“All of us,” Alexi added.
Charlie smiled, thinking about the friends who’d just vowed to protect her. A piano-bar hostess and a soprano with the voice of an angel. Not exactly a couple of Navy SEALs.
But she knew both of them had survived terrible ordeals to be where they were now, and even if they weren’t gun-toting bodyguards themselves, they came with a pair of them. And then there was Ethan, of course. Her skin flushed at the thought of him.
“I’m tired of everything pointing at my father, who would certainly never hurt me. Or anyone else, for that matter. I’m angry, and I want to shake someone to get to the truth,” Charlie said as they reached the dining room.
As soon as they entered, she saw that Captain Derue and his men were there. Every single one of them, from those who could stand to those who were too weak to rise from their sickbeds, saluted the four of them.
For a moment, they all stood dead still.
This was worth it. Whatever happened to her here aboard the Journey, this was worth it.
They saluted in return, then headed to the small stage to warm up.
Soon the diners began to file in. Charlie watched for Ethan and Thor, but they didn’t appear.
Neither did her father.
Captain Derue was in front of the stage as they ended, watching as if mesmerized, applauding enthusiastically. As the diners headed out to allow the room to be set up for the second seating, he approached Charlie, looking clearly concerned.
“You’re all right?” he inquired anxiously.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Some of my men say they saw some of the same people on board today who were here the day of the reenactment. The petite woman was one.”
“Jennie? Jennie McPherson, the makeup artist you saw on set today?”
“Early, very early,” the captain said. “The others...a bit later. There were three of them, and they went in different directions.”
Charlie nodded, glancing around. A robust woman in a long blue gown had cornered Alexi and Clara. Jude was on his phone.
She looked down as she spoke, trying to make sure—if she was being observed—that it didn’t look like she was talking to herself.
“Captain, someone wrote a threat on the mirror in my cabin. They used lipstick so it would look like blood.”
He looked at her gravely. “We’re afraid for you. Me, my men—and Anson, too. He believes the killer may think you found the body of Farrell Hickory because you’d seen something that indicated where to look, perhaps that you’ve even seen the murderer himself.”
“But I didn’t see anything. I couldn’t have seen anything. The evidence shows he was killed the night before I found him,” Charlie said.
“Perhaps the killer thinks you know something else, then. It doesn’t matter. You must be careful. Please, be very careful.”
Charlie nodded solemnly. “I will be. Thank you.”
He had faded away before she finished speaking, leaving her talking to the air.
“Charlie?”
She turned to see Alexi looking at her worriedly and walked over to lean on the piano so she could tell her about the captain’s warning and what the men had seen.
“Wasn’t Jennie on set today?” Alexi asked her.
“She was, but he said it was very early, so it could have been before she had to be on set. Do you think she wrote on my mirror? Ethan and I did go up top for breakfast,” Charlie said. “I just can’t see her having the strength to kill the men the way they were killed.”
“Maybe she didn’t kill them but did write on your mirror,” Alexi suggested.
Clara moved over to the piano to join them. Jude was still on the phone, but he was watching them as he talked.
“I’m thinking about spending the night at my dad’s house in St. Francisville,” Charlie said, after they’d brought Clara up to speed. “I don’t want to be in that cabin again. I don’t know why, because I’m not actually afraid when I’m with Ethan, but I just feel it has been touched by something dirty, something evil. Silly, huh?”
“We can switch cabins,” Alexi offered.
“That’s too much trouble just because I’m being ridiculous. It’s only about ten minutes from the ship to my house, and the Journey doesn’t leave port until ten thirty. I don’t think Ethan will mind if we stay at the house tonight.”
“He won’t mind doing anything that makes you feel safe.”
Jude walked over to the piano, pocketing his phone. “Ethan and Thor have gone down to the station with Randy Laurent. They’re going to enhance some of the ship’s video surveillance footage and try to find out who might have been on the ship. I’m not sure when they’ll be back.”
“Charlie doesn’t want to sleep in her cabin tonight,” Alexi told him.
“Charlie and Ethan can have our cabin,” Jude said.
“I already offered, but Charlie doesn’t want to put us out,” Alexi said.
“I kind of want to get off the ship tonight,” Charlie said.
“Do we know how long Ethan and Thor are going to be?” Clara asked. “We could all go to Charlie’s house and wait for them, even all spend the night there. Ethan and Thor could just meet us there whenever they finished.”
“After your second set, we’ll figure out what to do,” Jude said.
“Have you seen my dad?” Charlie asked him.
“No, he hasn’t come in here,” Jude said.
“Would you see if you can find him?” Charlie asked. “I’m worried about him. He’s always here for our shows.”
“I’ll send someone,” Jude assured her.
“You could just run down to his cabin,” Charlie said.
“Not on your life. No way am I leaving the three of you,” Jude told her firmly. “I’m sure your dad is okay, but I will send someone. Meanwhile, I think your next set of people are coming in.”
Jude smiled and walked over to the table where he planned to sit for the second show. Several diners approached the Belles before sitting down to ask them to reprise one song or another from a previous night.
