Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 06 - Cruise Millions Read online

  “A Fauxlex? What’s that?”

  Cece grinned at me, some of her old sparkle coming back. “Man, you don’t know much, do you? What did they teach you in college? It’s a Faux Rolex. A fake. A knockoff. “

  “I guess my professors forgot to mention that little tidbit.”

  “What do you learn in college?”

  Cece had originally started working on the cruise ship to save up money to attend university. She’d been at it a couple of years now, so I figured she must nearly be ready to start applying. Whenever I asked her, she brushed it off with a ‘yeah, yeah, soon,’ or something similar.

  “I learned… I mean, I took lots of classes. Journalism. Photography. Writing. Philosophy. You know… important stuff.”

  She waved a hand at me. “Exactly. Nothing practical. Anyway, Alejandro’s fake watch didn’t even work. I asked what time it was, and it was broken. Even frugal millionaires don’t wear broken fake watches. They wear real, working, cheap watches.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I wasn’t completely convinced. A man like Paul Parker wouldn’t have let himself be tricked. Plenty of rich people were eccentric, so I wasn’t about to judge the book of Alejandro by its shabby cover.

  “Huh. Guess they’re back already,” said Cece, nodding her head toward the window.

  The ice cream parlor was located just off the ship’s Grand Atrium, where many of the shopping, dining, and entertainment facilities were located. Its parlor looked out onto a busy walkway, and we could see several people from the Claim Your Million cruise walking past.

  They were all wearing bright red T-shirts that read FUTURE… on the front and MILLIONAIRE! on the back, with Paul Parker’s website address printed underneath. I noticed some of them had taken a permanent marker and crossed out the word ‘future’ on the front of their shirts.

  “You should have gone with them.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve been to see those ruins already? And anyway, red isn’t my color. It’d be like being on a kindergarten trip to the docks again.”

  “Kindergarten trip… to the docks?” I asked her. That didn’t sound like a very kindergartenish thing to do.

  “Yep. It was awesome. We got to go up and play with a ship’s big steering wheel and everything. Where did you go on your school trips? To look at corn?”

  I was about to point out that if we wanted to go and look at corn, all we had to do was look out just about any window where I was from. Then I remembered we had actually gone on a school trip to a farming museum, which had basically been corn central.

  “No comment.” Something caught my eye outside. “Look at that.”

  We both watched through the window as Stan Westbrook and Helen Johannsen walked by outside. Helen had her arm linked with his, and she seemed to be laughing uproariously at something he’d said.

  Stan Westbrook hadn’t struck me as particularly funny when I’d met him, so I was immediately suspicious.

  “She’s figured him out.” Cece’s eyes narrowed and she frowned out the window at the oblivious pair as they walked on past, out of view.

  “Or maybe she just likes him,” I suggested.

  Cece tapped a nail against her chin. “Could be. Despite his lack of personality, he is rich. But so’s she.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, I need to get back to work.”

  Cece’s face seemed to fall when I said it.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Work. I like my job, you know? No stress, and I get to hang out with my friends. I’m saving money. But I think I’m going to lose my job.”

  “Don’t say that! Of course you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am,” she insisted. “Did Ethan tell you he took my keycard off me this morning?”

  “What!?”

  “He said since I’m not working during this cruise, I had to turn it in until I was on duty again. But I don’t think I am going to be on duty again.”

  “No way! You will be—unless you become a millionaire first. I’ll talk to Ethan.”

  She shook her head at me. “He’s just doing his job, I guess. I do look guilty, don’t I?”

  “You do not look guilty. The champagne bottle was still half-full, remember?”

  That got me just a hint of a smile in response. A little bit of regular Cece.

  “You said it would never convince anyone. Go on and get back to work. I’m due for a nap by the pool.”

  We stood up and left the ice cream shop together, separating in the Grand Atrium. While she went off to work on her tan, I was going to get as much work done as I could before meeting Ethan later.

  I had to psych myself up for it. I was going to tell him everything.

  Everything.

  Chapter Sixteen

  That evening, Ethan had to have dinner with the VIP guests. It was almost ten o’clock by the time he was able to make his excuses and leave. We met up in the cocktail bar, and we found a table so secluded it was like we had the place to ourselves.

  Ethan ordered two gin and tonics and brought them over to the table, where I was waiting nervously.

  Neither one of us looked particularly happy.

  “You said we have to talk?” said Ethan.

  “Yeah. There’s… a few things you don’t know. Things I didn’t tell you.”

  “Go on…”

  I wondered what he was thinking I was going to say. Maybe he was worried that I was about to announce I had a secret husband or something. I almost giggled at the thought of it, but I stopped myself by sipping some of my cold and slightly bitter drink.

  “There have been some weird things happening to me ever since I started working aboard this ship. And they seem to be connected to something that happened to me more than a year ago.”

  Ethan seemed relieved, sitting back in his chair and nodding at me. He must have been expecting me to announce something really bad. What I was about to say was pretty bad, but maybe not in the way that he imagined.

  “A little over a year ago, I… I was kidnapped.”

