Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 06 - Cruise Millions

by A. R. Winters

  “Oh, cornstalks!”

  I entered the sectioned-off room at a near-sprint, bursting through the doors and just about managing to avoid a near-disastrous collision with Milton McPherson, who was holding a bagel in one hand and a coffee in the other.

  “Watch where you’re… hey, you’re not supposed to be in here!”

  I spun around in a full circle, looking in every direction for the distinctive shirt but not seeing it anywhere. I had arrived just a few seconds after the man, but I seemed to be too late.

  My eyes eventually focused on an open doorway on the other side of the room, this one leading out toward the Grand Atrium. Had I really lost him again? How could he move so fast?

  My concern about the mystery man didn’t last long. Something much more pressing drew my attention instead.

  “Unbelievable,” said a familiar voice. “I literally, literally can’t believe it.”

  A blush already creeping into my cheeks, I glared at Helen Johannsen. “What are you doing here?”

  She put her hands on her hips and stared at me as if I were an alien.

  “How dare you. After all you’ve put me through, you should have been fired by now! And you’re questioning my presence again? Oh, no. No, you don’t. I’m going to write some very strong letters to your superiors. And you’ll be hearing from my attorney too. You’ve libeled and slandered me to no end since I boarded.”

  “You’re supposed to be locked up!” I blurted out.

  This got the attention of several other of the guests, who presumably didn’t know what had happened to Helen the day before. Dan Diamond was watching with a smirk on his face, while the pink-haired woman wore a confused smile. Milton had his mouth open, but since he always wore a look of mild surprise and confusion, there wasn’t much of a change there.

  “Of course I’m not ‘locked up.’ The only people who get locked up are people who’ve done something wrong. Like you.”

  “But… the champagne…”

  Helen snorted loudly. “I bet you thought that was clever, didn’t you? Who was it? You? Your little maid friend?”

  “But—”

  “I was vindicated! Someone planted that champagne to make me look bad and my money is on that person being you.”

  “But—”

  “But, but, but,” mimicked Helen. “You’ll need to be a bit smarter next time. I left for the spa yesterday a little before nine o’clock. About half an hour later, the maintenance workers I had called to fix the bulb on my desk lamp finally did the work they should have done much earlier—though I suppose I was lucky in this case! They confirmed to security that there was no champagne on my desk when they arrived. It was planted while I was in the spa.”

  I blinked. I didn’t want to believe it was true, but the fact that she was here—instead of locked up in the brig—gave strong credence to her claim. Ethan wouldn’t have let her go otherwise.

  “And anyway, I don’t even drink alcohol. If I did, I would buy my own. I wouldn’t be stealing it from an event like this. What do you take me for? A poor person?”

  I started backing in the direction I’d entered from, shaking my head the whole time. Everything was going wrong. Everything.

  “If you think you can get away with framing me, you’ve got another think coming!”

  I turned around and ran out of the room. Dan Diamond was howling with laughter as I did so, and it sounded like some of the others were about to start too.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” yelled Greg as I ran past him.

  I didn’t stop.

  I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t believe I had gotten everything so, so wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  While Greg didn’t know what had transpired when I’d gone into the Claim Your Million breakfast room, he could obviously tell something was up from the way I ran out of the restaurant without even saying goodbye. I shouldn’t have been surprised when he tracked me down.

  I was sitting at Hemingway’s bar, debating with myself whether to have a cocktail or not. I’m not the kind of person who drinks during the day. But I didn’t think I was the kind of person to fling out murder accusations at innocent people either.

  “Fresh orange juice, please,” I said to the bartender, finally making up my mind. I’d start with that. If it didn’t make me feel better, maybe I would do something I would regret tomorrow. Or more likely, that afternoon.

  “You can just say the usual if you want,” said the barman, handing me my drink.

  I forced myself to smile at him. “Thank you.” I’d often found myself sitting at the bar in Hemingway’s, talking to customers and an orange juice was what I usually ordered. I hadn’t realized that the barman remembered me.

