by Maddy Hunter
“Owww!” he hissed, clapping a hand to his naked jaw.
“Who’s Dorian Smoker?” asked one of the crayons.
“DORI?” screeched Catwoman, pouncing up onto a bench. “You’re alive? You scumbag! You rat! I’m going to kill you myself!”
In the next moment Smoker jackknifed his body and catapulted me over his head, propelling me into Jonathan’s stalk like a misfired rocket. BOOM! We crashed to the deck in a heap of limbs, my head woozy as Smoker jerked me onto my feet and collared his arm around my throat. “No one is going to move, or I swear, I’ll snap her neck like a twig.”
Catwoman clawed the air hard enough to draw blood. “I don’t care what you do to her. I don’t like her anyway.” She leaped onto the deck, her eyes spitting venom as she took a step toward us. “Shelly’s right. You’re so dead, Smoker. Meooow!” She scratched the air again, making me cringe to think what she might have done if there’d been chalkboards handy.
“Not so fast,” Nana said, seizing her tail as if it were the end of a tug-of-war rope. “Sneezy! Dopey! Lucille!”
Jennifer shot a glance behind her shoulder as her forward motion suddenly switched to a backward slide across the deck, compliments of three dwarfs and a pig.
“That’s my granddaughter,” Nana scolded Jennifer. “So we’re not gonna make no waves. Understand?”
“Let go my tail!” Jennifer twisted her body around, swatting at Sneezy and Dopey. “So help me, Granny, when I get my paws on you, I’ll —” THUNK! BOOM.
Snow White stood over Catwoman’s body, all satisfied smiles and innocence. “Whoops. My walking stick must have slipped.”
The green Crayola elbowed the brown one. “Help me out here. Are those guys dwarfs or elves?”
“Step away from her body!” Smoker snarled at the dwarfs. “Nice and slow. That’s it. Now, everyone over to the port side of the boat.”
People shuffled left. People shuffled right. The undecideds stood in the center aisle looking desperately confused.
“TO THE LEFT!” Smoker bellowed.
Everyone shuffled left while Jonathan rolled around on the floor like an upended tortoise.
“I’ll save you, Emily!” he vowed as he tried to get his legs beneath himself. “Any minute now!”
Nana raised her hand. “Excuse me, Professor, but I seen on a Travel Channel special where too many people crowded onto one side of a boat wasn’t a good idea, on account a it could make the boat capsize and sink.”
“I’ll make a note of that, Mrs. Sippel.” He exerted pressure on my throat as he wrenched me into the aisle. “Anything else?”
Nana gave her mushroom cap hat a little scratch. “I can’t figure somethin’ out. If you’re still alive, who was it what got throwed over the side?”
“No one!” I croaked within his hammerlock. “It was a sham! He —!” I gasped in panic as he tightened the circle of his arm.
“No one died?” Nana enthused. “Did you hear that, Emily? Isn’t that nice?”
“You’re a thief, sir,” Tilly accused. “What have you done with my journal?”
“And a sweeter journal I have never seen, Professor Hovick. You’re going to make me a very rich man. Thank you for the windfall. Where would we be without the unmitigated trust of Midwesterners like you? No need to worry about the book’s whereabouts; it’s safe. In a place where you’ll never find it, I might add. Can you believe the damned thing was authentic?”
I squirmed futilely in his grip, nearly breaking out in song when Darth Vader swept menacingly into the cabin, boots pounding, cloak flying. Thank God! Duncan would know what to do. Duncan wouldn’t let my neck be snapped like a twig. Duncan would —
“If you’ll kindly join the others,” Smoker instructed calmly, “I won’t be forced to break this young woman’s neck.”
Duncan joined the rest of the group without a word of protest. A little disappointing, considering he could have protested in five freaking languages! On the up side, at least Smoker hadn’t called me ma’am.
“Hold on, Emily,” Jonathan wailed, his feet flopping around like fish. “I’ve almost mastered it.”
Smoker made a point of kicking Jonathan’s stalk as he steered me around him. “Who would have thought that a lowlife like Griffin Ring could change my fortunes so radically two centuries later? Finding his journal was like winning the lottery.”
