Chaos in Cuba (A Starling and Swift Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by M. J. Mandrake

  “Everything okay?” she signed as they came closer.

  Jorge stood up and took a small notepad from his pocket. “Here’s where we’ll be tonight.” Tucking a piece of paper into the back of her book, he made a quick escape.

  “Just ask Kitty,” Ashley signed to her husband.

  Eric stopped in front of her, and glowering, asked, “The hacienda where we’re staying tonight accepts service animals?”

  “Of course,” Kitty said.

  “See? I told you.” Ashley rubbed Billy behind the ears.

  Billy looked like he really wanted to touch noses with Chica but was resisting, as good service dogs did. Chica turned to watch Jorge.

  Eric shrugged, the tension leaving his face. “I’m used to rude surprises.”

  “You worry too much.” Ashley tugged at her husband’s sleeve and smiled up at him, her pretty brown eyes sparkling with love. Eric gave her a soft kiss and they gazed at each other for a moment. Usually Kitty would feel slightly uncomfortable at the display, but in the last three days, she’d decided Ashley was quite possibly the sweetest human being she’d ever encountered. She deserved all the public displays of affection Eric could muster.

  Kitty waited until they had resurfaced. “I understand, but I’ve stayed at this hacienda many times before and they are very familiar with our needs. They’re very accommodating.”

  Ashley smiled. “I can’t wait to see the ruins Mayan.”

  “Mayan ruins,” Kitty corrected her gently. American Sign Language could be quite different than English in several ways. Kitty didn’t usually correct anyone, especially someone as eager to learn as Ashley, but the young woman had begged her to tell her when she had signed something badly. Ashley said she had taken a whole year’s worth of ASL classes before she had the courage to speak to Eric, even though they were in a lot of the same classes. In love from the very moment she’d seen him, apparently, and set out to convince Eric that marrying a hearing girl wasn’t a crazy idea at all. After several months of meeting over coffee, Eric decided to follow his heart and take a chance. His family wasn’t supportive, at first, knowing how hard it was for a hearing person to assimilate to the deaf culture, but Ashley won them over the same way she had Eric: with enthusiasm, hard work, and love. Kitty had lost any romantic notions years ago, but something about their story made her feel a little bit happier about the world.

  “Mayan ruins,” Ashley signed. “Thank you.”

  “We’ll disembark this afternoon, have a short tour at the ruins, head to the hacienda for dinner, stay the night, have another tour in the morning, and then back to the ship. You’ll get to see a bit of the Sian Ka’an biosphere as we travel from place to place. The biodiversity of the jungle is really incredible.”

  “The ruins seem small from the pictures. Do we really need two tours?” Eric asked.

  “I think you’ll be surprised at how much there is to see.”

  “I think the forecast said there would be rain,” he said.

  “There are showers in the afternoon sometimes. Part of being in the jungle.” Kitty glanced at the clouds to the west. In a dozen cruises, she’d only seen clouds like that once, and the ship had had to change course. The captain hadn’t said a word yet and there was no sense in alarming anyone before she knew for sure.

  “Look,” Ashley signed, nudging Eric.

  Kitty almost grimaced at the sight of Jace Van Horn. The handsomest member of her tour group, he turned heads wherever he went. Tall, built like an Adonis with perfectly styled blond hair, he strode around the ship like he was the honorary captain in search of a second mate, preferably female. Perhaps ‘strode’ wasn’t the right word. Strutted, perhaps? He wore a pair of brightly patterned swim trunks, flip flops, and a few braided leather bracelets. Kitty wondered if he’d ever put on regular clothes if the cruise ship rules didn’t state clearly that swimwear wasn’t appropriate in the dining areas.

  The three of them watched Jace pause to chat up a blonde bikini-clad girl in her teens. Kitty couldn’t hold back her grimace any longer. The man was a cad.

  “Poor Mrs. Van Horn,” Ashley said, not bothering to hide her hands.

  “She knows what she’s doing,” Eric said. “I think she’s old enough to make her own decisions.”

  “Old enough? I think that’s the problem,” Ashley said.

  Kitty didn’t join in, but she was secretly agreeing. Mrs. Van Horn was close to ninety and had been completely deaf since birth. She’d married a deaf man who’d spent his life inventing odd contraptions until he’d managed to patent a few rather important labor-saving devices. When Jace showed up to clean her pool a few months ago, Mrs. Van Horn was a widow with tens of millions in the bank. Now she was an elderly newlywed with a service dog who hated her boy toy husband, and several children who didn’t love the guy any more than her dog.