  “Adrienne? Adrienne!” Greg climbed up onto the stool next to me, staring at me. “What happened? Why did you run off like that?”

  “Sorry, I just couldn’t… I don’t know what’s going on, Greg.”

  “But what happened? I saw you following a guy—then next thing I knew, you were running away.”

  “You know I told you that Helen Johannsen was the murderer, and that we’d found the evidence in her room?”

  “Go on…”

  I took a long sip of my drink.

  “I was wrong. It wasn’t her. Now she’s madder than ever at me.”

  “How come? What happened?”

  “Someone planted that champagne in her room while she was out. And she can prove it. She was at the spa the whole time.”

  “Oh, honey. I’m sorry.” Greg rubbed my back a few times to try and reassure me. “So what now? There’s still a killer on the loose?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded sadly. “At least one.”

  I sucked down half my orange juice with the straw while we sat in silence for a moment.

  “What about that guy you were just chasing?”

  “That guy led me to Alejandro’s body. I’ve been trying to catch him for ages. I figured he was trying to help me since he showed me where Alejandro was. But look what he did this morning. It was more like he was trying to embarrass me, right?”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Have you got a better explanation?”

  “I mean, if you think he led you to Alejandro’s body, maybe he was also leading you to someone inside that event. Don’t you think?”

  “Someone like Helen Johannsen, so she could accost me, threaten my job, and tell me she’s planning to sue me?”

  “No.” Greg rapped his fingers on the counter as he spoke. “Maybe he knew the killer was at the event, and he was trying to show you.”

  “But who could it be?” I blew bubbles into my juice while I thought. “The only people there who could be responsible are Helen and Cece. Helen had an alibi, and it’s obviously not Cece. In fact, Cece wasn’t even there. She’s still sleeping off the celebrating we did last night.”

  “Maybe you need to consider some other possibilities.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Look, I’d better get back to the restaurant. My shift’s about to start. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. …Are you?”

  “Nope. But there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ll let you get back to it.”

  Greg clapped me on the back. “You’ll figure it out. I know you will. You always do.”

  As Greg walked away, I whispered under my breath, “Maybe not this time.”

  BZZZ.

  My phone was ringing. Unenthused, I glanced it the screen. When I saw that the caller was ‘Hot Stuff,’ I couldn’t stop the smile that came. Hot Stuff was Ethan. I swiped up to answer.

  “Hey.”

  “Adrienne? It’s me. Look, I’ve got some bad news about Helen. It wasn’t her…”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  After the disastrous start to the day before, I’d hidden myself away, ignoring phone calls and making sure I didn’t accidentally accuse any more innocent people of murder.

  Sam finally found me in the evening,
hidden under my comforter in bed. After I told her everything that happened, she spent the rest of the evening trying to cheer me up and persuade me to leave the cabin. She failed on both fronts.

  “Come on! Up, up, up!” she yelled in my ear the next morning.

  I yawned and opened my eyes. It took a moment before the reality of everything that had happened the day before hit me. For a glorious few seconds, I smiled up at my friend, amazed she was awake before me.

  I had already swung my legs out of the bed when everything came back to me. Immediately my shoulders slumped and my stomach filled with dread.

  “Hey! None of that. You’re getting up. We’ve got a breakfast date.”

  “We do?”

  “Yep. I told Cece everything last night, and she said we need to cheer you up. We’re meeting her in the Croissant Club in ten minutes!”

  Hobbling like a grandma, I pushed myself to my feet. “The Croissant Club’s a bit too fancy for me this morning. Let’s just eat in the canteen.”

  Sam took me by the shoulders. “No. We need to get you out of this funk. And anyway, Cece…” She didn’t need to finish.

  I closed my mouth and nodded. Of course Cece wasn’t allowed in the staff canteen at the moment. She was a paying passenger who’d been suspended from her job, and it was my fault she hadn’t been cleared of any wrongdoing yet.

