Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 06 - Cruise Millions Read online

  Cruise Millions

  A.R. Winters

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Untitled

  Sneak Peak: A Berry Deadly Welcome

  Chapter Two

  Cruise Millions

  Copyright 2019 by A. R. Winters

  www.arwinters.com

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  The Swan of the Seas always felt absolutely enormous when you were standing next to it. Like a small town that for some reason had been relocated into a skyscraper, its dozens of balconies loomed over you and the whole thing cast a long shadow over the dock.

  The massive cruise ship was my workplace, and it had become my second home.

  “Glad to be back?” came a familiar voice from behind me. It immediately put a smile on my face.

  It was Sam, my best friend, who’d just sidled up beside me while I was gawking up at the ship like a tourist. She had a blonde mop of hair and an infectious grin that always reminded me of the cliché that ‘home is where the heart is.’ When I saw her, I felt like we always had a little bit of Cornridge, Nebraska with us.

  “Yep. You know my shore leave was a disaster so might as well get back to work.”

  Sam gave my shoulder a supportive squeeze. Even though we hadn’t seen each other for a few days, that hadn’t stopped us from texting back and forth.

  The plan had been to spend my shore leave with my new boyfriend, the ship’s first officer and head of security, Ethan Lee—or as we called him on the sly, Hot Stuff. But he had a family emergency almost as soon as we stepped off the ship after the last cruise, so my romantic break instead turned into a less than thrilling opportunity to catch up on laundry and television.

  “What about you? Did you catch that pool boy?”

  Sam put on a display of innocence. “Pool boy? What pool boy?”

  I smiled at her. One of the ship’s pool boys, Shaun, had the hots for Sam, though she never seemed to admit that she found the athletic young man attractive in the slightest.

  But I knew she did. My best friend had eyes, after all.

  “Come on. When are they going to let us board?” Sam was impatient. She didn’t like waiting for anything. To be fair, I didn’t either, but of the two of us, I was the more patient one so I played my role accordingly.

  “Won’t be much longer now. Are you that excited to get back to work?”

  Sam tilted her head at me, as if just now considering the possibility that when she got on board she would actually have to do her job again.

  “Yeah… I guess we can’t all be lucky like some people.” Sam pointed her head in the direction of someone walking toward us.

  I turned to look and broke into another grin. It was our friend and colleague, Cece Blake, a half-Puerto Rican housekeeper and expert on all things Swan of the Seas.

  But for this particular voyage, she wasn’t going to be working. For reasons I didn’t fully understand, she was taking a vacation—aboard the ship she worked on.

  “Yo! Staff! Help me with these bags!” The mock rudeness was typical of Cece. She could rub some people the wrong way, but Sam and I loved her sass.

  “Carry them yourself. You might lose a few pounds!” called back Sam.

  I walked over to Cece and grabbed the handle of one of her wheeled suitcases.

  “What is all this? You always tell me I bring too much stuff, but I only ever bring one suitcase,” I said. She had two massive wheeled suitcases.

  “That’s when we’re working. But I’m on vacation, baby.”

  Cece gave me a wink and I stared down at the bags skeptically. There was no way that was all vacation clothes.

  “I know what’s going on,” said Sam with a nod as she looked at Cece’s bags.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep,” said Sam bobbing her head up and down in confident knowledge. “Those bags are empty. You’re going to fill them up with all the captain’s silver, right?”

  Having just wheeled one of the cases a moment ago, I knew for a fact that it wasn’t empty. Not only was it not empty, it was actually shockingly heavy.

  “Captain’s silver? What would I want that for when my suitcases are already full of literal gold?”

  “Literal gold?”

  Cece let go of her suitcase handles, put one hand on her hip, and tapped her chin with her other hand as she thought. “Figurative literal gold.”

  We both rolled our eyes at her.

  “Go on. Explain.”

  “You know about the special event, right?”

  For once, I did know about the special event. The cruise director had a bad habit of forgetting to inform me of what was going on, but not this time. I had gotten fifteen different emails, all saying roughly the same thing, explaining about the wonderful special guests we were going to be welcoming aboard the ship.

  “Lose a Million Dollars, right?” said Sam, trying to play dumb.

  Cece glared at her. “It’s Claim Your Million. And that’s what I’m going to do!”

  “You’re entering the competition? With the Spiders?”

  “Nope. I’m not entering—I’m winning the competition. For real!”

  “Got to enter it to win it,” Sam retorted. Cece ignored her.

  This cruise, we were welcoming aboard a shyster—I mean, a celebrated entrepreneur—named Paul Parker. He and a team of investors were holding a competition where would-be entrepreneurs submitted their ideas, the most promising of which would be chosen by Paul Parker and his fellow Spiders from the Spider’s Web as an investment opportunity. In theory, this would bring in a million dollars, or maybe even more, to the lucky contestant.

