"Um, I'm okay. Better after a shower."
"Getting hot, wet, and lathered up will do that to a person," he said with a grin. His gaze left my face and quickly traveled my body. It was far from lewd, but boy did it raise my pulse.
Oh my God, no, no, no. Can't flirt. Won't flirt.
Dead bodies. Barclay dead. One of his friends is a murderer.
"So you're off tonight?" I asked. I'd talk about anything—mold, how mushrooms are fungi, the difference between the sell-by and expiration dates on food—rather than flirt.
His dimple appeared. "Yes, I have the rest of the night off, but I'm still on call. Are you and Miss Hart going back out and living it up?"
He didn't call her Cady.
Succinylcholine. Respiratory failure.
"No, we're staying in tonight. Tomorrow is a busy day. Rehearsal for a show the following night. We'll probably sneak in and out around rehearsal."
I wasn't sure what we'd do now that I promised Cady I wouldn't sleuth anymore. Everything had changed pretty quickly tonight. I felt bad that this was supposed to be a romantic three days for her and it had been filled with murder and suspicion. She and Aiden hadn't gotten any time alone together, and now this latest development. Whatever it was. Maybe I was mistaken. Hopefully Aiden wasn't a drug dealer. I pushed the thoughts away and concentrated on the man before me…while trying to not actually concentrate on him.
"Did you get to see any sights?" I asked. That had to be a neutral question for a neutral topic.
"I strolled along the boardwalk."
I perked up. See. That sounded pretty and relaxing.
"Oh, that's nice. How is it? We didn't get there."
"Barbados is beautiful. The boardwalk was lovely but lonely. I would've loved a beautiful woman by my side."
Crap.
How did we get back here? Of course, he could've been talking about another beautiful woman. Wait, was he?
The way he stared down at me and the playful smile on his mouth suggested he was indeed talking about me though.
Oh.
He took a step closer and lowered his voice so I had no option but to lean in. "Do I make you nervous, Zibby?"
Was it that obvious?
I wanted to bury my face in my hands, groan, and hope the floor would swallow me whole.
"What makes you ask that?" I swallowed twice, trying to act nonchalant, and his eyes watched my throat. He didn't miss a beat. I should've taken him on my snooping adventure today. Then again, him by my side probably would've ended with me jumping balconies and nervously falling to my death.
"Maybe it has something to do with how you look like you want to jump out of your skin." He stood up straighter and frowned. "Unless I'm reading us wrong."
Us? There was an us?
"I-I…" What was I supposed to say? He thought of him and me as an us?
He arched a brow, waiting for me to say something.
Oh, the pressure.
I saw movement from of the corner of my eye and glanced over.
Cady was waving like a madwoman, trying to get my attention, and when she did, she motioned for me to deep breathe.
I did as told and then looked back to her.
She smiled, nodded, and pointed to Shawn.
That wasn't helping.
Dead bodies. Being pushed into the ocean. Secrets, SD cards, murder.
I took another deep breath and turned to Shawn. At this point I probably already looked odd or uninterested, and I was very interested. Well, I wanted to be. I mean, I was, but there was the whole New York fiasco. I wasn't sure how long I'd be on the ship, and once I went back home, the chances of seeing him again were pretty slim.
Gosh, I needed to stop rambling and be upfront. Not about my past but about…
"I'm sorry. I'm gonna be super honest, okay?"
He nodded but suddenly looked very uncomfortable.
"You make me nervous, so I end up stuttering and can't string a coherent sentence together because you're cute."
There. I said it. Could lightning strike through fourteen decks?
His dimple returned. "Well, I'd prefer hot, but cute is good. I can work with that."
I lightly groaned, and he smiled.
"But we have conversations all the time. Like earlier in the exam room. And you seemed fine."
I leaned closer and whispered, "I know. Isn't that weird? When we're discussing death, I'm good, but if I think of you as a man—"
His brows shot up.