  “Wash your face and put something on. I’m starving.”

  I didn’t feel hungry at all, but I didn’t want to let my friends down so I did as I was told and made myself look as presentable as I could in under five minutes.

  “Yo!” said Cece with far too much energy when we met her outside the restaurant.

  “Hey. Why are you so cheerful?”

  Cece’s face fell. “I’m not. I was just trying to… y’know…”

  Ugh. I was making everything worse. Cece needed cheering up more than I did—though the way things were going, maybe my job was in as much jeopardy as hers.

  “Come on you, two grouches. Breakfast will make everything better.”

  Hopeful that it would, Cece and I followed Sam inside. She led us to a table for four by the window, and she occupied one side of it while Cece and I sat on the other.

  Sam decided to order for all of us, getting us eggs benedict with bacon, hash browns, waffles, and of course croissants, along with hot coffee and fresh juice.

  “You took pictures, right?” asked Cece.

  “Of what?”

  “The mud incident. Sam said you got a video or something of Helen?” Cece was leaning forward with visible interest.

  “Oh, yeah. She was acting so crazy I thought I’d better capture it. Here. It’s actually pretty funny when she slips on the mud she spilled everywhere.” I scrolled through the gallery on my phone until I got to the video I’d recorded in the spa, and then I slid it across to Cece.

  A moment later she was sharing it with Sam, both of them giggling at the cranky rich woman’s meltdown in the spa.

  “Such a contrast…” said Cece, tapping her finger at the screen. She now had a photo of Helen from moments before, after she’d carefully arranged the mud on her face to look just right.

  “Yep. But do we have to talk about her? She’s gunning for my job.”

  “Sorry,” said my two friends together.

  “What else is going on?” asked Sam.

  Cece’s expression clouded over, and I knew why.

  “Today’s pitch day, for the competition, right?” I rubbed Cece’s shoulder.

  “Yeah. I don’t think I’m going to bother going, though,” she said in a voice far smaller than what we were used to.

  “You’ve got to give it a shot.” Sam gave her an encouraging smile. “You never know what’ll happen.”

  “Yes, I do,” said Cece, her tone sour. “There’s only one investor, Stan, and he already has his own natural cleaning products. There’s no point in me pitching.”

  “Paul Parker’s still there. Besides, it’ll be great practice. Even if it doesn’t work out, it’s an experience you can learn from.”

  Cece did not look excited by the prospect of learning from experience. What did excite her though was the arrival of our three fully loaded breakfast plates, along with a basket of croissants.

  “Maybe I don’t need to be a millionaire,” she said, stabbing into her egg. “As long as I can eat well.”

  Even though we knew she didn’t entirely mean it, Sam and I both laughed along with her.

  “But really, Cece, you have to do your pitch.”

  Cece’s fork hovered in the air and she gave me a curious look.

  “There’s something I need for you to do, and the only way we can do it is with your pitch.”

  The idea had come to me as soon as Cece mentioned Stan Westbrook and his own line of not-so-natural cleaning products. I had no idea whether it would work or not, but I didn’t have any better ideas. And I didn’t have much to lose either.

  “What?” she asked.

  While we ate breakfast, I explained exactly what I wanted her to do.

  The product pitches for the competition were being held in one of the smaller rooms inside the ship’s conference center. Each of the contestants would go and present their product and give their pitch, and hopefully win an investment from Stan Westbrook. At the end of it all, Paul Parker would present another prize to a product he chose as most likely to ‘Claim a Million.’

  It was nearly ten o’clock, and several contestants had already gone ahead of Cece. She was the only one who arrived with a personal cheerleading squad—me and Sam. Unfortunately, Sam received a message from Kelly before Cece’s turn came around, and she had to leave us two alone.

  When it was time, Cece knocked on the door and after being called to enter I trailed in behind her. I hoped that they wouldn’t throw me out on the spot.

