Some of the paint had smudged on the corner of one of the signs, but I had to let it go. Look at me, the recovering perfectionist. Addie would be proud.
Even if it was just a little paint that could so easily be fixed by taking a Q-tip with some …
I snapped my finger, remembering what had been bothering me earlier. I had forgotten to mention the nail polish remover I’d found to Silas. Now that I trusted the guy (and neither he nor I were a potential suspect), the sooner I let him know about my find, the better. Preferably, yesterday afternoon.
I went over to where the chemical had been hidden, but even from a few feet away, I could tell that someone had rearranged stuff.
Uh oh. I pushed items aside, searching for the jug. Maybe things had simply been jostled by the storm. Jostled into … neatly reorganized stacks. Oh, no. This was no good. It was really gone. Why had I left it here? They’d probably need it for Preston’s trial. I felt around in thin air for good measure and scooted a box of mini shampoos out of the way to double-check.
And that’s when I spotted a pair of pink Jimmy Choos.
“Huh?” What were a pair of Jimmy Choose doing hidden in the cargo hold?
I snatched the shoes off the shelf. On the sole of the left toe, something had carved out a gouge. In the exact same spot and shape where I’d rammed my foot into the corner of Miranda Ludwig’s parents’ deck during her Jane Austen-themed wedding. (Which had merely been an elaborate excuse to make everyone wear empire-waist dresses so she could hide a four-month baby bump from her disapproving grandmother.)
These weren’t just any Jimmy Choos. These were my Jimmy Choos.
I clutched them to my chest.
“Welcome home, babies,” I cooed.
But that brought me back to the question: what were my Jimmy Choos doing in a stuffed cargo hold in the middle of the ocean?
There was a new stain on the end of the fastener strap. At first I thought it was blood, but then I gave it a sniff. Sangria. And still damp. It had to be a recent stain.
Looked like Tammi wasn’t the only thief on board.
The only way someone could have gotten ahold of my sandals was if they got them directly from Ed, the fake porter on the dock. Then I remembered. That first day on board, Bebe had to stop taping her video diary segment because Ed was in the background talking to a crew member.
A crew member or an accomplice?
The pieces fell together. I whacked myself on the forehead as the rest of the scenario unfolded in my mind. How could I have been so blind? I had it all wrong.
The shoes.
The camcorder.
It wasn’t what Bebe had said on camera. Her travel companions may have despised her for her catty tirades and blackmailing threats, but none of them had killed her for it.
No, it wasn’t what Bebe had said, but what she’d caught on camera that got her killed. Bebe had accidentally taped a theft while she was filming that diary segment.
Knowing Bebe, if she had realized what she’d caught on tape, she wouldn’t have been content to sit quietly on the knowledge. She would have sought to profit from it any way she could.
But she’d underestimated Ed’s accomplice.
“All for a pair of shoes,” I muttered, turning my Jimmy Choos over in disbelief. Heck, she’d even flaunted them at Bebe’s memorial service.
A brittle laugh filled the cargo hold. A woman’s shadow swept across the floor with a shaft of light. Amanda’s figure filled the doorway, blocking the only exit. She held a gleaming, silver gun.
“Oh, please,” she said. “You think this was about shoes?”
I gulped.
“So, you figured it out,” she said. “The little scam I have going.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“Oh, cut the crap, Piper. You can’t play the poor, abandoned bride with me. I know you’ve been snooping all over this ship. Every chance you got, you were scampering down here to poke around.”
“I wasn’t poking around.” I backed away, searching for a way to get past her. “I was upcycling.”
“Yeah, well, you’re about to be up-dying.”
“Huh?”
“Y’know what? That sounded more threatening in my head.” She sneered as she shook her head. “The point is, you stuck your nose in one too many times.”
This was insane. Peppy, annoyingly energetic Amanda couldn’t be the murderer. Could she? Yeah, okay, the gun in her hand pointed straight at my heart said she most definitely was. But it still seemed so incredible. She’d barely spoken to Bebe.
“Look, Amanda, you want to pilfer the occasional bag, be my guest. I’m not going to say a word. Let me go, and my lips are sealed.”
