“Not necessarily,” Rowan replied. “I got distracted early because Daphne was complaining about the pink hue in the backdrop. She thought it was the wrong pink – salmon instead of baby pink, as if there’s a difference. Then, when I finally took her photo after what felt like hours of complaints, I noticed the omen and called you.
“While I was waiting for you I took photos but was fairly scattered,” she continued. “You showed up, we talked, and for the rest of the morning I went through the motions. I didn’t go out of my way to notice anything.”
“I guess that’s fair.” Quinn focused on the computer screen, intent. “You said Jamie Dalton, right? That’s probably short for James or maybe even Jamison. Let’s see what we can find.”
Rowan quietly watched Quinn work, marveling at the way he fixated on his screen. The strong bones of his cheeks looked even more pronounced when he adopted his “I’m concentrating” face.
“If you keep looking at me like that I’m going to get distracted,” Quinn warned, not glancing up from his screen. “It’s giving me ideas.”
Rowan giggled. “Ideas?”
“Yes, I’m considering assaulting you with kisses before the night is out.”
It was a nice suggestion, but Rowan had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen. Still, she didn’t want the game to end too quickly. “It’s not an assault when I want to help you complete your task. It’s a collaboration when that happens.”
Quinn smirked. “Duly noted. Okay, here we go.”
Curiosity got the better of her and Rowan couldn’t stop herself from shuffling behind Quinn’s desk. She had no idea if he felt crowded as she leaned over his shoulder, but she was desperate to see what kind of information he came up with.
“Anything?”
Quinn arched a dubious eyebrow as he cast her a sidelong glance. “Seriously?”
“I’m seriously asking,” Rowan prodded, refusing to meet his gaze. “If I’m crowding you … um … get over it.”
Quinn snickered, taking her by surprise when he grabbed her around the waist and tugged her into his lap. She offered up a token fight, but she didn’t put a lot of effort behind it because she didn’t want to risk an errant elbow taking out Quinn’s computer. Once he had her settled Quinn pressed a distracted kiss on her cheek before turning back to the screen.
“You be good while I work,” he ordered, tapping on the keyboard.
“I’m working, too.”
“You’re working on being my lap slave is what you’re working on. In fact I … huh, that’s weird.”
Rowan turned her head to the screen to see what caught Quinn’s attention. “What is it?”
“I can’t find anyone with the last name Dalton in our registry. Are you sure that’s what he said his last name was?”
“I’m sure. Did you try running various spellings?”
“How many different ways can you spell Dalton?”
“That’s a very good point.” Rowan tilted her head to the side and tapped her lip. “Sally might know. She’s down in the kitchen tonight. I know she was complaining about having to supervise because someone got sick. She was really ticked off, but she had no choice. She’s more likely to know the last name. I might’ve misheard or something.”
“And you didn’t hear the other guy’s name, right?”
Rowan shook her head. “I definitely don’t believe I ever heard his full name.”
“Well, let’s see how many Garys we have,” Quinn muttered, typing. The search results only took a few seconds to pop up. “Twenty. We should have photos to go with each registry. Can you look before taking off to track down Sally?”
“Yes.” Rowan watched as Quinn skipped from file to file, shaking her head as each photograph filled the screen. When they were done, they’d eliminated every single Gary and still didn’t have a match. “That’s weird, right?”
“That’s extremely weird,” Quinn agreed, gently giving Rowan a squeeze before pushing her to a standing position so he could follow suit. He thought better when he paced. “Something bugs me about all of this.”
“Other than the obvious, you mean?”
“Obviously.”
Rowan smirked at the lame joke. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that we have a bigger issue than we initially realized,” Quinn answered. “I haven’t been able to reconcile exactly how Claire Fisher registered on this ship when her fingerprints weren’t in the system.”
“Oh.” Rowan widened her eyes. “I forgot all about that.”
“She obviously checked in and bypassed the fingerprinting part of the equation, which means someone helped her do it,” Quinn said. “Then we have the second set of prints in her room that didn’t match anything. Now you add the fact that Jamie and Gary don’t happen to be in the system and yet we know they’re on the ship and … what does that leave us with?”
“They have an inside man,” Rowan finished, awed. “What do you think that means?”
“I have no idea.” Quinn frowned when his computer beeped and he leaned forward so he could hit a button, Preston Dickerson’s face filling his screen. “That was faster than I anticipated.”
“Hello, Mr. Davenport.” Dickerson looked shaken. “I’ve managed to track down some information.”
“And?”
“And it’s not good.”
“Okay, well … hold on a second.” Quinn cast an apologetic look at Rowan. “Can you do me a favor and talk to Sally? See what she knows, including if she knows what section of the ship these guys are staying in.”
Rowan bobbed her head. “I can do that.”
“Whatever you do, don’t confront these guys alone,” Quinn ordered. “I don’t want to tip them off that we’re on to them. Find the information and confirm it with the front desk. Make up some reason why you’re looking – mismatched photos or something – because if the person helping them is on duty then we’re looking at an entirely different level of trouble.”
