Wicked Ghostly Seas: A Rowan Gray, Harper Harlow and Ivy Morgan Mystery Omnibus

by Lily Harper Hart

  Ivy’s smile widened to the point where it threatened to overtake her delicate features. “I’m really starting to like being on vacation.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Five

  Quinn woke to an urgent call on his cell phone. It was still early — he thought he had another hour to snuggle with Rowan — but the insistent beeping of his phone told him otherwise.

  “Hello.” He was barely awake when he uttered the greeting.

  “What’s wrong,” Rowan murmured, curling closer to him.

  He didn’t answer, instead stroking her back as he tried to lull her back to sleep. There was no reason for her to be up early.

  Quinn listened to the other end of the conversation, which included a lot of babbling, for a full minute. When he found his voice, his instincts took over and he snapped into action. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t let anyone in that room ... and don’t let the other guests know what’s going on. We don’t want to create a panic if we can help it.”

  When he disconnected, he found Rowan wide awake and staring at him. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice scratchy.

  “Margaret Adkins is dead.” Quinn knew better than lying, or dragging things out. He offered up the statement in a matter-of-fact manner. “It looks like she was strangled.”

  Rowan bolted to a sitting position, horrified. “But ... how? You had men watching her.”

  “I had men follow her to make sure she made it back to her room last night,” Quinn clarified. “They weren’t there all night.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I couldn’t justify it.”

  Rowan didn’t want to come off as accusatory but she couldn’t stop herself. “If they’d stayed, she might not be dead.”

  “Yes, well ... it is what it is.” Quinn refused to get into an argument so early in the morning. “I’m sorry.”

  Rowan was instantly contrite. “I didn’t mean to blame you. That’s not fair. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I should’ve forced them to stay overnight. I thought it would be okay once she was locked in her room.”

  “We should get dressed and head down there.”

  “I should get dressed and head down there,” he corrected. “There’s no reason for you to have to see this.”

  “I need to see it. I can’t help you figure it out if I don’t see it. Besides, I used to be a photographer for a newspaper. I guarantee I’ve seen worse.”

  Quinn didn’t like it, but he acknowledged that was probably true. “We need to be quick. Once word of this gets out, we’re probably going to have a nightmare on our hands thanks to the other members of that group.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK is going on there?” Jack stood at the corner of the hallway as he and Ivy left for breakfast, his eyes on a group of people outside a guest’s room, activity bubbling and bustling. He couldn’t see inside, but it was obvious there was a lot of action happening beyond the door.

  Ivy shifted closer to Jack so she could peer around his tall frame. “I don’t know. Maybe someone got drunk and got in a fight.”

  That was possible, but Jack felt a different vibe. “I think it’s something bigger than that.”

  Ivy raised an amused eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really.” Jack tapped the end of her nose. “Call it a hunch.”

  “It’s that cop intuition of yours.” Ivy pressed her hand to Jack’s chest and smirked when she realized his heart was pounding a little faster than normal. “You’re just dying to see what’s happening in that room, aren’t you?”

  Jack shook his head. “No.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, that’s on you.”

  Ivy tugged on her patience and reminded herself that Jack was the one who arranged for the special vacation. He was essentially her knight in shining armor this week, which meant he deserved a little leeway. “If you want to hang around and see what they’re doing, that’s certainly your prerogative. I’m starving, though. All that dancing last night worked up an appetite. I need breakfast. You can stay here while I eat if you want, though. I’ll swing back around when I’m done stuffing my face.”

  Jack snorted. “Yeah, right. That sounds exactly like something I would do.”

  Ivy lowered her voice. “I’m not the only one on vacation. You’re on vacation, too. You don’t have to be a police officer today.”

  Her earnest expression tugged at Jack’s heartstrings. “You’re absolutely right. Today I’m your fiancé. Let’s get something to eat and then decide what we’re going to do with our day.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jack nodded. “I just want you.”

  ROWAN WAS FAMILIAR ENOUGH with Quinn’s working style that she knew to hang back as he surveyed the scene.

  Margaret Adkins was in the middle of the bed, what looked to be pantyhose tied around her neck. Her eyes were open and unseeing, and she was fully dressed.

  “I don’t think this was a sexual assault,” Quinn said as he circled the bed with one of his most trusted aides, Mark Dexter. “All of her clothes look intact.”

  “That’s the outfit she was wearing in the dining hall last night,” Rowan offered helpfully. “I remember because the pink suit reminded me of Pepto-Bismol.”

  “Yeah. I remember the suit, too.” Jack snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and lifted Margaret’s hand so he could get a look at her fingernails. “I’m not sure if she got a piece of her attacker, but make sure that scrapings are taken all the same. It might be important.”

  Dexter nodded. “Of course.”

  “How did you find her?” Rowan asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. Quinn hated it when she overtook investigations, but her natural busybody nature wouldn’t allow her to remain silent. “I mean ... who reported her death to you?”

  “That would be her assistant,” Dexter replied, his eyes scanning the small notebook in his hand. “Her name is Emily Little.”