Finally everyone was seated, and the trio launched into their opening medley, after which Charlie began the story of the Journey and how she’d changed hands several times between North and South.
“And now she’s an Irish-American ship,” Clara piped in, which got a laugh.
Once everyone settled down, Alexi began to play softly as Charlie talked. As she neared the end, she saw the ghosts of the men who had been on the Journey the day it changed hands for the final time.
As the show went on, Charlie kept looking over to where Jude was sitting. Several times he got up and moved to the doorway at the back of the room to speak on the phone.
Her father had yet to appear, and she found herself growing more and more restless.
When their last song was over, she dodged the fans approaching the stage to congratulate them and hurried over to Jude.
“My dad—”
“Your dad is fine. He’s in his cabin, with the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, but I asked the steward to disturb him anyway, just to ask if he needed anything. He answered and said he was fine.”
Charlie looked at Jude and shook her head. “He’s not fine. I know my dad. He would have been here tonight if he were fine. Jude, please, we have to go to his cabin.”
“Okay. Get Clara and Alexi. We’ll go now,” Jude told her.
The four of them hurried toward the exit. It wasn’t an easy escape. People kept stopping them to ask questions or just pass on a compliment. The whole time, Charlie’s fear for her father was growing. Maybe it was just as irrational as not wanting to sleep in her cabin, but rational or not, it was eating away at her insides.
Finally they were out of the dining room and hea
ding down the hallway. Charlie saw the Do Not Disturb sign on her father’s door and ignored it, hurrying ahead to pound on the door. There was no answer, not even when she called, “Dad? It’s me, Charlie.” She turned back to look at Jude. “We have to get in there!”
“Do you have a key to his cabin?”
“No, but—”
“Never mind, not if you’re that worried.”
Jude turned sideways and slammed his shoulder against the door, which splintered at the impact.
He proceeded to kick in what was left of it.
As he did, someone in the cabin screamed, high-pitched and startled.
* * *
Ethan, Thor and Randy sat head to head as they went over the video surveillance from the Journey. They ran through it several times in real time, then had the tech speed it up and slow it down, searching through the hundreds of people who’d come and gone that day.
“I don’t see a single member of the movie crew,” Randy said. “No one who could’ve left that message on the mirror!”
Ethan hadn’t seen anyone, either. He leaned back, puzzled. The lipstick message hadn’t been a joke; it had been a serious warning. And there was no reason for anyone to go after Charlie unless they were convinced she knew or had seen something that could put them at risk. Like Selma Rodriguez—who hadn’t known anything at all.
Except that Albion Corley had planned on meeting with Jonathan Moreau.
“Ethan, it’s possible someone paid someone else—maybe an employee on the Journey—to write that message. The Journey is old, but she’s had her doors reconfigured for key cards, and key cards are the easiest thing in the world to duplicate,” Thor pointed out.
“Yeah, it’s possible,” Ethan agreed, then leaned back, perplexed. “Why do people kill?” he murmured.
“Sometimes,” Randy said, “I think they kill because they’re just rotten somewhere in their souls. Sometimes from hatred. Or love. Jealousy.”
“Greed,” Ethan said. “Greed’s a big one. We’re meeting with Saul Gideon, CEO of Gideon Oil, in Baton Rouge tomorrow. The guy isn’t from Louisiana. He’s a Texan. And he wasn’t against meeting with the Sane Energy people. If his company made the change the Sane Energy people were going to propose, it would have cost them a great deal of money in the short term. But the meeting was never scheduled—no one even talked to Gideon about it—and we know, because HQ checked his whereabouts, that Saul Gideon didn’t come here and bayonet two old friends in reproduction military uniforms.” He turned to the tech. “Let’s run the video one more time, please.”
Ethan watched again and asked the tech to slow down when they hit late afternoon, right about the time the tour buses were returning to the Journey.
“There!” Ethan exclaimed.
“There, where?” Randy said, puzzled.
Thor pulled his chair closer and pointed at the screen. “I see it, Ethan. Officer Johnson, run back and slow it down there...right there. Go frame by frame.”
“Start where that family of three goes through the checkpoint, and then there’s a lull,” Ethan said. “And then— There! Looks like a kid, but...”
“That’s not a kid, that’s a small woman,” Thor said.
“And I know who it is,” Ethan said flatly. “Jennie McPherson, who was supposedly on her way to have dinner at the café with a bunch of her coworkers when we last saw her.” He stood up. “We have to get back to the ship.”
As Thor and Randy rose, there was a tap on the door. Ethan opened it to reveal an officer standing in the hall.
“We’ve got a match on some of the prints we found in Charlene Moreau’s cabin,” he said.
* * *
Charlie couldn’t have been more stunned to see the small blonde standing in her father’s cabin than if Godzilla had been there.
Jennie McPherson looked both startled and horrified. She was staring at them like a deer caught in the headlights.
“What—what are you doing? Breaking into Jonathan’s suite?” she demanded, her hand fluttering to her throat.
