Jaine Austen 8 - Killer Cruise (16 page)

Anyhow one thing led to another and the next thing I knew I’d invented this fabulous love affair culminating when I proposed to you on bended knees after a moonlit stroll on the beach. The bottom line is—after I get off work this afternoon, we’re going to check out wedding chapels.

But don’t worry. I promise I’ll tell her the truth today.

Love from,

Lance

To: Jaineausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: I Almost Forgot

Jaine, honey—

In all the excitement of the wedding, I almost forgot: I hired a handyman to get the paint stains off your floor. A very nice fellow named Ricardo. I saw him doing some work for one of your neighbors up the street, and as luck would have it, he said he’d be free today to stop by. And he’s only charging $30! What a bargain!

Daddy agrees it’s best we let a professional take over from here. He’s going to stay home and “supervise” while Lance and I look at wedding venues.

Oops. There’s Lance at the door now.

More later!

XXX,

Mom

To: Jaineausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Outraged!

Would you believe your mother hired a handyman to clean a few drops of paint from the floor?

If your mom thinks I’m going to pay some stranger off the streets thirty bucks for a job I can do blindfolded, she’s nuts!

Love and kisses from your outraged,

Daddy

To: Jaineausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: A Beachside Wedding!

Jaine, darling, I just this minute got back from looking at wedding venues and had to race to the computer to tell you all about it. We’ve found the ideal spot! A lovely hotel right on the beach! Just think! A beachside wedding. How utterly romantic!

Of course, it’s terribly expensive but Lance really seemed to hit it off with the hotel manager, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to get a discount. Afterward Lance and I had cocktails out on the hotel’s terrace. Oh, honey. I had a whiskey sour and it went straight to my head!

Lance has such wonderful ideas for the wedding. He’s so creative. Unlike your father, who wants to have the wedding at the Tampa Vistas clubhouse, and serve chili cheese dogs at the reception. My goodness, have you ever heard of anything so silly?

Well, time to get dinner started. Not that I’m the least bit hungry. That sweet hotel manager sent us complimentary hors d’oeuvres with our cocktails.

Love from,

Mom

To: Jaineausten
From: Sir Lancelot
Subject: Fabulous News!

Fabulous news, Jaine! I met the most wonderful guy, the manager at the Casa Del Mar Hotel. What a dreamboat. I swear, he could be Mr. Right. Anyhow, I never did get around to telling your mom the truth about our “engagement.” She was having so much fun, it just didn’t seem like the right time. But I swear I’ll tell her tomorrow when we go to check out wedding cakes.

Signing off from cloud nine, your fiancé (haha!),

Lance

To: Jaineausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: So Mad I Could Spit!

Something simply awful has happened!

I was on my way to the kitchen to fix dinner when I looked down and saw the most horrible mess on the living room floor!

You’re not going to believe this, but Daddy sent Ricardo away this afternoon and tried to clean up the paint stains himself. He got out the stains, all right, but the darn fool wound up taking up the walnut finish. So now, instead of a few drops of paint on your floor, you’ve got a big white patch of bare wood!

I am so mad at your father I could just spit!

Your disgusted,

Mom

To: Jaineausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Minor Mishap

Good news, honey! I got all the paint off your floor. One tiny problem, though. Some of the finish came off, too. But fear not. I’ll just pick up some walnut stain at the hardware store, and your floor will be as good as new! Easy-sneezy, no problemo!

Love and kisses,

Daddy

PS. Don’t worry about hiring a musician for the wedding, lambchop. I’ll be happy to play my accordion.

Chapter 14

T
he next morning Prozac clawed me awake for her breakfast at the ghastly hour of seven a.m.

Let’s do the math, shall we? Asleep at three, awake at seven. That’s four not-so-refreshing hours of sleep.

“Prozac, show a little mercy,” I groaned.

But she went right on to digging her claws into my chest.

With a weary sigh, I dragged myself out of bed and tossed her some roast turkey I’d picked up on my brownie run last night.

She turned up her little pink nose in disgust. I knew what she was thinking.

Leftovers again?

“It’s not leftovers; it’s barely four hours old!”

Seeing that I wasn’t about to dash over to the buffet for a replacement breakfast, she reluctantly started eating.

The minute she did, I scrambled back into bed, hoping to get some more sleep. But as much as I tried, sleep would not come. I just laid there, listening to the snorting noise Prozac makes when she inhales her food. Out in the hallway, early birds were clomping past my room to start their day, their footsteps echoing like cannons.

It looked like I was up for good.

So once more I pried myself out of bed. Then, true to my vow to whittle away some unwanted pounds before Scuba Day, I threw on some sweats and headed off to the jogging track.

High up on the prow of the ship, the jogging track provided an unsurpassed view of the ocean. But what really caught my eye was the sight of Kyle and Maggie doing laps.

Good heavens. Weren’t they about to head off to Mazatlan for a day of strenuous kayaking? And yet there they were, working out before a workout. Talk about gluttons for punishment.

Clad in shorts and a sweatshirt, his muscular legs churning like pistons, Kyle whizzed along with impressive speed. Maggie—like me, a charter member of the cellulite club—struggled to keep up with him. After a grueling night at the casino, the bags under her eyes were the size of carryons.

I waved to her, but, lost in her thoughts, she didn’t see me. Kyle saw me but chose to ignore me.