“I’ve got it.” Rowan wanted to kiss him but didn’t think it wise considering the computer camera was pointed in his direction. “Will you call me when you have more information?”
“I’ll call you the second I’m done with this.”
ROWAN FOUND Sally barking orders in the middle of the main kitchen, her hair pulled back in a severe bun as she glowered at one of her servers.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Sally complained. “When someone has a seafood allergy that means they can’t have any seafood on their plate.”
“Since when is shrimp seafood?” the girl shot back, causing Rowan to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“Since forever,” Sally complained. “That woman had to get an epinephrine shot and now we’re going to have to bribe her with freebies to keep her from suing us. Pay more attention next time.”
“I still maintain that shrimp isn’t seafood.”
Sally narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits as she pointed toward the swinging doors that led to the main dining room. “Get out of my kitchen.”
Rowan waited until Sally sucked in a steadying breath before launching into her spiel. “I know it’s a bad time, but I need your help.”
“I don’t have time to help you,” Sally groused. “I’m never going to catch up as it is. It’s so … frustrating. This is why I prefer hiring people to do this part of the job for me.” Sally was the head of the entire kitchen staff, but she much preferred creating food masterpieces than delegating authority and ordering people around.
“Well, that doesn’t change the fact that I need your help.” Rowan launched into a condensed version of what she’d discovered with Quinn, and when she was done, she wasn’t surprised to see a shift in Sally’s attitude. “So, you see, we need to figure out where these guys are staying.”
“Because you think they’re killers?”
“Because we think something weird is going on.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been wondering if something weird was going o
n with those guys since I found out they were on this ship,” Sally muttered, shaking her head. “As for their rooms, I honestly don’t know where they’re at, but I saw Jamie getting off the elevator on the third floor the other day.”
“That helps.” Rowan offered a thankful bob of her head. “I don’t suppose you know Gary’s last name, do you? I couldn’t remember it and we can’t find a Dalton in the system. It might be because they’re both registered under Gary’s name.”
“He was the quieter of the two,” Sally noted, tapping her chin. “I … Newman. His last name was Newman. I only remember because I got a little drunk that first night and hauled out my Seinfeld impressions. They had a Newman character.”
Rowan squeezed Sally’s arm, relieved. “Thank you. I’m going to run to the lobby and see if whoever is on the desk can track down Gary and Jamie for me. We might actually be getting somewhere for the first time since all of this happened.”
“Good luck,” Sally said, adopting an angry expression when the waitress she’d been yelling at moments before strolled back into the kitchen. “Now what?”
“Are scallops seafood? They’re not, right? They’re chicken if I remember correctly.”
“I’m so going to fire you the second we dock,” Sally barked. “No one can be this stupid without doing it on purpose. You would fall down more if it were something other than an act. I just … ugh!”
20
Twenty
“What did you find?”
Quinn was all business when he sat in his chair and squared the computer camera so it was focused on him. He could tell by Dickerson’s grave expression that whatever he discovered wasn’t good.
“I’ve been on the phone with the police in Missouri for the better part of the last few hours,” Dickerson replied. “Danielle Studebaker is missing. She’s been missing for a long time.”
“And why was no one alerted? I would think one of the first things they would do is contact the bigwigs at Cara G Cosmetics.”
“Because no one realized she was also Daphne DuBois,” Dickerson replied. “Apparently Danielle had no idea what she was doing and lucked out when it came to launching the company. She kept all of her paperwork someplace other than her home, because the police didn’t stumble across anything that pointed toward Cara G Cosmetics. They seemed surprised when I told them who she was, which means she never even authenticated the Daphne DuBois name.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“Think of it like an author who writes under a pen name,” Dickerson suggested. “Even though that person doesn’t legally change their name, they have to do a number of things to secure ownership of the moniker. Danielle never did any of that.
“From what I can tell, Danielle was something of a recluse with social anxiety issues,” he continued. “She didn’t like dealing with people – including accountants, bankers, marketers … you name it – and she did a really haphazard job when she was putting things together.
“She had no family to report her missing and the house she lived in has fallen into disarray,” he continued. “Someone – and I have no idea who, but someone – kept paying the taxes and bills on the house to throw off suspicion.”
Quinn rubbed his forehead as he considered the revelation. “So how do the police know Danielle is missing if someone was keeping up the bills?”
“Because six months ago there was a fire and the house burned to the ground,” Dickerson answered. “The police started looking into the situation and came up with nothing at every turn. There is no body … all of the furniture and clothing remained in the house even though it was obvious no one had been inside for years.”
“So odds are she’s dead.” Quinn rolled his neck until it cracked. “What about unclaimed bodies?”
“The cops are searching that right now, but if she was buried in the woods somewhere … .”
“They may never find her,” Quinn finished. “What have you tracked down regarding Claire Fisher?”
“As far as I can tell no one in the company has ever heard that name.” Dickerson looked pained at the admission. “I did some digging myself and found that the Social Security number being used by Claire Fisher belonged to a child who died at birth forty years ago. It looks to me that Claire Fisher stole that child’s identity, went through the court system to do a legal name change to Daphne DuBois, and somehow managed to coast from there. The entire thing is mind boggling.”