“What are we doing here?” Charlie demanded. “What the hell are you doing here? And where the hell is my father?”
Jennie looked truly surprised. “I thought he was with you.”
“No, he’s not with me,” Charlie snapped and stepped forward aggressively. Jude caught her and pulled her back right before she could tackle the other woman. “I’m asking you one more time. Where’s my father?”
“If he’s not with you, I have no idea!” Jennie said.
“What are you doing here? And how did you get in my cabin? Why did you write on my mirror?”
“What are you talking about? I was never in your cabin, and I certainly didn’t write anything on your mirror.”
“What are you doing aboard this ship?” Jude asked evenly. “We can have you arrested for breaking and entering, you know.”
“Breaking and entering?” Jennie gasped. “You’re the one who broke the door down. I was just...waiting.”
“How did you get in here? And why were you waiting? Waiting for what? My father? Why? Were you going to stab him in the heart?” Charlie asked.
“What? No!”
“Then why are you here?” Charlie demanded. “If you’ve hurt my father in any way I’ll—”
“Hurt him? Are you crazy?” Jennie protested.
“Then...?” Jude asked.
“Oh, good Lord. Dammit, Charlie, I’m sleeping with him,” Jennie said.
Charlie was actually stunned speechless for a minute. Finally she managed to say, “What?”
Jennie let out a sigh. “We didn’t want to say anything to anyone yet, especially you. Your dad was worried what you would think. I mean, I’m only a few years older than you are. We’re friends. I think we were friends, anyway, and I hope we still are. I wanted to tell you. It was ridiculous, two adults sneaking around to be together. I came aboard to...to see him for a few minutes. He...he gave me a key. He told me to come aboard as a visitor when I finished on set, then slip in and get some rest, and he’d see me when your show was over. I begged off going to the café with the crew and came here instead. Charlie, I swear, I’m crazy about your dad.”
Charlie felt sick. “He said he was going up to watch the show?”
“Yes. He said he watched you every night, and did I mind,” Jennie told her. “I told him of course I didn’t. Charlie, you’re everything to him. He didn’t want you hurt, and he certainly didn’t want you to end up blindsided like this. He just wanted to be able to tell you in his own time.”
Charlie just stared at Jennie, still stunned.
“When did you last see Jonathan?” Jude asked.
“Right before he gave his speech at the church. I saw him from the bluff and went over to say hi,” she said. “He—he said he’d join me here as soon as the show ended. I didn’t know what to do when that steward showed up, so I just made my voice really deep and said I was fine. And when you showed up, I figured if I just ignored you, you’d go away, but then I started to worry. Charlie, I care about him so much.”
Jennie?
And her father?
But more important...
Where the hell was her father?
She turned to Jude. “We need to call Ethan and Randy and ship security and anyone else you can think of and...and I don’t know what. Jude, something is wrong. I know it. We have to find my father!”
“Where would he go if he didn’t come back to the ship?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Nowhere, not if he said he’d be here. I know my dad. He’d be here if he could be. Something is wrong, something is really, really wrong.”
“All right, I’ll get you guys—except you, Jennie, you stay right here—back to our cabin, and then I’ll make the calls. We’ll get
everyone on this. But, Charlie, you have to stay there where you’ll be safe. In the cabin, door locked. And you can’t leave, no matter what.”
* * *
Ricky Simpson had been in bed when they started pounding on his door.
He’d gotten up quickly and opened it, then looked surprised to see Ethan, Thor and Randy standing in the hall staring at him. He immediately flushed and looked uncomfortable, though he managed to ask, “Hey, what’s going on? Is there a problem?”
The three men pushed their way into the cabin. “Sit down,” Ethan told him.
“Hey, you may be with the government, but I know my rights. You can’t just bust in here and start pushing me around. I have my rights!” Ricky protested.
“There are a dozen charges I can haul you in on,” Randy said, adding drily, “Being the local man, you know. We know you did it.”
“Did what? What is this all about?” Simpson asked them.
He had to know, Ethan thought, though he was still doing a good job of faking ignorance.
“It’s about a message. A threatening message left on Charlene Moreau’s mirror. Written in lipstick.”
“Lipstick! Has to be one of the dancers or, more likely, one of the other singers. Those girls, they can get pretty jealous, and when they get jealous, they get mean.”
“Ricky, I think you have plenty of access to lipstick,” Randy said.
“We think that message has something to do with the recent murders in the parish. And guess what?” Ethan said. “Your fingerprints popped up all over that bathroom.”
“What?” Ricky demanded, looking stunned.
“Fingerprints, buddy, they gave you away,” Randy told him.
“Well, of course they did! I’ve used that bathroom,” Ricky said.
“You sneak into your performers’ bathrooms for kicks or something?” Randy demanded.
“No!” Simpson protested. “Last cruise, Mandy Drake, the country singer, was in that room. She and I are old friends. I spent lots of time with her—and not the kind of time you’re probably thinking, either. We’re friends, old friends. I was one of the first people to hire her, years ago.”
Darkest Journey Page 27