by K. J. Emrick
And the knife. Definitely the knife.
“That’s all right,” he said to her, interpreting her baffled expression correctly. “I saw him. Let’s get out of this labyrinth and then we can go see the captain.”
“And Jessica,” she said. “So now we have to be in two places at once again.”
He pressed his lips together tightly and then raspberried out the breath he was holding. “Yeah, looks like. I’m still not good with that. Text message Jessica and see if she even looked at the pictures yet. Tell her to concentrate on the staff. Let’s start with that.”
Cookie took her cell phone from her pocket, still balancing Cream against her shoulder. The screen showed her the same thing it had before. “There’s no service in here.”
“Figures. With the prices they charge to give you phone access on a ship you think they’d have at least four bars everywhere.”
“Well, we are in the middle of a dozen hallways.”
“True,” he said, looking left, and then right. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
After a few more turns they finally found a staff member pushing a cart of clean laundry and followed her out to the public decks. The sunlight was bright after the soft glare of the fluorescent lights behind them. A warm breeze drifted across the deck and carried the scent of the ocean with it. Another gorgeous day. “We’re going on a romantic cruise,” she remembered the killer saying to her.
Cookie hated that she was wasting what would probably be her one and only chance in her whole life to be on a trip like this.
She hated that someone in her family had been killed, even if she didn’t know him that well.
She hated that her daughter would have to live with this for the rest of her life.
She hated that the bad guy had gotten away.
There was a lot of things to hate, but with the sun hanging high off the port side of the ship, it was hard to feel anything except gratitude that she was alive, and that she was here with Jerry and Cream. Together, they were going to stop the man who had done all these awful things.
“Grandma?”
Clarissa’s voice surprised Cookie out of her train of thought. From across the deck, her granddaughter came running up to them in a pair of capris and a top that was far too tight and revealing for Cookie’s liking. The girl was almost an adult now and Cookie understood the need to be fashionable and be seen, but goodness… the way that shirt bared her midriff she might as well be wearing a bikini top.
Then she remembered there were far too many other things to be worried about right now, other than what her granddaughter was wearing. Clarissa was nearly a grown woman and she could choose what she wanted to wear. If she wanted to let every man here see her belly button, well that was her business. This was a cruise, after all, and Clarissa was very devoted to her boyfriend Hamish.
So, she reigned in her grandmotherly instincts and instead was just happy to get the hug and smile that Clarissa offered her. Even if there was no way in God’s green Earth that she would have ever let Madison out in public like that.
“What are you doing up here?” Cookie asked her. “Is your mom with you?”
“No.” Some of the smile slipped away from Clarissa’s face. “She’s sleeping again. She’s better, Grandma, but she still needs time. I don’t know if she’ll ever be… you know. Back to the way she was.”
Cookie let Cream down, wrapping the loop at the end of his leash around her wrist so he wouldn’t go too far, and then held Clarissa close. “Your mother loved your step-father very much.”
In a small voice, Clarissa said, “I did, too. Not at first, I mean, but after. I liked him after I gave him a chance.”
“I know, honey.”
“I wish… I just wish I hadn’t been so mean to him at the start.”
“He knew that you loved him,” Cookie reassured her, rocking her granddaughter back and forth in her arms. “That’s what matters. In the end, he knew that you loved him.”
Clarissa didn’t cry, but for a few minutes her body was wracked by tremors that threatened to turn into sobs. Then she sniffed, and pushed back from Cookie, trying her best to act like nothing had just happened. Cookie only smiled. Teenagers had their pride, after all.
“Cookie,” Jerry said to her, “I have to go see the captain. You should come with me. We’ll go see Jessica after.”
That was the safe, smart thing to do. Staying together until the killer was caught only made sense. But there was just too much to do, and too little time to do it in. Every minute they wasted put them another minute closer to port.
“Jerry, why don’t you go talk to the captain?” she suggested. “I’ll go see Jessica. We can look through the pictures together.”
