Death on the Bella Constance (A Jesse Watson Mystery Series Book 6)

by Ann Mullen

  I rolled back over and dozed off. I had been asleep for only a short while when I heard a light tap at the door. I tried to sit up in bed, but when I couldn’t, I realized that I must be dreaming. Then I heard McCoy’s voice. It was too distinct to be a dream. I sprang up in bed, looked toward the door, and saw him standing in the dimly lit room whispering to Billy.

  “What are you two up to?” I whispered. I looked around. “And why is everyone whispering?”

  “I’m sorry if I woke you,” McCoy said.

  “McCoy’s going to help me with my research. Go back to sleep, `ge ya.”

  “Where’s Savannah?”

  “Back at the room under card-lock. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d see if Billy was awake. That’s why I tapped so lightly on the door.”

  I lay back down, pulled the covers up over my head, and said jokingly, “I need my privacy. What if I have to burp in the middle of the night?”

  The guys just about choked on that one.

  “As long as that’s all you do in your sleep,” McCoy said. He burst out laughing again.

  “So gross. I didn’t need to hear that.”

  Billy snickered. “Oh, the words that come out of the mouths of our women. Who knows what they will say next?”

  “Some spies you two would make,” I said. “You laugh so loud they can hear you all the way out in the hallway. Silence is the word.”

  They stopped their laughter, and I finally dozed off again. I was barely into the first stage of sleep when I heard what sounded like someone having sex. The intense moaning and groaning just wouldn’t stop.

  “What’s going on behind that screen?” I asked, barely audible, half-awake. “If someone’s having sex with my husband, I just want you to know I have a gun.”

  Then I thought I heard the sound of a door close. If I wasn’t truly awake before, I was now.

  Chapter 23

  Whoa! Wait a minute! My husband would never be unfaithful to me, so what was all that moaning and groaning about? What was going on? I went to sit up in bed, but was stopped by Billy.

  “You’re having a dream, `ge ya,” he said as he sat down on the bed and put his hands on my shoulders. He felt the bed around me, searched under my pillow and then under the covers. He then stuck his hands between the mattress and box spring.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked as I rubbed my eyes.

  “I heard you say you had a gun. You were dreaming, and I didn’t want you to shoot me. I was looking for the gun.”

  “I don’t have a gun in bed with me, silly.”

  I looked up and saw McCoy standing at the foot of the bed. I looked at Billy and then back to McCoy. “What were you two doing behind that screen? It sounded as if something erotic was going on back there.”

  They looked at each other, thought for a second, and then laughed.

  “Not what you’re thinking,” McCoy said. “I’m sorry if we were too loud. We turned the volume down and blacked out the screen after the first few minutes. We were to too stunned to do anything else.”

  “Please don’t tell me you were watching porn, and I was dreaming about it. Did you say stunned? Since when do men get stunned by porn?”

  “No, we weren’t watching porn. Tell her what we discovered, Billy.”

  “Actually, I think you might be full of yourself when we tell you what we just witnessed,” Billy replied. “You had your suspicions about the captain, and you were right. He is a cad. He’s having an affair with Nell! We wanted to listen to their conversation, but there wasn’t much of that.”

  “Ah, ha!” I exclaimed. I crawled out of bed and ran over to the other side of the screen. I didn’t realize that I was dressed only in a T-shirt and a pair of bikini briefs, until Billy walked up behind me and wrapped a robe around my shoulders. I looked down at myself, and then looked back up at McCoy, and said, “I guess you’ve seen half-naked women before.”

  His face turned red, but he bounced back with, “Ah, a beautiful woman is to be admired.”

  I grabbed the robe, wrapped it around me tightly, and then said, “Don’t be looking at me like that. You don’t know me that well.” I snickered. I think McCoy was so embarrassed by my running around half-naked that he didn’t know how to respond. “I’m just messing with you, McCoy. Thanks for the compliment, and don’t be embarrassed. One day you might see me getting a bullet dug out of my butt. You just never know what’s going to happen when you run with us. Right, Billy? Now tell me about this hot love scene between Nell and Captain O’Riley. Who would’ve thought?” I sat down in the computer chair.

