Cooks, Crooks and Cruises: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by A. R. Winters

  Chapter 26

  I tried to hold my breath as best I could as the weight of the infuriated Olivia drove me right to the bottom of the Lagoon Pool.

  It wasn’t very deep and we quickly crashed into the bottom.

  I twisted away from her and kicked off from the floor, operating purely on instinct.

  My head burst through the surface of the water and I sucked in air like I’d been in the water for minutes instead of mere seconds. I hadn’t been ready for her attack and the shock of it all had left me breathless. Well, the shock and literally being forced underwater and being unable to breathe.

  I started hopping away, bouncing off the bottom with both feet, from where I’d landed, in case she went for me again.

  Olivia’s head burst through the water, her damp hair covering her eyes. She brushed it aside and spat out water. We were at least a yard apart and I was making good time with my awkward hops through the water toward the edge.

  I continued hopping backward to the side of the pool, where a lifeguard had now arrived.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, glancing back and forth between Olivia and me. She had a confused look on her face, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether we were horsing around, or if she’d just witnessed a murder attempt. She was wearing a bright yellow bathing suit with the image of a swan and a ship embroidered across the front, and I could see that she was contemplating whether she’d need to get it wet or not.

  “She started it!” yelled Olivia, her vision now clear and her airwaves in full working order.

  I ignored her and began to climb out of the pool, while the lifeguard offered me a hand in assistance.

  “I did not start it,” I muttered to the girl helping me. “She just tackled me in.”

  The lifeguard nodded uncertainly. She recognized that I worked on the ship but she wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information.

  Olivia started wading toward us. The water only went up to just below her shoulders and she made quick progress, still with fire in her eyes. It seemed the water hadn’t been enough to quench her anger just yet.

  When I was fully out of the water, I sat on a sunbed while I caught my breath.

  Olivia stood in the water at the edge of the pool, arms resting on the side, glaring at me. The lifeguard hovered over her. She had offered Olivia a hand but it had been brushed aside. She was content to stay in the water and stare laser beams into me with her eyes from there.

  The lifeguard gave up on Olivia for the moment and walked back to me. She looked to be in her early twenties and instead of a lanyard with her ID, she had her name sewn into her swimsuit: Rebecca.

  “What happened? I was watching the children down at the other end. A lady down there said she tackled you and pushed you in?”

  “Yep. That’s what happened.” I brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. “She was trying to kill me,” I finished nonchalantly.

  Rebecca wrinkled her nose as she looked at me, as if trying to understand why that had happened and waiting for a more detailed explanation.

  I looked down at my soaking wet jeans instead.

  “Adrienne!?”

  My head flicked up. It was Ethan and he was hurrying toward me. It certainly hadn’t taken him long to get here.

  “Hi,” I said, slowly pushing myself to my feet.

  Ethan came to a halt in front of me. He looked back at Olivia who was still staring daggers, and then back at me inquisitively.

  “What happened?”

  I let out a long, slow sigh.

  “She killed Hannah. Then she tried to drown me.”

  “What?”

  “She’s lying!” came a screech from the pool. “She’s lying, lying, lying. She’s making up stories to stop me and Vince being together!”

  “That isn’t true!” I reached out and grabbed Ethan’s shirt. “Really! I’ve figured it all out!”

  Ethan looked down at the wet stain on his shirt, and then ever so gently disengaged my fingers from the grasp they had.

  “I think we’d all better go to my office and get to the bottom of this.” He turned to the lifeguard. “Could you get her a towel?”

  Five minutes later, I began to wonder whether I’d made a mistake.

  I was sitting in front of Ethan’s desk in one of the high-backed uncomfortable wooden chairs. Olivia was sitting next to me on another one of the chairs. We were both wrapped up like angry burritos in giant Swan towels.

  On either side of us were security officers, and standing beside Ethan were Beverly (gulp) to his left and the captain (double gulp) to his right.

  “Okay, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of what happened,” said Ethan from his position of authority behind his desk.

