Jaine Austen 8 - Killer Cruise (25 page)

She purred in ecstasy.

Extra rare, please.

Oh, for crying out loud. I’d been dying for a steak all week, and now Prozac was the one getting it!

Then he carried her out, murmuring a most nauseating stream of baby talk.

If I’d known she’d be fawned over like this, I would’ve turned her in days ago. All that sneaking and worrying and delivering her meals—not to mention editing Samoa’s god-awful manuscript!

Oh, well. On the plus side, at least I could sleep with a pillow tonight.

I sat back to wait for Lindstrom to return with my release form. He sure was taking his time. Probably busy giving Prozac a massage.

After a while, I got up and started nosing around, thumbing through Lindstrom’s date book and checking out his screensaver (the sinking of the
Titanic,
in case you’re interested). I even peeked into his private bathroom.

And after the cavalier way he treated me, I have no compunctions whatsoever about blabbing to the world that Captain Karl Lindstrom of Holiday Cruise Lines is the proud owner of Volumes I–VII of
Jokes for the John
.

Finally, I wandered over to gaze at the historical photos on the walls. My eyes lingered on the picture of Emily, the one taken so long ago, when she was just a girl. She was so young, so hopeful, in her shirtwaist dress and penny loafers and locket around her neck—

Wait a minute. Now that I looked closely, I saw it wasn’t a locket.

I squinted to get a better look.

Holy Moses. It was a half a heart!

Just like the half a heart Graham gave Cookie and dozens of other women over the years.

But he couldn’t possibly have given that one to Emily. When that picture was taken, Graham was just a child.

Or was he? Just this afternoon Cookie said that she’d loaned Graham money for Botox shots. What if Graham had been a lot older than he looked? Was it possible Graham was Emily’s first love, the one who’d broken her heart? Robbie told me her lover was a member of the ship’s crew. And yesterday at lunch Kyle said Graham had been a steward all his life.

And hadn’t Robbie also said that her lover had accepted a bribe from Emily’s father to disappear from her life? Was Graham the one who’d accepted that bribe and deserted her all those years ago?

No doubt, he forgot her as soon as the next cruise set sail. But maybe Emily never forgot. Maybe she’d been harboring a resentment all these years. And then they met again. She’d changed so much since that long-ago picture, Graham probably didn’t recognize her. But she recognized him. Women rarely forget a first love, especially one who’s been Botoxed into perennial youth.

All the old hurt and pain must have come flooding back. Her life had been lonely and unfulfilled. And here he was, still handing out the same phony love tokens to unsuspecting women.

It was all too much for her.

So she decided to seek revenge with a stolen ice pick.

Oh, Lord. It all made sense.

I was staring into space, dumbstruck, when Captain Lindstrom finally returned with the release form.

I signed it in a daze.

“You can pick up your cat when we dock tomorrow,” he said. “Do you think you can manage to stay out of trouble until then?”

The answer, as it turned out, was a resounding No.

Chapter 24

I
stumbled out of Lindstrom’s office in a daze. Sweet Aunt Emily—a killer? I had been wrong so often in this case; was I making yet another mistake?

There was only one way to find out. Somehow I had to break into Emily’s cabin and search for Graham’s missing cuff links. After my recent fiasco with Robbie, I dreaded the thought, but I had no other choice.

And then I remembered that Emily was being sedated every night. If she was in a deep enough sleep, I’d be able to snoop around without waking her. The trouble was—how to get rid of Ms. Nesbitt? Robbie told me she’d been spending the night with Emily, sleeping on her sofa.

The answer came to me in a flash. I’d dangle a carrot in front of her. A carrot named Kyle.

I hurried back to my cabin, garnering my fair share of boggled looks. You’d think no one had ever seen a pair of rubber duckie pajamas in an elevator before.

After a quick change of clothes, I made my way to Emily’s suite, praying she’d already been sedated.

Nesbitt came to the door in a flannel bathrobe and granny nightgown, her horn-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. Quite a difference from the Hubba Hottie outfit she’d worn for her sexcapade with Kyle.

“Yes?” she snapped, ever the charmer.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Leona, but I just ran into Kyle, and he said he needs to talk to you.”