  “You missed it,” Billy said. “But I have a few minutes of it on tape if you want to look at it.”

  “No, I think I’ll pass. Your word is good enough for me.” I looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s four in the morning. Aren’t you two ever going to get some sleep?”

  “I’m leaving,” McCoy said. “I do need a little sleep.”

  “Don’t leave on my account.”

  “I’m not,” he replied. “I think we’ve seen the highlight of the wee hours of the morning, so I might as well get some rest before another day rolls around.”

  “Give my best to Savannah.”

  McCoy turned, mumbled something to Billy, and then left.

  “What did he say? Was he talking about my half-naked body? I’m sorry if I embarrassed anyone.”

  “No, he wasn’t talking about you, and no one got embarrassed by your nakedness. He told me to stay close to you. We expect something to go down tomorrow. It’s our last day, so whatever is going to happen will probably happen between then and the next morning.”

  “What about the two days it’ll take us to get back to Norfolk?”

  “I have a feeling that tomorrow is the day. If I were planning to bump off someone, I wouldn’t wait to the last minute.” Billy leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m going to brush my teeth, and then try to get forty winks. Why don’t you come back to bed, `ge ya?”

  “I’m up now. I might as well check out this computer. Who knows, I might just find out something important.”

  “Okay, but I’m hitting the sack.”

  “Will you give me a quick lesson on how to navigate this thing?”

  Billy quickly explained. “Just hit this key, and a prompt will come up. You can decide what you want to look at after that.”

  “Thanks. I think I’ll just surf a little.”

  Billy brushed his teeth, stripped down to his underwear, and then jumped in the bed. Seconds later, I heard the faint sound of him snoring.

  “Let’s see,” I mumbled to myself as I hit the key. “Ah, ha! Just what I was looking for.”

  Split screens appeared showing images from all the cameras in the hallways on each deck, including the captain’s bridge—which I wasn’t expecting. I didn’t think we’d have access to his private domain, but I was wrong. I sure hope I can also get sound. I’d love to hear what was going on in his off-limits area. If I could just figure out a way to hack into his computers…

  I started messing around with the keyboard, and just for the heck of it, I clicked on a small icon of a bell at the very bottom right-hand corner of the monitor. A prompt came up and asked if I wanted to connect to the main frame. I didn’t know what that meant, but I clicked yes anyway. The computer made all kinds of sounds, and then a bar came up and started downloading stuff. The next thing I knew, several split screens appeared, and I was now watching the same thing they were watching on the bridge. And… I could hear what they were saying in the background!

  Hurrah! That wasn’t so hard, I told myself. I must’ve done something wrong. I probably shouldn’t be here. Hey, if Billy can get away with it, so can I… I hope. Oh, Lord. Security’s going to come bust down the door, and haul me off to the brig. I glanced over in Billy’s direction. I couldn’t see him through the dressing screen, but I knew that if he were awake, he’d have a fit. What should I do? Should I wake him up, and tell him what I managed to pull
off? Maybe he’d already done it before. No, he needs his sleep. Besides, what could it hurt? The captain is supposed to be going along with our little operation, but there are some things he doesn’t know. Things we’re keeping from him. But hey, he’s the one having a fling with Loukas and Bella’s married daughter. What’s he going to say about my hacking into his system? He’ll say nothing once he finds out that we know about him and Nell.

  The captain was conveniently missing—probably recovering from his tryst with Nell—but that didn’t matter. I most likely could find him somewhere, but I didn’t care about that at the moment. I was hacked into the ship’s heart. My main goal was to find out what the guys controlling the ship’s navigation and security systems were talking about. When a bunch of guys sit around and talk, they talk about all kinds of things most women don’t want to know about, or even hear.

