Deadly Cruise: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 7)

by A. R. Winters

  “I think I’m a bit too full for that.” I pointed my chin at Fred lifting up Ginger high up into the air while she arched her back in a way I hadn’t been able to do since kindergarten.

  “Maybe after dessert?” asked Ethan with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Sure, if they’ll do some slower numbers.”

  It would be fun, though I hoped Ethan didn’t intend to throw me around like ‘Fred’ was doing right then. I’d end up in Doctor Ryan’s sickbay.

  When they’d finished their first demonstration, the two dancers broke apart, and Kelly announced that everyone was now welcome onto the dance floor for five numbers, before dessert would be served.

  I pushed my chair back and turned it a little so I would have a better view of the dance floor. A number of couples went up there to join in.

  “Oh, look at that.” The man who we assumed to be Patsy Prince’s husband had managed to land Ginger herself as his dance partner, and seemed pleased about it.

  “Look at that,” said Ethan, leaning forward in his chair.

  Patsy was standing on the edge of the dance floor, her hands on her hips, mouth open, and cheeks red. I’d heard the phrase ‘staring daggers’ before, and now I knew exactly what it meant. It was hard to tell whether it was her husband or Ginger that she wanted to send the daggers into, though. After watching for a moment more, I determined it was both of them.

  “Uh-oh.”

  Patsy snatched a vase with a small bouquet of flowers in it from a display next to one of the support columns and marched straight onto the middle of the dance floor.

  Ethan was already up and hurrying toward them. Off duty or not, he couldn’t allow a fight to take place during dinner.

  The woman made it to Ginger and her husband before they noticed. Her husband gave her a massive grin, oblivious to how irate she was.

  Patsy ripped the flowers out of the china vase and tossed them at Ginger before upending the mucky contents of the vase on top of her startled husband’s head.

  “You no good cheating piece of—”

  “Hey!” shouted Ginger, grabbing one of the flowers that had landed in her hair and throwing it right back at Patsy. “We were dancing! It’s my job! I wouldn’t want your husband anyway. Look at him!”

  “Oh yeah? It’s your job to take money and dance with other people’s husbands? That makes you a dirty—”

  “Patsy, dear, don’t—”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do!” Patsy turned back to Ginger. “And what do you mean you wouldn’t want my husband anyway? He’s a better man than your dancing little stickman…”

  Before they could really get into it, Ethan was between the three of them, while Fred Destair was also making his way over. The band stopped playing and everyone began to crowd around the argument.

  “Excuse me, everyone. This is supposed to be a fun evening—”

  “Shouldn’t you be with your fiancée?” said Patsy, stabbing Ethan in the chest with her finger.

  “We’re not… she’s not my fiancée. But that’s not the point. Please, if…”

  While they were talking, I saw someone peering out from the edge of the stage. My eyes locked onto the man as I recognized who he was. Still wearing the Hawaiian shirt from earlier, it was the mystery man we’d been searching for.

  I pushed my chair back and rushed up to the stage. Despite the awkwardness of doing so in my dress, I managed to clamber up there, to the surprise of one of the trumpet players.

  “Good evening,” I said to him with a smile, before rushing to the edge of the stage where I’d seen my target.

  He was gone, but I wasn’t going to give up just like that. With my heels clopping to mark my progress, I hurried off the edge of the stage. I knew there was a small greenroom back there for the performers, and I checked there first.

  Nothing. The man wasn’t there.

  I saw the signs for a fire exit and followed them to a door that led out toward a service hallway. The door was half-open but swinging shut on its self-closing hinges. He must have just left.

  I pushed the door open and looked left and right. There was no sign of the man, so I headed to the right. I remembered reading that people, when forced to make a quick choice between left and right, chose right about eighty percent of the time. Or was it left?