“Then why didn’t he call?” she asked, peering at me over her glasses.

Oops. Hadn’t thought of that.

“Um…he was afraid of waking Emily.”

“Oh, she’s dead to the world.”

Good news indeed.

“Anyhow,” I said, “Kyle’s waiting for you in the Tiki Lounge. He must be worried about one of Emily’s investments. He said something about trouble with a bank account in the Cayman Islands.”

Her lips clamped shut in a thin, angry line. I could practically hear her thinking,
There goes the love nest.

“Look, do you mind watching Emily for a while?”

“Be happy to.” I forced a genial smile.

“Great.” She volleyed my phony smile right back at me and dashed off to get dressed for her nonexistent rendezvous.

I headed into the sitting area of the suite and saw the indentations on the sofa where Nesbitt had been lying, a romance novel she’d been reading splayed open on the coffee table.

Then I slipped through the archway to Emily’s bedroom, where I was reassured to find her lying on her back sleeping soundly, her chest moving up and down in regular intervals. In the light from the sitting area, I could see her parchment skin crosshatched with wrinkles, her thinning silver hair forming a lacy nimbus on her pillow.

She looked so sweet, so frail. Would she even have had the strength to go after Graham with an ice pick?

Time to find out.

I hurried to the safe in her walk-in closet. This time you’ll be glad to know I remembered to bring the override code.

I punched in the numbers and cringed at the sound of the beeps. In the tomblike quiet of the cabin, they sounded like cannons. I peeked out into the bedroom and sighed with relief to see Emily still out like a light. I had to stop being such a nervous Nelly. The woman was on serious sleep meds. She wasn’t about to wake up.

I returned to the safe and took a deep breath.

With trembling hands, I opened it.

The light in the closet was dim, but I was able to make out what was inside: A string of pearls. Matching earrings. A cameo broach. Passport and wallet.

But no cuff links.

Oh, well. It was possible she stashed them somewhere else in the cabin, so I started snooping around.

At one point, as I was pulling open the door to one of her bedside night tables, she stirred in her sleep. My heart began racing. What on earth could I possibly say if she woke up?

But thank heavens, she just rolled over on her side and continued breathing deeply.

I searched the suite as thoroughly as I dared, but there was no sign of the cuff links. Finally, I threw in the towel and admitted defeat.

I was just about to slink off into the night when I passed the coffee table in the sitting area. There in the center of the table was the bowl of wax fruit I almost bit into the night of Emily’s cocktail party.

How strange, now that I thought about it. Most people don’t tote along a bowl of wax fruit on their travels.

And then it hit me. What if it was some sort of security device, like those phony rocks people use to hide their keys? Emily might not want to trust her valuables to a rinky-dink safe that an amateur like me could break into.

One by one I checked out the pieces of fruit, shaking them to see if they were hollow.

But they were all just what they seemed to be: wax fruit.

Then I reached the final pear at the bottom of the bowl.

I picked it up and felt a frisson of excitement when I realized it was lighter than the others.

I shook it and heard rattling inside.

When I held it under a lamp on the end table, I was able to discern a faint line running around the circumference, dividing the pear in half.

I could feel my heart pounding as I twisted the two halves apart.

Then I said a little prayer and peered inside.

Bingo. There they were: Graham’s diamond cuff links.

At last I knew who the killer was. And I had the evidence to prove it.

I was tempted to take the cuff links with me, but that would be tampering with state’s evidence—a bit of a no-no in legal circles. So I reluctantly left them behind and set out to find Captain Lindstrom. Somehow I had to convince him to conduct an official search of Emily’s cabin.

By now I knew the way to his office, but I doubted he’d still be there, not at this time of night. My guess was he was tucked away in his suite giving Prozac a belly rub.

I hurried to the lobby reception desk.

“I need to talk to the captain,” I said to one of the clerks on duty, a cool blond Paige wannabe.

“I’m afraid he’s not available right now,” Ms. Wannabe replied, with a plastic smile. “May I be of assistance?”

“No, you may not. Just take me to the captain.”

“That’s impossible,” she said, her smile still firmly in place “He’s busy steering the ship and cannot be disturbed.”