  Disregarding the possibility that their language could get raunchy at any moment, I sat and listened to their conversations. At one point, I heard someone make mention of the embarrassing behavior of the captain. Another chuckled and made reference to Nell Hawks.

  So… they knew about the captain’s little indiscretion! Interesting. What else did they know? It took about ten seconds before their conversation turned ugly. One accused the captain of being involved in the murder plot against Loukas Constance along with Nell and Utah. Another said there was a third person involved, but he didn’t know who it was.

  Not suspecting that I’d get caught, I sat and watched as an alarm sounded and red lights started flashing on the bridge. The crew immediately went into action. That’s when I realized I had been made. I backed away from the computer, crawled under the table, and then pulled the plug. Everything shut down. I prayed that I hadn’t crashed the computer, but if I had, so be it. I didn’t want to get caught red-handed.

  I quickly tiptoed over to the bed, crawled in next to Billy, and waited. I lay silently next to him waiting for the dreaded raid, but no one came. I waited and waited until I finally fell asleep. When I did wake up, I heard the sound of running water in the bathroom, and the room was lit with the brilliance of the sun. Another day had arrived… and I didn’t get thrown in the brig! The alarms that went off must’ve had something to do with a different emergency. It had nothing to do with me. I said thanks to the Lord, and then crawled out of bed.

  “Billy,” I said, calling his name as I stood outside the bathroom door. “May I come in?”

  “Come on in, `ge ya.”

  I walked into the steamy bathroom and looked in the mirror. What a sight! I looked as if I’d forgotten to take off my mascara, which I had, and it had smeared under my eyes and across my cheeks. I turned the faucet on, lathered my hands with soap, and then washed the ugly, unsightly mess off. I couldn’t let Billy see me like this.

  “It’s too late, `ge ya,” Billy said, chuckling. “I saw your raccoon eyes when I was staring at you in your sleep. You’ll always be beautiful to me even with smeared make-up. You might as well join me.”

  “Works for me.”

  I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower. The warm water flowed over my body, relaxing my tired muscles, and when Billy started massaging my shoulders, I almost melted in his arms.

  “That’s just what I needed.”

  “You must be refreshed and ready for the day. We must not miss a clue. Many things are going to go down. I feel it in my bones.”

  “I don’t know if I should be scared or excited.”

  “Probably a little of both. Between the poisoned champagne, a dastardly fall, a stabbing, and bullets flying, I’d think you’d be a bit on edge.”

  “I was until I found out about Nell and the captain. That puts us one step ahead of the criminals.”

  Billy washed my hair while I soaped up my body. When I stood directly under the shower head, it seemed as if the water was washing off not just the soap, but the fear as well. I felt truly refreshed.

  Billy turned off the water and we stepped out of the shower together. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist, and then picked up another one for me.

  “Would you dry off my back?”

  “You know I will.” He used the towel to gently pat the water from my body. “You’re so sexy, `ge ya. I could do this all day.” He grabbed another towel and wrapped it around my body.

  I grabbed a fresh towel and slung it across his shoulder. “Your hair is dripping down your back. Here, let me help.” I stepped behind him, took the towel and used it to squeeze out the water. Then I ran the towel down his back and across his shoulders. His toned body glistened under the bathroom lights.

  “All done,” I said.

  We brushed our teeth together, applied lotion to each other’s bodies, and by the time I slipped into a pair of panties, I was ready to slip out of them. I smiled my seductive smile at Billy, and that’s all it took. We were once again going to remember one of the reasons we took this cruise—to share passion—along with whatever came our way.

  “I love you,” I whispered into his ear.

  “I love you, too, `ge ya. I always will.”

  “I guess we should get out of bed and get dressed. What time are we meeting Bella and the rest of the gang?”

  “Nine sharp.”

  “What about breakfast?”

  “Coffee would be good. We have that pot over there, and we even have bottled water. We could make our own instead of ordering room service. I’ll fix us some while we’re getting ready.” Billy crawled out of bed, walked over to the counter where the coffee pot sat, and started fixing coffee.

