by Ava Dunne
“I’ll get in trouble,” I protested, but not too hard.
“You were attacked,” Stella stated. “You need a brandy.”
The man disappeared and reappeared with a snifter. “Drink this, darling,” he said.
I took a sip. The liquid fire coursed down my bruised throat, but it felt good. “Thank you.”
“This is my husband, Bartholomew,” said Stella. “Darling, this is Sophie.”
“I’ll find the Purser,” said Bartholomew. “Or someone from Security.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“No?” Stella raised an eyebrow. “You can’t let someone go around attacking people.”
“I think it was personal.”
“All the more reason,” said Bartholomew.
Stella frowned, perplexed. “You’re new to the ship. You couldn’t have made enemies already.”
I looked up with a grim smile, remembering Ewan’s warning. “It seems I have.”
…
I stayed up, working on yoga sequences. I liked to change up my classes, rather than present the same sequences every day. I wrote more in the turquoise journal, knowing if I missed a day, I’d never catch up. I wrote down my impressions of Ewan, of Sebastian, of Chief Dhruv Bakshi, of Detective Cooke, and, especially, the attack. Every time I thought of the attack, my hand went to my throat and I imagined a whiff of rosemary. Who attacked me on the Sun Deck? Ewan had given me the warning, but I didn’t think he was the culprit. This man seemed taller, more solid. Neither Stella nor Bartholomew had gotten a good look at him; there’d been too many shadows. Had he mistaken me for someone else? If he tried again, I’d have my answer. If I could see his eyes, I’d know.
I waited for Angie to return from her shift at the bar.
“I’m sorry,” she said, when she realized I was up. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” Angie was shorter than me, with a pretty, round face, long, dark hair caught up in a bun, and large dark eyes. She wore the uniform of those who worked in the Glitterati Bar, black pants and vest with a pale shirt that looked like it was shot through with glittered confetti.
“I’m having trouble sleeping,” I said.
She nodded. “Because of what happened to Geri. Are you okay?”
“I’m better than she is,” I shot back, then bit my lip. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be insensitive about your friend.”
“Thank you. But she was my roommate, not my friend.”
“Oh.” I was embarrassed.
Angie picked up on it. “No, I am sorry. We do make good friends on the ship, and I don’t mean to be unkind to you or to Geri. We worked different hours, so we didn’t spend much time with each other. Geri had strong opinions about things. She was not shy about sharing them. If you want to survive in a place like this, it is best to keep your head down and follow orders most of the time.”
“I’m just trying to learn my way and not make any waves,” I said. “Oops, bad joke.”
She smiled. “Not at all.”
“Were her strong opinions some of the reasons you stopped rooming together?”
Angie took off her vest and fidgeted with it as she framed her answer. “Geri was always up to something. She always had a scheme going. She didn’t confide in me, so I didn’t know the details, but I knew she was working on something, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like it when I found out what it was. I didn’t agree with her; but I knew I could lose my job if I reported her. I’ve got a husband and two small children back in Manila; I need this job.” She looked at me. “Maybe I’m a coward.”
“No,” I said. “You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
“I can understand how someone could fall down those stairs, but,” Angie shuddered. “Finding her must have been awful.”
“It kinda sucked,” I agreed.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” said Angie.
“Thanks,” I replied. “I hope I don’t keep you awake with nightmares.”
She smiled. “I’m used to soothing my children’s nightmares. We’ll get through it.”
I was grateful that she was my roommate, and not Geri. Geri would have derided my nightmares. But if Geri was alive, I wouldn’t have a reason to have them.
…
Angie was considerate and good at quiet whenever she came in. I determined to return the favor early in the morning, creeping into the shared bathroom to brush my teeth and take a quick shower. I read through the crew memo. No article reassuring people I wasn’t a blackmailer. I’d have to spread the word the old-fashioned way, through gossip. I left the memo on the desk for Angie to read when she woke up. I grabbed my personal mat and headed to the studio. I noticed Luke in the meditation room, sitting on a zafu, eyes closed, and decided not to disturb him.
Unlocking the studio, I checked the disinfected mats used in the last class. Some of them were still damp, so I dried them off with a towel and made a mental note to get my hands on a laundry drying rack. I didn’t think Merhati had any to spare, but maybe housekeeping or one of the stores had one. Otherwise, I’d have to look onshore.
“Need help setting anything up?” Lydia asked. She removed her flip-flops before she stepped into the room.
“I’m good, thanks.” I surrendered my fantasy of a few quiet moments before class. “I like your yoga outfit.”
Lydia beamed. “Daddy let me buy stuff at the Namaste store upstairs,” she said. “I think I want to keep doing yoga after this week. It makes me feel really good, y’know?”
“Yes, I do know,” I laughed.
“I bought enough clothes to get through this week, and a mat. I know the prices on the ship are kinda expensive, and I don’t want Daddy to feel I’m taking advantage of him. My stepmom thinks it’s a good idea, too. Keeps me from curling up like a pretzel with a book all the time, she says.”
