Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 06 - Cruise Millions

by A. R. Winters

  “Do you?”

  “Well of course. It’s going to go contagious.”

  “Viral,” I corrected.

  “Yes, yes. Now, I want to know the exact method I need to make my product really virile on social media. Did I get it right this time? I already have ten thousand and four followers. How do I make them all share it?”

  “Ten thousand? That’s amazing.” In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a lot, but for a technologically-illiterate middle-aged woman with all the charm of a cement mixer it was surprising.

  Helen laughed modestly. “And four! Yes, I have a friend—a prince—and he helped boost my numbers after a small four-figure investment.”

  “A prince?” I tried to sound impressed, but I was pretty sure I knew what had happened.

  “Don’t sound so surprised. Not everyone lives a life as parochial as you. He contacted me, in fact.” She paused so I could marvel at her words. “He must have heard the buzz from my other four followers. He’s from Nigeria. Anyway, he got me my next ten thousand followers. I need you to tell me how to use them.”

  I wondered if I should tell her that the followers she’d purchased were fake and she’d been ripped off. It was the right thing to do, and unfortunately my grandmother had hammered into me since I was a small child that I was supposed to do the right thing.

  Cornstalks.

  “Do you remember what I said about authenticity this morning?”

  “Yes. So just pictures of the actual mug itself, not future prototypes?’

  “No. I don’t mean that. I mean, I don’t think those followers of yours are all authentic.”

  “Of course they are. One is my sister, one is my godmother, and the other two are friends.”

  “I meant the other ten thousand.”

  “Are you questioning the integrity of my friend, the prince?” Helen stood up, staring at me with a wounded expression.

  “Ye-es?” I said tentatively.

  “And you call yourself a social media expert.” Helen raised her wrist and checked her watch. “Thanks for wasting my time. Now if I don’t hurry, I’m going to be late for the shore visit!”

  “What a shame.” I wasn’t going to apologize. If anyone had been wasting someone’s time, it certainly wasn’t me.

  “Yes, it would be a shame if I missed it. We’re all going to take virile selfies on the beach!”

  “That sounds like a great idea.” The only way a photo of Helen on the beach was going to go viral would be if a surprise wave slapped her in the face just as she was capturing the moment.

  “I expect I’ll be giving you tips soon.” Helen laughed to herself as she walked away.

  Since they would soon be departing the ship, I knew I didn’t have long to find Alejandro. I decided to go to his cabin and see if I could catch him before he left. As Alejandro now knew I was onto him, there was a chance he might use the opportunity for a visit ashore to leave the ship for good.

  I had access to the list of Claim Your Million participants’ names and cabin assignments on my phone, and I pulled it up.

  I blew out a low whistle as I realized something I should have checked before.

  Alejandro, a supposedly rich investor, wasn’t in one of the VIP suites.

  He was booked into a standard cabin with a sea view balcony. They were nice rooms, but they weren’t where you expected to find multi-millionaires.

  Minutes later, I had descended a few decks and was ringing the doorbell to his cabin. There was no answer.

  After two more rings and no sign of movement, I knew I was too late.

  I stared at the electronic keycard lock on the door.

  I would have loved to ask Cece to open it for me. But I couldn’t. She’d been suspended and even had her housekeeping keycard taken from her.

  Blowing out a frustrated sigh, I decided to see if I could catch him at the gangway departing for the onshore excursion.

  I rushed through the ship, cutting across from Alejandro’s starboard side cabin to the port side where the gangway was located.

  When I got there, I was just in time to see the Claim Your Million group down on the dock.

  They were boarding a little bus to take them to the viral-beach-selfie location. Even from this distance, I could see Helen Johannsen was the last one to hop on, clutching her travel mug in her right hand as she climbed aboard the vehicle. The doors slid shut behind her, and the bus began to drive away.

  It looked like I was going to have to wait for Alejandro to return.

  If he did.

