“Will you do the same for me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then we have a plan.”
“We do indeed.”
“I’M DYING.”
Zander was a pasty mess when he ushered Harper and Jared into his room. He was pale, a bit green around the gills, and his eyes were sunken.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jared asked, confused.
“I just told you that I’m dying,” Zander shot back. “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
Jared glared at him. “Do you want me to smack you around?”
“Oh, whatever.” Zander flopped on his bed and threw an arm over his face. “I think I have scurvy.”
“Oh, geez,” Jared muttered under his breath.
Instead of giving her best friend grief, Harper moved to his side and pressed her hand to his forehead. “You might be a little warm,” she hedged. “I’m pretty sure you don’t have scurvy, though.”
“How do you know?” Zander was feeling petulant as he glared at her. “How can you possibly know that I don’t have scurvy?”
“Well ... .” Harper looked to Jared for help.
“How am I supposed to know that he doesn’t have scurvy?” Jared protested. “I’m not a doctor. Unless ... is scurvy one of those made-up diseases I read about, like the vapors?”
Harper rolled her eyes so hard Jared was surprised she didn’t topple over. “Scurvy is real. It’s what happens when you don’t have enough vitamin C in your diet. It used to happen quite often on ships because they didn’t have access to fresh fruit.”
“Oh.” Jared was mildly impressed she knew something like that. “The vapors isn’t real, though, right?”
“How do you even know about the vapors?” Zander complained.
“Harper has dirty books and I read about it in one of them.”
“Oh, Mutiny from Behind?” Zander asked knowingly. “Yeah. I read that book, too. I thought it was a pirate story.”
“There was a lot of booty talk,” Jared noted, causing Zander to give up a dry chuckle.
“The vapors was a catch-all term used for people — usually women — back in the day,” Harper snapped. “It was used to describe things like bipolar disorder and PMS.”
“Wait ... PMS?” Jared was officially amused. “Oh, I can’t wait until the next time you’re bloated. I’m totally going to get you a T-shirt exclaiming you have the vapors.”
Zander chortled before groaning and rolling to his side. “Seriously, I think I’m dying.”
Harper returned to fretting over her friend. “Well, what’s wrong with you?”
“I have scurvy.”
“You don’t have scurvy,” she snapped, annoyed. “Maybe you’re sick from yesterday or something.”
“You mean from when you puked on me?” Zander’s expression turned dark. “Oh, you’re the one that gave me scurvy. I should’ve seen it coming.”
Sensing where the conversation was going, Jared smoothly stepped between the two friends. “You don’t have scurvy. Harper isn’t sick.”
“Scurvy isn’t contagious anyway,” Harper growled.
“All she had yesterday morning when she puked on you was coffee,” Jared pointed out. “She didn’t throw up because she was sick with anything but worry about you. Stop giving her a hard time.”
“Oh, you always take her side,” Zander complained. “She gave me scurvy and you know it.”
“I’m going to give you a black eye,” Harper muttered, concern for her friend evaporating.
“Just ... chill out.” Jared held up a hand to Harper. “When did you start feeling sick, Zander? Did you wake up like this?”
“No. It was last night.”
“Last night?” Jared searched his brain. “Wait ... did you get sick during the storm?”
Zander shot him a withering look. “I didn’t realize you needed all the pertinent details. Do you want me to describe how the puke looked to you, too?”
“No. When you got sick is more than enough information.”
“It was last night.” Zander made a whining sound in the back of his throat. “I remember because the storm was raging. I was in bed, ready to fall asleep, and the next thing I knew I raced into the bathroom. It lasted all night ... even though my stomach was empty.”
Things slipped into place for Jared. “You’re seasick.”
“I am not.”
“You are. You got sick during the storm because the ship was more active than usual. It’s essentially motion sickness.”
“It is not motion sickness.” Zander was incensed. “Motion sickness is boring. I have scurvy.”
“Fine.” Jared held his hands up in mock defeat. “You have scurvy. What do you want us to do for you?”
“There’s nothing you can do.” Zander adopted a dramatic tone as he waved his hand in front of his face. “I’m dying and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Go on. Save yourselves.”
Harper opened her mouth to say something, but she caught Jared’s eye a split second before and he shook his head. Following his cue, she merely nodded and changed course. “Well, you’re the bravest person I know, Zander. I hope the scurvy doesn’t kill you.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Do you want me to stay here with you all day?”
The gleam in Zander’s eye told Jared he’d been considering just that, but he clearly changed his mind when he recognized the dark expression on Jared’s face.
“No, I’ll survive on my own. I don’t want you to get it.”
“I already told you scurvy isn’t contagious,” Harper complained.
“And it’s definitely not contagious if you’re not in the room with him,” Jared said, grabbing Harper’s arm and giving it a good tug. “Come on. We need to leave Zander to suffer on his own. That’s the only way his sacrifice will truly be appreciated.”
“Save yourselves,” Zander echoed.
