Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries 11 - Cruise Control Read online

  “What about me?” Cece asked.

  I smiled at her. “You go do whatever is you do when you have a giant man do all your work for you.”

  Cece did an abrupt salute. “Aye aye, Captain.”

  Those two took off with a little giggle between them, leaving me alone with Ethan and the annoyed new acting CEO of LightningBlossom.

  There was no point making Sebastian wait to get to the conference room. “Right this way, sir.”

  As we proceeded into the hallways, Ethan shot Sebastian a wary glance. “As the new CEO, will you still be doing the Company World Championships that Vernon had planned?”

  “Company World Championships? Why would it be World Championships…” He paused only to shake his head, muttering obscene words about Vernon. “I don’t see why not. We’re almost at Cozumel. No point in stopping the trip now, and I don’t know, maybe some office drone was looking forward to it.”

  A very different philosophy than Vernon, that much was clear. When someone said CEO, Sebastian was the walking stereotype. Assertive and direct, he probably cared far more about the bottom line than Vernon ever did.

  I honestly would have preferred Vernon as my boss if I had to choose, but luckily, I wasn’t an employee of LightningBlossom.

  “Here you are, sir,” I said, feigning courtesy the best I could manage. “May I get you a beverage?”

  “Just bring a mini-fridge full of assorted drinks. We’ll need them for the meeting. Or were mini-fridges too high-tech for Vernon?”

  “Right away, sir.” I was learning to dislike this job and yearned to make an Instagram post about the big blue horizon instead.

  I hustled out of the room, Ethan right there with me. I looked at him with a smile. “So, after I get this taken care of, I think I’m free for the rest of the night. Do you have any plans?”

  “As much as I want to have a moonlit dinner with you under the stars, Adrienne, the recent chaos has me on duty for the rest of the night.”

  Cornstalks. “Work happens. I understand.”

  “Believe me, I want to make it up to you. Maybe one night on a cruise where someone doesn’t die.”

  “A cruise where no one dies? That never happens though.”

  He put his hands around my waist. “You’re right. Maybe when we get back to New Orleans, we’ll look for some local restaurant. Enjoy some old-fashioned spicy Creole cooking.”

  “Hmm, that does sound nice. I mean the time with you sounds nice, not just the food,”

  “I know how to make your day, don’t I?”

  Since no one was around to see us, we embraced a little longer before parting.

  No more duties, so I was free. I also had no internet, no TV, and no phone. I doubted Herman would have gotten the signal going again anytime soon.

  I would grab a nice book, crawl into that bed again, under the covers, and try to read a few pages before I inevitably submitted to the absolute comfort around me and drifted to sleep.

  If I could manage to shut my mind off, anyway. The murder, Sebastian, countless other thoughts were bouncing around in my head, it desperate to pull all the pieces together and set things right.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  T he world seemed to be out to deny me from enjoying the feeling of perfection for too long.

  Again, I was lying in absolute, blissful softness, and again there was noise clamoring outside of my room. I felt the oddest need to suggest soundproof walls to corporate.

  It wouldn’t stop. No matter how long I tried to deny it, no matter how many pillows I piled on my head, I couldn’t tune it out. I should have just risen to face the music.

  Or the cacophony of chatter outside, as it was in this scenario.

  Waking a girl up like this was how you turned a girl from Nebraska Nice into Nebraska Nasty.

  With great effort, I got to my feet, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and stumbled out into the living room. The sofa is empty, and the feminine voice echoing from the hallway allowed me to deduce who was out there.

  “Could they argue loudly a little more quietly?” Sam shuffled out to my side.

  “They managed to wake you up?”

  “I’m not that much of a heavy sleeper.” She ran her hands through her hair trying to tame the wild strands. “Am I?”

  I just smiled at her. I wasn’t going to break the news to her. “I need to go rescue my intern again.”

  “I’m up. I’ll help.”