  Annoyed that I didn’t have time to Google it again, I made up my mind and headed to the right. It was a narrow hallway with a low ceiling, which only led a short distance before I reached another fire door. This one was shut tight. The man probably hadn’t gone this way—unless he’d deliberately stopped to push it shut, which seemed unlikely.

  I’d made the wrong choice.

  Passing the door that led back to the greenroom, I hurried back down the hallway. I couldn’t see any sign of the mystery man, so it was with dwindling faith in my ability to catch him that I reached the end.

  This hallway also ended in another closed door, though this one would have had time to close itself by now. I pushed it open and found that it emptied into a busy thoroughfare just off the Grand Atrium. I peered left and right, but I knew it was futile. While there were plenty of tourists, there were none who looked like him that I could spot from here. He could have gone anywhere by now.

  I’d lost him. Again.

  Annoyed, I turned around to go back the way I came. When I got to the door that exited from the greenroom, I found out it was a one-way fire exit door. You could push it open from the inside, but you couldn’t open it from my side.

  Frustrated, I began the long walk back to the main entrance of the Grand Ballroom via the Grand Atrium, stomping down the hallways in a way that did not match my glamorous attire.

  When I finally returned, it was like nothing had happened. The band was playing a song from South Pacific, and Ginger and Fred were dancing with each other again, flawless smiles on their faces. There was no sign of Patsy or her husband though, and when I returned to my table there was no sign of Ethan either.

  He must have escorted them out.

  I sighed in frustration and decided to call it a night. Another date with Ethan ruined.

  Maybe that was why people say you shouldn’t date where you work—because murder suspects or annoying customers will ruin every spare moment you try and spend with each other.

  When I pulled my phone out of my clutch, I found a message from Ethan.

  Sorry! Crazy couple. Going to be a while. Talk later. E.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning, I awoke bright and early.

  I had received another apologetic text from Ethan the night before, and then we’d talked a little on the phone.

  The couple wouldn’t stop arguing and he hadn’t felt safe leaving them until they were firmly ensconced in their cabin, with the promise of joining Tom Devlin in the brig if they didn’t behave. It had taken him over an hour to accomplish this herculean task.

  I was still wearing the ring when I woke up. I had slipped it onto my finger at the dining table the night before, and it felt so comfortable I plain forgot about it.

  I was still stewing about what had happened when I returned to the cabin. Both Patsy Prince ruining my date and the mystery man getting away again. I had been lying on my bed, thinking about it all when I fell asleep.

  Sam was still in dreamland when I left the room. I wanted to have breakfast in the Croissant Club, since I hadn’t done that yet this trip. While there, I could take photos for my job as social media manager, but there was another reason I wanted to be there too.

  When I arrived, the place was already bustling. A lot of people liked the idea of dining with the captain, who always had breakfast here—it was something they would later boast about to their friends at the country club over mint juleps or glasses of bourbon—and since there were no formal invitations in this restaurant during the morning, people were under the impression that they were all ‘dining with the captain.’

  I began snapping pictures as soon as I arrived. It’s a handy
distraction when you’re nervous, which I was that morning. My phone rang almost immediately, but since I was halfway through using it to take pictures of an elegant retired couple, I declined the call. I did feel a little guilty, because it was Ethan trying to get hold of me. But if it were really important, he’d send a message or try me again.

  The captain was sitting at his regular table, along with Kelly Cline, Judd Cohn, and Susan Shelly. I suppressed a snicker as I realized Tom Devlin wasn’t there. He must not have given up his fingerprints yet.

  It was with a big smile on my face that I approached the table.

  “Good morning!” I said to Kelly. Today, she was dressed in bright black-and-yellow clothing. She always reminded me of a bee when she wore those colors. A particularly busy one.

  “Hi, Adrienne!” Kelly glanced at the captain, who was busy staring at his phone. A flash of annoyance danced across her face. “Do you know where Tom is?”

  “Ye-es,” I said, nodding my head toward the self-serve coffee makers.

  When she had excused herself from the other diners, she huddled next to me for a quick conference.

