Cruise Conundrum: A Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 5)

by A. R. Winters

  “Good eye. This is my favorite seat,” he said as he pulled out my chair for me.

  “Then you have excellent taste,” I said with a grin as I sat down, feeling proud of myself for the seat selection.

  The restaurant seemed to be about half full. The International Buffet was the most popular place for breakfast with its massive selection of dishes, but I could immediately see the appeal of the Croissant Club in comparison. Although it didn’t have as much food to choose from, it had a quieter, classier atmosphere.

  Following Ethan’s lead, I ordered a breakfast meal that included a croissant and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, along with freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee.

  “How was your shore leave?” he asked after the waiter had left with our order.

  “Oh, fine, I guess. One night isn’t very long. After that last cruise I decided to just relax—I stayed in my room the entire time. Baths, books, movies, and chocolate.”

  He nodded. “Same here. Well, that and a morning run of course.”

  “Of course,” I said, nodding as if I too ran every morning. I hoped he wouldn’t ask if I did.

  You run in the mornings too?”

  Cornstalks! “Umm, not recently. I’m really thinking about starting again soon though.”

  He nodded. “Things have been so crazy lately. I find that if I don’t do it in the morning, it doesn’t get done.”

  “Yeah. That’s my problem. I kept planning to exercise in the evening, but then…” I threw my palms up.

  “Right! I know.”

  It felt good to have something in common, even if it wasn’t precisely true. Maybe I would start exercising in the morning. Cece had nagged me about going to the gym with her enough.

  The waiter brought out our breakfasts. It felt nice to be served food on proper white china plates rather than to line up with a plastic tray like I did in the staff mess. The food was immaculately displayed, the yellow eggs flecked with a generous amount of pink Scottish smoked salmon and a dusting of fresh green herbs sprinkled on top.

  “Bon appetit,” said Ethan with a surprisingly authentic sounding French accent.

  “Do you speak French?” I asked in surprise.

  He gave a modest shrug. “Not really. I’m just a beginner. I should spend more time on it though if I really want to improve.”

  I smiled and nodded but didn’t comment further, worried that I’d blurt out I was also studying French. I had enough on my plate without having to learn a second language too. And anyway, Cece would probably kill me if I learned French before her other native language, Spanish. She made being bilingual seem effortless, though she had a distinct advantage having parents who spoke both English and Spanish.

  “So you didn’t go out for dinner or anything, Ethan?”

  I was digging. On a previous cruise, I had accidentally run across a gorgeous ring in what looked like an antique box in Ethan’s office. It had made me suspect that he might have an on-shore girlfriend. I didn’t really believe it, but it was such a big clue that I’d been worrying about it ever since.

  He shook his head. “Nope. Room service for me. But maybe next time we could grab a meal together in town. New Orleans has some fabulous restaurants, but I haven’t visited many of them.”

  “No one to go with?” I said with a sly smile.

  “Nope. But maybe now…”

  We both grinned at each other and dug into our breakfasts. Of course there wasn’t an on-shore girlfriend. There must have been another explanation for the ring. Maybe he inherited it from his grandmother or something. That’s what I would believe, anyway. There were few enough people I trusted on the ship—Sam and Cece being the extent of the list—that being able to add Ethan to my list of people I truly could rely on felt good.

  The food was excellent. It was amazing to think that both the rubbery eggs in the staff mess and the creamy smoked-salmon eggs we were eating in here shared the same base ingredient. It was like night and day. They almost seemed to melt in the mouth with every bite, and before I knew it, I was halfway through my plate. I was eating at Kelly speed. I put down my fork and picked up my coffee to sip at, and give time for Ethan to catch up.

  I decided to put my investigator hat back on. After what I’d heard from Kelly the night before, I knew there was more I wanted to know about the captain and his possible connection to the fake housekeeper.

  “Ethan, do you trust the captain?”

  He lowered the fork he was holding back to his plate. The atmosphere up to that point had been light, friendly, and even kind of romantic—not something I usually felt when the sun had barely risen. Of course I ruined it with my question.

  “He’s well qualified and has years of experience.” He completely avoided my question but, in a way, it still answered it.

  “Right. He just seems a bit… strange.”

  Ethan shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth and made a kind of mmhmm noise of agreement that allowed him to avoid saying what he thought about the captain.

  After another sip of coffee, I went back to my breakfast, pulling open the steaming hot buttered croissant and slathering it with a strawberry preserve. Slightly annoyed, I ate half of it in a single chomp and was surprised by how light and crispy the outside was in comparison to the fluffy interior.

  Ethan obviously knew something and had much stronger opinions about the captain than he was letting on. I’d overheard the two of them arguing in the past and seen the expressions on his face when they were together. Whatever Ethan knew or thought about the captain, he didn’t want to share it with me.

  Which was fine.

  Except it wasn’t.

  It meant Ethan was keeping secrets from me. I had been planning to tell him about my own big secret: the terrible experience of having been kidnapped in Arizona and the bizarre events that had happened on board the ship that seemed to be tied to it.