"—as opposed to a regular person, my limbs don't work right, and my tongue gets thick…"
I realized I was rambling again and shut up.
He cleared his throat. "I see. Sounds like a serious condition of crushitis."
Oh my God, he didn't just refer to himself as my crush. He was totally right, but it certainly didn't help my flustered and nervous state.
Heat flashed into my neck and face, and I waited for my hair to ignite so I'd truly light up like a tiki torch.
"Don't worry. There's a cure for that," he said with a glimmer in his eye.
He was enjoying this, and that made me even more jittery. I hoped to one day find a way to get even, but that was for another day.
"Oh yeah? What's that?" I asked.
He leaned even closer, and his lips brushed my forehead, sending small jolts of electricity throughout my body. "Spending more time with me."
I was stunned into silence. How did I reply to that besides bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet and shouting, "yes please" Harry Met Sally style?
Yes, Cady even made me watch the old rom-coms.
"How's the cake?" he asked, completely changing the subject. He probably saw my inability to respond. He walked off to get some, and I nearly collapsed against the drink station.
He was interested in me.
I looked to Cady, who used a shrug to ask what happened.
Wish I knew, but this was on the plus side. Of course it meant I had to not accidentally fall overboard the next time I was around him on an upper deck.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The next morning, I sat on the crew deck, eating a quick bowl of oatmeal with banana. I hadn't slept as well as I'd hoped. Tossing and turning all night, thinking of Barclay, his ex-friends, and Aiden. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it had been drugs. Yes, it seemed that way, but maybe I was wrong. Add all of this to my conversation with Shawn last night.
After he'd gotten a piece of cake, one of the cast members, Cynthia, also a dancer, approached him. While she and her long, lithe body easily chatted and laughed with him about who knew what, I stood to the side, shooting death glares from my eyes and nibbling on a cuticle. Good thing I wasn't a hand model.
Eventually Cady had rescued me by accidentally-on-purpose bumping into her, causing frosting to get on her top. I shouldn't have laughed. She shouldn't have held the plate so close to her chest.
I'd ended up leaving and going to bed. It had been a long day.
So I sat here with my breakfast, paid an outrageous price for internet usage, and opened Google on my tablet. I'd told Cady I wouldn't physically snoop. I didn't say I wouldn't virtually research. I figured she'd thank me if I discovered something that helped Aiden.
I looked up each of the reunion buddies to see what they had on their social media pages, as well as any other links I could find. Finley was the easiest. Running for City Councilman meant his name was everywhere. After a few minutes, however, it looked like each newspaper and each article said the same stuff, only regurgitated in a slightly different way.
His social media pages were made public, so I doubted I was going to find him talking about wanting to kill his best friend for sleeping with his girl or the blackmail about his cheating in college. He talked a lot about their town and what he was going to do about the infrastructure. Blah, blah, blah. It was very boring.
Hearing a clock ticking away at my wallet, I looked up Whitney. Her Facebook posts were set to public, but I had to w
onder if there were ones I couldn't see. Her profile seemed half personal, with pictures of her and girlfriends enjoying dinner and drinks out, shopping, and going to movies and concerts, and half professional, with campaign photos of her and Finley. One photo showed him smiling widely, but her grin was forced. There was an empty look in her eyes, and I felt bad for her. It had to be hard being on the arm of someone in the public eye all the time. Like celebrities. If every moment could be captured on film for all the world to see, then you could never feel free to be yourself. Of course, celebs signed up for stardom. In a way, Whitney did too because she agreed to marry a future politician, but I wondered if she truly knew what she was getting herself into.
I got the whole "not free to be yourself" thing on a much smaller degree. Whenever the subject of home or family made its way in conversations with coworkers, I either left the room to not be asked about mine or bit my tongue and hoped I didn't slip up.