  According to Sam, it was a concept similar to a successful TV show, though I’d never seen it. I didn’t think I would be inclined to trust anyone who proudly called themselves a Spider, though.

  “My bags are filled with liquid gold, which means you’re all going to have to say ‘adios’ to Cece Blake after this cruise is over.”

  I gave her a supportive smile, but I didn’t mean it. How could I? If she was successful, I’d be losing one of my best friends on board. And if she failed to win the competition, I’d feel terrible for her. It was a no-win situation from my point of view.

  “But what is it? What do you have in there?” asked Sam, poking one of the suitcases with the toe of her sneaker.

  “I call it…” Cece leaned over the case and did a surprisingly effective drumroll on the side of it. “Cece’s Lemony Liquid Gold—It Cleans, It Shines, and It Smells Divine!”

  “Ooh,” I said, with a genuine smile. “Catchy.”

  “Yep,” she said, her voice dripping with confidence. “It is catchy.
It’s so catchy that it’s going to be me catching the spiders in my own web… my web of awesome cleaning products!”

  I wasn’t sure you could make a web out of liquid cleaning products in plastic bottles. But what did I know? I was no Spider, no entrepreneur, and no expert cleaner.

  “All right, suckers. Catch you later when you’re bringing me cocktails. I’m going to the passenger boarding area to check in.”

  We watched Cece as she rolled her cases away from us.

  “She does know we’re not bringing her cocktails, right? That’s totally not our job.”

  I clapped Sam on the back. “I’ll bring her cocktails if she wants. She saved my life—I can at least do that for her.”

  “Man, she’s going to lord that over you forever, isn’t she?”

  Cece was welcome to as far as I was concerned. She’d saved my life and I owed her big time; she could milk it all she wanted. At least for one more cruise.

  The ship’s whistle screeched loud and long, two times in succession.

  “That’s us!”

  That particular whistle meant it was time for us staff to board.

  “Adrienne!” called a voice.

  I couldn’t contain my smile as I looked up toward the ship and saw First Officer Ethan Lee striding down the gangway. As soon as he was close enough, he scooped me into a hug and then gave me a kiss. Well, it was more like a peck on the cheek. A warm one.

  “Hi!” said Sam at twice the necessary volume.

  “Hello, Sam,” said Ethan as he stepped back from me, giving her a welcoming smile. “Can I help you ladies with your bags?”

  Before I could protest that I was perfectly capable of rolling my single solitary suitcase on my own, Sam had already interjected with a loud, “Sure!” and handed him the handle of her case. With a shrug, I did the same.

  “Come on. Let’s get you aboard.”

  Ethan led the way, wheeling a suitcase with each hand, while Sam and I followed behind him.

  Instead of stopping once we reached the first deck, he continued to wheel our suitcases into one of the staff elevators and, after a little ride, down the hall toward the cabin that Sam and I shared in the depths of the ship.

  “So what did you do with the other one?” asked Ethan.

  He was of course referring to Cece. The three of us were always together when we weren’t working.

  “She’s not working this cruise,” said Sam.

  “Oh. You’re going to miss her, won’t you?”

  We both giggled.

  “Nope,” I said. “She’s on board. She’s coming as a guest.”

  Ethan stopped and turned to face us, the confusion plain on his face. “Really?”

  “Yep. It’s because she wants to enter the competition—the Claim Your Million thing. She’s got a cleaning product that can’t lose, according to her.”

  Ethan cocked an eyebrow. “That lemon stuff? She used that in my cabin…”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s, uh, good for preserving fingerprints.”

  Sam and I exchanged confused looks.

  “The brass rail in my office was still covered with them when she was done,” he said with a chuckle. He continued down the hallway toward our cabin. “Smells nice, though.”

  “I love the smell of fresh lemons,” I said in support of my absent friend.

  Ethan stopped outside of our cabin door. “This is it, right?”

  I felt a little embarrassed, because the room Sam and I shared was like a prison cell. No, really, the cells in the ship’s brig were identical to the cabin we had been assigned. As Ethan was the first officer of the ship, he had much grander quarters and suddenly I didn’t want him to see where Sam and I lived.

  It was stupid. Of course he already knew. But I still felt a twinge of shame.

  “Better leave them outside. I don’t think we’ll all fit in there.”

  “Hey,” said Sam and Ethan in unison, both looking offended.

  “Are you saying we’re fat?” asked Sam.

  I laughed, shaking my head. “No, I’m just saying our room is too… skinny… for all of us.”

  Ethan frowned. “It is a bit small, huh? Maybe we should see if we can get you an upgrade. I mean, Adrienne, you’re supposed to be a manager.”