  I wasn’t sure what kind of look he was giving me as he said it, because I was too afraid to meet his gaze. I was staring down at my knees instead, or rather, the fluffy white cotton that covered them in the form of the towel I’d been given.

  Oh well. It was now or never. I took a deep breath, and…

  “I believe Olivia murdered Hannah to protect Vince’s reputation. She heard Hannah tell Vince that she was his daughter, and Olivia killed her to protect the secret. She hid—”

  “Outrageous!” screamed Olivia with such volume I winced. I think even the captain and Beverly took half a step back at the force of it.

  “Lies! Lies! Lies! This two-bit failed journalist is making up lies to make herself seem important and interesting! She’s not!”

  “Not what?” asked the captain.

  “Neither of them! She’s an unimportant and boring hack who’s started making up stories!”

  I looked up for support. Beverly was giving me one of those awful looks somewhere between sympathy and massive disappointment. The captain looked bored as if he had a million other more important things to be doing. I risked a glance at Ethan, just a quick one. Our eyes met but his expression was unreadable and my gaze quickly fell again.

  “She lied before,” I said quietly. “She didn’t tell us that she saw Hannah and Vince talking and arguing.”

  “I didn’t lie! I just left it out! It was irrelevant. I knew you’d all start gossiping! I couldn’t let Vince’s secret come out. But now… now look what you’ve done!”

  Olivia hopped to her feet and she started to waddle toward me, the way the towels were wrapped tightly around us making it hard to walk properly. “Now this hack is going to try and sell her horrible stories about Vince to every trash tabloid and website in town!”

  Olivia went to jab a finger in my direction to finish her tirade, and it caused her towel to fall off. There’s something rather incongruous about an angry woman in a bikini surrounded by two ship’s officers, two of a ship’s crew and a department manager all dressed to the nines. It made her look even more unhinged than I already suspected her to be.

  One of the security officers who had been flanking us gently took Olivia by the elbow and led her back to her chair. She placed the towel back over the red-faced fangirl, who snatched it up and held it over herself like a blanket.

  Ethan cleared his throat to draw everyone’s attention

  “Could we have a moment of calm, please?” Although it was phrased as a question, it was addressed like an order.

  “Adrienne, you’ve done some sterling work, but perhaps you’ve gone a little too far down the wrong path. We know that whoever killed Hannah most likely poisoned Beverly’s pastry.” Ethan looked up at Beverly, who gave a sharp and angry nod. “But there’s nothing to connect Olivia to the pastries, is there? Could she have had access to either the kitchens or the DeLucas’ cabin?”

  “No! Of course not!” shouted Olivia in what seemed to be some confusion. She was a good actress. It was almost like she didn’t even know about the poisoning she had committed.

  “And Beverly, the pastries came with a note from Meredith, is that not correct?”

  Beverly stepped forward and nodded, giving me an angry glance. “That is correct.”

&nbs
p; Ethan drummed his fingers on the desk.

  “Adrienne, do you think Olivia framed Meredith?”

  I glanced across at Olivia. If looks could kill, I’d have been dead a hundred times over. I suddenly felt incredibly small, wriggling in my chair as if trying to disappear inside of it.

  “I… No. I guess she did tell me she didn’t think Meredith was capable of murder.”

  Olivia made a loud unintelligible sound of agreement like an angry HMMPH and crossed her arms.

  “So, it’s the sunglasses. Right?”

  I looked up at Ethan. He wasn’t angry. It was worse than that. He was giving me a look of… sympathy. I didn’t want him to see me that way! Then again, I didn’t want anyone to see me at all right then.

  “Yes,” I said in a small voice.

  It wasn’t just the sunglasses; it was the fact she lied about there being no other hiding places, and she didn’t tell us about seeing Hannah and Vince arguing either. It was all of it.

  But I wasn’t going to rehash that again now. I’d said my piece and I didn’t think I could say it again. My new plan was to just melt into a pool of embarrassment. Maybe Cece would be sent in to mop me up from the floor later.