Next was my not-so-buddy, Greer. There was a LinkedIn page that almost put me to sleep, and on his Twitter account he yelled a lot about climate change. There was a heated argument between him and some guy about pollution in the oceans, lakes, and rivers that went on for a solid forty-five tweets. That would've been impressive if it had stayed solidly on topic with educational information, but there were unhelpful strings of curse words and a lot of commands to bite each other.
His Facebook profile was locked down tight. I couldn't see more than his profile and cover photos. The former was a selfie of him holding up his index and middle fingers to form a V, and the latter was of a German Shepard sitting and staring up at the camera. So he had a dog. I almost felt sorry for the animal. Hopefully Greer didn't take out his aggression on the cutie.
Images of Shawn entered my mind. His dark, soulful eyes, that adorable dimple, those full, soft-looking lips.
Cute. Ugh. That word. I'd never be able to use it again without thinking of him. Of course, thinking of him was a long way from bad, but now I wished I had called him hot or fine or gorgeous, something that didn't make me feel like a middle-schooler.
I moved on from Greer and looked up Mimi for the heck of it. Even though I hadn't found anything to suggest she had a motive to kill Barclay, maybe there was something I missed. What did they say? It was the least likely person. Wait. No. That was TV and movies. I believed that in real life, the saying was that it was the most likely person. Who knew? I needed to brush up on my crime-fighting knowledge. Not that it would be useful while sitting on deck.
I rolled my eyes. Why did I have to agree to Cady's demand? Yes, I was fully aware that snooping was risky, and yes, falling into the ocean would not be on the highlight reel of "living my best life." But twelve hours later, I was ready to continue, to figure out what happened, even if I'd likely never know.
I shook away my regret and entered Mimi's name.
Her Facebook page's security was someplace between Whitney's and Greer's. Her profile pic was of a vase of bright yellow tulips, and her cover photo was of her and Greer seated on a gray couch. They each smiled brightly, and Mimi leaned her head against his. It was an adorable picture of them, and Greer even looked like a gentle, fun person.
What did I know? The man was grieving when he'd snapped at me. Maybe he was a sweetheart with those he cared about. He could have been kind and loving and still an embezzler. He had to have some good qualities for Mimi to stay with him.
There were memes about grief, probably due to her dad dying, narcissism, and funny dog pics. It was an interesting array of topics. Her personal photos were of her and an older woman who looked like her. Probably her mother. One of them was a selfie in a gorgeous kitchen, showing off a tall, bright yellow frosted cake with pastel butterflies on top. It said, Happy Birthday Mom. The second picture was of the two women on a boat with the water and mountains as a backdrop. Pretty but not helpful.
I sat back in my chair and pushed away the remains of my oatmeal. This had been a mostly useless hunt. I signed off the internet, gathered my bowl, and put it in the galley. Then I went up to find Cady. I hadn't spoken to her last night about today's plans. When I'd left the party, she was still down there.
I knocked on her door now, but she didn't answer. I made a pit stop at mine, saw the SD card sitting on my table, and went to use the bathroom. I needed to get that card to the Barbados police. That was on today's itinerary. They should have it, and it was wrong of me to keep it from them. Maybe they had some super powered way of cutting through the clues and figuring out the murderer with it, and here I was holding on to it as if I was some genius constable. I had been a worthy component at playing Clue as a kid. I kicked my brother's butt nine times out of ten. But this wasn't a board game, and I doubted Mr. Plum did it in the conservatory with the candlestick.
Finished in my room, I went upstairs to see if Cady was mingling with the guests. I was on the lido deck for less than a minute when Harrison shuffled over to me and squeezed my arm.
"Zibby. How are you today? Any dance lessons?"
His enthusiasm made me smile. "Not today, Harrison, but it's likely tomorrow."
"Oh, that's good. Yes, very, very good." While he was speaking to me, his attention darted to that woman from yesterday.