I took a deep breath and stepped out onto the track. There was no delaying it any longer. Time to burn some calories.

I managed to keep up a nice steady trot for all of about thirty seconds. After which, my heart pounding in protest, I settled for a fast walk.

It was then that I heard Kyle and Maggie coming up behind me.

“Oh, Kyle,” Maggie was saying, “I’m worried. “What if the police find out?”

The police? Find out what?

I was hoping to hear more tidbits as they overtook me on their laps, but before I knew it, Kyle had Maggie by the elbow and was hustling her off the track, shooting me a nervous glance as they left.

I continued to puff along, my brain in overdrive.

What exactly was it that Maggie was afraid the cops would find out? That Maggie was the killer? Or that Kyle had done the dirty deed? Or who knew? Maybe they did it together. The family that slays together stays together and all that.

Whatever it was, I intended to find out.

Puffing around the track for the next forty minutes, I worked up quite an appetite. That’s the trouble with exercising: Aside from the sheer agony of it, it makes you so darn hungry.

By the time I staggered over to the buffet, I was ready to eat the wallpaper.

I’d meant to have a microscopic breakfast of dry toast and coffee, but when I saw a mountain of fluffy scrambled eggs fresh from the frying pan, I couldn’t resist taking just a tiny bit. And why not throw a pat of butter on my toast? How many calories could that possibly be?

Fifteen minutes later, I’d scarfed down two pieces of toast. With butter and jam. Not to mention a side of bacon with my scrambled eggs.

Oh, well. I needed my strength for my day of breaking and entering. And the more I thought about it, the whole idea of going on a diet on a cruise was absurd. What woman in her right mind tries to lose weight with a twenty-four-hour buffet just a hop, skip, and a deck away? Certainly not moi.

Besides, there was no need to lose fifteen pounds before that scuba excursion. I simply wouldn’t go. After all, I was a writer. A creative person. Surely, I could come up with some clever excuse to get out of it.

In the meanwhile, I helped myself to some more bacon.

By now you’d think I would’ve learned to Just Say No to e-mails. But much like a dental patient who can’t help probing a sore tooth, I felt myself helplessly drawn to the computer room.

Can you believe Lance—telling my parents we were engaged? And what about my parents? Did they have no gaydar whatsoever? I swear, those two wouldn’t recognize a gay man at a Broadway opening.

I came
thisclose
to calling Lance ship-to-shore and reading him the riot act. But that would have undoubtedly added another zillion dollars to my ever-growing tab, so instead I did the sensible thing:

I returned to my cabin to get ready for a day of breaking and entering.

After a quick shower, I slipped into some elastic-waist jeans and a T-shirt and secured my curls in a scrunchy. Then I retrieved the treasured passkey from my room safe, where I’d stowed it.

I was just about to head out the door when it hit me: The room safe! All the cabins had them. Chances are, whoever took Graham’s cuff links had stowed them in his or her room safe.

I sank down on my bed with a sigh. What good was the passkey if I couldn’t get into the safes?

Now what was I going to do?

Once again I had to turn to Samoa for help. I figured his friend in security would know how to open the safes. They were simple boxes operated via a numeric keypad. Every time you used the safe, you programmed in a four-digit code number. Surely there had to be a universal override code.

I just prayed Samoa’s buddy would have access to it.

I found Samoa in one of the cabins down the corridor and raced in, breathless.

“Samoa, you’ve got to help me!”

Heaven only knew what he’d demand as payment this time. Probably my firstborn.

He looked up from where he was making the beds.

“People are such pigs,” he said, plucking a pretzel from the sheets.

“Look, Samoa,” I said, grateful he’d never seen the Ben & Jerry carton lids I’ve been known to wake up with. “That friend of yours in security. Does he know the override code to the room safes?”

“Sure.”

Hallelujah!

“Can you get it for me?”

“Are you crazy?” He plucked a banana peel from the tangled mass of sheets. “Too dangerous. Samoa could get fired for that.”

“But, Samoa, it’s important!”

“Sorry. Until Samoa is best-selling author, he can’t afford to lose his job on ship.”

I begged and pleaded, but to no avail. He went on making the bed, cursing the slovenly habits of his charges. Frankly, I don’t think he was the least bit scared of losing his job. I think he just ran out of things to bribe me for.

I trudged back to my cabin, momentarily defeated.

But only momentarily.

Once more, the Austen can-do spirit rose to the occasion.

There had to be another way to crack the safes.

I hunkered down and put the old noggin to work. And after several minutes of asking myself WWSD (What Would Sherlock Do?), I came up with Operation Override.

A half hour later, a security guy was at my cabin door.

Like Samoa, he was dark and slight. Maybe they came from the same mysterious country. According to the tag on his work shirt, his name was Lolong.

“Come on in,” I said, ushering him past the bathroom, where Prozac was stashed with a mini-mountain of poached salmon. The salmon would keep her quiet for a few minutes, which is all the time Operation Override would require.

“Silly me,” I said, playing the helpless lady in distress. “I forgot the code number on my safe.”

“Not a problem,” Lolong said, in an accent much like Samoa’s.

“I was sort of tipsy when I punched it in last night. Too many mai tais at the Tiki Lounge. Ha-ha.”

“Not a problem,” he repeated. “Happens all the time.”

And here’s where my brilliant plan came into play. Clearly Lolong would have to use the override code to open my safe. All I had to do was watch and see what numbers he punched in.