Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 09 - Lethal Cruise Read online

  “I was thinking we might try to do this subtly. We don’t want them figuring out we’re onto them and making a break for it before we can actually pin it on whoever it is.”

  “Good thinking.” I put my own hand on top of Ethan’s hand, on my leg. “Which one do we start with?”

  Ethan tapped his finger at a name halfway down the list. “Keith McDonald. He works in the catering department.”

  “Okay. Any reason we’re starting with him? Do you think he’s the most likely?”

  “He’s the only one aboard this cruise. The other six on the list are either on leave, doing a stint at head office, or have been temporarily transferred to other ships. As you know, the Swan Empress had a virus outbreak and we’ve lost some staff to them for a cruise or two.”

  That made sense. I was pleased that none of my friends had been transferred, but I knew a lot of others had.

  “I’ll try and make some excuse to meet Keith, or at least get near where he’s working.”

  “Yep, and I’ll pay attention when I’m doing my rounds of the ship.” Ethan, as head of security and First Officer, often walked around the ship to make sure every department was working smoothly and that there was nothing going on that shouldn’t be. “Perhaps you could ask Greg Washington what he knows too.”

  “Yes… though I’ll have to be careful there. He’s a bigger gossip than anyone.”

  Greg Washington was one of the senior chefs aboard the ship, and as well as being a talented cook he was even more talented at spreading rumors. With a flamboyant manner and a big mouth, I didn’t want him to spill the beans about our interest in Keith McDonald, even if it was unintentional.

  Ethan squeezed my knee again with one hand and cupped my cheek with the other, angling me toward him.

  “We’ll catch whoever it is that’s been messing with you, Addy. I promise.”

  His words were so heartfelt they almost brought a tear to my eye. But before I could get that emotional, he distracted me by planting a delicate kiss on my lips.

  We were staring at each other, smiling, and he was just leaning in for seconds when his cell phone buzzed.

  He checked the screen.

  “Sorry, but I’d better get it. It’s the captain. He’s been calling me nonstop.”

  I got to my feet.

  “See you later?”

  He nodded and held up his thumb and index finger to his ear, indicating that he’d call me.

  “Hello?” he said as he answered the phone, sounding, I thought, just the slightest bit exasperated.

  The regular passengers would have begun boarding by now, and if they weren’t interesting enough I had plenty more pictures to upload thanks to the models.

  Humming a tune, I went to see what was going on aboard the Swan of the Seas. I was feeling so happy that I almost skipped.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Early that evening, I made my way to the Grand Ballroom for the Beauty Forever welcome event, along with Cece, who had finished her housekeeping duties for the day. I expected Sam to be there already, as she was still customer-liasoning and would be until late that night.

  “You got the models to their rooms all right?” I asked her when we met up in the Grand Atrium.

  “Oh, yeah. I gave them a bit of a tour of the ship as well. We don’t want them getting lost.”

  “If Doctor Ryan sees you spending too much time with them, he’s the one who’s going to be getting jealous.”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to provide quality customer service. I live to give, baby.”

  I just shook my head. While I wouldn’t say that Cece was bad at her job, how customer-focused she was depended very, very heavily on who the customers were. Luckily for the male models, they would be getting exceptional service. Especially exceptional, since as a housekeeper she probably shouldn’t be doing much more than cleaning their rooms—if she was even assigned to their section. I’m sure she would be assigned to their section, though. She had a way of finagling these things.

  “How long are we going to stay at this thing?” Cece asked just before we entered.

  I shrugged. “Let’s see how interesting it is. I’ll get a bunch of pictures at the beginning, and then we’ll see how long it takes until we get bored.”

  “Sounds like a plan, man.”

  “Do I look like a man to you?”

  “Just an expression. Sounds like a plan, ma’am,” she said with a wicked grin.

  “None of that ma’am business here,” said a voice to my side.

  I turned and saw Miffy and Bitsy, with Essie and Chastity just behind them.