“Cookie…”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’ll have Clarissa and Cream with me.”
He looked skeptical, but finally he nodded. “I’ve been trying to keep you from being yourself this whole trip. I’m going to have to accept you the way you are right now. After all, you’re the woman I love. I don’t like this, but I trust you.” He kissed her cheek while Clarissa pretended to avert her eyes. “Just be careful for me, all right?”
“We’ll keep our eyes open,” she promised him. “That man won’t catch us off guard twice.”
She watched Jerry walk away, already texting to the captain. He was so focused. So manly. Now that she knew the real reasons why he had seemed so distant she wasn’t worried anymore and she could enjoy being with him. It seemed so foolish that they had fought. Of course, if he tried to do that macho keep-the-woman-out-of-danger thing again, she’d have to bonk him on the head with a rolling pin.
“So Grandma,” Clarissa said with a tease in her voice. “Nice ring.”
Holding her hand out for her granddaughter to see the engagement ring better, she waggled her fingers and made the diamond sparkle. “Yes. Yes it is. Um. You’re not upset about it, are you? I mean, Jerry wanted to ask me to marry him on this cruise but then Joseph was killed and everything turned a little sideways and I don’t think he would have asked me at all except I was kind of putting pressure on him without meaning to… Anyway. The timing isn’t what either of us wanted. Are you all right with it?”
Clarissa gave her a very grown up eye roll. “Grandma. Love happens when it happens.”
“Like with you and Hamish?”
Her granddaughter’s cheeks swiftly colored red, and it wasn’t from the sun. “Yeah. Like me and Hamish. He hasn’t quite asked me to marry him yet, but…”
“He’s only still in culinary school, dear. You’re going to graduate high school soon! I’m sure he wants to wait.”
“Sometimes you can’t wait,” Clarissa muttered, shifting her feet. “That’s what I’m learning on this trip.”
Cream barked his agreement.
“Well.” Cookie wished she had more words of comfort to give Clarissa, but just about everything that could be said about poor Joseph already had been. “Let’s go see Jessica. Who knows. She might have the one bit of information that wraps this whole mystery up.”
Several text messages to Jessica went unanswered, however. She got one back from Benjamin. The words were cordial but the tone was anything but as he told Cookie to be patient and leave them be. Fine. She’d just have to go knock on their stateroom door and see for herself what Jessica had found out.
“Come along,” she told Clarissa. “We have a few more things to take care of before we can call finish on this mystery.”
They found the first stairway leading to the passenger decks and started down. Soon enough they were starting down the hall toward Jessica and Benjamin’s cabin. Cream trotted along next to them, happy to be running around on his leash. Cookie would really have to pay him some attention when they got back home. He needed to run and stretch his legs…
So why was he stopping now?
His little nose was pressed up against the bottom edge of a narrow door marked “Supply Closet.” Snuffling and huffing, h
e worked his way along the floor where it met the door, and then back again.
Then he started scratching and growling.
“Cream!” Cookie admonished him. “Bad dog!”
He didn’t stop. In fact, he snagged something with one of his paws and started trying to tug it out from under the door. Cookie bent down to examine it closer. Interesting. It looked so familiar. When she reached out a hand for it Cream snagged it on a claw and pulled it out further. Cookie froze where she was.
The thing he had found was made of cloth. It was long, and thin, and it was purple. At the end of it was a little metal tag.
“Grandma,” Clarissa said. “Isn’t that…”
“It’s Cream’s collar,” she confirmed. “The one that got lost when he was dognapped. Oh, my.”
The implications of finding Cream’s collar again, right here, hit her like a bucket of ice water.
She was reaching for Clarissa just as the door flew open and there was no time to stop the man from grabbing her. Cookie saw his watch. She saw his knife. She saw the look of horror that crossed her granddaughter’s face as the man pinned her arms to her sides and pressed his knife up against her cheek.
“You just wouldn’t leave it alone,” he said, addressing Cookie. “Would you?”