“You still think this was about a few occasional hapless passengers we ripped off? Oh, don’t get me wrong. The jewelry was nice. Designer clothes. Not to mention the cash and luggage itself. But no, the real money was in the abandoned cargo. Not to mention the smuggling. Drugs. Freddy has friends all over.”
“Freddy?”
“My partner. He plays different roles, wears different disguises. What name did he go by with you? Steve? Rick?”
“Ed.”
“Hmm.” She screwed her face into a scowl. “He’s getting careless. That’s too close to Fred. But he never was the brains of this operation.”
Great. That made Amanda the brains of the operation. The irrational, cornered brains of the operation, who now had a gun. I needed to keep her talking while I figured out how to get out of this situation with no extra holes in my body.
“I still don’t understand why you had to kill Bebe. The videotape is the only hard proof she had. Why not just steal it?” I shuddered at the thought of how close I’d been to Amanda catching me that day when she ransacked Bebe’s room. If she’d found me in the closet, she would have offed me right then and there. She could have shoved me off the balcony and no one would have been the wiser. She’d probably walked straight out of the room and joined Silas and Cappy in the hallway, made it look like she’d been with them the whole time.
“Bebe wasn’t some blonde bimbo who accidentally caught my transgressions on tape,” said Amanda with a tone that spoke respect, almost admiration. “She threatened to go to the authorities unless I paid her off.”
“But how did she figure it out? It couldn’t have been more than a few moments of you talking with Ed, umm, Freddy that she captured.”
“She was suspicious from that, so she followed me when we arrived in Saint Burts. She caught me unloading your clothes in the market on tape, and she put two and two together. Bebe didn’t realize the full network of buyers and sellers I’ve built all over the Caribbean and Mexico, though. She thought Freddy and I were two-bit hustlers. If the cops were called in, it was only a matter of time before they traced out the full smuggling ring.”
“So that night at dinner, when Bebe said she found clothes that were ‘a steal,’ she wasn’t gloating in my face, she was—”
“Sending me a not-so-subtle threat. Real quick there, Lightning McQueen. She bought the clothes so she would have hard proof linking me to Freddy.”
“But killing her?” I winced involuntarily.
“I didn’t mean to kill her. Just make her sick enough to quarantine her for a day or two while I searched her room for the camcorder.” Amanda sighed. “How was I supposed to know that her liver was on its last leg? It was meant to be mistaken for run of the mill alcohol poisoning, but Mr. Hero had to swoop in and start CPR, and he tasted the acetone.”
The gun sagged to Amanda’s side.
Keep her talking. Keep her talking. Keep her talking.
“But why did you try to kill me by trapping me in the tanning booth?”
“That?” she said. “That was a warning. To get you to stop snooping into every corner of this ship. Why could you not relax and enjoy your stupid cruise like everyone else?”
For her information, I had enjoyed my stupid, ahem, my cruise. I hadn’t
spent one minute playing bingo or shuffleboard, but redoing the lobby had been a blast. And if I was being honest with myself, solving the murder had been fun, too.
Well, fun until this point, with said murderer standing in front of me holding a weapon.
“You’re right,” I said. “And I have learned my lesson. Trust me, I’m done sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. Now, if you’ll just let me go, my lips are sealed.”
“Oh, trust me. Your lips are about to be permanently sealed.” She brought the gun back to the ready.
“But someone will hear you if you shoot me.” That’s right, Piper. Argue with the demented lunatic. You’ll show her.
“I know. Not to mention the mess.” Her nose scrunched in disgust. “Uck. I hate messes. That’s why we’re going up to the top deck.”
“Oh, I’d really rather not—”
“It wasn’t an invitation to high tea, sweetheart.” Amanda jammed her weapon into my spine, forcing me toward the door. After a few steps, though, she paused. “Wait.”
Hallelujah! Maybe she’d had a change of evil heart. But no. She grabbed some beach towels from a shelf and folded the bottom one around the gun, so it appeared as if she was merely carrying a stack of them.