“Curling up like a pretzel, yup, that’s what I feel like.” One of the women from the girls-only bachelorette party entered, nodding her head. She lifted an enormous bottle of water. “We had a little too much fun last night. I’m the only one up. I’m paying for it, but I thought yoga would be better than either hair of the dog, or lying in bed with the room spinning. I’m Melodie, by the way.”
“Welcome back, Melodie,” I said. “We will flush those toxins right out of your system.”
“I hope you can do that for me, too.” Joshua, the bachelor party guy, stumbled into the room, looking worse for wear.
“Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being turn quite that shade of green before.” Melodie waved her water bottle at him.
“A bloody Mary, young man, that’s what you need, a bloody Mary.” Bridey, looking peppy in purple yoga pants and a pale lavender top, tossed her mat onto the floor. The sound caused Joshua and Melodie to both wince, and Joshua turned an even deeper shade of green. The spry older man joined them, unrolling his mat beside Bridey’s. Neil smiled, taking his usual spot, and other practitioners filtered in. I walked over to the CD player to choose the music.
…
The students were a healthy, rosy color by the end of class, with Melodie and Joshua bantering back and forth like they’d known each other for years. Bridey and the man beside her teased each other in a similar fashion. Building on that, I added some partner poses to the sequence, leaving them all laughing. I felt a little thrill. Perhaps a shipboard romance or two brewed? I wondered, as I disinfected the mats. If I couldn’t have luck at love, maybe some of my students would. What happened beyond the cruise wasn’t my business.
My business, right now, was giving the best classes I could and undoing the bad business Geri set up.
As I headed for the crew dining room to grab some breakfast before heading up to meet Kristina Murray and give her a private session, I plotted. I knew which cabin on my deck had been Geri’s cabin, because it was sealed with crime scene tape and was only a few doors down from mine. As curious as I was, I wasn’t stupid enough to break crime scene tape and enter —yet.
“Does reading take a lot out of you?” I asked. “My roommate, Bianca, is good with oracles and cards, but I never really understood how it worked. She told me I should learn how to read, that I’d be a natural. My Gamma Batchelder reads playing cards, not tarot. Gamma’s scarily accurate about, well, everything. Bianca thinks it’s hereditary.”
“It works differently for different people,” said Harmonia. “Some people are full-blown psychics or mediums. The tool is there more to make the client feel comfortable than because it’s really necessary. I actually read the cards — they come alive for me, it’s kind of hard to explain. It’s as though the cards become animated dioramas, giving me information for the client. With runes, it’s more a feeling, a knowing, but with cards, it combines knowing with seeing.”
“I’d like to try that sometime,” I said. “Bianca’s read me a few times, and she was always spot on. At first, I thought it was a little scary, but then I realized it wasn’t.”
“It’s not, unless you’ve got something to hide,” Harmonia agreed. “It’s a case of confirming or revealing what you already know, and translating it into easily understandable terms.”
“Is it exhausting, having clients back-to-back?” I dug into my cereal. “Bianca read once at a psychic fair and said she’d never do it again. Clients every fifteen or thirty minutes, the noise, the smell of friend food and sweat. They were in an old armory, and the acoustics gave her a migraine. She was bedridden for about three days.”
Harmonia nodded. “That happened to me, especially early on. I don’t book for many indoor fairs anymore. Well, obviously not, because I’m here, on the boat. But when I was ashore, I used to book at wellness centers that had tents up outside in good weather, Renfaires, stuff like that. Much easier on the senses.” She stared at my nearly empty bowl. “Don’t you put milk on that?”
I shook my head. “I hate soggy cereal. I eat it dry. Used to drive my fiancé nuts.” I took a deep breath. “Ex-fiancé.”
Harmonia put a gentle hand on my arm and wave of calm washed over me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up unhappy memories.”
“No worries.” I smiled. “The sooner I face it, the sooner I can move on.” I gave Harmonia a wry smile. “Maybe I’m running away by joining the cruise, the way people run away to join the circus.”
“Most of us are running away from something, or running towards something. That’s why we’re here. If more of them would face it down on the journey, Geri wouldn’t have wielded so much power.”
“Are you running?” I asked. “Towards or away from something?”
“Both,” Harmonia admitted. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Geri never found out, though,” Harmonia said. “So at least I wasn’t under her thumb.”
“If nothing is secret on the boat, how could Geri have any power?” I wondered. “It doesn’t make sense to me. If the gossip mill is so efficient and everyone already knows everything about each other, what’s left to hide?”
“There’s always something left to hide,” said Harmonia. “We might circle the wagons on the ship, but what about spouses, friends, family off the ship? They don’t know the circumstances, the pressures of shipboard living. One mistake, more mistakes, they’ll be forgiven on board, but not necessarily back in the real world. Geri was exceptional at ferreting out information that could cause ripples of pain beyond the ship.”
“I must lead a boring life.” I hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I know Geri was blackmailing people. For money. Power, too, probably, but people were paying her.”
“I’d heard rumors, but I hoped they weren’t true,” said Harmonia. “I thought she got her jollies by seducing people into friendship and then turning into a bully. Although I guess blackmail is a form of bullying. How’d you find out for sure?”