  “We’re going to need to talk to her,” Quinn said as he knelt close to Margaret’s head. “Do you know where she’s at right now?”

  “We segregated her in her room,” Dexter explained. “I left Andrew with her so she wouldn’t be alone. We didn’t want her telling stories out of turn before we could get direction from you, though.”

  “That was smart.” Quinn rolled his neck. “I’m not the doctor, but I think she’s been dead about six hours based on lividity. That puts her death around two this morning.”

  “What about the cameras?” Rowan asked. “Were they in operation?”

  “Yes and no,” Quinn answered. “The group bigwigs — I think there were about twelve of them, including assistants and helpers — got a block of rooms together. They claimed they didn’t want the cameras close to their rooms to be operational because they’re against technology, yada, yada, yada.”

  Rowan pursed her lips. “Something tells me you don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t believe it in the least.” Quinn opted for honesty. “I think they were worried that there might be some shenanigans going on and didn’t want to risk their actions being caught on camera.”

  “Shenanigans?” Rowan was understandably confused. “What do you mean?”

  “He means drinking ... and maybe a little carousing,” Dexter supplied. “Perhaps a few people going into each other’s rooms and not leaving until morning.”

  Rowan’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, those types of shenanigans.”

  Her reaction was enough to remind Quinn of exactly why he fell in love with her. “You’re so cute sometimes,” he muttered under his breath, earning an annoyed look from Dexter. “What? Don’t tell me you didn’t think that was cute.”

  “I would never tell you anything of the sort,” Dexter replied without hesitation. “If I did, you would smack me around and fire me.”

  “I would never fire you for thinking she’s cute. I mig
ht smack you around.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dexter didn’t have much of a sense of a humor, but he nodded perfunctorily.

  “Well, we need to get the medical staff in here,” Quinn said finally. The Bounding Storm didn’t have a medical examiner — it was unnecessary — but the on-staff doctor could perform an autopsy. “I want some answers. It’s probably best to get the body out of here before things get busy in an hour, too.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Dexter said. “Where are you going?”

  “I need to question the woman who found her. What did you say her name was again?”

  “Emily Little.”

  “Yeah. What room is she in?”

  EMILY LITTLE WASN’T WHAT Rowan expected. Quinn allowed his girlfriend to tag along for questioning, but only if she promised to keep her mouth shut. As always, Rowan made the promise even though she occasionally forgot her mouth had a mind of its own.

  “Is Margaret dead?” Emily asked, her eyes red and puffy as she sat on her bed. She was young — barely twenty-two, if Rowan had to guess — and she looked as if she wasn’t yet mature enough to deal with emotional upheaval.

  “She is,” Quinn confirmed, adopting a sympathetic expression. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Oh, this is just the worst.” Emily made a wailing sound as she threw her forearm over her eyes and started sobbing. The display was weird enough to cause Rowan and Quinn to exchange a dubious look before Quinn cleared his throat and barreled forward.

  “We need to discuss a few things with you, Miss Little.”

  “You can call me Emily.” The young woman batted her eyelashes to clear the tears as she focused on Quinn. Rowan couldn’t be certain, but there was something flirtatious about her attitude. It was overt enough that it grated. Rowan wisely kept her mouth shut ... for now.

  “Okay, Emily.” Quinn kept his smile in place. “What were you doing in Mrs. Adkins’s room this morning? I mean ... why were you there?”

  “I’m her assistant.”

  “I understand that, but you let yourself in the room.”

  “Oh, are you asking why I have a keycard? Margaret wanted it that way. I’m supposed to do certain things for her — like making sure her clothes are steamed for the day — and she doesn’t like to be bothered when she’s taking a nap or doing something else. Sometimes she needs to meditate to clear her mind and she doesn’t like it when I knock and interrupt her. She gave me one of her room keys.”

  “Okay.” To Quinn, that sounded a bit ridiculous. It wasn’t his place to judge. “Why were you there this morning specifically?”

  “To make sure her outfit was ready.”

  “She had a special outfit for the day? I wasn’t aware you guys had any planned events ... other than a few meetings in the ballroom later in the week.”

  “We didn’t have planned events, but Margaret is the face of the group,” Emily explained. “It’s a very important group. It’s going to change the world one day. Although ... I wonder if that will still happen now that Margaret is gone. She was the one who did all the work. You know, fighting the good fight.”

  Rowan thought that sounded like a rehearsed line, something Margaret forced Emily to say when witnesses were around. Whether Emily believed it was up for debate.

  “So Mrs. Adkins simply wanted you to make sure her outfit was ready for the day?”

  “I have a list of duties I have to perform each morning,” Emily replied. “That includes getting Margaret’s outfit ready, helping curl her hair and applying her makeup, and following her around to make sure she gets everything she needs for breakfast.

  “Then I get an hour break before I have to bring her a mid-morning snack and take notes while she talks to various people,” she continued. “Margaret got her best ideas when talking to others.”

  “So, basically you’re saying that she took other people’s ideas and pretended they were her own,” Rowan interjected, earning a warning look from Quinn, which she proceeded to ignore. “That’s what it sounds like to me.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Emily shot back, her voice turning shrill. “I don’t even know who you are. Who are you?”