  There had been postcards that referenced Arizona left in my room or places where I would find them, as well as a few other mysterious events including a newspaper from the day I was kidnapped being left out for me to find. It looked like I would be keeping that difficult time in my past to myself for a while longer.

  When Ethan opened up to me about the captain, I’d open up to him about my history.

  When? If. It was a sad thought, but I was determined. I liked Ethan a lot, but if he was never going to be open with me, could we even have a future? Time would tell.

  The rest of the breakfast passed somewhat awkwardly. Ethan looked like he wanted to tell me something but didn’t. I must have looked the same.

  “Do you eat here every morning?” I asked him when what would usually have been a comfortable silence between us felt strained.

  “Yep.” He leaned forward, as if about to tell me a secret. A small smile hovered on my lips. “I used to go to the International Buffet, but I started to put on weight.”

  “You? No way!”

  Ethan was about as fit and trim a man as any I knew. The idea of him worrying about his weight seemed ridiculous.

  “Yep. That’s the problem with buffets—there’s no limit. That’s why I started coming here. The portions aren’t massive, but the food’s good. Quality over quantity. I probably could order, and eat, a second breakfast, but then rumors would start about the ship’s pig of a first officer.”

  I giggled again. The awkwardness of before was slowly fading, but the atmosphere wasn’t what it usually was between us. We were both hiding things, and I think we both knew it.

  When we were done, we said a rather formal goodbye. Ethan probably it would seem inappropriate for the first officer to be seen hugging one of his junior staff members in public, and if so, he was probably right.

  So I shook hands with the man I was pretty sure was my boyfriend, and we each went our separate ways.

  Despite my delicious breakfast, I left the Croissant Club feeling deflated and less hopeful than when I’d arrived that morning. I shrugged my shoulders, pushed them
back, and told myself not to worry about it.

  We probably just needed more time before we opened up further.

  Chapter 6

  I forced myself to smile as I made my way to my first port of call for the day, a small auditorium where Awesome Andy was going to be giving a lecture about some of the basics of photography.

  He was a freelance photographer and one of the ‘stars’ of this cruise. Star might have been too strong a word for him, though.

  I had never heard of him before Kelly mentioned him as an important guest during our pre-cruise meeting. Turned out, his real name was Andrew Smith, but he preferred to go by the more punchy Awesome Andy. I’d looked him up online later, so at least when I met him I could bluff my way through our first meeting.

  I had just walked past Minnie’s Boulevard Café along the constitutional deck when I ran into the man himself. He was bending down to tie a shoelace, and instead of standing up afterward like a normal person, he bounded to his feet like an acrobat.

  “Oh!” I shouted in surprise, jumping back myself.

  He turned his head and gave me a strange look, as if it was me who had surprised him. Then, he smiled and nodded.

  “You’re Andrew Smith!” I said when I saw his features properly. He was just over six feet tall and had curly brown hair and soft green eyes. He seemed quite nice at first glance. I’d met a few so-called celebrities who were anything but. Although he looked at me a bit warily when I said his name. Remembering he preferred his stage name instead, I said, “I mean, you’re Awesome Andy!”

  He beamed at that. “I sure am. Are you a fan?”

  From the look on his face, he was excited by the prospect. He hadn’t reached the level of fame that gets you stopped in the street, but perhaps on a photography-themed cruise he would get that kind of reaction. But not from me.

  “Adrienne James,” I said, sticking out a hand. “I’m the social media manager, and I’m helping run the photography cruise. Pleased to meet you.”

  It was with mild disappointment that he shook my hand.

  “Nice to meet you too. Got to go. I’m giving a lecture.”

  I managed to stop him just before he left me in the dust, gently giving his arm a tap.

  “Yep, I’m headed there too. It looks like a really great topic!”

  It didn’t look all that exciting to me, but then again, I wasn’t that into photography. Presumably his audience would lap it up though. He was going to be giving a lecture titled “Moving From Auto to Manual—Getting to Know Your Camera’s Manual Settings!”

  I did like the final exclamation mark in the lecture title though. It gave the otherwise dull title some extra pep, which made me hopeful he’d do the same for the lecture.

  “Then let’s walk together,” he said with little enthusiasm. “So. Social media manager. Do you take pictures then?”

  We walked side by side down the deck, passing other people along the way. This deck had been designed as a kind of circular walking route, and a lot of people, most of them older—no doubt on doctor’s orders—used it for exactly that purpose, especially in the mornings.

  “Oh, yes, all the time,” I said, pulling out my phone and holding it up. “Though I don’t use a fancy camera, just a smartphone.” I shrugged. “It’s convenient.”

  “Ah. So you’re not into photography then. I mean, real photography.”

  “I don’t know that much about it, but I do think it’s interesting. I hope to learn a lot this cruise!”

  “If all you’ve used is smartphones, then you’ll have an awful lot to learn.”

  It’s great being condescended to by a not-at-all-famous person, isn’t it?

  My initially positive first impression began to wane.

  “Actually,” I said, “I trained as a journalist. I took one or two photography classes, but I was more interested in the words than the pictures.”

  I was rather pleased with myself, until he laughed and gave me his response.