  “Ethan locked him up because he wouldn’t give fingerprints.”

  “Really? Shoot!” Kelly stomped one bright yellow shoe on the floor. She dropped her voice to an urgent whisper. “Does he think he did it?”

  “Maybe. We have a few other suspects too. Unfortunately, Tom was very rude to Ethan and I when he refused to give us his fingerprints…”

  “Stupid man. Why didn’t he just give the fingerprints?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t like to on principle. Anyway, that’s where Tom is for now. Maybe he’ll reconsider and then he can be released. Assuming they don’t match.”

  Kelly sighed. “They’re all going ashore today. I was hoping to get Susan, Judd, and Tom to all lead groups of their own and talk about the ruins that were used in that film Susan was in. Guess I’ll have to rethink that plan. Thanks for filling me in.”

  Kelly walked back to her table with me trailing behind. Despite what Ethan had said the night before, the opportunity seemed too good to miss, and I wanted the captain to see me wearing the ring. Hopefully, when he saw it, he would expose himself in some way that would allow us to figure out what exactly it was he was up to.

  Right then, however, he seemed to be too busy using his phone to pay any attention to me. I bet if Cece were there she would know how to get his attention; she was an expert at attracting a man’s gaze when she put her mind to it. These days, it only seemed to be Doctor Ryan who was given that kind of treatment.

  “Captain, could you smile for me?” His eyes flicked up for a moment as I held the phone right in front of him, ring plainly visible. If he saw it, he did a good job of masking his surprise.

  Maybe the ring wasn’t as important as we thought it was. As soon as I had snapped the picture, the captain’s head was buried back down in his phone again, without displaying the slightest bit of interest in me or the ring.

  “Gee, give it a rest why don’t you. You’ll wear it out!”

  I lowered the phone and looked at the commentator. It was the black-and-blonde-haired annoyance from the night before, Patsy Prince.

  “Sorry?”

  “The ring. Way to shove it in everyone’s faces. Do you even know what subtle is?”

  “Excuse me,” said the captain. He didn’t bother to glance at anyone around him as he rose to his feet and headed toward the door.

  I stared after him as he disappeared, and then I glared back at Patsy.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That is a nice ring,” said Kelly, reaching out to pull my hand toward her. “Where did you get it?”

  “That security guy gave it to her last night in the Grand Ballroom, when he proposed to her.”

  “What!?” said Kelly, her eyes like saucers as she stared at me. She released my hand and then began clapping her own hands together. “Yay, Adrienne!”

  “No, you don’t understand. It’s not—”

  “What!?” came another, more shocked voice behind me.

  I saw that it was Sam, my best friend! She must have just arrived and now she was staring at me with a look somewhere between shock and betrayal. How could I not have told her I was planning on getting married?

  “You should have woken me up!” Her brow was creased in a deep frown. Patsy had really thrown me in the fire and I needed to get out fast.

  “Guys! Please! It’s just—”

  “He didn’t even get on one knee,” said Patsy, interrupting again. “I told her, in ten years she’ll be lucky to get a toaster for her anniversary. Did you hear that? I said, in ten years—”

  “Enough!” I said to Patsy. She closed her mouth, wrapped both hands tightly around the coffee mug she was holding, sniffed, and headed back toward her own table.

  “You know,” said Susan Shelly, peering at my hand, “Tom Devlin’s wife would have loved that ring.”

  “See you later,” said Sam as she stormed off. What a disaster! She obviously had the wrong idea about the ring and now she was angry at me for not telling her about Ethan’s non-existent proposal. Kelly looked a little put out too, and we weren’t even that close!

  “She would have, wouldn’t she?” said Judd, nodding at Susan’s comment about Tom’s ex-wife. “She liked anything that cost a lot of money.”

  I considered running after Sam but it looked like I had enough on my plate here. She’d cool down in time, especially when she realized it was a misunderstanding caused by Patsy poking her nose in where it didn’t belong.