  “Oh!” said someone in surprise.

  “Oh!” I echoed, equally surprised.

  Ahead of us was the judges' table. In the middle was Paul Parker, to his left was Stan Westbrook, and to our mutual surprise, on the other side, was Helen Johannsen.

  I wanted to be in the room when Cece gave her pitch but that now looked increasingly unlikely.

  “You shouldn’t be here!” shouted Helen, clearly at me. “But I’ll allow it.”

  “What?” I said in shock.

  “You’re taking pictures, right? Well, I want my picture taken.” She folded her arms in front of her and a smug smile crept onto her face. “I’ve joined the Spider’s Web! I’m an investor!”

  I looked at the panel, the confusion on my face clear.

  “I needed another investor and Helen has the financial means. It seemed logical,” said Paul Parker, who finished with a shrug.

  “I was only in the competition for the attention anyway—I already know I have a world-class groundbreaking product.” Helen tapped her coffee mug, which was sitting in pride of place on the table in front of her. “So take your pictures and make me virile!” She pursed her lips a moment. “But please do it quietly. Sit over there and don’t say a word. No more trouble.” Helen pointed across the room.

  That suited me just fine. I sat on the right-hand side of the room. It gave me a good angle to watch both Cece’s pitch and the judges’ reaction. It was their reaction that I really wanted to see—after they heard Cece’s new and improved proposal.

  Paul Parker drummed his hands on the table. “All right. Let’s…” he paused, waiting for us to join in. None of us did. “… Make some mo-ney!” he said, forcing the final word into a shout. His two co-judges clapped their hands.

  “Okay. Please state your name and then introduce your product. Try to keep it under five minutes.”

  Cece placed her bag on the table in front of her and directed a broad, bright smile at the judges.

  “Good morning everyone. My name is Cece Blake, and I’m here to… Blow. Your. Minds.” Her smile had morphed into a wide-eyed stare as she tried to wow the judges.

  Stan
cleared his throat and looked as if he was trying to stifle a yawn. I didn’t think he’d be doing that much longer—not if Cece’s pitch went as well as I hoped.

  “You may not know this, but Claim Your Million changed my life on the very first day.” Paul Parker nodded in approval. “I met someone. A very special someone. But someone who’s unfortunately no longer with us.” Cece raised the back of her hand to her right eye, as if wiping away a tear.

  The three judges looked on curiously.

  “I met a woman. An amazing woman. Lesley Stein. At first, we saw each other as rivals—after all, we both had cleaning products—but in just a short time, we realized that we weren’t rivals. We were friends. We could be partners. Using my brains, and her recipes, we would make the best cleaning products in America—no, not in America—in the world.”

  “Wh—what?” said Stan. “You can’t… you can’t be selling Lesley’s product.”

  Cece shook her head at Stan. “Oh, we made an agreement. It’s our product. But more than that, we got an investor too—Alejandro agreed to fund the first round of production. Luckily, we managed to get it put into place before his disappearance.”

  “But… but… Lesley…” said Stan, staring at Cece with wide eyes.

  “I’d like you to take a look at this.” Cece pulled out a bottle of Platinum Power from her bag and approached the judges. She pulled the lid off and offered it to them.

  Stan snatched the bottle out of Cece’s hand and held it up to his nose, sniffing it.

  “Smells good, doesn’t it? The reason I’m here today is for further investment. We’ve—” Cece paused, a sad look on her face “—I mean, I’ve got production rolling, but we need to ramp it up. I’m looking for another hundred-thousand-dollar investment to massively increase production, and start getting Platinum Power shipped nationwide.”

  Helen reached over and took the bottle from Stan and smelled it. “Mmm. I could imagine my staff using this. Does it have real platinum in it? I do hope so.”

  Stan kept shaking his head. I stood up, my chair screeching behind me. The three judges all turned to look at me, and Helen in particular gave me a warning look. I ignored her.