Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 06 - Cruise Millions Page 12

  Balaclava man glanced back at me, but Horse Head pushed him forward, out the door. “Don’t worry about her,” he said. “She’ll be dead. She can’t say anything to the boss. And the two of us won’t tell the boss about this. As long as she’s dead, who cares if she dies an hour later?”

  Balaclava man grumbled something in response, then disappeared out the door.

  I heard a tiny clink, then Horse Head was out the door, locking it from outside. I stared, as though catatonic, at the front door. In the distance, I heard the car drive off.

  One hour.

  That’s how much time Horse Head said I had left.

  What do you do with the one hour before your death?

  Turns out, I wasn’t sure.

  But before I could think too hard about it, I glanced at where Horse Head had been standing just a moment before.

  The glint of something small and silver caught my eye.

  I was sure it hadn’t been there before.

  I rushed over to examine it. As I picked it up, my lips parted and my eyes widened.

  It was a key.

  I wasted no time hurrying over to the door, and pushing the tiny key into the lock with trembling fingers.

  I held my breath and then twisted the key with trembling fingers. This was the moment of truth.

  The lock turned!

  I could scarcely believe it. The door was open, and the great outdoors lay before me. The sun, an open stretch of road, fresh air. They were all mine for the taking.

  I wanted to sink to the ground and cry with relief, but there was no time for that. One hour, I reminded myself.

  I gulped in deep lungfuls of fresh air, and ran out the front door.

  I followed the dirt path the van must have driven across. I kept to the trees by the side of the path, in case someone approached and I needed to hide, but thankfully, nobody else showed up.

  I had no idea how long I ran. I was constantly aware that the men planned to return within an hour, and kept my ears pricked for engine noises, but there were none. At one point, the dirt road met a paved one, and I walked in the ditch alongside it.

  I was too tired by then to run so I kept walking, never seeing a car, until I heard an engine behind me. My heart stopped and I instinctively made a dash for cover under the trees, but then I turned back and saw that it was a red convertible, not a van. As it got closer, I noticed that it was driven by an elderly woman with curly white hair.

  I shivered, wondering if she was someone who worked with the two kidnappers. But before I could decide whether to run and hide or ask for help, she pulled up next to me.

  She looked at me with worried eyes and said, “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

  I started crying. Big fat tears that streaked down my face and refused to stop flowing.

  The woman rushed out of the car, gave me a big hug, and led me to the passenger seat, where she buckled me in and drove me to the nearest police station.

  The ride seemed to take a while, and during that time, my tears subsided, but an incredible exhaustion overcame me.

  “I’m not cutting those cords on your wrist because they might be evidence,” the woman, whose name turned out to be Jan, told me.

  Jan helped me into the station, and she sat by my side while the cops wrapped me in a blanket and gave me steaming hot cocoa as a paramedic examined me.

  He said I was in shock and exhausted but otherwise fine. I told them I had family I could call, and then Jan left, leaving me to give my statement alone.

  I went over it again and again with the police, describing the events and the men and the shack several times, until there was no chance I had forgotten anything.

  “It’s best for you to go back home to your family,” the kind-looking female detective taking my statements told me. “If we need any more information, we’ll get in touch.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I finished telling Ethan the whole story, reliving those few dark hours and feeling as though I’d been transported back in time.

  At the end of it, he still held my hand in his.

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Addy,” he said softly.

  I shook my head, trying to dismiss the memories, and forced myself to smile. I took in the décor of the bar, reminding myself I was far away from Arizona. I was on a luxury cruise liner, sitting opposite a handsome man, and enjoying the bite of a gin and tonic.

  “It wasn’t all that bad,” I said. “They weren’t able to do anything, and nothing bad actually happened. It was just the whole shock of it, really.” My smile slipped away and I frowned.

  That was it. The whole reason the event had been so bad. It had made me realize that the world could be a dark, dangerous place. That I wasn’t always safe.

  “What happened to the men?” Ethan asked. “Were they ever caught?”

  “No, not that I know of. The detective followed up with me a few times, but they never arrested anyone. And I stopped following the news, really, after that event. I couldn’t read about crimes without…”

  I shivered, and Ethan squeezed my hand.

  “Without remembering it happened to me,” I finished. “I couldn’t face the world. For a few years, I stayed back in Nebraska, living with my parents, doing a few sessions of therapy. I finally started writing articles about local news events, county fairs and stuff like that, but I never ended up pursuing journalism like I wanted to. I couldn’t do it. When I got a chance to work for Swan, I jumped at it! It was my chance to finally grow up, spread my wings, and do something fun and exciting—like I’d always dreamed of. And it was great, at first.”

  “At first?” Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean because of the murders?”

  “No, no. The murders have been fine. I mean, not fine—they’re really horrible and tragic—but would you believe they actually made me feel like I’d finally gotten over the kidnapping? That if I could deal with something as horrible as a murder, and actually help solve it, then maybe I’m doing okay. If I can help out in difficult times, then I’m not a failure.”

  “You’re definitely not a failure, Addy.”