The world collapsed down to the space of the hallway around them. Cookie didn’t know what to do. It was one thing when it was her under that knife. It was an easy thing to be brave and tell Jerry to do whatever he needed to do in order to keep the killer from escaping. But this was her granddaughter. She couldn’t risk Clarissa’s life!
“Yeah, that’s right. Just stay back.” The guy tightened his grip around Clarissa’s bare middle. “No matter what I do, you’re right there on my tail. No matter what I say, you will not let this be. Will you? I swear to God, you’re worse than Joseph!”
Clarissa tensed when he said Joseph’s name.
Cream barked, and growled, and ran to the end of his leash and back over and over again. The man sneered down at the dog. “What’re you gonna do, anklebiter? Shut up!”
He swept a foot at Cream, nearly knocking Clarissa off her feet and making her yelp.
“Please don’t hurt her,” Cookie begged.
“Heh. Amazing how things change, isn’t it?” Looking over his shoulder, checking to see that they were still alone, he took a few steps away. “Well, you’re going to leave me be now, aren’t you? I’ve got your granddaughter right where I had you.”
Cream growled for all he was worth. Stretching himself out on his front paws he glared at the man, ready to attack.
While Cookie loved him for trying, he wouldn’t be enough to stop Joseph’s killer. Neither would she.
“Please,” she said again. “Just let my granddaughter go.”
The man shook his head. “You’re going to leave me alone now. Me and this pretty little thing are going to go for a walk and get into one of the lifeboats. Don’t give me that look. This isn’t my fault! I had this whole thing planned out until you got in my way. I was going to hide out. That supply closet was going to be my home unless I needed something to eat or, you know, to use the restroom. If someone caught me in there, I could just say I was one of the crew. When I went out, I had on a crew uniform. Who would suspect one of the crew, right?”
He took several more steps back, and Cookie followed, staying as close as she dared. Cream wanted to go faster, to get closer, but Cookie held him back. How was she going to save Clarissa?
How?
“Now,” the man said, like he suddenly needed to tell Cookie everything for some reason, “hiding isn’t going to work, is it? I need to get off this ship. The lifeboats are the only way. So… this one here is going to stay with me until I get up there, and on a boat. When I launch it, I’ll let your granddaughter go.”
“Just like that?” Cookie asked.
“Why not? I’ve got no reason to hurt her, unless one of you does something stupid.”
“You didn’t have any reason to kill Joseph, either.”
“Didn’t want to. He kind of put up a fight.”
Cookie felt too angry to be careful any more. “You mean when you were making him tell you about the money he stole?”
Behind Clarissa, the guy’s eyes widened. “Well, you’ve been busy. Figured all that out, did you?”
“Oh, I’ve figured out plenty. Like you aren’t even one of the crew.”
He stopped walking, then his smile slowly returned. “Thought you had me there for a tic. Yes, I’m not one of the crew, but you don’t know who I am, do you? Nope. Well, I gotta say you are a smart one. Joseph did steal a ton of money years ago. He was going to keep it hidden for another decade or so until he thought it was safe. Maybe forever. For all I knew, he didn’t ever want to see that money again. Well, I have better plans for it.”
Well, there was part of the answer to the mystery. This man, this fake crewmember, had gotten what he wanted from Joseph. He knew where the money was. Cookie would have been happier about discovering that bit of information if her granddaughter wasn’t being held at knifepoint!
Cream let out another raging bark at the man. Obviously he wasn’t happy either.
“Shut that dog up! I’ve had enough of this. You,” he said, pointing his knife at Cookie, “get into that closet. Take your snotty little mutt with you, too. I’m going to lock you in and then this little girl is coming with me.”
Clarissa screamed as loudly as she could and twisted her body in the man’s grip until she had slipped out of his grasp. Then she kneed him in the groin and brought her foot down on his shin. Cookie felt the pain of the blows from here.