  “Quiet them down, and maybe we can sneak in an…” I glanced up at a clock on the wall. “Extra twenty minutes of sleep.”

  Going into the hallway, I was greeted with a chaotic scene in front of me. Holly, fresh as a daisy and looking like she got her eight hours of beauty rest, and Ivan, who looked like he hadn’t slept at all since the incident. I’d almost say that he somehow got negative sleep.

  “You are a liar! A dirty liar! A schemer! A con artist!” He advanced on her, forcing poor Holly to back up until she was in the corner.

  “What’s going on here?” Another VIP door opened, and Benedict stepped out. “Ivan, stop threatening the ship’s staff.”

  “She’s the one who did it! She’s guilty! The proof is right there—you just have to look at her right!”

  “Holly, come on. Come here,” I said, concerned for her safety. I didn’t think Ivan would get violent, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to take chances. I then glared at Ivan. “Why are you accusing her?”

  “She used to work for LightningBlossom! She was an intern there too! She’s in disguise right now, hoping to pull the wool over our eyes. Just like a corporate spy would! No, a corporate assassin!”

  This was the second time Ivan brought up corporate assassinations, and I was just as skeptical as the first time. “A disguise? Her hair’s short, and I don’t see a fake mustache. Are you saying I need to unmask her Scooby-Doo style?”

  “Her nose is fake! It’s different! That’s why it took me so long to figure it out!”

  Ivan pushed toward me, reaching for Holly’s nose, but I slapped his hand away.

  “You can’t just walk up to women and try to pull their noses off. I’m pretty sure there are laws against that.”

  “How else am I going to get the truth?”

  I took a calming breath, trying to call back to that one yoga class I had taken ages ago. “Sam, see if Ivan and Benedict need anything. I need to have a word with Holly.”

  Sam nodded, still slow to wake up. “Can I get you… anything? Maybe more sleep?”

  Back in our cabin, I looked Holly in the eye. “If there’s something you’re not telling me, you should come clean now, Holly.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes. There must be a reason why Ivan is trying to take your nose off.”

  She looked nervous, obviously afraid of incriminating herself further.

  “It’s okay. No matter what you say I’m not going to throw you out into the hallway and to the wolves. Even if you told me you killed Vernon right here and now, I’d just take you to the brig, and we’d deal with it when we got back to shore.”

  She let out a long sigh of relief. “I always knew I could trust you, Ms. Addy. You’re so smart.”

  “What’s going on here, Holly? Let it out.”

  “Uh, well,” she said, nervously nibbling on her lip. “I used to be an intern for LightningBlossom.”

  “So that’s how they recognized you?”

  More nodding. “I’ve been an intern at lots of places, so it was only a matter of time before I ran into someone from an earlier job.”

  “So you are a serial intern. I should’ve suspected as such.” My eyebrows shot up. “Wait, are they all unpaid? How can you afford to keep taking unpaid positions?”

  Holly didn’t keep eye contact with me. I was getting the feeling I was the first person she’d ever told about this who wasn’t her immediate family. “So, I’m like, uh… kinda rich.”

  “You’re rich?”

  Even more nodding. “My grandfathe
r founded the Flutter Flyswatter company. Patented the design. Made millions and millions. Invested it well. I never have to work a single day in my life if I don’t want to, and neither will my children nor my grandchildren.”

  I wished I had that kind of financial security. For the first time, I was actually jealous of Holly. “Then why are you doing back-to-back internships? You’re free from the rat race. Trying to get hired at a bunch of places just seems stressful.”

  “Do you know how boring having nothing to do is? Yeah, I have all the time in the world to watch movies and TV, play every video game in existence, but it’s no way to live. I want to be part of something, Addy. So I started interning at places. I didn’t need the money, so if I didn’t like it, I could just move on.”

  “Is your plan just to keep switching jobs forever?”

  “Oh, no. I’m just trying to find somewhere I can belong and really feel like I’m part of something. Like a company. Or an environmental group. Or, well, a cruise ship crew.”