“I won the lottery,” Nana piped up. “If you let Emily go, I’ll write you a check. I got twelve million.”
“Twelve million?” said Dopey. “Last time I heard it was eight.”
“Tech stocks,” she explained. “I made a killin’ before I bailed.”
Tilly’s expression hardened. “Since you have the journal, Professor, I assume you also have the treasure?”
“A logical assumption. You were quite lucky to uncover it the way you did. I was absolutely certain it was buried somewhere on the grounds of the Secret Falls; that’s why I scavenged the place on my own after all of you cleared out. Unfortunately, someone else had the same idea, and much to his detriment, he recognized me.” He jerked my body around in the direction of Nils and Gjurd. “Sorry about your companion, gentleman, but it couldn’t be helped. Prime example of wrong place, wrong time.”
Nils seemed to expand to twice his size. “It was you who killed Ansgar?” His voice thundered like that of the Great Oz.
“Not my fault. He forced my hand.”
Color stained Nils’s cheeks. “You killed him? You stole his wallet? You boarded the ship using his identification?”
Smoker nodded. “It couldn’t have worked out better if I’d planned it myself.”
Roaring in anguish, Nils hurled his trident through the air, scoring a direct hit in the center of Smoker’s forehead — a blow that could have killed him if we’d been talking steel instead of styrofoam.
Smoker kicked the trident out of the way as Tilly’s voice grew more stern. “You forced your way into my cabin last night and stole the puzzle box.”
His manner grew short, his calm rapidly deteriorating. “Aren’t you the academic genius? Thanks for leaving it in the open the way you did. You made my job much easier. Ransacking a cabin isn’t my idea of fun.”
My eyelids flew up into my head at his admission. Smoker was the one who’d stolen the treasure from Nana’s cabin? Smoker was the one who’d shot pepper spray into my face? Smoker was the one who’d slammed me into the wall? SMOKER WAS THE ONE WHO WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING TO NANA IF SHE’D ANSWERED THE DOOR?
I inhaled a deep breath, clearing my mind, expanding my lungs, energizing my will, igniting a hot, inner fire that turned me into the justice seeking Amazon known as WONDER WOMAN!
“AAARH!” I screamed, hammering my boot heel into the instep of his sandaled foot. He yowled in pain, dropping his arm from around my throat to hop backward on one foot. I spun around and slammed my palm upward into his nose. CLONK! I dropkicked his kneecap. THUNK! He stumbled backward over Jonathan, falling onto his fat suit in an awkward heap.
“I’ve got him!” cried Jonathan, rolling on top of him like a giant rolling pin.
I pivoted on my heel. “Grab Bail —”
She was smiling at me from the far end of the aisle, a can of pepper spray in each hand, fingers on the nozzles. “You are such a pain,” she said patiently. “Get the broccoli off Dori, then step aside.”
NUTS! Would nobody give me a break here?
“You’ve got some good moves for an escort,” she said begrudingly. “Self-defense lessons?”
“It’s the costume,” I said, panting. I stood my ground, matching her stare for stare. “You fell in love with the wrong man, Bailey.”
“Says you. I know he’s the right man.”
“He’s slept with half the student population of Penn State!”
“So? He’s a man. He has needs.”
“Does he need condoms?” Nana interjected. “Margi’s got extra.”
I shook my head. “So if he was sleeping with the imm
ediate world, why keep your relationship with him a secret? What difference would it make to anyone?”
Bailey stared at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a spare head. “Hel-looo? I can’t afford to have any hint of scandal appear in my personal records. I want to teach in the Ivy League! You think I’d stand a snowball’s chance in hell if word got out that I was shagging my major professor? If I don’t maintain the appearance of being intellectually superior and morally upright, I end up at East Podunk University with all the other academic losers. Do I strike you as the kind of person who’d let that happen?”
“I’ve heard a East Podunk,” said Nana. “Where’s that at? New Jersey?”
Bailey threw an irritated look at Nana and Tilly before circling back to me. “You put two and two together, didn’t you? Dori thought he was being so clever by giving me that necklace. No one ever made the connection. He loved it that we were pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes.”