“One wrong move, and I’ll blow a hole through your middle. I have nothing to lose at this point.”
Okay, I had to think of a way out of this. Amanda was clearly deranged. I couldn’t reason with her, but I also couldn’t knock that gun out of her hand while she had me walking stiffly up flight after flight of stairs. I’d have nowhere to run.
We rounded the landing, and Jenna stepped through a doorway in front of us.
Jenna! My hero! Who was technically the size of a water sprite, but she was my only hope.
I debated whether to shout for help or simply throw myself at her. Amanda was so desperate, though, I doubted she’d hesitate to shoot Jenna too. But I had to try something.
“Hey, guys,” said Jenna, yawning. “You’re up early.”
“Good morning, Jenna!” said Amanda, grinning ear-to-ear like she didn’t have a blooming care in the world.
All right, this was my chance, with Jenna staring straight at me, but Amanda behind me. I started mouthing a silent, “Help me. Help. Me.”
Jenna moved closer, bleary-eyed.
“I’m sorry. I can’t hear you, Piper. Were you trying to say something?”
Amanda rammed the barrel of the gun as hard as she could into my spine, and I winced.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Piper. I’m so clumsy bumping into you like that,” said Amanda. “Don’t worry, Jenna. Piper here wanted to know the best spot to see the sunrise, so I offered to take her.”
She wrapped her arm around me, and her razorlike nails dug into the flesh of my arm.
“Didn’t I?” she growled.
“Yes. That is what happened.” I couldn’t even make a face at Jenna now without Amanda seeing.
“That’s so sweet of you,” said Jenna. “Always above and beyond the call of duty, Amanda. And Piper, enjoy your last few hours on board.”
What she meant was enjoy my last few hours alive. Make that last few minutes.
“Nice try,” Amanda whispered after Jenna was out of earshot. “But one more misstep and I’ll gut you here and frame someone else. Maybe even your cousin Tammi again. Or sweet little Jenna there. More work on my part, but I’m sick of dealing with this.”
We made it to the deserted top deck without crossing paths with another soul. The wood was rain slick from earlier in the night. A warm fog of mist clung to the air and enveloped us like a soggy cape. Amanda forced me to the very front of the boat. My stomach pressed hard against the railing. She shoved the tip of the gun under my rib cage against my kidney, and I drew in a sharp gasp of pain.
“So here’s the deal,” she said. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is that you jump. You can have a nice swim if you want until you drown. I hear it’s a very peaceful way to go. I don’t know. We’re pretty far up. You might even lose consciousness when you hit the water. Then I’ll report you missing in a few hours and they’ll call in the Coast Guard or whatnot. It will be very tragic, but I’ll be a hero, so it’ll be fine.”
“Umm, not to quibble here, but it won’t be fine for me.” As I would be freaking dead.
“Well, the other option is that I shoot you and throw you overboard.”
“That sounds just as bad.” And just as dead.
“True.” She smirked. “But a bit more painful.”
Plus, a bloody open wound would call the sharks like raccoons on roadkill. I’d be eaten alive. Unless I died on impact. Which, with a bullet hole through my heart was a very real possibility.
Oh, my gosh. I don’t want to die.
My chin started to quiver, and my arms trembled from the death grip I had on the rail. The whole situation felt unreal, like I’d stumbled into a nightmare.
I made the mistake of glancing down and could make out the swirling depths of water through the fog. The prow sliced through the choppy waves like a steel blade, ready to suck me under before I even had to worry about drowning or being eaten by a shark.
So death by drowning. Or death by something really painful happening right before drowning (or being devoured by a hungry frenzy of sharks). Wow, I really did not like my options.
Okay, stay calm, Piper.
I peered over the edge of the boat to see if I might be able to grab onto something on the way down and swing myself to safety, Indiana Jones style. But two problems existed with that scenario. There was nothing stuck to the front of the boat, not even a barnacle. Also, I was no Indiana Jones, hence being in this predicament in the first place.
In my peripheral vision, a feathery flutter caught my attention.
