“Everyone loved Ms. West.”
“Not everyone.” Quinn refused to accept that as an answer. “Not everyone loved her, because that’s impossible. Someone had to dislike her.”
“Well ... .” She broke off, tapping her bottom lip. “Some of those church groups that protested the book because they were appalled by the nonstop sex didn’t like her.”
“I’m going to look into them,” he promised. “The thing is, this cruise is entirely for authors, their families, and their assistants. It’s all publishing professionals. I don’t know how one of the protesters would’ve gotten onto the ship. I am going to chase that angle, but I’m more interested in people in the author world. Who didn’t like her in the author world?”
“Um … it really can’t be that many people.”
Quinn waited for her to expand.
“It’s not a lot of people,” she offered hurriedly. “There are a few people who thought she wrote crap and wanted her banned, but when considering the grand number of authors, it was ... just a very few people.”
Sensing she was about to break, Quinn kept his lips zipped.
Finally, Lila said what she was really thinking. It must have been a relief to get past the first word, because when she started talking, she couldn’t stop herself.
“It’s everyone,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “Absolutely everyone hated her. Some were jealous, that’s on them. Ms. West was mean to other people, though. She liked to brag about how much money she was making and tell other authors what they should be writing, how they should be branding.
“I can’t think of anyone offhand who actually liked spending time with her,” she continued. “The only reason I stuck around is because she kept giving me raises when I said I was going to quit. Everyone hated her. Absolutely everyone.”
Now we’re getting somewhere, Quinn internally mused. The problem was, that meant the entire ship was full of suspects. That was never a good option.
“Well, let’s take it from the top,” he suggested. “Who hated her most ... and who did she have altercations with most recently? They’re our likeliest suspects.”
5
Five
Rowan spent the entire afternoon searching the deck for signs of her father. She had absolutely zero luck.
Her camera always at attention, she snapped absolutely everything she could manage and then took her computer to the tiki bar to upload the images. While there, she did something she rarely did and started drinking as soon as her shift was over.
Her nerves were officially shot, and she believed rum runners were the only way to boost her courage.
That’s where Quinn found her shortly after his shift ended.
“What are you doing?” He wasn’t concerned by the drink in front of her as much as curious, and he let out a groan when he sank into the chair across from her because his muscles were screaming their relief at him since he could finally get off his feet.
“I’m uploading the photos.” She meant for it to be an innocent statement, but it came out shriller than she envisioned.
“Oh, yeah?” He cocked a dubious eyebrow. “Is there anything I should worry about? Any strange omens showing up?”
Oddly enough, Rowan realized she hadn’t even been looking for omens. Her gift — which she was starting to believe was an anchor around her neck more than anything else — popped up when she was a kid. For some reason, when she took photos, she could predict people’s deaths even at a young age. It took her a bit of time to figure out what the omens meant, but once she did, it was an ability she couldn’t shake.
More recently, an additional omen had popped up. According to Sally, who had friends and family who were heavily into the New Orleans hoodoo culture, the omen meant danger. She’d managed to save someone when that omen popped up, but she’d only seen it the one time.
“I ... .” Rowan wasn’t sure how to tell Quinn what she was feeling. Her embarrassment over the fact that she hadn’t even been looking for the omen — especially since a writer had been murdered on the ship hours before — was profound.
As if reading her mind, Quinn let loose a sigh and rested his hand on top of hers. “It’s okay.” He kept his voice low. “I can guess what you were really looking for.”
“I lost track of him after the maid screamed. I have no idea where he went, or what room he’s in. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Why does anything have to be wrong with you? You ran toward the sound of a woman screaming because you wanted to help. That was your natural instinct. To me, that’s the right thing to do, not the wrong thing.”
“I guess.” She chewed on her bottom lip, making an adorable face that Quinn wanted to kiss. “What about you? What’s going on with our dead author?”
“Her name is Julia West.”
Rowan’s eyebrows practically hopped off her forehead. “Are you kidding me?”
“Do you know her?”
“I don’t know her, but I’ve read her books.”
“Really.” Quinn steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on his stomach. “I’ve heard a little something about her books. A few people have expressed the fact that reading them somehow changes lives. Would you like to expand on that?”
Rowan’s cheeks burned when she realized there was no easy way to evade the question. “Oh, well ... .”
“I understand they’re full of kinky sex.”
“I don’t know that I would call it ‘kinky,’” she hedged. “It’s more ... wish fulfillment.”
Again he waited for more information and was thwarted. When she didn’t readily offer more of an explanation, he pushed forward. “How is being tied up and spanked wish fulfillment? Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Of course not!” Rowan was scandalized. “I don’t want to be spanked, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She realized after the fact that she spoke so loudly at least fifteen heads in their general vicinity swiveled to stare at her.
Instead of being mortified, Quinn’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I’m glad to hear that. I don’t know if I can get into the whole spanking thing. I might do the blindfold and ice cube thing if you’re so inclined, though.”