  “Guys, I’m not getting married. It’s just a ring.”

  “Marriage,” said Judd, shaking his head as if the institution itself was a mistake. “Zoya sure knew how to get her revenge.”

  If I’d been a cat, my ears would have pricked up. Instead, I just stared at Judd.

  “What did Zoya do?”

  “Should we talk about Tom behind his back?” asked Susan, her tone more curious than worried about the moral implications.

  “He would,” said Judd. “Anyway, it’s about Zoya. We can’t just tease the girl and not tell her the story, can we?”

  No, they could not just tease this poor girl without telling her the story. Spill it!

  “There’s not much to tell,” said Susan, as if bored already. “But what happened is that Tom and his wife were getting a divorce. Savvy guy that he is, he had signed a prenup with her, so she wasn’t going to get much out of it.”

  “Unless, of course, there was infidelity on his part,” said Judd, leaning forward in his seat, a mischievous look on his face. “If there was, she would get half his fortune and the house.”

  “And was there? Infidelity?” I felt like a schoolgirl eager for the latest gossip, which was a little strange since the gossip in question had happened over thirty years prior.

  “Yep. But his wife didn’t know about it. Until good old Zoya sent him photos she’d taken on set. Tom had been there writing a feature piece about the making of a movie. He tried to make it with the starlet who knocked him back, but one of the extras… well, a gentleman shouldn’t talk about such things at breakfast.”

  “A gentleman shouldn’t gossip at all,” said Susan with a laugh. “Not that there are any present. Zoya got ahold of photos of Tom and the extra, and she sent them to his wife. It ended up costing him an absolute fortune. It was Zoya’s revenge for that horrible review he wrote about her.” She took a sip of coffee. “Though the review was completely true. Some people don’t take criticism well.”

  “I think Tom and Zoya both behaved awfully,” said Kelly. “What terrible people.”

  Judd and Susan didn’t comment on that pronouncement. I got the vague impression that their own personal lives were probably just as complicated.

  At that moment, the ship’s horn blew a long, loud note. It meant we had arrived in port, and in a short while the passengers would be able to disembark at Mahogany Bay. An ol
d beach slasher movie that Susan starred in had been filmed there, and many of the guests were looking forward to seeing some of the exotic locations.

  “Ah, back again.” Susan looked up to the ceiling with a smile, already reminiscing about the film she had made decades earlier.

  “Adrienne!” said Kelly, grabbing my arm. “You’ll go ashore, right? Get some pictures?”

  “Umm, sure,” I agreed without having a chance to think. “I’ve just got to pop back to my cabin first.”

  I needed to clear things up with Sam, if I could find her. And I didn’t want to be walking around with this valuable ring any longer, especially not if I was going ashore. I had told Ethan I would only wear it when he was around, and I’d already failed on that account, and it hadn’t even come to any use—the captain hadn’t noticed the ring or hadn’t bothered to react.

  I would put the ring in my room safe, explain things to Sam, and then join the guests to look at patches of sand that may or may not have been used in Killer Cove.

  Too easy.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Susan Shelly was really in her element. She had the eyes of dozens and dozens of passengers on her as she led them around parts of the shore where she had filmed more than two decades earlier.

  “…and here, if you believe it, is where I lost my copy of the script! It had all my notes in it. Luckily, it turned up an hour or two later.”

  While the crowd ooh’d at the anecdote, I took pictures of them. My own lack of movie fanaticism made me less thrilled than the other guests by many of her stories, which I found rather dull.

  After depositing the ring in the safe in my room, I had searched for Sam. She wouldn’t answer my calls, so she was clearly sulking somewhere, but I didn’t have time to track her down.

  I had only just made it down the gangway in time to catch the shuttlebus for the excursion. The passengers had clapped when I got on, seeing me panting and sweating and obviously thinking that a mocking round of applause was just what I needed. It cheered me up just as much as you would imagine.