Harper waited until they were safely on the other side of the door to speak. “What are you doing? He’s sick. He needs me.”
“He’s seasick,” Jared corrected. “He’s not dying. He’s fine. I bet he’ll be back on his feet in a few hours. He’s just looking for attention.”
“Why don’t you want me to give it to him?”
“Because it will be easier for us to investigate things on our own if he’s not with us. We can’t clear him if he’s constantly hanging over our shoulders.”
“I don’t know.” Harper glanced back at the closed door. “He’s my friend.”
“And he’s in no danger of dying. In fact ... .” Jared trailed off when Quinn rounded the corner. The security guard pulled up short when he saw them, his eyes keen. “What’s going on?”
Quinn regrouped. “The psychic is missing. We’re trying to track him down. I was just checking on Zander to make sure he’s accounted for.”
“He is,” Jared confirmed. “He’s seasick, though. He was up puking all night and looks like death warmed over.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Quinn came to a stop in front of them. “The ocean was a bit rough last night.” He bounced his gaze between Jared and Harper. “You guys look okay.”
“We’re fine,” Jared said. “We’re about to head to breakfast.”
“After that, do you want to help us search for Brady?”
The question caught Jared off guard. “I ... sure. I’m surprised you’re inviting me, though. I thought I would have to browbeat you into including me in things today.”
“I’m inviting you because we need more bodies and you’re trained. I want to find this psychic for obvious reasons.”
“Then I’ll definitely help,” Jared said. “I’ll start as soon as we’re done with breakfast.”
“I appreciate it.”
Jared watched Quinn stroll off with a mixture of amusement and confusion. “What do you make of that?”
“He’s worried,” Harper replied simply. “I don’t blame him. There’s something off with
that psychic.”
“Yeah, well, we can search together.”
Harper shook her head. “I think you should definitely search for the psychic. It’s important. I’ll be embarking on a different search, though.”
Jared was instantly suspicious. “And what search is that?”
“There’s a ghost out there, and I mean to find her.”
“I guess I should’ve seen that coming.”
“Definitely.” Harper smiled as she linked fingers with him. “Breakfast first. We need our fuel if we don’t want to get scurvy.”
Jared scowled. “Don’t encourage him or we’ll never hear the end of this.”
“We’re never going to hear the end of it anyway.”
“Good point.”
Eleven
Quinn met Jared outside the dining room after the detective finished his meal. He graced Harper with a curt head bob before speaking.
“I figured you could come with me,” he started. “You’re a police officer, which means you have good instincts, but you’re not familiar with the ship.”
Most other people would’ve taken it as a compliment. Jared wasn’t so easily swayed. “Basically you’re saying that you don’t trust me to search for myself.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Amusement curved Jared’s lips. “It’s fine. In your position, I would probably do the same thing.”
“Well, at least you’re not going to get snippy about it,” Quinn muttered. “I didn’t know how you would react.”
“I’m fine with it. I want to find this guy, too. If he’s guilty, that means Zander is cleared. If he’s dead ... well, it’s also good for Zander because you can check the hallway cameras and see that he never left his room last night.”
“I already have my guys on it,” Quinn admitted, smirking. “That’s on top of checking the feeds earlier in the night on the deck. I honestly don’t believe Zander is a murderer.”
“You have to be certain, though,” Jared noted. “I get it.” He turned his attention to Harper. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay on your own?”
Harper barely managed to refrain from rolling her eyes. Had Quinn not been present, she would’ve launched into a diatribe on how she could take care of herself. “I’m fine. Go. I’ll be around when you need to find me this afternoon.”
Jared hesitated. Even though he knew Harper was capable of greatness, he didn’t want her finding trouble on a strange ship when her only backup would be busy with other things. “Be good ... and don’t do anything weird.” He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “If you run into the psychic, don’t engage. Just walk away and let us know where you see him, okay?”
Harper heaved out a dramatic sigh. “I’ve got it. Now ... go.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jared gave her another kiss before meeting Quinn’s gaze. “Let’s do this, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
THE FIRST LEG OF THEIR search covered the lowest level. Jared wasn’t surprised, although he was curious why Quinn selected that portion of the ship to search himself. It seemed like something he would delegate to his underlings.
“Do you really think it’s possible that he managed to find his way down here?”
Quinn shrugged as he waved his security pass in front of a reader to gain entrance to a storage room. “I like to think that our security is top notch, but weirder things have happened. The thing is, Brady has been making a spectacle of himself. He keeps charming women — or lifting curses from them, if you will — and there’s always a chance he turned his attention to a member of the kitchen or maid staff.”
“Ah.” Things clicked into place for Jared. “I get what you’re saying. You think it’s possible one of your workers brought him down here for some privacy.”
“Maybe.” That wasn’t exactly the line of thinking Quinn had been following. “Or maybe he ticked off the wrong person, someone who knew where to hide a body.”
“Oh.” Jared straightened. “That’s also a possibility. Good thinking.”