  My title was indeed Social Media Manager, but since the entire department consisted solely of me, the only person I managed was myself.

  “Oh, no, we don’t want any special treatment,” I said, shaking my head.

  Sam gave me a poke in the arm. “Yes, we do.” She turned back to Ethan. “Special treatment please! As much as possible!”

  Ethan chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.” He released his hold on the handles of our bags and gave me a meaningful look. “Adrienne, I’ll send you a message later.” He turned back to my friend. “Sam,” he said with a nod of farewell.

  We both watched as Ethan walked down the hallway back toward the elevator we had taken down, waiting until he disappeared before we opened the cabin door.

  “Ready for another adventure?” asked Sam.

  I glared at her as I stood in our doorway.

  “Please, no more adventures. Can’t we just have a nice, quiet cruise?”

  Sam snorted. “Addy, the odds of us having a nice, quiet cruise are somewhere on par with Cece claiming her million.”

  Chapter Two

  As the Swan of the Seas’ social media manager, I spend a lot of time with the guests, capturing some of their most exciting moments and the more noteworthy activities aboard the ship. Later, I share them with the world, posting them online to myriad social media streams as well as the company’s blog and website.

  That afternoon, I was there to capture the hustle and bustle of boarding. For many people, a cruise was the holiday of a lifetime, and boarding was the exciting beginning of it all.

  I snapped photos of suitcases covered with stickers and decals, passengers lining up to check-in, the welcome bags given to all the guests, and the smiling faces of the staff. Then, I started uploading some of them, with hashtags like #cruiselife, #adventurebegins, #swancruise and #sailaway.

  But I wasn’t there just to capture the magic of boarding. I had an ulterior motive. Since I had started working aboard the ship, someone—or some people—had been harassing me. Not in a physically violent way, or even in a particularly scary one, it still left me feeling uneasy.

  I had a secret, one which in theory only Sam knew. A little over a year ago, I was the victim of a kidnapping in Arizona. I escaped, and I had assumed that unpleasant point in my life was over and done with—if not solved, at least left behind.

  But it wasn’t.

  Someone had been hinting that they knew about what happened to me. I found Arizona postcards left in my cabin and out in the ship near where I’d been working. A set used for a mystery event had been deliberately designed to look like the diner I’d been visiting when the kidnapping occurred, and the set menu had been changed to what I’d been eating just before the terrible event. In addition, a newspaper from the exact day of my kidnapping was left for me to find.

  I didn’t know who was behind these clues, but there was one person who I thought it might be. A man who had been on board the ship disguised as a housekeeper, a guest, and other staff members. A man Ethan and I had nearly caught breaking into the first officer’s cabin. The same man I had seen talking with the captain of the ship. A man whom neither Ethan nor I had been able to identify.

  That man was why I was keeping a careful eye on those boarding. If he—the fake housekeeper—arrived with the guests while I was watching, I was going to corner him and nab him.

  There would be no escape from me this time.

  Of course, the chances of me spotting him in the throng of hundreds of guests all arriving at once was slim. But less slim than if I didn’t even make the effort. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch everyone checking in because I was interrupted.

  BZZZ.

  I received a text fr
om Kelly Cline, the cruise director. She was a pleasant young woman with a kind heart, but she seemed to spend most of her time in a whirlwind of panic, never quite caught up on any of her work and often forgetful about keeping the staff informed about what was going on aboard the ship.

  The message read: Addy, my office, now. Spiders!

  What did she think I was? An exterminator? I shook my head to myself in half-amused surprise.

  Maybe it was just because she knew I’d grown up in the country. Not that that makes you immune to the fear of insects. You should see the way my mother screams when even the tiniest of spiders finds its way into her presence. But luckily, I wasn’t like that. If Kelly needed me to handle some spiders, I’d deal with them. It doesn’t hurt to stay in the management’s good graces.

  Shoving my phone back into my jeans pocket—I have one of the more casual uniforms aboard the ship since I’m so active—I headed to the cruise director’s office. Along the way, I liberated a bucket from a housekeeping cupboard. My plan was to drop the spider inside the bucket and then rehouse it in one of the planters on the deck.

  When I arrived at Kelly’s office, I could hear people talking inside. I knocked at the door three times.

  “Come in!” called Kelly in her high-pitched voice.

  I pushed the door open and walked inside, bucket in one hand and a helpful smile on my face.

  “Hi! Sorry it took me so long. I was at arrivals taking pictures.” I held up the bucket. “Where’s the spider?”

  Four pairs of eyes gave me a curious look. One pair of them belonged to Kelly Cline. She was dressed in a sky-blue form-fitting dress, along with sky-blue heels, painted blue nails, and half a dozen bright blue bracelets dangling from her right wrist, as well as a light blue Alice band keeping her dark hair firmly in place.