  It brought a slight smile to my face. For all our troubles, I was part of something. Sam and Cece were like family, Ethan was very special, and even Kelly was a friend. I started to miss the crew during long breaks away from the Swan.

  “The LightningBlossom people didn’t recognize me because I used to be a pale blonde. But I cut my hair a while back, got a tan I’ve been maintaining, and treated myself to a little work on my face. A touch of Phytox too. That stuff does wonders.”

  The thought of just getting plastic surgery because you felt like it was mind-boggling to me. She really must have been absolutely loaded. “I hear Phytox is kind of deadly, actually. Should be careful with it.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I only see licensed practitioners.”

  That didn’t put me at ease given the licensed practitioners I had known, especially the one who’d been on the Beauty Forever themed cruise. “So, anyway, the interning, your prior relationship with LightningBlossom… How come you never mentioned any of it to me?”

  “Well, at first, I didn’t think it was a big deal. But when you told me to shadow Vernon, I thought I would use my previous knowledge to really impress you when we wrote that article together.”

  I felt a bit bashful at the thought of someone trying to impress me, like I was worthy of hero worship.

  “Then Vernon turned up dead, and I thought if you knew I knew him from before, you would think I killed him, and I really didn’t kill him, Addy. I swear! I found him like that.”

  Her biggest crime was being a bit naive and spoiled. I still didn’t see her as a killer.

  “I can tell you something though,” she said, looking toward the door. “When I went to check on Vernon at first, there was a fight going on. It scared me away, because I don’t like getting in the middle of it. All I knew was that he was in there with Ivan. It was a bunch of mumbling to me because I didn’t want to get caught eavesdropping.”

  “And this was before you met up with Vernon that night?”

  “Uh-huh. I left before Ivan did though. When I saw room service going for his cabin, I volunteered to take it the rest of the way. I was worried that his fight with Ivan might have gotten physical, so I wanted to make sure he was okay on top of everything else.”

  I crossed my arms, tapping my finger on my shoulder as I reviewed her story in my head. “Then you left sometime during the night, only to return in the morning to find him already dead?”

  “Yes. So I’m thinking someone came in after I left and did it. Ivan, maybe, because he was fighting with him?”

  It was a serious accusation, but I could understand why she might have thought that way. “It’s fine, Holly. Just keep that to yourself for now. Don’t tell anyone about this unless it's me or the first officer, okay? We'll get to the bottom of this so we can move on.”

  “Will do.”

  I still didn’t believe that Holly was responsible, but I wasn’t entirely sure of her story about Ivan either. I needed to see if anyone could back that up, and that meant asking a lot of vague questions to the staff to avoid alarming them.

  Heading back out to the hall, I ran directly into Sam as she came in. “What’s the rush?”

  “Turns out we just got to Cozumel. I’m supposed to be the MC for this Company World Championships thing, so I need to get dressed and get prepared.”

  “Just remembered that now?”

  Her lips curled into a sly smile. “Of course I knew about it. I absolutely wasn’t about to head back to bed until Benedict reminded me that it was happening.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t.”

  “I knew you’d believe me, Addy. So supportive, and such a good friend.” She slapped me on the shoulder as she headed to her room to get ready for the day.

  As much as I wanted to retreat to my bed, I realized it was morning and there was no rest for the wicked. Or for social media directors covering as a liaison and moonlighting as a homicide detective.

  There was definitely no rest for that very specific type of person.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  T he ship had finally come to life. The LightningBlossom people were more up and about than they had ever been, and the ship’s staff was on the move as well. It wasn’t just about playing some games on the beach; it was a full-blown celebration, complete with a cookout, music, a dance floor, among other things. That meant a lot of people pushing heavy things down ramps and politely requesting that I get out of the way.

