “we’re not sailing the seas at all. This is a river.”

Abby waited for the laughter to die down. “River, lake, ocean, sea—mud puddle! I can manage it on my own. However...” She walked to each man and touched his face. “I don’t mind bringing on a mate who can prove his prowess should we be boarded!”

“Ah, fight!” Jack cried.

“To the death!” Blake roared back.

Dirk stepped between them. “First touch!” he commanded. “Jeez, it’s hard to get good help these days, even for a pirate! Just first touch—I need you wretched blackguards alive!”

Abby watched as the two of them went into their swashbuckling duel. In the end, Jack made the first contact, and while Blake muttered and the parrot ridiculed him, he sheepishly began to ask people where they were from, and what their opinions of the fray might have been.

“Hey,” Blake called. “This group is from Florida. They’re demanding a recount!”

Dirk knew right when to let the laughter fade and step in. “Recount? Recount? How can I recount? The count was one!”

Abby moved around the crowd. “We have a birthday here!” she called, after speaking with a wide-eyed little girl. “Her name is Jade.”

“A birthday? A birthday?” Dirk shouted. “Well, then!” He picked up his guitar and began to strum “Happy Birthday,” and everyone on the ship seemed to sing along.

Blake found a couple celebrating their anniversary; she ran over with more grog. Jack spoke to a young man about to head off for basic training; she rushed over with two cups of grog as they all assured him he might need both, and then applauded his service to his country.

Abby came upon a young man with wild dark hair, sunglasses and a ridiculous shirt. “And what are you celebrating, sir? Where are you from?”

She couldn’t really see his face—not with the glasses he wore and the baseball cap that sat low on his forehead. Despite that, she could tell he had heavy dark eyebrows.

“Just vacation,” he said. “And I’m from the great Commonwealth of Virginia.”

“Virginia!” Dirk said, and broke into, “Carry me back to old Virginny.”

They continued with the festivities, Jack hauling out a pirate chest next and providing young and old alike with trinkets. Handing a pack of chocolate doubloons to a small child, Abby noted the Virginian had left his seat and was chatting with crew members.

Then he disappeared down the steps into the galley and snack bar below.

A passenger asked her a question about Dirk’s pirate flag and she took the time to explain how pirates created their own flags. When she could, she slipped toward the steps and made a quick getaway to the deck below.

There was a counter at the far end. The price of the cruise included one glass of grog or soda and chips; hungry passengers could buy hot dogs, hamburgers, veggie burgers or salad—and beer or other beverages if they weren’t fond of grog. There were tables alongside a central shelf that held pirate flags, eye patches, “doubloons” and other souvenirs. She glanced at the tables, which were empty. People tended to gather there while the ship moved out to the river and back, rather than during the height of the pirate festivities.

No one on either side.

Abby walked up to the man tending the snack bar and asked, “Hey, I just saw one of the passengers wander this way. Did you see where he went?”

“Um, yeah, below, down to the magazine. Of course, we don’t really carry any powder or guns down there now. It’s food storage, mostly,” he said cheerfully.

“Why would a passenger go down there?” Abby asked.

“Oh, Wiley—one of the crew—was talking to him. This guy owns a similar outfit up in Myrtle Beach and was fascinated to hear about Dirk’s bilge pumps. They’re probably down there by now.”

“Thanks,” Abby said. She headed to the side of the counter, where a velvet rope blocked off the stairs down to the level below. She walked into the vast magazine. It was piled high with all manner of supplies, not just food but costumes, giveaways, makeup and wigs. There were bunks against the inner hulls, as well; Dirk let his workers sleep on board when they needed a place to stay.

“Hello?” Abby said. No one answered. She hurried up and down the length of the magazine. The place was deserted. Searching as she went, she found the hatch to the bilge below and opened it, climbing down the little ladder that led to the lowest area of the ship, where the two sides met at the keel. The bilge was dry. She could hear the pumps working.

No one was there.

Frustrated, she returned to the action topside. She didn’t see the man who’d said he was from Virginia—and who had then disappeared.

“Where ya been, lass?” Dirk roared over to her. “’Tis time to make certain we’ll be getting the ransom from this lot of landlubbers!”

He was playing a pirate captain; he was supposed to sound gruff. But she thought he was irritated with the fact that she hadn’t been on deck—and in sight.

“Captain, we’ve gotten the ransom for all of them!” she told him.

“We did?”

“They paid it before they got on board!”

“Aw, well, then, I guess we’ll be bringing them back in,” Dirk said.

A little boy jumped up and cried out, “No! I want to stay on the ship and be a pirate!”

Dirk was good. He walked over to the boy and pulled an eye patch from his pocket. “There you go, laddie! Now you’re an honorary pirate!”

The Black Swan returned to the dock. Abby kept up her act—but kept looking for the man in the baseball cap, too. She didn’t see him. Had he somehow disappeared off the ship?