  “I’m sure Bella will probably have a spread set up waiting for us. You know she likes to have plenty of food for her guests. Let’s hustle. I can’t wait to see what happens today. It should be very interesting.”

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you? I knew you would the minute we took the job. It’s in your blood... just like me.”

  “This cruise just keeps getting more and more exciting. If we make it back to Norfolk and no one else gets killed, I’ll be very happy.”

  “I can relate. However, I think there’s going to be another death on the Bella Constance before this voyage ends.”

  “I hate to say so, but I think you’re right.”

  I slipped into my panties before realizing that I needed to put on my bathing suit. I slipped them off, walked over to the dresser, and pulled out my tiny, black bikini. I held the two small pieces of fabric up for Billy to see. I had a feeling he was going to like it. Less is more.

  “Perfect!” he said. “I was thinking of wearing my black swimming trunks, too.”

  “Good. We’ll be a matching pair. That way everyone will know you’re my man.”

  “Or that you’re my `ge ya!”

  I put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt over my bikini—I wasn’t about to walk around that exposed—and waited while Billy selected a shirt to wear. He finally settled on a black shirt with a Hawaiian print on it.

  Fifteen minutes later, after a cup of coffee, we were ready to go. We hung our I.D. badges around our necks, and off we went. Billy carried the keycard, and I carried the beach bag containing our sunscreen, lip gloss, cell phones, brush, and the snub-nosed .38 that was hidden in a make-up bag. We were prepared for whatever came our way.

  In the hallway, I turned to Billy and said, “I forgot to tell you about what happened after you went to sleep.”

  “I know what happened.” Billy smiled. “You figured out how to hack into the main frame, thought you got caught, so you pulled the plug. I plugged the computer back in and when it came to life, I saw exactly where you had been. You’re getting better at this than I ever imagined.”

  “I got lucky. It had nothing to do with skill.”

  “I bet you got scared when the alarms went off.”

  “To say the least. I thought they were coming after me.”

  “You did well by pulling the plug, but you didn’t have to. They can’t trace it back to us. A good hacker has all kinds
of backdoors, rerouting systems, and places they can hide without being detected.”

  “Is that what you’ve become?”

  “I try my best.”

  “I love this man!”

  McCoy and Savannah walked out of the room just as we were approaching.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I hope everyone slept well.”

  I looked at Billy and then McCoy, and said, “I sure did.” I walked over to Savannah and whispered, “Nell Hawks and the captain are having an affair.”

  “I know,” she replied. “McCoy told me. Isn’t that weird?”

  “Why do you think it’s weird?”

  We had our heads together as we made our way to Loukas and Bella’s stateroom. Billy and McCoy followed behind us, conversing as they walked.

  “Because,” Savannah replied. “The captain’s a good looking man, and poor Nell’s not much to look at. I know that’s not very nice of me to say, but it’s the truth.”

  “I don’t think looks have anything to do with it. It’s an affair. I doubt if they’re planning on a lifelong commitment, so who cares what the other one looks like? It’s all about sex, not love.”

  “You never know. They could be in love.”

  “Lust is more like it.”

  “My, aren’t we a little cynical?”

  “I like to think of myself as being a realist.”

  “McCoy said you and Billy went to the bar last night and ran into that woman, Lara.”

  “Yeah! We did. She was intoxicated, so we helped her back to her room. She kept going on and on about one of Bella’s daughters. She claims the daughter is the ringleader, but she passed out before I could find out which one it is.” I hesitated for a second, and then said, “She cuts herself.”

  “That’s sad. She needs counseling. She’s been through so much already. I’m sure she has some deep-rooted issues she has to deal with.”

  “Billy and I discussed that. He thinks the chief could help her, so we’re going to ask her to come back with us. She can stay with Sarah and Chief Sam.”

  “Have you talked to them about it?”