  “How are you settling in?” I asked them with a smile.

  “Just wonderful. My cabin’s so spacious,” Miffy said.

  “Oh, yes, lots of room,” Bitsy said with a glint in her eye.

  Just as I was wondering why her look was so mischievous, I got my answer.

  “Lots of room for those models!” Miffy laughed at her own wit. “Now where are they?”

  Cece clapped her hands together. “I’ve found my people!”

  “Come on. Let’s go inside.” I pointed through the doors of the ballroom. “It looks like they’re about to begin.”

  We all trooped into the Grand Ballroom, and the four troublemaking cougars headed to the front. Cece and I walked to the side of the room and headed near the front from that angle. I would be able to get some nice pictures from the side of the stage, and it would make an exit easier, too.

  Up on the stage, Kelly Cline, the cruise director, was walking up and down with fast little footsteps, seemingly talking to herself, while she held the microphone down by her side with one hand. At least she’d remembered to turn it off this time.

  Today Kelly was wearing a little black dress with a black pearl necklace, black earrings, and a matching pair of black bracelets. Along with her naturally black hair, she looked striking up on the stage.

  “She’s dressed for Halloween,” Cece said, nudging me.

  Behind Kelly, there were a dozen or so chairs set up, most of which were occupied by people I’d met earlier.

  Then Kelly raised the microphone to her mouth, flicked the switch, and began to speak.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!” she said loudly.

  The ballroom was nearly full to capacity with people sitting at big round tables and chairs, and most of them replied to her politely, offering her their own evening greetings.

  “Yo!” Cece shouted beside me.

  I nudged her. That really didn’t fit the atmosphere. She gave me an innocent stare and mouthed what? at me.

  “I’d like to welcome you all to the Beauty Forever Cruise!” Kelly paused for applause. “Though let’s hope it doesn’t last forever, because that will mean the ship would have sunk! Ha, ha, ha!” Kelly waited for the audience to laugh. At first, they didn’t. A desperate look appeared on her face.

  “Ha! That’s funny!” Cece yelled beside me and then began laughing uproariously. I joined in and soon the audience did too.

  Looking relieved, though a little more stressed than before, Kelly continued her speech. I held up my phone to grab some pictures while she did so.

  “We are pleased, delighted, and honored to have some of America’s, no—” She frowned and slapped her thigh in self-punishment. “Get it right, Kelly,” she said in a low voice, which the microphone picked up perfectly. “Some of the world’s finest beauty experts!”

  The crowd clapped and laughed, and this seemed to cheer Kelly on, though I don’t think she realized they were laughing at her little pep talk.

  “Allow me to introduce you to some of them! If you’d each like to stand up.” Kelly turned so she could see the people behind her. “First, we have the amazing and talented Nurse Jessica Jameson!” The nurse, now wearing an evening gown rather than the uniform with the happy syringe, stood up. “She’s the Baroness of Botox and Princess of Phytox!”

  The crowd oohed and ahhed while she bowed before sitting down again. Kelly
continued going through the various experts.

  “We’ve got Miss Plastic Fantastic, Doctor Emily Kim!” A tough-looking lady near the edge of the row of chairs stood up and bowed. “Though we won’t be performing actual surgery during this cruise, she’ll be giving some talks and taking bookings!” She got a polite round of applause.

  “And—this was a new one for me—we’ve got an expert in facial yoga, all the way from Indi… ana, it’s the yogiest yogi aboard, Ananda Smithfield!” A plump Midwesterner who looked like half of the people from my own hometown in Nebraska gave the crowd a pleasant smile and a happy wave.

  “Then, we’ve got the ace… aceah—acetertic—” Kelly frowned, smacked herself on the leg again, and tried one final time “—ace aesthetician, Michael Bobbins! If you’ve ever wanted dermarolling, dermaplaning, or the skin literally peeled off your face like in a horror movie, he’s your man!”