  The group’s schedule was on my phone, so I checked it. They were due back in about three hours’ time.

  And I was going to be there to greet them.

  When the future millionaires returned, many of them were red-faced from the sun or huffing and puffing because of the short walk from their tour bus back to the ship.

  The group seemed to be in a good mood as they came back aboard, laughing and joking with each other and talking in voices that were entirely too loud. I guessed the viral selfie session had gone well.

  I stood to the side as they entered and tried to stay out of view. This was partly so Alejandro wouldn’t spot me and run, but also because I didn’t want to have another embarrassing run-in with anyone else after this morning’s collision with Milton.

  Most of the participants headed off to other locations on the ship as they arrived, with only a few hanging around by the entrance. I watched as every last one of them from the excursion returned. Alejandro didn’t seem to be among them. I decided to speak to one of the stragglers and see if he could provide me with some information.

  “Excuse me?” I said to a man who looked like a less trustworthy version of Paul Parker.

  He had his hair slicked back the same way and there was something shifty in his expression. I bet he was a salesman of some kind. A salesman for something that no one should ever buy.

  “Yes?” he said, running his eyes over me. It wasn’t the way that some sleazy men did when assessing a woman’s appearance. It was more like a conman calculating exactly how much money he could extract from a mark. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

  “I was looking for someone. Alejandro Ciudad?”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name. I’m Danny Diamond, by the way.”

  I shook the hand he offered me. I didn’t want to speak to him; I just wanted to find Alejandro.

  “Big hat, big belt buckle, dark hair, cowboy boots, and jeans?”

  Danny frowned in thought. “Oh, that guy. Yeah, I don’t think he was with us. Could have been though. We were working on our own for this assignment. Viral selfies. Mine are spec-tac-u-lar.”

  He clearly wanted me to ask to see his supposedly spec-tac-u-lar selfies, but I didn’t.

  “Thanks anyway. I guess I’ll find him somewhere else aboard.”

  “Good luck.” Before I could escape, he put a hand on my arm. “Hey, are you on a diet?”

  My eyes narrowed. “What?”

  Danny Diamond flashed a fake smile at me. You could it wasn’t genuine because his eyes didn’t move a fraction of an inch, but his teeth gleamed like a shark’s.

  “I’ve got the exclusive rights to a remarkable new weight loss formula—it’s based on new science.”

  “New science?” I couldn’t have been more skeptical if he’d told me he could fly.

  He nodded. “Oh yeah. A guy in Minnesota figured it out, but old science hates it. It uses demi-calorie electron molecules that turn fat atoms into what’s basically spinach.”

  I covered my mouth to stop the flood of laughter that wanted to escape. Even though science wasn’t exactly my forte, I understood enough to know that what he’d said was wrong in every conceivable way.

  “Yeah, that’s not for me. I’m on the see-food diet.”

  “Is that old science?”

  “No. I see food—I eat it. Good luck!”

  Before he could spin any more lies, I gave him a little wave and headed off, leav
ing him with a look of confusion on his face.

  Paul Parker had asked me not to cover any more CYM events, but technically he hadn’t barred me from attending them. So I decided to drop by and see if I could find any sign of Alejandro.

  The next event was where all the participants would get together and share their supposedly viral selfies. They had uploaded their best ones during their bus ride back, and Paul Parker was going to display his favorites on a big screen, and declare one to be the most viral.

  It seemed backward to me. I could think of a much better way to check how viral the selfies were: they should just publish them online. But I guessed Paul Parker was worried about how non-viral most of them would actually turn out to be.

  Since I was officially persona non-grata, I slipped into the back of the theater and sat in the row furthest from the front. The CYM participants were all so eager that they tended to bunch up right at the front of the room of every event, so I figured I could stay there unnoticed without upsetting anyone.

  “Ah! There you are!”

  So much for hiding. But luckily it was Ethan, and not someone who didn’t want to see me.