“I’ve been through these rooms multiple times. I’ll know if something looks out of place.”
“So, let’s take a look.”
The first storage room was full of linens and kitchen items. Extra flatware, plates, trays, and buffet burners filled every shelf. The aisles between the shelves were clean and free of debris, and it didn’t take the two men long to clear the first room. When they exited, Quinn pulled a stack of Post-It notes from his pocket and slapped a blue one onto the door.
“What’s that for?” Jared asked, genuinely curious.
“I just want to keep track of what’s been searched.”
“Is it possible he’s in somebody’s room?”
“It is. The thing is, we need just cause to enter. It’s kind of like entering a home when you’re a cop. We can force our way in, but we need a reason. That’s why I have my men trying to find Brady on the video. The thing is ... if he was on deck last night, there’s no way the cameras will have picked him up. It doesn’t matter which direction he went in.”
“And why is that?”
“The storm.”
“Oh.” Jared had almost forgotten about the storm. “The rain probably makes it impossible to discern anything, huh?”
“That and the constant movement of the ship plays havoc with the motion detectors. We’ve run into this particular problem before. People think, with the technology today, that our cameras should be infallible. That’s simply not the case.”
“I can see that. Where to next?”
Quinn pointed at the nearest storage room. “There are ten on this level. I want to hit every single one. I don’t expect him to be inside, but we can mark them off the list.”
“Where to after that?”
“The closed galleries. We use them for events depending on the theme of the cruise. For now, all of them are shut down. Two of them are expected to open by the end of the week, but the rest are expected to remain empty. There’s no reason to enter them.”
“Unless you’re looking for a body,” Jared mused.
“Exactly. We need to check the entire ship. Something about this feels off.”
“It definitely feels off. I’m right there with you.”
HARPER SPENT TWO HOURS wandering the deck looking for the ghost before giving up in frustration and sliding into a chair at the tiki bar. The man behind the counter cast her an amused look before filling a tumbler with iced tea and heading in her direction.
“I would say you need something stronger, but I don’t want to encourage you to start drinking before noon.”
His nametag read “Demarcus” and Harper offered him an easy grin. “I don’t think drinking is going to help my case either. The iced tea is much appreciated, though.”
Since the bar was empty — most of the guests were enjoying the pool — Demarcus slipped into the chair across from her. “I saw you on television.”
Harper wasn’t surprised. She’d heard that exact statement multiple times since arriving. “Yeah. That wasn’t one of my finer moments.”
“I thought you were brilliant,” he countered. “You kept your wits about you in a tense situation.”
“Most people assume that was staged,” Harper pointed out. “Very few individuals believe anything that happened on that island was real.”
“I Googled a few of the names. People really died on that island. I doubt it was all for show.”
“It definitely wasn’t.” She rolled her neck until it cracked. “You seem pretty calm about all of it. Most people usually ask me to call to a dead relative so I can display my power.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Demarcus said calmly. “I watched you most of all in that episode. For the record, I saw it when it first aired. Then someone mentioned you guys were on the ship and I streamed it again last night. This most recent time, I focused most on you. Do you want to know what I saw?”
“Probably not.”
/> Demarcus smirked. “I saw a woman who knew what she was doing, gave of herself, and risked her life even though there was minimal reward in it for her. There’s a difference between acting and reacting in the real world. I could tell you weren’t putting on a performance. Most of the others were, including your friend Zander at times … although he was completely real at the end.”
Harper smiled at the memory. “He was born to be in show business. That’s what he always tells me. He’s the reason we went to that island in the first place.”
“I figured.”
“He’s a good friend. He was there for me for the duration.”
“He was. Your boyfriend was also there for you. I can’t tell you how tickled I was to realize the three of you were here together. I’m jaded, so I assume all relationships on reality television shows are faked for the cameras. That’s not the case with you guys.”
“Definitely not,” Harper agreed. “I don’t consider us reality television stars, though. We’re more ... guest stars. I agreed to do the show for the money and Zander. It was important to him, so I put up with it.”
“Well, you were amazing. I mean ... really amazing. I could tell you cared a great deal about those ghosts, even though I couldn’t really make them out on my small computer screen.”
“Yes, well, that is one of the major problems with this gig. Most people assume I’m a crackpot because if they can’t see it with their own eyes, it must not be there. My parents believed that way for a long time.”
Demarcus made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I’m sorry about that. It doesn’t seem fair.”
Harper merely shrugged. “It happens. I’m pretty content with my life so I’m fine with that.”
“I can see that.” Demarcus snagged her hand so he could study the engagement ring on her finger. “When’s the big day?”
“We haven’t picked a date yet. I’m guessing in the summer so we can have nice weather.”
“I think that’s great.”
“Yeah, well ... I just hope we get a full day without ghosts. I love what I do, but I want one day for myself. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
Wicked Ghostly Seas: A Rowan Gray, Harper Harlow and Ivy Morgan Mystery Omnibus Page 50