  Ethan’s eyes bulged and he coughed into his drink. He leaned forward again, putting his glass down, and took my hand, which was resting on the table.

  “It’s in the past now. I’m over it. At least I’m trying to be over it. But ever since I started working here, it’s like someone has been trying to remind me of what happened. Someone knows.”

  “Who kidnapped you? And what’s been happening? Why didn’t you tell me? I’m the head of security on this ship! If there are kidnappers running around…”

  “Hold on! Let me explain. I haven’t told anyone else. No one knows. Not Cece, not anyone.”

  “Sam?”

  “Sam knows,” I confirmed. “She was with me around the time of the kidnapping. I mean, no one from Swan knows. No one from here. This was like a new life for me. A fresh start away from that time.”

  “I see. Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head with a wry smile. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I know I should tell you. It was back when I went on that road trip with Sam. We’d just graduated from college…”

  My mind drifted back to that hot summer day. The sun was beating down on the diner parking lot. I’d just waved goodbye to Sam and watched her drive away in her rental car, off to visit her relatives who lived nearby.

  I breathed in a deep, refreshing breath.

  It was time to enjoy my freedom, my first real taste of being in the great outdoors, all by myself. There was no one to tell me where to go or what to do.

  Of course, I had a plan. I wasn’t that spontaneous, so I’d already written out my list of things to do. I had mapped out my route and gassed up the car, and I was all ready to head west.

  As I fished through my purse to find the car keys, I noticed two men out of the corner of my eye. They were dressed in what looked like cosplay outfits. One of them wore a horse head mask over his head, and the other wore a pig mask.

  The men were both tall, tan, and muscular, d
ressed in black pants and black T-shirts. Later, I would remember seeing a dragon tattoo peeking through the collar of the man with the pig mask. The other man had tattoos all along one of his arms: red heart with an arrow near his bicep, someone’s name written below it, and then some sort of tribal pattern that snaked down his arm, all the way to his wrist.

  I stared at their masks for a moment but smiled at them despite how strange it may have seemed. I was in a fantastic mood, and it wasn’t difficult to give the universe the benefit of the doubt.

  The men took a few steps toward me, and a frisson of apprehension shot through me. As a young, single woman, I felt a bit confused as to why the men were making a beeline toward me. But the smile never left my face.

  “Hi,” I said cheerfully. “C—”

  Before I could finish the sentence, one of the men lunged at me, and I noticed a black bag in his hands. The next second, the bag was over my head, tied shut, and I felt myself being dragged away from my car.

  I remembered the way my blood turned cold. The shock that gripped my body and caused my keys and purse to fall.

  A split second later, a surge of adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I kicked and shouted as loud as I could. I screamed and screamed against the fabric of the bag, but nothing stopped the men. Another second later, I was thrown into the back of a vehicle, and then someone came and bound my wrists together.

  I kept crying out for help, but all I heard were the sound of doors being locked, ignition being started, and the vehicle driving off. I grasped and groped at whatever I could in the darkness, and I realized I’d been thrown into the back of a small van.

  The road was smooth at first, and it seemed to go a long way. At first, I kept screaming and banging on the sides of the van, but my throat grew hoarse and my body ached from thrashing. I was only tiring myself out. Realization dawned on me: I needed to save my energy. For what, I wasn’t sure.

  A few seconds later, I heard one of the men say, “Thank God she stopped.”

  The other man didn’t say anything for a while. And then he said, “What do you think the boss will do?”

  “Not my problem,” the first man said. “All I know is he needs to talk to her.”

  The second man grunted, and after that, the conversation died out.

  The road seemed to go on for some time, or maybe my sense of time was warped because of the bag over my head and the terror coursing through my body.

  What was going on? What was going to happen to me? I couldn’t imagine anything good, so I tried to stop myself from thinking.

  The van finally stopped moving. I heard the men get out and the doors sliding open. Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me out.

  I cried and felt myself dragged along what felt like a dirt path. I didn’t bother to struggle. What was the point? Even if I could run, I couldn’t see and my hands were bound. The men would catch me again within a second or two.

  I felt myself pulled inside somewhere—I could tell because there wasn’t any wind—and then someone removed the bag.

  I blinked, unaccustomed to even the dim light inside. In front of me were Horse Head and Pig Head.

  “We got her,” Horse Head said.

  He was holding up a phone, and I realized he was video chatting.

  “It’s not her,” said a man’s harsh voice over the phone. “You idiots!”

  Horse Head and Pig Head looked at each other and then at me.

  “But she looks like the photo,” Horse Head said.

  “She doesn’t look anything like the photo,” the voice from the phone growled. “Lock her in and get outside! Now!”

  At their boss’s orders, they rushed outside, leaving me inside the room.

  The men pulled the door closed, and I heard it being locked from outside. I could hear muffled voices for a few more seconds and then the noise of the van driving off.

  I stayed rooted in place for a few seconds more. My heart was hammering against my chest and my senses were heightened, but I couldn’t move. My legs were frozen.

  With a few deep breaths, my heartbeat slowed a little, and I was able to take in my surroundings. I was in what seemed like a ramshackle hut, lit dimly by a single bare lightbulb overhead.