  “I was trying to keep a low profile.”

  “Oops! Sorry. What’re you up to?”

  “Looking for Alejandro.”

  Ethan nodded. “Me too. Any luck?”

  “Kind of, but I haven’t found him. This morning I gave a talk about social media, and I made a big thing about people pretending to be someone they’re not. He just about sprinted out of the room.”

  “That sure makes him look guilty—of being a fake, at least.”

  “Yep. And I checked which room he was in. He didn’t even get a VIP suite. What kind of multi-millionaire slums it with the regular folk?”

  Ethan shook his head and whistled.

  “Hey! What are you talking about? Are you talking about one of the investors?”

  Uhhh. It was the pink-haired woman with the egg vases, and she was standing next to Milton. The pair seemed to have made up after their earlier confrontation. They had clearly heard everything Ethan and I had said.

  “Umm, we were—”

  “We heard you!” said the woman. “One of the investors is a fake!”

  Her voice was so loud it carried right through the audience. It was still a few minutes before the event was to begin, so the annoying dance music hadn’t even started yet. People near the front of the room began to stand up, walking toward us.

  Ethan and I exchanged worried glances. We hadn’t intended for this to happen. The matter of Alejandro being a fake was something Paul Parker should have to deal with, but it looked like we’d dropped ourselves right into the fire.

  “Who’s a fake?” said Helen Johannsen, peering at me as she approached. It looked like she thought I was a fake.

  “One of the investors! They’re a fake!” said the pink-haired woman.

  “You! I should have known.” I winced as Paul Parker arrived, an exasperated look on his face.

  “Hey,” said Ethan with the kind of strength in his voice that made everyone quiet down. “She and I were just talking. Mr. Parker? I’m afraid we’ve uncovered some information about one of your investors. He’s not who he said he was.”

  We were now surrounded by people, all trying to catch every word that was spoken.

  “Impossible!” shouted Paul. “They both showed me their financial statements!”

  “They can be faked,” someone interjected. I looked to see who it was, and I was unsurprised to see Dan Diamond. He wore the look of someone who knew exactly how to fake financial documents.

  “Paul, come with us for a moment?”

  Ethan had a way of asking a question so that while it outwardly appeared to be just a simple request, it had an undertone like a strict command.

  “Just a moment,” he said to us.

  He climbed onto one of the chairs at the back and clapped his hands together three times. “Everyone! Let’s reconvene in an hour. It seems we may have been taken in by an impostor! I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and I’m going to add an extra session where I tell you how to avoid being taken in again!”

  I smirked at his words. He was the one who’d been fooled, not the rest of his participants—they weren’t even supposed to know who the investor was. Parker certainly had a way of spinning events in his favor.

  Ethan led us out of the theater. He even managed to get rid of the few people who tried to follow us by simply giving them a stern look and a single half-shake of his head.

  We slipped into an empty conference room, and I flicked on the lights. The room was quiet and cool and calming after the chaos of the confused people outside.

  “All right. What’s going on?”

  “It’s Alejandro Ciudad. He’s not who he says he is. There’s no such person—he’s a fake.”

  “What? But that can’t be. I have to speak to him and get to the bottom of this!” said Paul Parker with clear dismay on his face.

  “I’ve already looked into him, and there’s no real estate investor named Alejandro Ciudad. I can assure you he’s a fake. But more than that, we want to talk to him about the death of Lesley.”

  Paul’s jaw dropped. “A fake and a murderer?”

  “He looks like our best suspect. That’s why we have to talk to him as soon as possible,” I said. “If he’s still aboard.”

  “We’ll check his cabin now. Let’s hope he’s in there.” Ethan outlined his plan of action to nods from me and Paul.

  “If not, we’d better inform the Mexican police. After this morning, he may have figured we were onto him and decided to cut and run,” I said.

  “Let’s just check the cabin first. Come on.” Ethan was already moving by the time he’d finished speaking, the course of action decided.