  I forced myself to smile but I couldn’t hold Ethan’s gaze. “You’re so sweet. But what I mean is… I used to want to hide from the difficult things. Now, I know I can tackle them.”

  “You sure can,” agreed Ethan. “But you said the cruises were fine at first. So what happened?”

  “Someone’s been trying to remind me of the kidnapping.”

  Ethan ran the thumb of his hand slowly back and forth over the back of my hand, his eyes intensely focused on mine. He seemed to have forgotten all about his drink for the time being. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the whole thing happened in Arizona. In a diner’s parking lot.”

  Ethan nodded. “Right.”

  “Do you remember when we had that murder mystery cruise? One of the sets was set up as a diner—but inside, there was a poster that was exactly the same as in the diner I was kidnapped from. And there was a newspaper left there, from Arizona, from the day it happened.”

  “What!? Why didn’t you tell me about that? Is that why you had the anxiety attack?”

  “Yeah. It was. I didn’t tell anyone because… well, I was embarrassed. I wanted to forget about all of it.”

  “No wonder you think there’s something going on aboard the ship. Has anything else happened?” He was leaning forward with both elbows on the table by then, one hand still squeezing mine.

  “Yep. Just yesterday, in fact. Paul Parker was telling stories about people overcoming adversity. The first story he told was about a girl from Nebraska who was kidnapped in Arizona and escaped.”

  “Paul Parker? But how? You don’t have any connections, do you?”

  Shaking my head, I squeezed his hand back. “Nope. I even asked him about it, but he claimed it was a story he heard from one of his previous participants. But I wonder…”

  “Yeah, you’d be right to wonder. I suppose it is a good st
ory about overcoming adversity, but the sheer coincidence of it…” he trailed off, frowning down at the table in thought.

  “There’s more too. On the first cruise I worked, I found a postcard from Arizona in my room. And I found another one on a barstool that seemed to have been left for me as well. Oh, and when those beauty pageant people were here? I found a candy bar—the same one that was the only food given to me by my kidnappers. It used to be my favorite. But now… If I never see another Millie and Me bar again, I wouldn’t complain.”

  “Adrienne,” he said shaking his head at me. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of this stuff. I could have helped—I could have tracked down who was doing this to you. It’s my job. Don’t you trust me? Is it something I’ve done?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said in a whisper. Even though I thought it was the right thing to do at the time, I felt guilty now. Like I somehow misled him. I hadn’t, not really, but I had kept him in the dark. “I just wanted to keep it to myself. Like I said, I wanted to forget.”

  “I understand that. But it sounds like the past won’t forget you. You can’t keep ignoring this stuff.”

  “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  “We need to find out who’s behind all this!” Ethan suddenly thought of something and shook his head. “I can’t believe you gave me a hard time last cruise about keeping secrets. When you found out I was investigating the captain, you made me feel guilty about not telling you.”

  I winced at the memory. I had done that. But that was different. I nearly said that out loud, but I knew it wasn’t really all that different. It only felt different because Ethan’s investigation of the captain didn’t involve me.

  “I’m sorry. I really am. It’s not that I wanted to keep secrets from you. At first I didn’t…” I lowered my voice, a little ashamed of what I was about to say. “I didn’t know if I could even trust you, when I first started working here. I mean, I liked you, but I didn’t know you—and I knew someone working here had to be messing with me. Once I’d started keeping that secret from you, it just kind of snowballed. The longer it kept going, the worse it got. You probably know what I mean.”

  “Wait, what? What do you mean I probably know? I haven’t been keeping secrets.”

  “You haven’t?”

  Ethan had a concerned look on his face. “Has someone told you something?”

  I shook my head. “A while ago, you left me alone in your office. I wasn’t snooping, honest, but on your desk there was a bag you’d picked up onshore. Just a little plastic bag. It was sitting open on your desk, and when I glanced in, I saw a ring box.”

  Ethan released my hand and scrubbed his hands through his hair. “You saw the ring?”

  “Who is it for?”

  He seemed to examine my face, and his eyebrows slowly rose. “I… it wasn’t for you.” One side of his mouth rose as he realized what he had said. “Or any other girl!”

  A sigh of relief escaped my lips. “Good. Do you remember when I asked you if you had an onshore girlfriend? That was why I asked.”

  He raised a palm to his forehead and gave it a gentle smack. “I wondered where that question had come from! No. Actually, that ring—and you can’t tell a soul about this—is connected to my investigation of the captain. The captain took that ring ashore, and he sold it to a pawn shop. Do you remember when I went on shore during a cruise by myself? That was why. I needed to see what the captain was up to, and it was a good thing I went! I bought it from the pawn shop.”

  “But what does a ring have to do with anything?”

  Ethan took a sip of his gin and tonic and leaned back in his chair.

  “I don’t actually know the significance of it—but I think there is something important about it. Our so-called fake housekeeper. I think the ring may have been what he was looking for the night he tried to break into my cabin.”

  That happened during our last cruise. Ethan and I returned one evening to have coffee in his cabin, only it never happened because we caught the man trying to break into his room. Ethan tried to chase him down but he couldn’t catch him. The man had seemed to disappear into thin air.