She was seated on a lounge chair and talking to her friend beside her. Each of them wore a floral print muumuu, one white with flowers and the other blue, and they looked very relaxed. I'd bet neither of them fumbled their words around their crushes.
I patted Harrison's hand. "You know, you can go over and talk to her again."
He widened his eyes and looked genuinely surprised. "Yesterday, we talked about the boat and dancing. What would I say today?"
"Well, what do you want to say?"
"That she's breathtaking and I would love to get to know her." He finished speaking with a loaded sigh.
"Then say that."
The skin between his brows puckered, producing deeper wrinkles. "Won't that be too direct?"
I wanted to tell him that we lived in a direct world nowadays, that they wouldn't be on this ship forever, and that one never knew how long they had in this life, but I remained quiet. I didn't want him thinking I was referring to his age when I was thinking of Barclay.
"Say hi, see how she responds, and take it from there. Trust your gut. It will guide you."
His smile returned, and he gently squeezed my arm again. "Thank you, dear."
He trotted off, and I stood there and watched. He approached the women, and his crush sat a little taller. She smiled at whatever he said, nodded, and then pointed to the empty lounge chair on her other side.
As he walked around, Harrison glanced to me and gave me a discreet thumbs-up.
Pleased with my matchmaking skills—too bad I couldn't apply them to myself—I continued my search for Cady.
The deck was already full with people sunbathing, chatting, drinking, and laughing, and technically it was still breakfast time. Several yards ahead stood Shawn. His back was to me, but I'd recognize those broad shoulders, dark complexion, and tight butt from any angle.
Should I have approached him like I told Harrison to do? My nerves said to turn and flee, but my gut said to woman up. I took one step forward, and he walked off with another man. Shoot. Just when I'd collected half my nerve.
"I saw that. You were going to willingly talk to him, weren't you?" Cady stood by my side.
I ignored her question. "Where have you been? I've been looking for you."
She opened her arms and jutted out her hip. "Here I am. Nice change of subject too. Normally I wouldn't let it slide, but today it's fine. I didn't sleep well."
"Me neither. What kept you up? Aiden?"
She scrunched up her face and nodded. "Yep. You? Please tell me it was sexy, Shades of Shawn dreams. I need to live vicariously through someone else today."
I chuckled and shushed her at the same time. Then I pulled her away from all of the ears that could be listening. We ended up in the corner of the deck, facing the docks. Fro
m this angle, I could see the spot where I was pushed into the water. I straightened my back, and instead of feeling fear, I was pissed. How dare someone try to silence me.
"Well? Give me all of the raunchy details," Cady said.
"It wasn't that." But oh, I wished it had been. "It's a little of everything. The last two days have been a whirlwind."
"So what are we doing today? A little sightseeing? Where do you want to go for lunch? I hear Oistin's Fish Fry is supposed to be delicious, but I think it's only open weekend nights. We passed a tourist center yesterday. We can go check it out, even ask some locals. They always know the best places to eat at, which are usually little places off the beaten path."
Cady's brow was raised, and she looked perplexed.
"What?" I asked.
"You're rambling. What's up?"
I scoffed. "Nothing."
"The only times you talk this fast are when you're around Shawn or trying to hide something, and since I'm not six feet and one of a few perfect male specimens, what are you trying not to say?"
Damn, she'd become good at reading me.
I started to shake my head, but she cut me off by holding up her hand.
"Spare me the innocent act. Let me guess. You want to continue sleuthing."
She was better than good.
"Don't you? Regardless of that video last night, Aiden's still a suspect and we still have a bar to save."
She chuckled. "You are a great friend. Aiden and I need to talk. I still don't believe he's dealing drugs, but you're right."
"So this means that promise I made last night is void?" I asked.
One side of her mouth lifted into a smile. "Yes. Let's go save a bar."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We headed to the police station. It was time to turn in the SD card. I had no right to hold on to it anymore. I'd considered making a copy, but since it was technically police evidence, that didn't feel right either.
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