  “Olivia,” said Ethan without enthusiasm, “it seems Swan owes you an apology. To start with, we’d like to offer you the chance to dine at the captain’s table tonight with some of our VIP guests.”

  The only satisfaction I got from the whole meeting was seeing the captain’s look of annoyed surprise at this pronouncement. I guessed Ethan hadn’t cleared it with him first.

  “Sir? Perhaps you could escort Olivia back to her room. I’m sure she’ll want to change and recuperate.”

  “It would be a pleasure,” said the captain without even the merest hint of pleasure in his tone. He slowly walked around the desk, and then held out his arm.

  Olivia got back on her feet, clutched her towel with her right hand, and linked her left arm with the captain’s to begin her slow and stately bikini-march back to her room.

  Ethan gave a look, not even a verbal command, to the two security officers who remained. They immediately turned and exited the room after the captain leaving just Beverly, Ethan, and me.

  When the door was closed, Beverly finally turned on me.

  “Adrienne! That behavior was outrageous! You assaulted a guest!”

  I was on my feet, mouth agape immediately. But Ethan beat me to it.

  “I believe it was Olivia that pushed Adrienne into the pool, actually,” he said calmly.

  I sat back down again.

  “Be that as it may, you cannot. Can. Not. Go around flinging wild, unsubstantiated accusations at guests! I’ve never, ever heard of such a thing in all my years in this industry. And I’ve seen some scandals, let me tell you. But calling a guest a murderer? Wow.” Beverly shook her head to herself in outraged disbelief. “You’ve got some nerve, girl.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” I said quietly.

  “Didn’t mean to? Didn’t mean to? Oh, it accidentally slipped out, did it?”

  “No, she just kept saying more and more unbelievable things. Her story didn’t add up.”

  Beverly slammed her hands down on the desk causing Ethan to wince. He looked down as if inspecting his desk for damage.

  “You have no right to even be questioning her! She shouldn’t have a story, whether it adds up or not. If I had the authority, I would fire you right this very instant. Rest assured, I will be making a full report and hand-submitting it to HR and the Director of Operations the very microsecond we return to port!”

  I nodded slowly. She could submit whatever report she wanted to. I was pretty sure my life at sea was over.

  “Why don’t you head back to your cabin for the rest of the day?” said Ethan. “And Beverly, you were only just released from the sickbay. In fact, I think we could all do with a bit of a rest and time to reflect.”

  I was pretty sure he only said it to make me feel better. I didn’t know whether to be angry or pleased. Was it condescending or kind?

  With conflicted emotions, I stood up, turned around, and headed out the door. Just before exiting the cabin, I looked over my shoulder at Ethan.

  “Bye.”

  He gave me a small smile of what looked like encouragement. And in his eyes was what looked like belief.

  Belief in me.

  With Beverly still glaring at me, I exited, and went back to my cabin to hide. If I had my way, I’d stay in bed for, approximately, forever.

  Chapter 27

  The best way to deal with horrible things happening is to crawl into bed and stay there forever. Ideally, with ice cream.

  Sam and Cece didn’t seem to agree. They’d spent the last half an hour badgering me to join them for dinner. I’d just about persuaded them that I was never eating dinner again, and to leave me to wallow in my own misery.

  “Are you sure we can’t bring you anything?” Sam’s voice was filled with concern for me. Sometimes best friends can be really annoying.

  “I told you what I want,” I said from under the pillow that I was using to muffle my entire face.

  “When she’s like this, it’s the only way,” said Sam.

  “Are you two serious?” Cece’s voice was incredulous. “Eight scoops?”

  “Yep,” said Sam.

  I provided muffled agreement from under my pillow.

  “I don’t know if the staff mess has buckets for ice cream,” said Cece thoughtfully.

  I pulled the pillow off my face, exasperated.

  “Then put it in two bowls!” I put the pillow back in position.