How frustrating! What the heck was he doing steering the ship, anyway? Didn’t he have first mates and bo’suns and ship steerers for stuff like that?

I would’ve broken the rules and busted in on him but I had no idea where this ship-steering action took place. And Ms. Wannabe was not about to tell me. I made her promise to have the captain contact me the minute he was through, and I started back to my cabin.

But then I had the bad luck to bump into Ms. Nesbitt.

“What’s going on?” she scowled. “Kyle’s not in the Tiki Lounge.”

I put on my most innocent face.

“I swear, Leona, he was there just a little while ago.”

She shot me a look that could wilt steel. “And why aren’t you with Emily?”

“Um…she woke up and asked me to get her a magazine. I’m on my way to buy it now.”

Nesbitt snorted in disbelief.

“That’s impossible! I gave her two sleeping pills. How could she wake up?”

“Beats me,” I shrugged, and scooted off before she could continue her inquisition.

Back in my cabin, I stretched out on my bed, waiting for the captain’s call. This time, I could not possibly allow him to blow me off.

I was in the middle of rehearsing a very stern speech, threatening to sue Holiday Cruise Lines all the way up to the Supreme Court if need be, when I heard a knock on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Message from the captain,” a woman, probably Ms. Wannabe, replied.

But it wasn’t Ms. Wannabe. Which I should have figured out at the time. If I’d had half a brain cell working, I would have recognized whose voice it really was. But so eager was I to speak with the captain, I raced to the door and flung it open. Only to find Emily standing there in a sweat suit, her normally mild blue eyes blazing.

In her hand she clutched one of Anton’s ice picks.

I was so caught off guard at the sight of her that I was an easy target when she shoved me back into my cabin. What happened to the frail old lady I’d seen lying in bed just a little while ago? The fiery little dynamo who’d just given me a shove had definitely been eating her Wheaties.

As she lunged at me, I made a mad dash for the bathroom, slithering in just before the ice pick came crashing down on the door frame. Frantically I locked the door and began screaming for help. Surely someone was bound to hear me.

If only I had a phone in the bathroom! But this was the Dungeon Deck. I was lucky I had hot and cold running water.

So busy was I screaming bloody murder that I didn’t hear Emily jimmying the bathroom lock with the ice pick. By the time I did hear it, it was too late. Suddenly there she was, charging in the door.

All I could think of was the shower scene in
Psycho
. Oh, Lord! I was going to wind up dead in the bathroom like poor Janet Leigh!

I looked around, frantic, for something to defend myself with and grabbed the first thing I saw—Prozac’s litter box.

I flung the contents in Emily’s face and felt a surge of joy when she was temporarily blinded. My joy was short-lived, however. Because when I raced past her to what I thought was freedom, I slipped on the sand. I tried to regain my balance but stumbled out into the bedroom and fell flat on my face. By the time I sat up, Emily was standing over me clutching her trusty ice pick.

“What on earth are you doing with a litter box in your bathroom?” she sputtered, spitting sand from her mouth.

“It’s for my cat. She’s a stowaway.”

“Really, Jaine,” she tsked. “A stowaway? How very foolish. But then, you’re a very foolish girl, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so.” I had to keep her talking and pray that someone had heard me screaming.

“So,” I said, “I guess you weren’t really sleeping when I was in your cabin just now.”

“Of course not, dear,” she said, flicking a piece of cat poop from her shoulder. “I never take those silly pills Leona gives me. I don’t need sedatives. I’ve been happy as a clam ever since I killed Graham. But I played the role of the grieving fiancée quite beautifully, didn’t I?”

“Oh, very,” I said, inching away from her on my tush. “You had us all convinced you really loved him.”

“I did, so very much when I was young and naive. But Graham was an evil man. He pretended he loved me and wanted to marry me. But when Daddy offered him money to leave me, he didn’t hesitate to take it. He was gone like a shot. He broke my heart.”

For a brief flicker, her eyes turned vulnerable. But they quickly hardened again.

“And then, all these years later, when he saw me on the ship, he didn’t even remember me. I thought about him every day of my life, and he didn’t even know who I was. He was still playing his same old games, giving out those sentimental pendants to foolish women.