  “Ms. Gray is part of our investigative team,” Quinn supplied smoothly. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to insult your memory of Mrs. Adkins.”

  Rowan was certain that’s exactly what she intended to do, but she saw no reason to make things worse. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “I need you to tell me what you saw when you let yourself into her room, Emily,” Quinn prodded, gentle. “It’s important. Did you touch anything? Did you move anything?”

  “Oh ... um ... .” Emily tapped her bottom lip. “It’s all such a blur. Everything was normal when I first opened the door. I remembered thinking it was weird that the lights were still out — Margaret was an early riser, she said it was a holdover from when her husband was alive — but I flipped on the lights and that’s when I saw her.”

  “Did you touch her?”

  “No.” Emily shook her head. “I know that probably sounds awful. Most other people would’ve tried to give her mouth-to-mouth or something. I could tell she was dead, though. I didn’t touch her. I ran in the hallway and there was a room service boy walking in my direction so I asked him for help.”

  “Okay.” Quinn kept his face smooth and placid. “That makes a lot of sense. Did Mrs. Adkins have any enemies that you’re aware of?”

  “Oh, no. Everyone loved Margaret.”

  “She never got any threats? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me given what she does for a living. Since she’s trying to infringe on how some people raise their families, I would think that leads to a natural amount of animosity.”

  “Oh, you didn’t say threats. You asked if she had enemies. Enemies are different than threats.”

  Quinn didn’t see how. “Okay. What kind of threats did she get?”

  “Oh, she got all kinds. I was responsible for running her public email and you wouldn’t believe the messages she would get. They were vile. People would tell her she needed to ... have sex.” Emily lowered her voice for the last part of the sentence. “They would give suggestive ways for her to have to sex with herself. They said she should stop worrying about what other people were doing and start worrying about herself.”

  “That sounds awful.” Quinn swallowed the mad urge to laugh. He couldn’t believe how naive Emily came across. She was either one of the slowest people he’d ever met or Margaret Adkins had groomed her to be purposely obtuse. He wasn’t sure which option made more sense. “Can you remember any specific threats?”

  “Well, there was one man who said he was going to chop her up into little bits. He lived in Colorado, though, and when the cops tracked him down they claimed he was thirteen and not a threat.”

  “I see.” Quinn pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. Technically it wasn’t funny, but Emily’s delivery was so flat that he almost felt as if he was trapped in a comedy show. “Did he at least get a warning?”

  “Yes, and his parents took away his video games. Margaret said that his threat was proof that what she was saying was true.”

  “I can see that. Anyone else?”

  “Um ... Artemis Butler.”

  Quinn was thrown for a loop. “The movie director?”

  “Margaret said his movies were so foul she was going after them first and he supposedly said he was going to kill her before she had a chance to go after his life’s work.”

  “Did you actually hear him utter a threat?”

  Emily shook her head, solemn. “No. But Margaret talked to him and said it was real. She tried to get the cops involved, but they declined. Margaret said it was because he was famous, but she had every intention of pursuing him until she got her way.”

  “That sounds like a great lead.” Quinn tugged a notebook from his pocket and clicked his pen. “I’m going to need a list of everyone you can think of. Even if it seems like it’s probably a dead end, I want you to give
me all the names. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Absolutely. I want to help. Margaret was like a mother to me.”

  “Well, we’re going to do our very best to figure out who did this. I promise you that.”

  AN HOUR LATER, QUINN FELT wiped as he left the room. Rowan had remained silent for the bulk of the list-making session, but the handful of eye rolls Quinn caught told him his girlfriend was having none of it.

  “I take it you don’t believe that Morgan Devane was purposely plotting Margaret Adkins’s death,” Quinn said as he pressed the elevator call button.

  “You mean the Morgan Devane who has won four Oscars? Yeah, I don’t think she cared about Margaret Adkins.”

  “I don’t think she did either.”

  “And yet you have a list of a hundred celebrities that supposedly wanted to hurt Margaret. That seems a little out there.”

  “Yeah.” Quinn absently rubbed the back of his neck as they stepped into the elevator. “I’m starting to think that Margaret talked big, lied every chance she got, and purposely picked a naive assistant who would automatically believe her.”

  Instead of agreeing, Rowan snorted. “Oh, don’t kid yourself. She’s smarter than she pretends to be.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “She spent the whole time checking you out.”

  “That simply means she has hormones, not brains. Besides, if she was smart, she would’ve picked up on the rather obvious clues that I’m very taken.”

  “She was still checking you out,” Rowan pressed. “Since she’s part of a group that seems to be fine dictating everyone’s family values, I can’t help but wonder if that’s a natural impulse she’s supposed to be keeping under wraps.”

  “I’m more interested in why the group was so insistent about the cameras,” Quinn admitted. “I mean ... was there really that much bumping and grinding going on behind closed doors?”

  Rowan giggled, legitimately amused. “I guess we’re going to have to find out, huh?”

  “Yeah, because the other option is even worse.”

  “What’s the other option?”