  “And now look at you. With journalism dead for all but the truly talented, you’ve ended up in the worst of both worlds—taking bad pictures and not getting to do any real journalism!”

  The truth hurts. Especially when it’s wrapped in a brick and lobbed straight at your head.

  “I was a journalist, but I thought I’d take some time out from that life to travel the world,” I said, waving my hand toward the distant horizon across the ocean.

  “One hundred and eighty-five. You?”

  “One hundred and eighty-five?” I asked in some confusion.

  “Countries. That’s how many I’ve visited. I’m aiming to hit the double century mark by next year.”

  “Oh. Not that many yet,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m still pretty new.”

  He nodded with an ‘I knew it’ smirk on his face.

  “So what kind of pictures do you take?” I asked him.

  I knew the answer, but he was annoying me so much I didn’t want him accidentally thinking I was even remotely a fan, or that he was even worth researching.

  “These days, mostly portrait photography. People keep saying I’m the best in the world at it, so I have to do it, you know? It’s kind of like a duty to humanity.”

  I looked at him through squinted eyes, trying to discern if he was kidding or if he was actually that full of himself. As far as I could tell, it was the latter.

  “Wow, that’s awesome,” I said with as little enthusiasm as I could muster.

  “Guess that’s why they call me Awesome Andy.”

  I frowned at that. I was pretty sure the only reason people called him that was because it was what he labeled himself.

  Maybe I should do that same I mused. What would I be? Amazing Adrienne? If I kept talking to this guy for much longer I’d be Angry Adrienne. Apoplectically Angry Adrienne.

  “So you have to do the portraits to pay the bills?”

  He didn’t like that question much. I could tell from the way his face contorted into an ugly grimace for a second. It meant I was right, which was nice. I was determined to win our passive-aggressive war of snark.

  “As I said, I’m the best at portraits so that’s my primary area these days. But I’m also quite renowned for my wildlife photography, my landscapes, and the anthropological images I capture in my travels.”

  “Gosh, that’s amazing.”

  “No... it’s awesome!”

  If I rolled my eyes anymore, they would have been in danger of falling into the ocean. Thank goodness we were close to the auditorium.

  “Oh look, there’s Xavier,” said Awful Andy, as I was currently thinking of him, gesturing just ahead of us.

  Leaning against the rail near the door that led into the auditorium was a young couple. Although I was vaguely aware of who Xavier was, I wouldn’t have recognized him without Andy pointing him out.

  “Do you know each other?”

  “Of course. I know all the magazine editors,” he said with a chuckle.

  Yeah, of course you do, you arrogant...

  “Do you know his girlfriend?” he asked me, nodding toward the woman Xavier was with.

  “Nope.”

  “She’s Zara Briggs. Her father owns News Today, as well as a number of other titles my work has been published in.”

  “Oh, how interesting.”

  We were now close enough that talking about them any further would have been rude.

  “Xavier!” called out Andy, a grin on his face. “Zara!”

  The couple turned and greeted us with giant smiles on their faces as we approached.

  “Nice to see you, Andy! Oh, did you snag a sea wench?” Xavier asked, tossing his chin in my direction.

  Andy laughed. “This is the boat’s social media girl. She does phone pictures.”

  Unclenching my jaw so that I could speak for a minute, I introduced myself properly.

  “Adrienne James, the ship’s social media manager.”

  “This is Zara Briggs, and I’m Xavier, though everyon
e calls me X.”

  Not me. Andy didn’t either, come to think of it.

  “Nice to meet you, Xavier, Zara.”

  Xavier seemed to wince at the use of his full name, but he’d have to get used to it. I wasn’t about to start calling him X. In my opinion, only a few people can get away with a single letter name, and this guy wasn’t one of them.

  Zara Briggs was almost six feet tall with platinum blonde hair that hung all the way down her long torso at her waist. I winced just imagining how much effort would go into washing, conditioning, and drying it. She had pretty light blue eyes and the kind of lithe figure that the fashionistas of the catwalk world favored.

  Xavier and Andy were going to be judging the photography competition, and the passenger who took the best shot would win some kind of fancy camera lens.

  “And what do you do, Zara?” I asked, since no one had bothered to mention it.

  She batted her long eyelashes at me. “I’m a model.”

  Oh boy. Our last cruise had been full of beauty pageant contestants, and I suspected that models and beauty pageant contestants were very much cut from the same cloth.

  “She’s Andy’s muse, isn’t she?” asked Xavier, the pride in his voice apparent.

  “One of them...” said Andy hesitantly. I got the impression that he didn’t like the idea of having a muse; that it would be putting some of the credit for his work onto someone else, and he couldn’t have that.

  “Many people say I have a certain quality that other models don’t have,” said Zara, her tone light and breezy.

  ‘A daddy who owns a magazine empire’ was my guess as to that certain quality, but I kept that to myself.

  “What’s on the agenda for today?” asked Xavier.

  “I’m giving a beginner’s talk about manual camera settings,” said Andy.

  “Isn’t that a little beneath you?”

  He shrugged. “That’s the problem. When you’re at my level, any kind of teaching is, by its very nature, ‘beneath your level.’”