The man fell to his knees. He dropped the knife and covered his injured crotch with both hands and curled into a ball right there in the passage at Clarissa’s feet. She took it as an invitation to keep kicking him. Again. And again.
And again.
It was Cookie who grabbed the knife away. It was a little folding pocket knife, she saw, so she folded it and put it away in her pocket. Clarissa was still kicking the man. Cream was still barking. Finally, people were starting to filter into the hallway to see what was going on. Cookie knew she should stop Clarissa before she really hurt the guy but she figured he deserved way worse. So.
“Excuse me,” she said sweetly to one of the men standing in the hallway. “Would you mind calling the cruise ship operator? Tell them we have a murderer detained. I’d do it myself but my granddaughter and I are… a little busy at the moment.”
Chapter Eleven
“Where did you learn to do that?” Cookie asked Clarissa.
The young lady was very proud of herself. Cookie could tell. As they sat together in Jessica and Benjamin’s stateroom not twenty minutes later, Clarissa had been all smiles. She’d just taken down the man who killed her step-father. “I took a woman’s self-defense class,” she explained. “Hamish suggested it to me.”
“Well. Remind me to thank your boyfriend for looking after you so well.”
Clarissa fairly beamed at the compliment to both her and Hamish. Yes, Cookie thought. Those two were going to be something special together.
They were all gathered together in the stateroom, her and Clarissa and Jerry on one couch, and Jessica and Benjamin on the other. After the ship’s crew had taken the killer away, the captain had asked them to stay close until he got back from securing the evil man in the infirmary to treat his, um, bruises from falling down. Benjamin had come out to see what all of the commotion was at that point and had offered for them to stay here with him and Jessica until everything could be cleared up.
“I should have known you would be in the middle of the commotion,” he had said to Cookie, standing there in the hallway and shaking his head. “Just like I should have known you’d involve me somehow. Come along.”
Now they sat quietly with cups of tea, just talking to each other like it was any other morning back in Widow’s Rest, albeit with a much more serious topic of discussion. Cookie’s thoug
hts kept turning to Madison and she knew she would want to explain all this to her daughter soon. There were just a few questions she still needed the answers to.
Jessica set down her cup on the table next to her couch, tucking her feet up under her and stifling a yawn. “I looked through a lot of the photos, Cookie, but I didn’t recognize anyone. You’re asking a lot for me to remember one of my brother’s friends from years ago.”
She was still in her pajamas and bathrobe. Cookie had to wonder if she’d ask for a do-over honeymoon from Benjamin once this was done. “When I asked Benjamin to have you look at those,” she told Jessica, “I knew it was a long shot at best. Now I don’t think there’s any reason at all to look through the rest of them.”
Jessica looked surprised. So did Jerry. “Cookie, that was going to be our link between the killer and Joseph, wasn’t it? We needed to show that the killer knew about the money somehow.”
Clarissa jumped in, eager to be a part of the mystery solving. “But he already confessed. Right, Grandma? I heard him say he killed Joseph, and I heard him say it was because of the money my step-dad stole.”
“Correct, dear.” Cookie laid an appreciative hand on her granddaughter’s knee. So smart. How many girls her age would have been able to pay attention to what was being said around them when there was a knife in their face, let alone fight their attacker off themselves? “That’s not the entire reason why I don’t think Jessica should continue looking through those photos, however.”
“So,” Benjamin said in that rude way of his, “you woke me and my wife up early, again, for no reason.”
“Oh, goodness, no. I still think Jessica might recognize the man. Just not in those photographs of the passengers and crew.”
“But he was one of the crew,” Jerry said.
Cookie smiled at him.
Jerry’s eyes went wide. “Er, he wasn’t one of the crew?”
“No, he most certainly was not. He was pretending to be one of the crew. I’m sure he slipped in at the start of the cruise, as a real passenger or not, and then he stole some of the crew’s clothing. All he really needed was the black pants and one of those hideous red vests. After that, he stole a cardkey. Then he looked like he belonged and he could go anywhere.”