by Kathi Daley
Chapter 5
After we ate, Ty and Mac retired to their stateroom once again. Most of the Hamilton Investments employees and their guests were still in the bar, although I did notice that Evan’s assistant, Lisa, and her plus-one, Brody, had headed toward the staircase leading toward the upper decks.
“Do you want to go back to the stateroom to watch a movie?” Trevor asked after Ty and Mac left.
“That sounds like fun, but I’d really like to take a walk first. I thought I might head up to the room to change out of this dress and into something warmer, though. I bet it is gorgeous on the deck under the moon.”
Trev shrugged. “I could use a walk. We should grab a couple of blankets too. After we walk, we can curl up in a couple of those padded lounge chairs and look at the stars.”
That, I decided, sounded perfect. A lot more perfect than drinking the night away. After we changed out of our dressy clothes and bundled up, Trevor and I walked hand in hand up the stairs to the top deck. When we arrived, we headed toward the bow. As we approached the seating area, I stopped and gasped.
“What is it?” Trevor asked.
“I don’t think Lucy left the ship at the last port. At least not willingly.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because there she is.”
Trevor looked around. “Where?”
“There, near the railing. She is looking down, into the water.”
Trev frowned. “I don’t see her.”
“You wouldn’t. She’s a ghost.”
Trevor’s head jerked up. “She’d dead?”
I nodded. “So it would seem. Stay here while I go and try to speak to her. I have no way of knowing what her mental state might have been when she died, so I don’t want to spook her.”
“Do you think she knows what happened to her?”
“I guess there is only one way to find out.” I began to walk slowly forward. “Lucy,” I said as I approached her from behind.
She looked surprised to see me, which was to be expected. “You are with the group Harris invited. Ty’s friend?”
I nodded. “My name is Amanda. Amanda Parker.” I tried to gauge whether Lucy knew she was dead. So far, she hadn’t said anything that would indicate her awareness of her state one way or another. “We missed you at the cocktail reception.”
Lucy frowned. “It’s already happened? That doesn’t seem right.” She looked up into the sky. “It is dark, however, so I guess it must be later than I thought.”
“What time did you think it was?” I asked.
Lucy narrowed her gaze. “I’m not sure. I must have fallen asleep. To be honest, I don’t even remember coming up onto the deck.”
“What do you remember?” I asked.
A puzzled look crossed her face. “The last thing I remember, I was in a meeting. It was early. Before lunch. I can’t remember anything after that. Do you think that is odd?”
“I suppose it is.”
Lucy looked directly at me. “Why are you here? On the deck? Why aren’t you with your friends?”
“I just wanted some fresh air. Of course, I’m dressed a lot more warmly than you are. You must be cold.”
“No.” Lucy looked down at her arms. Then she looked up at me again. “Something isn’t right.”
I decided to give her a moment to work out the situation for herself. She continued to stare down at her body, or, in this case, her lack of one. “I can see right through my skin. And my clothes. How can that be? Am I dead?”
I nodded slowly. “I’m afraid so.”
“But why? How?”
“I’m not sure. Are you sure you don’t remember anything that happened after that meeting?”
She frowned. “No. I’m sure. I remember the meeting, and then the next thing I knew, I was standing here watching the boat.”
“Boat?”
She pointed over the railing. She was right; there was a boat. I wondered what it was doing. The ship had stopped and the smaller vessel had pulled up next to us. There was a gangplank between the two vessels, so it looked as if someone or something was either coming aboard or leaving.
“I don’t know why the boat is there. I don’t think it is supposed to be. I wonder if someone is sick. Maybe they are getting off the ship,” Lucy said.
I squinted, trying to make out what was going on. “It looks like someone is coming aboard.” It was dark, and I couldn’t see who had come aboard well enough to identify them, but it looked as if two individuals had crossed the gangplank from the smaller vessel to this larger one.
Lucy turned her attention back to me. I could see that she was still trying to work things out. “If I’m dead, how come you can see me?”
“I can see ghosts,” I answered.
“Oh.” Lucy frowned but didn’t say anything else.
The poor thing still appeared to be as disoriented as she had been when I’d first approached her. As I had experienced with other ghosts, it probably would take a while for her to work everything through in her mind. “You said the last thing you remember before being up here on this deck was being in a meeting. Are you talking about the meeting Harris had with some of his employees this morning?”
She nodded. “Yes. It was morning.”
“Do you know why Harris called the meeting?”
Her look of confusion seemed even more apparent, but then her eyes widened, and it seemed as if a light had gone on. “I remember now. It had to do with the missing money.”
“Missing money?”
“A few weeks ago, Harris found out that someone had been embezzling money from the company. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough to be of concern. He conducted a complete audit, and he thought he had found the money and identified the employee who had taken it, but I was going through some reports yesterday to help Harris prepare for tonight’s speech, and I realized that we had a much larger problem than either of us had thought.”
“A bigger problem? You mean more money was missing?”