  The newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Van Horn were on their honeymoon― along with her son, Mr. Daniel Van Horn, his wife June, and their teenage sons, Blake and Tyler. It was a group honeymoon, which Kitty had heard of before in cases of a blended family situation. But even when there were children and grandchildren present, the new couple usually managed to find time to be together. The newlywed Van Horns didn’t spend a lot of time together. In fact, Jace seemed to spend most of his time searching out the companionship of anyone other than his new bride.

  Kitty wished the tour group organizers had sent her a cheat sheet before boarding. It would have taken a lot of the guesswork out of that first group dinner. It still shone in her memory as one of the most awkward experiences of her life, and one she never hoped to repeat. Since then, she’d done her best to avoid Jace, which wasn’t difficult since he seemed to prefer to spend most of his time around the girls at the pool.

  Jace looked up and noticed them watching him. Kitty tried to pretend she was merely examining the low clouds on the horizon, but it was too late. He was heading their way.

  “Hey, everybody,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. Just enjoying the sun,” Kitty said, speaking and signing at the same time. Honestly, Jace could learn how to at least greet people in ASL. It wasn’t difficult.

  “You look very pretty, Ashley. I like that dress on you,” Jace said.

  Kitty felt her mouth drop open. She’d thought Jace was sort of dumb, but she hadn’t thought he had a death wish. Eric could lip-read well enough, and what he didn’t catch was surely filled in by Jace’s leering at Ashley’s chest.

  “Oh, thank you,” she managed. “See you all at dinner.” Grabbing Eric’s elbow, she tugged him away. Billy trotted behind. Eric glared at Jace until Ashley got him turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

  Jace plopped into the lounge next to Kitty. “I don’t know how you stand it.”

  “Stand what?” Kitty asked.

  “All that signing. And the weird moaning sounds they make when they’re trying to talk. It’s just freaky.”

  Kitty suddenly wished she’d taught Chica some attack commands. Just one little nip in a tender spot and Jace would think twice about opening his stupid mouth.

  “I’m used to it. Probably because I was raised by deaf parents.”

  “How?” He seemed honestly confused. “Did they have a nanny?”

  “No. We had a service dog like her.” She motioned to Chica. “They’re trained to alert the hearing impaired when a baby is crying or someone is at the door. And there are baby monitors that flash bright lights, too, and…” She could tell he’d tuned out.

  “Anyway, it just looks like a lot of flapping to me.” He stretched out his long legs and put his hands behind his head, showing off his perfectly sculpted abs and hairless armpits. Kitty looked away, wondering if that was a new thing for guys. Even his legs were hairless. Maybe he was a professional swimmer.

  “I can teach you a few signs. It would be nice to be able to say hello and goodbye, and thank you.”

  “Naw,” he said and yawned widely, showing off perfect te
eth. “It’s like this guy I used to work with. He didn’t speak any English. He was always trying to get us to learn Spanish. I told him, ‘Dude, if I speak Spanish, you’re never gonna learn English.’ And guess what? I was right. He picked it up eventually.”

  Except a deaf person will never learn to hear, you idiot.

  Kitty tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t merit a possible reprimand by her employer, and couldn’t. Jace was a tool, and there was no other way around it.

  “Oh, hey,” he said, sitting up. “Tonight at dinner, can you try to keep those two from going on and on? It’s like being back in class. What a drag. There’s a reason I dropped out of school.”

  Kitty didn’t need to ask who Jace was referring to, since she’d spent most of the last several meals translating for the married pair of archeologists, Ron Brown and his wife, Liliana. She felt obligated not to leave Jace out of the conversation, but he clearly was bored to death. Kitty had taken the temple tours a dozen times before and thought she knew quite a lot about the history, but the Browns knew so much more.

  “I quite enjoy it, but I’ll do my best to bring the conversation around to something else after a while,” she said, hoping that was enough to satisfy him.

  She started to slip on her sandals, aiming to make a casual exit, when Jace saw Miss Elaine and Miss Penny heading towards them. They beamed from under their matching straw hats, their patterned caftans flowing in the breeze. The two older ladies changed outfits several times a day, and their dinner attire was some of the most glamorous Kitty had seen in her time as a tour guide on the luxury liners. Every expensive-looking outfit was paired with piles of jewelry. They made Kitty feel rather drab. Today, even in casual lounge wear, they were eye-catchingly colorful. Their black lab, Toto, trotted beside them, a tiny straw hat on her head.