I shrugged. “People in Pennsylvania might say rowboat, or fishing boat, or dinghy, but in the land of ten thousand lakes where my grampa lived, a lot of people say dory. So if you’re wearing a fourteen-karat gold dory around your neck, and the people in Professor Smoker’s inner circle are the only ones allowed to call him by his pet name, I’m thinking that makes you about as inner circle as they come.”
She smiled with quiet respect. “Touché.” Nils hedged slightly toward her. Pssssssst! She blasted him with her pepper spray.
“Uff da!” he cried in a spate of rabid Norwegian, driving his fists into his eyes. I winced in sympathy.
“Anyone else?” she offered. “There’s plenty where that came from.”
“Nice job playing the aggrieved graduate student,” I complimented her.
“Thanks. I minored in theater as an undergrad.”
“So how was this supposed to work?” I prodded. “Smoker dies, then the two of you rendezvous on some remote Carribean island where you divide the proceeds from the sale of the journal and treasure?” I tried not to react as Darth Vader materialized by the men’s head behind her. Wait a minute. Darth was already there. I shifted my gaze from the evil lord on my right to the one standing straight ahead. Holy crap. There were two of them?
“Orkney Islands,” Bailey corrected. “Not so much tourism there. A change of identity for Dori. A fake passport. It was rather an ingenious plan, considering how quickly we had to hatch it. Dori gets to escape the censure of school administration for his sexual practices, and I get to spend the rest of my life with a man who has placed me in the center of his universe.”
“You and everyone else,” I fired at her. “Not to mention, he killed a man!”
“That wasn’t part of the plan. What do you want me to do? He said he was sorry! Look, enough with the chitchat. Help him onto his feet. We have a boat we need to sink.”
Halfway up the aisle, Jennifer French stirred back into consciousness, coiled her body around to regard Bailey, and before I could blink, charged at her like an offensive tackle.
“EHH!” cried Bailey, as the pepper spray flew out of her hands and rolled out of reach.
“Catfight!” cried Dopey, leaping onto a bench for a ringside seat as the two women crashed to the deck with a reverberating BOOM! The two Darths swept forward, one yanking Jennifer to her feet, the other hoisting Bailey off the floor.
“Leave me alone!” Jennifer shrieked at Darth Number One, swinging her fist at his mask. “Daaaamn!” she cried, cradling her hand against her black feline chest. “Bastards! You’re all bastards!”
I shook my head. Was anyone besides me noticing that Jennifer might have a few unresolved issues with anger management?
“Give it up,” Darth Number One ordered Jennifer, forcing her onto an empty bench.
“You, too,” ordered Darth Number Two, cuffing Bailey to an upright pole.
He had handcuffs? I looked on curiously. Was that part of Vader’s official equipment, or were cuffs only included in the superdeluxe version of the costume?
“Emily!” Jonathan beckoned from atop Smoker, his florets fluttering wildly. “I could use a little help over here!”
The dwarfs and crayons rallied, coaxing him to his feet and standing him upright, while two little pigs replaced him on top of Smoker, paralyzing the professor beneath six hundred pounds of pork on the hoof. “Would somebody get a picture of this?” yelled one of the pigs. “Emily might be able to use it in her newsletter.”
I brushed off Jonathan’s stalk, embarrassed that I could have ever thought him capable of murder.
“Did I do good?” he asked shyly.
“You did great.” I flashed him a face-cracking smile, my mouth dropping open as I looked beyond him to the two Darths who stood before me, minus their breathing masks. EH! “Duncan?” I rasped, touched by the desire playing on his handsome face. “Etienne?” I whispered, warmed by the passion smoldering in his electric blue eyes. “You’re both here.” I forced the smile to remain on my lips. “Imagine that.” And one of them had asked me to marry him.
Euw, boy. This was a little awkward. “About my cabin upgrade.” I darted a desperate look between them. “That was so generous and…and romantic of you!”
“It was nothing,” said Jonathan.
I swiveled my head, drilling his little green face with a horrified look. “Excuse me?”