  Michael Bobbins gave a bow but shot a frown at Kelly, who only smiled in response. I hoped his skin peeling wasn’t like a horror movie.

  “Who did her script?” Cece asked, shaking her head.

  “Sounds like she did it herself…”

  “And the fishiest—I mean dishiest nutritionist, Rob Rose!”

  The nutritionist laughed at Kelly’s introduction, and his smile set the audience off laughing too. Despite her mistakes, the crowd was enjoying Kelly’s introductions.

  “And finally, there’s the Dowager of Dermatology, Bethany Carr!”

  The dermatologist stood up, and I could see her eyes narrow on Kelly while she curtsied. I doubted that Kelly knew what dowager meant.

  “Along with these experts, we’ve got manicurists, makeup artists, hairstylists, personal trainers and more. No matter how terrible you look this evening, you could look like a million dollars by the end of the cruise!”

  “Yeah, if you spend a million dollars,” Cece said under her breath to me.

  Cece turned to face the stage and I knew she was going to shout something. She was the kind of person that did that—shout things out from the audience to the stage. Even when audience input hadn’t been requested. Especially when audience input hadn’t been requested.

  “What about the models? Aren’t you going to introduce them!?”

  “Oh, yes, there are models too, but they’re not on the stage. So ladies… and, umm, gentlemen, keep your eye out for them! I hear they’re very handsome!”

  A lot of the audience applauded at hearing that. About half, anyway.

  “How come there are only male models anyway?” I asked Cece, figuring she would know.

  “Probably because they’re cheaper,” she said with a shrug. “You aren’t gonna hear me complaining.”

  Whoever was in charge of booking the models probably figured they could save a few bucks by only hiring male models. It would actually be interesting seeing them dolled up with makeup, and whatever else they intended to use them for.

  “Nor am I. The beauty queens were bad enough.” On an earlier cruise, we had beauty pageant contestants, which were basically like models as far as I could tell. I was glad we were getting the male equivalent this time. Even if they did turn out to be as bad, at least they were easy on the eyes—not that I was looking of course. I meant for everyone else.

  “Now, each of our experts is going to introduce themselves, and describe the talks they’re going to give and the services they offer. Please pay attention, everyone!”

  Cece nudged me. “Let’s bounce. I want you to help me with something.”

  “I should probably take a few pictures of the introductions…”

  Cece shook her head at me. “Come on. You promised.”

  I had not promised!

  “Will it take long? What are we doing anyway?”

  She shrugged. “Twenty minutes?”

  I could be gone for twenty minutes and be back with plenty of time to take some more pictures of at least a few of the experts introducing themselves at the front of the stage.

  “All right, all right.”

  Cece grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the back of the room before I could change my mind. On the stage, the facial yoga expert from Indiana was beginning her spiel. I was actually kind of glad to miss that one.

  “So what is it?” I asked when we were outside.

  “This way, this way.” Cece tended not to answer questions that she didn’t feel like answering, and this seemed to be one of them.

  “Here!” she said, stopping outside Fancy Frocks, the nicest dress boutique on board.

  “Shopping? That’s it?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a date with Ryan tomorrow and I wanted something nice. It’s our tenth cruise anniversary.”

  “Your what? You haven’t been dating that long, have you?”

  She shook her head. “No, but it will be ten cruises since we, like, got introduced to each other.”

  “And that’s an anniversary? I didn’t even know you were serious about him.”

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t know if I am.”

  I sighed, exasperated at her. She had a talent at making me feel confused.

  “Are you two actually a couple?”

  “I guess so,” she said, kicking at the marble floor below us and looking down. For once, she didn’t seem as mature as she liked to pretend. “He thinks we are.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I like to be wild and free. Flings, not things, if you know what I mean.”

  “Ye-es…” I thought I did. A rough idea, at least.

  “But Ryan’s different. He’s so… together, you know? Maybe I do want something more than a fling with him. You know, like a proper thing.”