  “I’ve got an idea!” I said with a snap of my fingers. It was genius. “Give me the ring.”

  “Eh?” said Ethan.

  I guess it may have seemed a little pushy to demand a ring from the guy I was dating. But my intentions weren’t the usual ones when a girl is after a ring.

  “I’ll wear it where the captain can see it. Maybe it’ll get his attention—and the attention of our fake housekeeper too. We could draw them out and figure out what’s going on.”

  “Absolutely, categorically not. The fake housekeeper could be dangerous.” Ethan leaned forward, dropping his volume. “As could the captain.”

  “I’m sure no one would harm me on board the ship,” I said. It’s not nice having your own brilliant ideas categorically thrown out as soon as you present them.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, the Swan of the Seas isn’t exactly a crime-free zone. Remember Lesley?”

  And not just Lesley, I thought to myself. The ship had been pretty unlucky with the recent string of serious crimes that had happened aboard.

  “Maybe you should wear it then,” I said with a grin.

  “It’s a bit too small—and a bit too pretty for me to get away with wearing.”

  “You could put it on a chain around your neck.”

  Ethan laughed and so did I. I’m sure neither of us could imagine him wearing a pretty little woman’s ring around his neck as a makeshift necklace. It wouldn’t exactly pair well with his uniform. Not to mention all the funny looks he’d get.

  When the laughter had subsided, Ethan’s tone turned more somber. “Speaking of Lesley, there’s something interesting I found out. It’s not exactly about her, but it may turn out to be important somehow.”

  “Oh?”

  “Alejandro Ciudad. He’s not who he says he is.”

  “I knew it!” I said suddenly.

  “What do you mean you knew it? More secrets?”

  “Not really. But I think Paul Parker told a story about him as well yesterday morning. I can’t prove it, but he looked just as shocked as I felt. And when I tried to talk to him about it, he brushed me off and stormed away. I thought it was odd at the time. But get this, Cece was telling me earlier that she thought he was a fraud. She said he didn’t have the shoes or the watch of a rich investor.”

  “I guess she was right about that. Though I don’t think shoes and a watch are necessarily the best way to judge someone. No, he’s using a fake identity. There’s no such person as the real estate investor Alejandro Ciudad.”

  “So are you going to lay off Cece for a bit?”

  Ethan huffed. “Alejandro may be a faker, but I don’t know if that connects him to Lesley’s death. It may just be a coincidence.”

  “It can’t be. It’s not just that—I’m pretty sure they knew each other too. The way I saw Lesley greet him—the so-called first time they met—it was like they were old friends.”

  Ethan began to drum his fingers on the table.

  “I’ll keep following up on this and hope it leads somewhere. For Cece’s sake.”

  “She’s really worried now. She’s not herself at all. She’s and depressed and doesn’t seem to have any energy. You don’t think she did it, do you?”

  “Of course not. I know she’s a good person. And I owe her too. She saved your life. Without her, I’d be really depressed.”

  I couldn’t help but be touched by his silly joke. It was nice to know he’d at least be depressed if I were dead.

  “Then why did you take her keycard?”

  “It’s not that simple. After I submitted my first report to head office, they called me. They ordered me to suspend Cece and revoke all her employee rights for now. They actually wanted me to put her in the brig immediately. I talked them out of that, but if we don’t find the real killer soon…”

  The situation wa
s more dire for Cece than I’d realized. It sounded like Ethan had been looking out for her, but it hadn’t been enough.

  “Nothing’s going right for her,” I said sadly. “You know, she asked the other investor about her product. It turned out he already had a line of natural cleaning products of his own he’s introducing.”

  Ethan’s eyebrows slowly rose. “Stan Westbrook?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When I was investigating Alejandro, I did the same for him. He’s legit—he really has a cleaning business in Kentucky. But there’s nothing about natural cleaning products on his website.”

  “No? I guess maybe they’re new?”

  “I checked it just this morning. His company is more like an anti-natural company.” He laughed at his own joke. “One of the slogans I remember is, ‘Chemicals so harsh the stains try to run away… but we hunt them down and kill them!’”

  “That’s a bit, uh, heavy for a cleaning company.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. But I think he appeals to a certain tough-guy market. People who want their houses not just clean, but every last germ obliterated. ‘Holocaust of bacteria’ was another one on there. And I think there was something about ‘chemicals so strong the FDA can’t even decide if they’re legal!’”

  “Wow. That’s like… the opposite of Cece’s natural product.”

  “Yeah. It’s very odd. Maybe Cece misunderstood.”

  “Maybe.” No way Cece would have gotten that wrong. “So what do we do now?”

  “First thing tomorrow, I’m going to have a little chat with Alejandro. Find out who he really is, and what’s going on with him.”

  “Hopefully he’s the murderer,” I said. “He’ll confess and Cece will be cleared!”

  Ethan chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, that would make all our lives easier, wouldn’t it?”

  “Except for Paul Parker. He’ll have to find himself another investor.”

  “I really couldn’t care less about his Spider plans,” said Ethan. It was just about the meanest thing I’d ever heard him say, and coming from him I couldn’t help but laugh.