  He leaped to his feet, smoothed his hair, and said, “Well, gotta run. See you at dinner.”

  Kitty could have sworn he winked. She hoped she was wrong.

  “Mrs. Van Horn is looking everywhere for you,” Elaine signed, rushing up before Jace could leave.

  Kitty quickly asked Elaine whether it was the younger or the older Mrs. Van Horn, and then translated, adding your wife.

  “Ok, thanks,” he said and sauntered away, not even bothering to ask where the two older women had seen his new bride.

  “He’s too young for you,” Penny signed settling into Jace’s empty chair.

  “And too stupid,” Elaine added, dropping into the spot on the other side of Kitty.

  “And too married,” Kitty said. She started to add that she had no intention of becoming involved with anyone, and if she did, Jace was the last man she would ever look to for romantic companionship, but Penny interrupted her.

  “I knew a man like Jace, once. My sister’s nephew-in-law, Bobby. You remember, Elaine?”

  Elaine nodded. “Sure do. Not a man I could forget.”

  Kitty wasn’t sure whether Elaine and Penny were related, or companions, or a couple, but their history seemed to go back decades.

  “Started out real nice-looking. But ugly on the inside catches up to a person.”

  Elaine nodded again. “He aged like home-made guacamole.”

  “He’s not even that old yet. Not even half as old as us.”

  Their age was another thing Kitty wasn’t exactly sure about. Maybe sixties. Maybe seventies. Possibly eighties. It was hard to tell under the heavy eye shadow and bright lipstick. They talked like middle aged women who’d run out of energy to care who they offended, but old enough to know that kindness was more valuable than wit.

  “Sure looks it, though. Last reunion, he looked two thumbs of rum away from liver failure,” Elaine said.

  “I don’t think it’s the drink. It’s soul rot leaking out through his pores.”

  “Soul rot? That’s harsh,” Kitty said.

  “He deserves it. Not a nice man,” Elaine said. “Usually I mind my business, but that Bobby has done bad things and… Well, let’s just say evil catches up to a person. Jace had better watch out, or he’s gonna look like ten miles of bad road before he turns thirty.”

  “Or worse. People won’t take kindly to the things he’s doing,” Penny said. “I’m surprised Bobby’s lived this long, myself. And I’m not talking about his liver. You go around romancing married women and eventually some jealous husband will make sure you keep your hands to yourself―permanently. ”

  Kitty turned and looked toward where Jace had gone. He was leaning close to a tall, thin man in a red polo shirt. They were both laughing loudly. A moment later, they turned and walked away together.

  She didn’t know if it was better for Mrs. Van Horn to know what Jace was up to, or if living in ignorance was better. All she knew was that whatever was simmering under the surface of the tour group could just stay there until they made it back to Miami. She’d had enough drama to last her a lifetime. Once upon a time, she’d been a fan of ‘As the World Turns’ and ‘Days of Our Lives’, often crying hysterically over―while simultaneously reveling in―the heartbreak and betrayal of her favorite characters. And then it had happened to her. Heartbreak and betrayal weren’t as much fun when it involved your beloved fiancé and your best friend.

  She’d run far, far away from everything that reminded her of them, and now she was happy. Mostly. Content was probably a more accurate word. She spent her days basking in the Caribbean sun, playing Bingo whenever she had the chance, and surviving off a steady diet of virgin margaritas and liquid chocolate. She had Chica, a steady job she loved, and her bookstore. When she was away, a graduate student named Nancy watched over the place, making sure the pipes in the old colonial didn’t spring a leak. Her two black cats preferred her to stay home with them and spend her evenings reading by the fire, but a girl had to make a living. They only spent a few hours giving her the cold shoulder when she returned from a cruise. So, all in all, her life was pretty much perfect, really.

  The breeze turned chilly and Kitty frowned out at the view. A green strip of land was just barely visible to the east. The bank of clouds had turned from fluffy white to steel gray, and were fraying at the edges. Wisps slowly lifted off in tendrils like smoke from burning paper. She’d forgotten to pack her raincoat and was going to have to borrow one.

  Sighing, she slipped on her sandals and said goodbye to Elaine and Penny. As much as she loved to listen to the ladies’ take on the world, she still had a day’s worth of work ahead, and unless she was very much mistaken, there was a storm on the horizon.