“A woman came up to me outside my room last night,” I said. “I don’t know who she is; I’ll point her out if I see her again. She was pretty upset, said she’d pay me in a few days. I went to the library to think it through, and someone else thought it was the drop-off point. He thinks I might be the killer’s next target.”
“Because people think you’re taking over for Geri in more areas than yoga?”
“Got it in one.” I nodded.
“That Detective Cooke is still on board, running the investigation with Dhruv,” Harmonia mused. “When I tracked him down yesterday, I got the impression there’s a brain behind those good looks. Roz mentioned he was at the show last night. He can keep an eye on you.”
“No one was around when I needed them last night. I was attacked on the Sun Deck.”
“What?” Harmonia gasped.
“Shhh! I don’t want anyone to know about it.” I looked around. No one seemed to pay any attention to our conversation, but I imagined interested ears rotating towards us like cats’.
“What happened?” Harmonia demanded.
“I was scoping out the deck for class and some guy grabbed me. He said he didn’t pay, he got revenge.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Scared me. One of my yoga students and her husband stopped the attack.”
“You’ve got to tell Cooke. Dhruv. Dhruv’s head of security, he has to know. And the Purser. This has to go on the record, Sophie. What if it had nothing to do with Geri, in spite of that comment about payment? What if some whack job is running around the ship attacking women?”
I thought it was unlikely, but Harmonia had a point. “I promise, I will. Today. I’m off for a private client. I’ll see you later?”
“I’m going to try to come to the eleven o’clock class,” Harmonia promised. “My first client isn’t booked today until one, and I don’t have to be there for drop-ins in the morning.”
I cleared my dishes, refilled my eco-friendly water bottle, and started up the levels to the Penthouse Deck. How could I ask Harmonia to use her abilities to find the others Geri had blackmailed, in a way Harmonia would agree? Deep in thought, I gave a little scream when someone blocked my route.
“I’m sorry. I did not mean to frighten you.” Second Officer Viktor Horvat stood in front of me. I recognized him from the employee packet materials that listed the top officers with their photographs. I remembered what Roz said about his affair with Geri.
“Um, it’s okay, I’m on my way to a private client.” I forced myself to meet his eyes, which were a dark blue. He smelled musky under the soap, not in a bad way. His features were chiseled, which gave him an overall harsh appearance, but he looked handsome in his uniform. “Can I help you?”
He stared at me. “I still try to decide. We can have dinner one night?”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to,” I said, the words coming out too fast to be polite. “It depends on the schedule. My schedule changes a lot.”
“You always play by the rules?”
That stung. “I respect that the ship needs to run a certain way. That means rules. If I don’t like them, I can always leave.”
“A drink, then.” It was not a question.
I took a deep breath. No scent of rosemary, just musk and soap. “I’m sure we’ll catch up with each other. I’m sorry, I have to go.” I darted around him and up the staircase to the next deck. I could feel him watch me. It made me uncomfortable. Was he looking for a replacement for Geri on more than one level? Was it possible he and Geri were in the blackmail scheme together, with Geri being the one who got her hands dirty?
Maybe having a drink with him would answer some questions. The possibility held little appeal. I named it unsettling.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DACIANA SMILED AS SHE LET me in to the Sanctuary Suite. “Good luck today,” she whispered. “She’s in a mood.”
I ignored Kristina’s petulance during the session, realizing she tried to provoke me. I knew that, if I let her get under my skin, I’d be off the boat at Nassau and trying to find my own way home. Breathe, I kept reminding myself as she kept trying to find a new button to push. Forgive. I dug deep within to find compassion. I could imagine Geri telling her off for this type of behavior, and Kristina demanding someone else.
I was relieved when we both survived the session, and I could shut the door behind me.
I found my way down to Pearl Deck, deciding I didn’t really care if I got into trouble or not. I needed to talk to Detective Cooke. I knocked on the door, and heard his, “Come in.”
He’d moved the desk away from the wall and put it in the room so it faced the door, and he could sit behind it, his back to the window. Why would anyone want to look away from that view? But the backlighting made him look radiant and even more mysterious. Yes, he was too handsome for his own good, and I was lonelier than I wanted to let on. Too bad for me. “I only have a minute; I have another class.” I didn’t see Chief Bakshi in the room.
“What do you need?” Cooke looked at me. I couldn’t read his eyes, not with the backlight. His voice felt a little too careful.
“Geri was a blackmailer.” I saw no reason not to be blunt. “People are coming up to me offering me money. They think I’ve taken over from her. I’m, well, I’m insulted.”
Cooke gazed at me thoughtfully and then laughed. “Yes, I can see how you would be.”
“I don’t know if you can tell me this, but did you find money in Geri’s cabin?”
He nodded. “She built a false bottom in the drawers under her bunk. Filled with American dollars. I need you to tell me who’s approached you.”
“I don’t know all their names,” I said. “One of the Supper Club dancers. Ewan Drummond, one of the Radio Officers. But someone started the rumor that I’m Geri’s shore contact and have taken over her side business. I don’t like it. Last night, I was attacked on the Sun Deck.” I related the events, as I’d promised Harmonia.