  The walls were made of wood, and there was one boarded-up window. There weren’t any doors leading anywhere; the hut was just this one room. There was a blanket in one corner of the floor and a small wooden desk with a rickety plastic chair. Millie and Me bars were heaped in a corner of the table, as though somebody intended to live off them.

  The old shack was neither a bedroom nor a living space. Perhaps someone had used it, ages ago, as an escape for when they came out to the farm or whatever wilderness we were in. But this wasn’t the kind of space I wanted to be locked up in. I didn’t want to be locked up anywhere—but this place seemed especially bad.

  As my pulse continued to slow, I became aware of the fact that there seemed to be no one around.

  “Hello?” I called softly. “Is there anyone there?”

  Nobody responded.

  “Help?”

  Again, no response.

  I screamed for help again, much louder this time. Maybe the men were gone. Maybe someone nearby would hear me, would let me out.

  I screamed for help again, louder than the last time. And again. And again.

  There was no response.

  A part of me was terrified that the men would come back, but that didn’t happen. My voice grew hoarse with shouting. I noticed a jug of water on the table, but no glass, so I gulped it down straight. And then I realized, I was stuck in here. All I had was a jug of water and a pile of chocolate bars. How long was I expected to survive on these? And then what?

  That second question made my veins freeze up in terror. I started to feel lightheaded.

  No, I told myself, that wouldn’t do. I needed to stay calm. I needed to be okay.

  I took slow, deep breaths. Focus, I told myself, focus on your breathing.

  Somehow, I made it through the terror. I decided never to think of the future again.

  I sat huddled in one corner of the room for some time, until the fear subsided almost completely—or until it became a normal part of my being and I no longer noticed it.

  I wondered if I could try to force my way out of the hut. There were boards everywhere. I tried to pry the boards off the windows, but with no luck. I tried punching them, and random bits of the walls, in case there were any bits loose, but I still had no luck.

  Then I tried screaming for help some more.

  Drank some more water.

  Realized I was starving and ate a few chocolate bars.

  Tried again to see if any of the boards on the windows were loose, or if I could open the door.

  Screamed for help again.

  I repeated the cycle a few times, somehow managing not to think too much beyond the next minute. Although the place was boarded up, I could tell that the sun was dipping lower on the horizon. After what seemed like days, but must have been hours, I realized it was night. I forced myself to try to stay awake. But every now and then I woke with a jolt, and realized I’d drifted off to sleep.

  At some point, I woke up and understood that I must’ve had a deep sleep. I could sense it was late morning, and suddenly I had a surge of hope that perhaps someone else might be nearby.

  I screamed for help again, but to no avail. I took a slow sip of water—the water in the jug was almost finished by now. I wondered what would happen when it was all gone. What was death by thirst like?

  I forced myself to think of my breath. I could breathe. I was breathing. That was important.

  I wasn’t sure how long I spent taking deep breaths, but suddenly, I noticed an unfamiliar sound in the background. And it was growing louder. It was the hum of a car engine!

  “Help!” I croaked. My voice was no longer as strong as before, but I forced myself to muster up all my energy and scream at the top of my lungs. “Help!”

  The engine no
ise grew louder and my blood throbbed with hope and fear and adrenaline.

  “In here!” I screamed, banging on one of the boarded-up windows. “In here!”

  And then, the engine cut out. I took a deep breath to scream as loud as I could, when I heard a male voice.

  It was a voice I knew.

  It was the man who’d been wearing the horse mask.

  I froze in place. I was sure it was him.

  A wave of pure, unadulterated fear washed over me. I sank to the floor and crawled backward till I was huddled in a far corner.

  I heard the sound of a key in the lock, and a voice I didn’t recognize replied to Horse Head. The door swung open, and I caught a glimpse of the sky outside.

  And then, my view was blocked by Horse Head, still wearing his mask, and another man wearing a black balaclava.

  Blood throbbed in my ears. I could barely make out what they were saying. It was gibberish, with a few words I knew mixed in. Was I going mad?

  Horse Head pulled out his phone, and I realized he was making a video call.

  “We’re here,” he said to the phone, “but we’d better keep talking in Russian so she doesn’t understand.”

  Russian! I wasn’t crazy!

  I felt faint, and rested my head in my arms.

  The conversation grew heated, though I didn’t know what the three men were saying. I peeked out at them and heard the balaclava-clad man saying, “She knows too much. I say it’s best we kill her—” and then he switched back to Russian.

  I’d heard enough, though, and a strange sense of calm washed over me. Was this how it’d all end? I’d been looking forward to my road trip, my new life ahead. Now that would never happen. I would never have a future. But that was okay. I’d had a pretty good life so far.

  The men kept talking in Russian, but only for a few more brief moments.

  “What kinda idiot forgets to load his gun?” I heard Horse Head yelling at the balaclava-clad man.

  “Better than the idiot who forgets his gun completely!” Balaclava man yelled back.

  There was silence for a split second, and then Horse Head said, “Let’s go to my place. It’s closer. You can get bullets too.”