Mortification was a hot ball in the pit of Rowan’s stomach as she slapped her hand to her forehead. “Oh, my ... .”
Quinn found he quite enjoyed her embarrassment. “Is there something you want to do to me? Perhaps I should read these books myself for fresh ideas.”
After sucking in a gaping mouthful of oxygen, Rowan lowered her voice and met his amused gaze. “It’s not the kinky sex. Well, maybe it is for some people. It’s the other part that people like.”
“The Cinderella part?”
Rowan was taken aback. “Cinderella?”
“It’s basically the Cinderella story with a lot of sex,” Quinn replied. “She was a poor woman, struggling to survive. Let me guess: Were there other women who were jealous of her looks who worked against her and tried to keep her from the rich guy of her dreams?”
Rowan wanted to argue, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that he was onto something. “Huh.”
Quinn’s grin widened. “Do you want me to put a shoe on you? If that does it for you, I’m totally open to it.”
She responded with an exaggerated face. “I don’t want you to put a shoe on me. I never put the Cinderella thing together. It’s weird. I guess I’m going to have to think on it.”
“And I’m still going to read at least one of these books. Be prepared, because I’m probably going to have questions.”
Determined to put the book questions out of reach for the rest of the night, Rowan turned the conversation to something serious. “How did she die?”
Because he had no choice, Quinn sobered. “She was strangled. We’re still not sure where it happened. Her assistant, a young woman with a very complicated life, says that Julia checked in and then handed off her bags. Lila wa
s to take them to her room, unpack, and then track down Julia later.”
“Where did Julia go?”
“According to Lila, she said she was going to the tiki bar.”
“What do the cameras say?”
“I looked and we didn’t come up with a lot. As far as I can tell, she never made it to the bar. She went to the bathroom on the lido deck, looked at a few shops, and then we lose her in a crowd. We haven’t been able to pick her up again, although I have people watching the footage in what I’m hoping are logical places, waiting for her to show up.”
“Do you know when she died?”
“About forty-five minutes or so before the maid started screaming. She quit, by the way. She just walked off the ship before we set sail.”
Rowan furrowed her brow. “That doesn’t seem normal to me. Shouldn’t she have asked for a paycheck or something? Maybe she’s the one who did it.”
“Maybe, but I’m not sure. I pulled up her personnel file and made sure everything was up to date. We have her fingerprints, so if it turns out she’s the guilty party, we’ll have something to go on when we hit the mainland.”
“Except she’ll have a week to disappear.”
“That is very true.” He dragged a hand through his hair as he regarded her. “Do you want to talk about your father?”
An afternoon spent obsessing about her father propelled Rowan to answer without hesitation. “Not right now. You said he would find me when he’s ready. Perhaps he’s simply not ready.”
“Perhaps. I can go through the check-ins from the time around when we were in the lobby if you want. It might take half the night, but something tells me you’re worth it.” He winked, hoping to relax her. “Especially if there’s a blindfold and ice cube involved.”
“We’re done talking about that.” Rowan was firm as she packed up her computer and camera. “I’m starving. I say we get dinner, talk about what you’ve uncovered, and focus on us for the rest of the night. I want to let the rest of it go.”
“I think that can be arranged.”
“Good.”
ROWAN AND QUINN OPTED to eat in the main dining room after dropping off the camera and computer. They had multiple options thanks to their status on the ship. While other workers had to eat in the employee cafeteria, or pay for their meals at various restaurants, they got special treatment.
“Look. They have your favorite crab legs tonight.” Quinn poked her side as they filed into the buffet line. “That should put you in a good mood.”
“Crab always puts me in a good mood,” she agreed, piling salad into a bowl before throwing two rolls on top of it and moving down to the more substantial food offerings. One of the things Quinn loved best about her was the fact that she ate with zest and didn’t worry about calories or constantly working out. She was low maintenance in most ways, and the days when things went bad, there was usually a good reason.
“Make sure you get some cake, too,” he instructed. “Wait ... can cake be used in a bondage situation? Tied Up by Love of Cake. I smell a hit there.”
Rowan pretended she didn’t hear the comment and hurried ahead of him in line. By the time he made it to their regular table, she was already seated and was elbow deep in crab and prime rib. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he joined her, making note of the cake in the middle of the table.
After a few moments of silence, Rowan realized he wasn’t eating and lifted her eyes. “Is something wrong?”
He slowly shook his head. “I just love you.”
His tone, which promised fun for later, caused her cheeks to turn ruddy. “I love you, too. I’m going to warn you, though, if you don’t let this bondage thing go, I’m going to make you sleep in your own cabin.”
They both knew that was a lie, but he didn’t push her on the issue. In fact, he had other things he wanted to discuss. In addition to her appetite, her brain was also big, and she often helped him hash out difficult cases.