“Don’t beat yourself up for it,” Quinn offered. “If you weren’t looking for something specific it would’ve been relatively easy for someone with Claire’s skill set to pull this off. What do the cops say?”
“I informed them what happened and they’re obviously upset because they can’t talk to Claire Fisher themselves. From their perspective, they’re focused on what happened to Danielle Studebaker. The rest of it really isn’t their concern.”
“No, it’s my concern,” Quinn grumbled. “What are the other higher-ups at Cara G Cosmetics saying?”
“They’re going into survival mode,” Dickerson explained. “They obviously don’t want the company to falter but this thing is going to take months to sort out. Danielle Studebaker was the legal owner and she’s missing and probably dead. If a body is never found then she has to be declared dead by the courts.
“Now, since she doesn’t appear to have any close living relatives, that leaves a bit of a vacuum,” he continued. “That means any shirttail relatives she had – cousins, aunts and uncles, any other people who want to put in a claim – are allowed under law to do just that.”
“Which probably means that they’ll want to sell the company for the money when the dust settles.”
“Exactly.” Dickerson bobbed his head. “Danielle created the product and then turned it over to a production company to manufacture. The recipe for making the product belongs to her and would be part of the combined intellectual property cache should the company be sold but … it’s a big mess.”
“So, just so I’m clear, what would happen in the interim?” Quinn asked, legitimately curious. “Say Claire Fisher died and no one knew she wasn’t really Daphne DuBois. She must’ve had a will in place.”
“She did and I pulled it.” Dickerson shuffled some papers on his desk. “Claire Fisher left everything to her brother, James Fisher, although in the will Daphne DuBois made the bequest to a man she didn’t list as family. He was to be the sole proprietor in the event of her death.”
Things clicked into place for Quinn, at least partially. “James? I don’t suppose you have a photograph of this guy, do you?”
“I ran him.” Dickerson shifted a few more folders. “I printed out what I could find. His record isn’t much better than Claire’s, but he’s younger and hasn’t done any real time. Ah, here it is.” He held up a printed photograph in front of the camera. “I know it’s not a great rendering, but that’s all I have right now.”
Quinn swallowed hard as he studied the photograph. “It’s more than enough. I recognize him.”
“You do?” Dickerson lowered the photo and arched an eyebrow. “Who is he?”
“He’s going by the name Jamie Dalton and he’s on this ship right now,” Quinn supplied. “He must’ve killed Claire for the money. I guess that makes sense. She was strangled from behind. A brother wouldn’t want to see the life going out of his sister’s eyes even if he was a greedy bastard like this guy. What can you tell me about James Fisher? What kind of crimes has he committed?”
“They’re all computer crimes,” Dickerson supplied. “He’s apparently very good at setting up fake charities and collecting money on crowd-funding websites – he can spin a sob story like you wouldn’t believe – and all of his charges stem from that.”
“Which also explains how he managed to hide so much information on this ship,” Quinn mused. “I’m betting that he somehow hacked our system and changed Claire’s fingerprints. They probably worked together to do it. Then something happened between the two of them a
nd he killed her because he knew he would inherit everything.”
“I don’t have any information on that,” Dickerson said. “I can say that, in lieu of the new information, all of Daphne DuBois’ accounts and those of Cara G Cosmetics will be frozen. I’m in the process of getting the case in front of a judge and I don’t foresee any issues. The only funds allocated will be for payroll.”
“That’s a good thing,” Quinn said. “I don’t want James Fisher to have access to a lot of money in case something happens and he manages to run. I should have him in custody before the night is out – as soon as I track him down, of course – and then I’ll question him. I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow to share what I’ve found.”
“Thank you very much for that.” Dickerson looked genuinely relieved. “I will keep pressing the Danielle Studebaker issue. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and find an unclaimed body. She should be put to rest. She deserves at least that.”
“She deserves more than that but there’s only so much we can do,” Quinn countered. “I’m going to chase this now from my end. I want to make sure that this guy doesn’t have the chance to hurt anyone else. I’ll call you tomorrow morning and let you know where things stand.”
“I’m looking forward to touching base with you. Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’m worried I’m going to need it.”
ROWAN WAS frustrated when she left the main lobby. Despite supplying the clerk behind the front desk with Gary’s last name, the girl could find no one to match the description or moniker and Rowan was unable to track down a room.
With nothing better to do – and Quinn busy on his Skype call – she headed to the main deck for a drink at the tiki bar. She figured she could ride out the rest of the evening there, perhaps watch Madison Montgomery herself to make her feel better, and wait for Quinn to arrive and share information.
It seemed like a solid plan, until Rowan ran into Jamie Dalton.
She pulled up short when she caught sight of his familiar features, her heart rolling. She was unsure what to do, opting to buy time by ordering a drink from the bar. Thankfully Demarcus was running things this evening and he gave her a good reason to loiter.
Murky Seas (A Rowan Gray Mystery Book 2) Page 17