  When I finally got out onto the deck, the crowd was gathering on the beach. In particular, they were around a stage that had been erected by the ship’s crew. Sound technicians were rushing about, making last-minute checks that everything was working, with Sebastian Hawk looming near.

  The crowd had been divided into groups rather than a swarm of unorganized humans in front of the stage. Colored shirts had been given to everyone, and each one of the executives was standing near, likely acting as the team captain.

  “One, two… Testing…” One of the staff said the mic, tapping on it and getting distorted feedback.

  Sebastian snatched the microphone away and adjusted a button on his fancy Hawaiian shirt. It took them three days, but they were finally dressing for a cruise instead as if it were any other typical workday. “Everyone here? Mostly here? Then we should begin. Welcome, good people of LightningBlossom, to the first annual Company World Championships!”

  Sebastian instinctively rolled his eyes when saying the much-derided name of the event.

  “Now before we get to the festivities, we need to discuss something a bit more serious. Many of you are likely asking why I am up here, and not our beloved CEO Vernon Nunn. I am not pleased to deliver this news, and it is with a heavy heart I tell you all this: Vernon Nunn has passed away.”

  There was a collection of gasps and chatter from the crowd. They would have to tell them eventually, but a man like Sebastian wanted to control the narrative.

  “Out of respect for his family, I will not go into the details of his passing. Instead, as his chosen successor, I ask that instead that we celebrate Vernon. In fact, I am re-christening this event the First Annual Vernon Nunn Memorial Company World Championships!”

  So now it was also unwieldy on top of illogical. I was glad Cece wasn’t up here to hear this, because I think she may have blown a fuse hearing all that.

  “A new CEO means a new direction for LightningBlossom. A new vision, a new culture. LightningBlossom will now yearn for our future, reaching out and taking it instead of waiting patiently for it to come to us. We will now be Hawks, sailing high above the competition, swooping in only to properly take what’s ours.”

  The crowd was mumbling. I think they knew that their time of four-hour workdays and relaxed environment was over. Sebastian Hawk was not Vernon Nunn; he was the furthest thing from it.

  “We will become the most powerful tech company on the face of the planet. Face-what? Goog-who? Ap-meh. LightningBlossom will bloom toward the future, and all of you will be there to make i
t happen.”

  Sebastian was an animated speaker. A pumping fist, shouting, trying to rile up the crowd. It wasn’t super effective, and only part of the crowd seemed to resonate with his message. Most of them just seemed to be worried about how long their work-days would be.

  “But that, my friends, is for the Monday after we’re back on American soil. For now, we’re going to compete, to reignite that spirit of competition that may have gone dormant in each of us. I want everyone to get out there and push themselves to their limits—you must win, or die trying!”

  More murmurs from the crowd. I thought Sebastian’s speech didn’t make much sense. Not all of them could win, and a lot of their workers dying on some foreign beach was something that sounded more devastating to the company than just losing their hippie of a CEO.

  This was a more laid back event, and maybe the executives would let their guard down about other things. Besides, I was curious just how much of a disaster all of this could really become.

  Each of the teams had broken into their groups, and as I trudged down the gangway and across the sand, the first team I encountered was Monica’s.

  “What flows through our veins?” Monica yelled.

  “Dragon blood!” the green-clad team yelled back.

  “What do we have?”

  “Dragon energy!” It was a little ridiculous coming from a bunch of unathletic tech people with cracking voices, but whatever they needed to psych themselves up.

  “That’s right!” She clapped, finally noticing me standing off to the side. She approached me and gave me a little bow that was growing oddly familiar to me. “Ah, Adrienne. What brings you out here?”

  “Oh, uh…” I brewed an excuse in my head. “I’m covering the games. I figured you’d like a story for your own internal papers and documents, something to remember it all by. As the social media director, I feel I’m best fit to give this to you guys.”

  Monica smiled. “That sounds good. People need to know who’s the best out here. Which is going to be us, right, guys?”

  More cheering. Some of the employees were really getting into it.