“So, I did learn a few interesting things about Julia this afternoon,” he offered, slathering a roll with butter. “It seems she wasn’t the easiest person to deal with.”
“Who told you that?”
“Well, I met with her publisher first. Her name is Amber and she’s very ... matter-of-fact. I guess that’s the best way to phrase it. She didn’t volunteer very much at the start, but after talking to the assistant and learning about Julia’s personality defects, I went back to talk to her a second time and she admitted that Julia was pretty much the most loathed author under their banner.”
Rowan was officially intrigued. “How come?”
“She was difficult. I guess she used to write regular romance books — those bodice-ripper ones with pirates and adventurers — under a pen name. She was considered a serviceable writer but that was the limit.”
“I don’t know that I think her books were all that well written,” Rowan hedged. “I mean ... they were good. They weren’t literary fiction or anything, though. She didn’t spend fifteen minutes writing about the weather.”
“Frankly, I would find that to be a relief. I guess she submitted the new series under her real name — and people only knew her under a pen name — and one of the acquisitions editors saw the potential and picked it up. She’d already signed the contract before anyone else found out.”
“Is that a problem? I mean ... I don’t know a lot about book contracts. I wouldn’t think that’s a problem, though.”
“I don’t know that it’s a problem,” Quinn replied. “I simply found it interesting. I had no idea that most authors don’t make a lot of money until Amber started breaking it down for me. Julia was barely making thirty grand a year on her books when she was writing under the pen name. She got lucky and these books broke out, so now she’s a millionaire, but that wasn’t a guarantee.”
Rowan pursed her lips. “I guess I never really thought about it. Probably only the really big authors make a lot of money.”
“Basically. I guess mid-list authors — and that’s the word Amber used — can make okay money, enough to live on, but they’re never going to get rich. It’s only the top one percent who get rich.”
“Good to know.”
“Anyway, Julia grew up with nothing, so she was genuinely excited when the money started rolling in,” he explained. “She invested wisely, planned for her future, and then got an absolutely huge pay bump for the second and third books in the series.
“Suddenly she was the one author everyone in the country was talking about, and it all went to her head,” he continued. “The assistant told me that. She was assigned by the publishing company and Julia only made a few requests of her at the start. By the end, Julia couldn’t do anything on her own and the assistant was basically on the hook for every single one of her needs. It sounds like it was an unhappy existence.”
A pro at cracking crab legs, Rowan had half the meat out of the shells when she started dipping it in butter sauce. Her attention was completely on him when she asked the next question. “Do you suspect the assistant?”
“I’m not ruling her out, but she’s this tiny little thing with big eyes and a heart-shaped face.”
Rowan frowned. “You noticed the shape of her face? Is she pretty?”
He snickered. “Nobody is as pretty as you, sweetie.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“She’s a cute girl.” He refused to lie. “You’re cuter and she’s not my type. That’s not what I was getting at. She looks like a little elf. She’s so tiny you could fit her in your pocket.”
“Which means she would have trouble lifting a body and throwing it in a laundry bin,” Rowan surmised.
“Exactly. I’m not ruling her out, but I’m going to keep looking. Apparently everyone hated her, so there’s no shortage of suspects on the ship.”
“Where are you going to look first?”
“Toby Keane.”
Rowan almost choked on her crab. “Excuse me? The horror writer? You think he did this?”
“I think he used to date Julia. Apparently they were a couple for almost two years, right at the height of her fame.”
“I can’t say I knew that.”
“You’re not much of a celebrity stalker unless it’s an actor named Chris.”
“I still maintain Chris Pine is the best Chris.”
“And I’m a fan of Captain America.”
“I don’t know how we co-exist.”
He smirked. “It’s a mystery, kind of like what happened to Julia. Either way, he’s on the ship and I’m going to talk to him tomorrow. I was going to do it today, but he was drunk in the tiki bar when I tracked him down and the publisher insisted he couldn’t answer questions unless he was sober.”
“You could’ve pushed if you wanted. You’re the head of security.”
“I could have, but there’s no proof he did anything and I’m not keen on taking the most famous horror author in the world into custody without a good reason. He could make things very rough on me if he wanted, so I’m going to wait until tomorrow to sit down with him.”
“That makes sense.” Rowan was thoughtful as she chewed and swallowed more crab. “Do you think she was killed because she was hated? That’s kind of sad to think about. She wrote some darned good books, with really exciting sex scenes. Who could hate the person who did that?”
“It doesn’t matter how great she was to her fans if she was terrible to the people she knew in real life. She cut off her parents and refused to give them money. That could be motive. We have no idea why the relationship with Keane ended. That could be motive. We simply have more questions than answers right now.”
“I guess.” She tilted her head to the side as she scanned the crowd. She put on a pretense of merely looking at faces, but deep down inside she was hoping she would catch a glimpse of her father. For now, he remained hidden. “We both had busy days, huh?”
Farewell Seas Page 5