Hmmm. A plan began to form in my mind. A long shot, farfetched, reckless, ridiculous plan. But maybe, just maybe, it would give me an option three.
“Any final words before you go overboard, bleeding or not?” asked Amanda.
“Yes, please.” I took a deep breath and then lifted my head and as loud as I could, I sang, “HEY, MACERANA!”
Yeah, that thing in my peripheral vision? It was purple. Elton, my foul-mouthed fowl. And as I predicted, the world’s most annoying dance tune sent him into a flying ball of feathered rage. He went berserk as I sang the words at the top of my lungs.
He flapped and squawked and clawed at Amanda’s hair and scalp. I used the diversion to donkey kick her hand, and the gun went flying. It landed right on the edge of the deck, under the metal railing. It teetered there, and we both scrambled for it. She reached it first, but I managed to knock her arm to the side as her fingers were about to close around it.
The weapon skittered farther down the wood deck, and I started screaming bloody murder (which was exactly what I was hoping to prevent) as we both darted for it again.
The boat hit a big wave, and with a metallic screech, the gun tumbled into the stairwell. I gave up on trying to reach the gun and instead focused on stopping Amanda from getting it. I had to incapacitate her in any way I could.
I grabbed her ankle and clawed with all my might. She stopped lunging for the gun. It was working.
Oh, crap. It was working. She lunged for me instead. I crab-crawled backward, kicking at her as I went, but again, dumb move. My head hit the rail on the side of the ship, and my arm slipped from under me and wedged against the hull of the ship. I tried to tug it loose, but I was trapped. Elton was still going at her head pretty ferociously, but she smacked him aside. He went sailing through the air and landed in a coil of rope, unmoving.
“Elton!” I winced.
A slow smile spread across Amanda’s face as she looked over to find where the gun had slid.
Something inside me snapped.
I felt around behind me on the side of the boat, desperate for anything to use as a weapon. My hand hit something hard and smooth. I glanced down to see an oar, just barely within my grasp. We must
have been above one of the muster stations. With Amanda preoccupied in her search for the gun, I scrambled around and unfastened the oar from its clasp.
Gun versus oar. The odds weren’t great. Dismal, even. But it was the only shot I had. Something told me Amanda didn’t want to have to shoot me. She’d poisoned Bebe, locked me in a tanning booth, and so far had tried to convince me to jump off the ship. Effective? Yes. Evil? Definitely. But none of them the most direct method.
I kept my arm—now wriggled free—tucked behind me so she wouldn’t notice the big paddle. Amanda came out of the stairwell and looped a towel through the handles of the double doors to stop anyone from reaching us. My mind whirred, calculating the risks of this reckless plan. If I didn’t wait until she was within smacking distance, my one chance would be wasted.
“Amanda, you don’t want to do this.” I kept up my bargaining act.
She leveled the gun at my chest, holding it with both hands and cocking the hammer.
When she was five extremely lethal feet away, I had to act.
“Oh my gosh!” I pointed to a random spot on the starboard side of the boat with my free arm.
“What?” She whipped her head around instinctively. It was only a split second, but it was enough time for me to make my move.
I jumped forward, yanking the oar out, and whacked her gun-holding hand upwards as hard as I could. An ear-splitting crack rang out as the pistol went off, but the bullet flew safely out to sea along with the gun that was knocked from her grip. I pulled the oar back as far as I could and clonked Amanda upside the head. The blow knocked her to her knees, but she was still conscious. I got ready to whack her again, but she raised her hands in the air.
“Wait. I give up,” she said.
“Really?” Apparently, I could add hostage negotiator to my list of potential careers to pursue.
She nodded.
“Okay, umm, keep your hands where I can see them. Now take that rope and tie your legs to the post.”
Elton had rallied and was hopping around quietly squawking cusses at her. I let out a sigh of relief.
I checked to make sure she’d tied a sturdy knot then made her put her hands together behind the pole while I formed a perfect square knot around them. (My thanks for that particular skill to Linda and George Addleby and their obsession with perfect, authentic Celtic love knots at their fiftieth anniversary vow renewal.)
Death In A Deck Chair Page 21