  “You mean a relationship, Cece. It’s called a relationship, not a thing.” Uh-oh. I realized I was sounding motherly. She’d be calling me ma’am again if I wasn’t careful.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said.

  Cornstalks!

  “I think you should. He’s a good guy.”

  Cece nodded seriously. “He is hot, isn’t he?”

  “That’s not what I meant by good guy, but he is handsome.”

  Cece let out a sigh. “I guess I’ll to give it a go with him. Come on. Pick me out a dress.”

  We went into the shop, and Cece began going through the various dresses and gowns for her romantic dinner date.

  Fancy Frocks wasn’t a large store but it had a nice selection of dresses spaciously arranged on rails that really let you get a good look at them. There was a single worker behind the counter, a middle-aged lady with pearl earrings who was wearing a very nice evening dress herself.

  “What about this one?” Cece asked, holding up a bright red dress. It suited her warm skin tone.

  “It looks good. Do you want to go with red? Not black?”

  Cece nodded. “You’re right. Maybe it isn’t short enough.”

  “That’s not…” I didn’t bother finishing the thought. She had already hung the dress back up on the rail and was holding up a pair of black dresses, both of which were shorter than the red one.

  After another fifteen minutes or so of Cece asking me for advice and then ignoring my responses, she had settled on a black dress that came down to her knees, but thanks to slits on the side showed enough skin for her to be happy with it.

  “You think he’s going to like it?”

  “Of course he’s going to like it. I mean, I don’t think men care that much, to be honest. But he’ll like it because you’re the one who’s wearing it.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I know so. Now come on. I’ve got to get back to the ballroom.”

  With Cece’s expensive new purchase in a suitably expensive-looking bag, we headed back to the Grand Ballroom to catch the rest of the introduction session.

  Thankfully, we hadn’t missed all the fun.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When we returned, the facial yoga expert was long back in her chair, and Kelly was at the front of the stage again.

>   “And last but by no means least, Nurse Jessica Jameson!”

  “She’s lovely,” I whispered to Cece.

  Cece nodded. “She’s totally hot, isn’t she?”

  “No, I mean I met her earlier, when she was boarding. She seemed sweet.”

  “Good evening again, everyone!” Jessica said, pausing to smile at the audience. The response was somewhat muted, as by now the audience had gotten bored with the repeated greetings of people on the stage. Her smile didn’t falter, though.

  “Now, who here has heard of Botox?”

  The audience murmured in response that they’d all heard of it.

  “That’s right. Everyone and their dog has heard of it.” She paused while she got a few small titters of laughter. “I’ve been doing Botox injections for over a dozen years now, and it’s fantastic stuff, but did you know we have a new product on the market? Has anyone here heard of Phytox?”

  The crowd all shook their heads.

  “I have. It was in the promotional brochure for the cruise,” Cece said.

  “Now let me tell you, if Botox is a fine Mercedes, Phytox is the Rolls Royce of treatments. The effects have to be seen to be believed. Now, I know you can’t all see me all that well, and I hate to toot my own horn, but since I started using Phytox I look more than fifteen years younger.”

  “How old is she?” Cece whispered.

  I shushed her. Obviously, she was going to tell the audience.

  “I’m thirty-eight years old, but just today I was mistaken for a twenty-one-year-old.”

  The audience gasped in excitement.

  “And I can tell you, I sure don’t owe my youthfulness to my genetics. You should see my mother.” She paused and made a face, drawing a laugh from the audience. “Nope, it’s all thanks to the magic of Phytox. And I’m the only licensed practitioner of it on this cruise, so if you’re interested in looking young or staying young, make sure you come and see me! I dedicate my life to helping women—and men—living the very best life they can. And I truly believe, that living your best life starts with beauty, which is literally… skin deep.”

  The audience all began to clap together, their fatigue forgotten after Jessie’s inspiring speech.