  “Okay! Okay! Chillax already.”

  That helped about as much as you would expect.

  “See you later!” they called as they exited the cabin to leave me in relative peace. I offered them a muffled grunt in return.

  I was in a bind now. I’d been so sure that I’d cracked the case, that Olivia was the killer, but now? All I was sure of was that I had messed everything up. In the heat of the moment it had all seemed to make so much sense, but now, I could see the holes in my theory—namely that Olivia had rejected the opportunity to lay the blame on Meredith and that she didn’t have access to the pastries that poisoned Beverly.

  It didn’t mean I was wrong, of course. But it did mean I couldn’t prove anything. I moaned into my pillow. It just wasn’t fair. None of it.

  RING. RING. RING.

  I lowered the pillow from my face for a moment. It was the telephone, and it was ringing. It was a pretty rare occasion for it to ring; on the ship, we mostly communicated through messages sent from our smartphones, or emails for more formal and less time-sensitive communication. It was rare to get an actual telephone call on the in-cabin phone.

  I wasn’t in the mood to answer it though, so I didn’t.

  I put the pillow back over my head and tried to press the sides against my ears to block out the sound. This had the side-effect of stifling both my nose and mouth, and after a few seconds of this self-torture, I tossed the pillow aside and breathed in deeply. For a moment, I was reminded of when Olivia had pushed me into the water and landed on top of me. I had worried I was going to die from lack of air then, and the pillow had brought back that sensation.

  RING. RING. RING.

  “Gah!”

  Angrily, I got up, took two flouncing steps to the other side of the room, and lifted up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Adrienne.”

  I frowned, recognizing the voice after just a single word. It was Beverly. What fresh torture did she have for me? Perhaps she’d set up some stocks so Olivia could throw rotten fruit at me for the delight of the other guests. Or maybe she’d arranged with HR to have me fired immediately and tossed overboard with nothing but a plastic floatie.

  “Yes?”

  “I think we need to talk.”

  I rolled my eyes and was annoyed that Beverly couldn’t see me doing it.

  “Oh?”

  “This whol
e Olivia situation. We need to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.”

  “Do we?”

  “Yes, Adrienne, we do. First, we need to figure out a way to make it up to Olivia.”

  I rolled my eyes even harder. “I thought she was having dinner with the captain? Isn’t that enough?”

  “Probably not. We need to brainstorm more. And secondly, you’re going to have to work on our social media coverup and response.”

  “Coverup?”

  “The pool fight. We don’t want rumors flying about that staff and guests are getting into brawls. You’ll have to come up with a story. You were rehearsing for an event—a play, or practicing martial arts, or some such thing.”

  I shook my head to myself. This all sounded terrible, but on the slightly positive side, if there was one, perhaps I wasn’t going to lose this job? At least, I wasn’t being fired with immediate effect.

  “I… see…”

  “I’m by the Lagoon Pool. Come and meet me right away and we’ll plan this all out.”

  I didn’t answer for a moment. Did I really want to leave my nest of pity and meet my awful boss? No, I didn’t. But if it meant I might be able to save my job…

  “Okay.” I said begrudgingly, hating myself for it. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Muttering complaints to myself, despite actually being somewhat encouraged, I pulled out my remaining pair of dry jeans, my backup sneakers, and a sweatshirt. I’d hoped to spend basically the entire rest of my trip in my pajamas, but that clearly wasn’t meant to be.

  When I was dressed, I tied my hair back in a ponytail and tried to force the perma-frown I’d developed off of my face.

  Goshdarnit, I was going to put on a brave face and try and save my job.

  Chapter 28

  I was going to try and be good. I was going to be polite to Beverly, and even if she was a complete cow to me back, I wasn't going to lose my cool.

  If, as now looked increasingly likely, the job with Meredith was going to fall through, then I wanted to keep this one. I'd admit that mistakes had been made (hopefully I wouldn't have to say ‘by me’) and that it'd never happen again.