Lucy nodded. “A lot more. At first, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about what I’d found, so I decided to talk to Bret about it. He is the senior investment manager, and he knows a lot more about the structure of the investments the company makes on behalf of our clients than I do. I didn’t want to approach Harris with my suspicions until I knew for sure.”
That must have been what she and Bret were talking about the evening before. “And after you spoke to him?” I prompted.
“He agreed that something big was definitely going on. We didn’t know the scope of it at that point, but we knew we had to bring the matter to Harris.”
That must have been when I noticed the pair entering the room at the end of the hallway.
“So you told Harris about the discrepancies you found?”
Lucy appeared to cringe as she continued to work through it. “As it turned out, I found more than just a few discrepancies. After we really started looking in to things, we realized that there was a lot of money missing. Poor Harris thought he’d found all the missing money, but when I showed him what I’d discovered, he realized he hadn’t. Not by a long shot. I knew that the situation was very serious and I wanted to call the authorities right away, but Harris didn’t want to cause a panic among his investors. After we dug in and really studied the report I’d stumbled across, he realized that hundreds of millions of dollars that should have been invested on behalf of his investors hadn’t been invested at all. He was adamant that we needed to find the money, and until we did, we had to keep it quiet.” Lucy began to wring her hands. “I like Harris and I want to be a team player, I really do, but everyone knows it is only a matter of time before the crap hits the fan.”
“So what did you do then?”
Lucy’s forehead creased. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. I remember talking to Harris last night and I remember being at the meeting this morning, but I can’t remember what happened after the meeting.”
“Is it possible that you a
nd Harris argued over what should be done? You wanted to go to the authorities and he didn’t. Maybe you met him in your stateroom to talk about things after the meeting was over?”
Lucy looked out toward the water once again. “I’m not sure. I can’t remember. It looks like someone is leaving the ship.”
I looked down toward the smaller boat, which was still tied below where we were standing. It was much too dark to make out specifics, but it did look as if four people were now leaving this ship and boarding the smaller vessel. Two individuals had boarded the ship and now four were leaving? I was curious about that. Perhaps there had already been two individuals from the smaller boat on board before Lucy pointed it out, and now all four people who had come aboard were leaving the way they had come. I wasn’t sure why the smaller vessel had tied up here, or what was so important that it couldn’t have waited until we docked later tonight in Friday Harbor, but perhaps the ship had been having mechanical problems that needed immediate attention.
I returned my attention to Lucy. She was staring at her hands.
“Are you sure I’m dead?” she asked after a moment. “I don’t feel dead.”
“I’m sure. Sometimes it takes a while to get used to your new state. I think it is important for you to remember what happened after the meeting.”
Lucy began to fade away.
I realized I was pushing too hard. “It’s okay,” I said. “We don’t have to figure it out right now.”
I waited, and after a moment, Lucy reappeared. “If I am dead, why am I here? Shouldn’t I be in heaven?”
That, I decided, was a good question. “I’m not sure why some pass on and some remain behind, but I do believe I can help you to move on to wherever you are supposed to be.”
“How?”
I closed my eyes and focused on my alter ego, Alyson Prescott. Alyson was me, or at least a part of me that I’d left behind when I’d moved from Cutter’s Cove to New York. At that time I hadn’t been aware of the fact that I had literally left part of myself behind when I made the trip east, but when I returned to the house in Oregon after a decade, I found her there, waiting for me. Most of the time, Alyson and I were an integrated whole, but I’d found when I really needed her ghostlike ways, I could depend on her to appear. “Alyson,” I said. “Are you there? Can you help?”
As I’d hoped she would, Alyson was suddenly before me.
“Who are you?” Lucy asked.
“My name is Alyson. I am here to help you move on.”
“Do you know how I died?”
Alyson shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t. I think to figure that out, we’ll need to find your body.”
Lucy looked at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know where it might be. But I can help you to look for it.”
“I’d like to know what happened to me,” Lucy said. “Does Lance know I’m dead?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I need some time to look in to things. Is Lance your boyfriend?”
“He is just a friend. My best friend. If he doesn’t know what happened, he’ll be missing me. We need to find him.”
“I’ll look for him,” I promised.
“Do I have to go now?” Lucy asked.
Alyson answered. “You can go whenever you are ready.” Alyson looked at me. “If you want to check things out, I can look after Lucy.”
I bobbed my head. “I think that would be best.” I looked at Lucy. “Unless you want to go now. If you do, we can do that as well.”
“I’ll wait. I really do want to know what happened to me.”
I looked at Alyson. “Okay. I’ll do some checking and then we’ll talk again later.”
“We’ll be here when you’re ready.” Alyson put out her hand. She took Lucy’s in hers, then they both disappeared.
Chapter 6
After they left, I turned around and looked at Trevor. I motioned for him to join me.
“Is she still here?” Trevor asked.
“She is with Alyson. The last thing Lucy remembers was meeting with a group this morning. She has no idea how she died or where her body is.”
“Her stateroom?” Trevor asked.
“Seems as good a place as any to look.”