  The three of us trooped back across the ship to Alejandro’s cabin.

  Ethan only rang the bell once, waiting just a few seconds before unlocking the door with his own master keycard.

  “Hello? Alejandro?” he called.

  There was no answer. There’s something about an empty room, even if you can’t confirm with your own eyes it’s actually vacant. It has a certain feel to it. And this room felt that way, as if no one had been in it for some time.

  Ethan walked ahead and Paul and I followed.

  “Look, the closet’s open,” I said, pointing. “Looks like it’s been cleaned out.”

  “And there’s no suitcase,” said Ethan with a frown.

  “He’s gone? What am I going to do without an investor?”

  Ethan and I watched as Paul Parker shut his mouth and sat down on the edge of the bed, letting his head sink into his hands.

  I walked around the perimeter of the room until I got to the writing desk. Then I froze.

  “What is it?” asked Ethan.

  “There’s a note. Come and look at this.”

  On the desk was a handwritten note on a single piece of Swan letter paper. The writing looked swirly and feminine, and not how I imagined Alejandro would write.

  Ethan picked it up and read it out loud. “Alex, how nice to see you! Why don’t we catch up over some drinks? Lesley. P.S. My cabin number is…” Ethan didn’t bother reading the rest, dropping the paper back onto the desk.

  “Drinks,” he repeated.

  “Champagne?” I said, tilting my head toward Ethan. He slowly nodded his head, not necessarily in agreement, but acknowledging the possibility.

  “Yes, please!” called Paul Parker from the bed, apparently eager for some sparkling wine. We both ignored him.

  “If Lesley knew he was a fake…” said Ethan.

  “…then maybe he killed her to keep his secret?” I finished for him.

  “And I’m out an investor!” groaned Paul.

  Once again, we ignored him. It looked like we’d figured out who killed Lesley. There was no proof yet, but everything was pointing toward Alejandro. Or Alex, as Lesley’s note had called him.

  But the qu
estion remained: was he still aboard the ship? Or had we lost him for good?

  Chapter Twenty

  The next morning, Sam and I were having breakfast together. Ethan was still busy in the aftermath of Lesley’s death. He texted me hours ago, letting me know he’d been up since five so that he could review security footage and look into the ‘Alejandro situation,’ as he put it.

  Sam and I were sitting at a picnic-style bench, which was firmly screwed down to the floor, in the staff canteen.

  We each had a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast in front of us as well as some hot coffee. It smelled better than it looked, but it did the job of filling us up while we talked.

  I told Sam about everything that she hadn’t yet caught up on. She was highly entertained when I told her how Helen had purchased ten thousand followers from a Nigerian prince.

  Then she put down her knife and fork, and she pursed her lips in thought.

  “You don’t think… no…”

  “What?” Had I missed something important?

  “Maybe Helen Johannsen isn’t as ridiculous as we thought.”

  “How so?”

  “Why was she talking to you? She had these ten thousand followers already, right? And she didn’t want to listen to reason—so what was she actually doing there?”

  “Maybe she was hoping I’d fawn over her, or ask her for the contact details of her prince.”

  “Maybe,” said Sam. “Or how about this: what if it was just an act?”

  I understood what she meant, but I didn’t know why she’d think that.

  “An act? But why?”

  “Maybe Alejandro isn’t the only fake rich person on the ship. Maybe they were working together. Maybe she knew you’d be after Alejandro and made sure to keep you distracted while he disembarked and escaped.”

  I put my own knife and fork down too, swallowed what I was chewing, and stared at her.

  “Are you saying I’ve been played?”

  Sam shrugged, picking up her knife and fork again. “I don’t know. It’s just a thought. She did seem a bit too ridiculous, didn’t she? Maybe too ridiculous to be real.”

  “Most cons are run in pairs, aren’t they?” I took a big swallow of coffee. “I think I need to speak to Helen again. Coming?”