“Your upgrade. I wanted to thank you for saving my life.”
“You?” I stabbed my finger at his stalk. “You paid for the upgrade?”
“I was happy to pay for it.”
“But you have no money, Jonathan. You don’t even have a job!”
“So? I have an American Express card. That’s just as good as money.”
Oh, hell! “Was it you who sent the flowers?”
“That was me,” said Duncan.
“And me,” said Etienne.
I exchanged frustrated looks with both of them before turning to Duncan. “You knew about my new cabin the day it happened. How?”
He shrugged. “The clerk in the florist shop pulled up all that information on the computer when I placed my order. She mentioned you’d been upgraded to a suite with a great balcony.”
I threw my hands into the air. “WHO SENT THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL?”
“That would be me,” Etienne whispered, in a voice that vibrated down my breastbone. “I love you, Emily.”
“I love her, too,” objected Duncan. “And the only thing that kept me from proposing earlier was that I was heaving into a barf bag!”
“Don’t listen to them,” Jonathan cried, dropping to his knees in front of me. “You’re the only girl in the world for me, Emily. Will you marry me?”
Oh, yeah. This was going well.
Chapter 16
At ten o’clock the following morning, while other passengers were bicycling down Mount Haleakala, snorkeling, or touring a tropical plantation to learn of Hawaii’s rich agricultural heritage, I sat at the dining table in my stateroom, staring at the puzzle box that security had removed from Bailey’s backpack the night before and returned to Tilly, along with her missing journal.
“How much longer are we gonna gawk at this thing before we get down to business?” Bernice sniped. “I say we set the dang thing on a chair and let one of the Dicks sit on it. That should be enough to bust it into smithereens.”
All the Halloween costumes had been returned to the rental shop, so everyone was pretty much back to normal again.
“How come you’re singling the Dicks out?” Lucille objected. “I’m just as big as they are. Why should they have all the fun?”
“You can’t sit on it,” Tilly reprimanded. “It’s not a whoopie cushion. It’s an historic artifact.”
“I think Bernice has a point,” Margi spoke up. “What good has come of that box? It played a part in getting the little Norwegian killed. It nearly got Emily killed. I think it’s bad luck. We should get rid of it before anything else happens.”
Knock knock knock. We all swiveled our heads tow
ard the door before I gave Alice the okay to pop up and answer it. Nana and Helen Teig straggled into the room, their faces long with disappointment.
“I was so sure I was gonna win,” Nana lamented, as she and Helen dragged chairs to the table to join the rest of us. “I come up with everythin’. The business card. The map with no advertisin’. The blue M&M.” She shot a glance at Helen. “A real M&M, too. Not one a them doctored-up things.”
Helen elevated her chin to a haughty angle. “I don’t want to hear it, Marion. Scavenger hunts are like love and war. Everything is fair.”
“What do you mean, doctored-up?” asked Margi.
Nana gave her lips a “well, let me tell you” smack. “Helen couldn’t find no blue M&M, so she colored one a her Skittles to look like an M&M.”
“I would have won, too, if the ink hadn’t rubbed off on the judge’s fingers.”
“I told you to use your Magic Marker,” her husband chided. “But nooo, you had to go with the ballpoint.”
“The Magic Marker was dark blue,” Helen barked. “I needed peacock blue. Besides, I was glad I lost when they showed us the prize. An ugly chunk of rock from the Volcanoes National Park. Can you believe that? They tried to dress it up by sticking it in a little acrylic box with a brass label, but it was still ugly.”
“They actually gave away some of the island’s volcanic rock?” I questioned. “But isn’t that supposed to rain bad luck down on the recipient?”
“That only applies to folks what steal the rock,” Nana explained. “If the State Parks Department makes a gift a the stuff, you don’t got nothin’ to worry about. At least, that’s the line they give us before they announced the winner.”
“And the winner was none too happy with the prize, either,” Helen stated. “You could tell by the way he ran screaming from the room.”
“What’s the big deal about that?” asked Bernice. “They do that on The Price Is Right all the time.”
“So who won?” I asked. “Anyone I know?”
“A fella with two broken arms,” said Helen.