“Should we tell Mac what is going on?” Trevor asked as we headed toward the stairs.
I shook my head. “Not yet. First of all, I’d imagine she wouldn’t want to be disturbed. And it will put her in an awkward position with Ty. He doesn’t know I can see ghosts, so I can’t see how we can bring him in on the fact that we know Lucy is dead. If we find her body, that will take care of that minor detail. Once the body is found, we can bring Mac and Ty both into the investigation into her death without it seeming too weird.”
“So you think she was murdered?”
I nodded. “I really do. I know I have nothing to base that assertion on at this point, but my hunches are rarely wrong. Besides, the ghosts who have appeared to me in the past have all met with a violent death and it seems that Lucy found out that there is a lot more money missing from Hamilton Investments than anyone suspected.”
“More money is missing? I didn’t realize that any money was missing at all.”
“Lucy told me that Harris had discovered that the two employees who were fired just before the cruise, whose tickets we are now using, had been embezzling money. Harris believed that he’d not only identified the embezzlers but had found all the missing money. But according to Lucy, she was going over financial reports yesterday in preparation for tonight’s speech when she found hundreds of millions of dollars that should have been invested on behalf of Hamilton Investments’ clients that never were. I guess that is what she and Bret were talking about last night. It is also the reason she and Bret went to see Harris last evening, and the reason he called the emergency meeting this morning.”
“So you’re saying Lucy’s death has to do with the missing money?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know for certain, but it makes sense that if she is one of the few people who know of the missing funds, her life could have been at risk. Lucy wanted to go to the authorities, but Harris didn’t want her to. At least not yet.”
“So maybe Harris killed her,” Trevor said. “He is the one who said she left the ship because of a family emergency.”
“Yeah.” I blew out a breath. This was not at all how I’d hoped our evening would turn out. “That is a good theory, but Lance was also missing from the reception this evening. I know you said you saw him with the group who went ashore, but they returned midafternoon. Maybe it wasn’t Harris who killed Lucy; maybe it was someone else.”
“Someone like Lance,” Trevor provided.
I nodded. “It might have been.”
“Why would Lance kill Lucy? He doesn’t even work for Hamilton Investments.”
I nibbled on my lower lip. “That’s true. But at this point we don’t know for certain that Lucy was killed because of what she knew about the missing money. I will admit that is a heck of a motive, but I think it might be a mistake to be overly myopic. Lucy told me that she and Lance were just friends, but what if he wanted to be more than that? From what I overheard yesterday, it seems like Lucy was pretty free with her affection. What if she was sleeping with everyone but Lance, and he got mad and killed her because of it? And once she was dead, he fled the ship, which is why he was not around for the speech.”
“Or a better story might be that he was with Lucy when she died and he was a second victim.”
I realized at once that was most likely a stronger theory. I glanced around the deck and then looked back toward the water. The boat that had tied up to this ship was gone. “Did you notice the boat that was tied up to this ship?” I asked Trevor. “That is what Lucy was looking at when we came up on deck.”
“Why would a boat tie up to a cruise ship?”
“I don’t know. I saw two people get off the smaller boat and board our ship. A short while later, four individuals from the ship boa
rded the smaller boat. I suspect that the four who left the ship could all have arrived on the smaller boat. I only saw two people, but the other two could have gotten off and come across before I noticed the smaller boat.”
“But why would a smaller boat tie up to this ship in the first place?” Trevor asked once again.
“Again, I really don’t know. There seems to be a lot going on, but I haven’t figured out how it is all connected. Right now, we need to figure out what happened to Lucy so she can move on. That’s where we have to start.”
“Maybe we should try to check her stateroom. There may be clues or even a body inside.”
“That’s a good idea. Let’s begin with that.”
We knocked on the door when we arrived at Lucy and Lance’s stateroom. As we’d expected, there was no answer. The door was locked and we didn’t have a key, so Trevor suggested that he climb over the privacy wall that divided our deck from this one. Once he did that, he was able to slip into the stateroom through an unlocked sliding door. He quickly walked through the unoccupied cabin and opened the hallway door for me.
“We should pull the drapes,” I said. “I doubt anyone is in a position to see the light from here, but it is best to take precautions.”
Trevor did as I suggested. Once we turned on the lights, we searched the room for a body. It didn’t take long to discover there wasn’t one.
“There might not be a body, but there was a struggle,” Trevor said, nodding toward the lamp on the floor.
I thought back to the altercation Trevor and I had overheard earlier in the day. Based on my calculations, it would have taken place shortly after the meeting Trevor had seen Harris having with part of his team. The meeting had ended in time for Bret and Clint, who most likely had attended it, to come into the gym shortly after I left Trevor alone there. “The argument that took place this morning must have occurred after Lance went ashore, yet you thought it was a man’s voice you heard arguing with Lucy.”
Trevor nodded. “It did sound like a man, although I have no idea who the voice belonged to. Other than Mac and Ty, I don’t know anyone on board well enough to pick out a voice that I can only just make out.”
