This felt like important information. Wouldn’t someone who owned a cleaning business know exactly what chemicals not to mix? Or to mix if you wanted someone dead. He seemed to be playing it a little cool on his memories of Lesley’s cleaning product, from what I had seen and what Cece told me.
Maybe he was jealous of Alejandro Ciudad and angry at Lesley for considering going into business with a real estate guy instead of the man with the cleaning expertise.
I tried not to show any of my thoughts on my face as I sipped my drink, wrapping my mouth around the straw in case he was good at reading facial expressions.
BZZZ.
“Is that yours or mine?”
It turned out it was both of our phones. We’d both put the various events that made up the millionaire cruise into our phone calendars, and that was a reminder that one of them was just beginning.
“It’s time for Climbing the Mountain of Adversity to Get Your First Million.”
“Where does he come up with these titles?” he asked, shaking his head. “I think I’ll give this one a pass.”
I tossed the straw out of my drink, picked up the glass, and chugged the rest of it, drinking it the same way Cece drank a beer.
“I’ve got to be there. It’s my job.”
“Right. I might drop by a little later. I guess I’m supposed to be there too.”
It wasn’t my place to tell him, but he should definitely be there, at least if he wanted to keep his identity hidden. The other contestants would figure out he wasn’t a ‘real’ participant—and was actually one of the undercover investors—if he kept showing up late.
But that wasn’t my concern.
My concern was whether or not he killed Lesley Stein. I needed to talk to some more people first and see what I could dig up.
“See you later,” I said, slapping my empty glass down on the counter.
He raised his right hand to his head and made a gesture as if tipping a hat, even though he wasn’t wearing one, to send me on my way.
I didn’t have proof of anything yet, but I had a feeling I was on the right track. I’d figure out who killed Lesley and have Cece cleared of suspicion in no time.
I just knew it.
Chapter Thirteen
I could hear them long before I arrived, but it wasn’t until I got close that I could distinguish actual words from the din of the thumping music, the shouting participants, and the other racket. When I finally got there, the doors were all already closed. I pulled one open so I could slip inside.
“…make some mo-ney!” The words seemed to wallop me in the face as I arrived. This time, the event was indoors, in a large conference room inside the ship.
At least nothing will get blown overboard in here, I thought to myself.
The contestants were arranged in groups around tables again, and on each table they had their various products on proud display. But they weren’t looking at them. Everyone’s focus was on the front of the room, where Paul Parker was standing on an elevated platform.
Next to Paul Parker was a tall wooden stool. The lights in the rest of the room were abruptly switched off, as was the music, and a single spotlight illuminated the stool. Soft instrumental music began playing, and Paul sat on the stool, his feet resting on the front wooden crossbeam. The motivational speaker leaned forward, like he was about to tell them a story.
“Let me tell you a story…” he began, talking softly into the mic, which he held up right against his lips.
How predictable, I thought.
I braced myself for a sob story as I slipped between the tables, toward the front, so I could get some pictures of Paul Parker looking serious. I would also try and get some of the contestants with more sober expressions on their faces instead of the usual hyper-motivated looks they usually gave me when I tried to photograph them.
“It’s a story about a girl. You know the type—clever, sweet, innocent. A girl from the countryside. From flyover country, in the Midwest.”
The Midwest was not flyover country. Not in my book. If people spent a bit more time there, they’d know that it had countless charms that city slickers like Paul Parker knew nothing about.
“She was the kind of girl who thought her state was the best in the world, but she had barely ever left it, up until her big adventure.”
Paul Parker had a good speaking voice—I had to give him that—and he knew how to work a stage and a mic. Whether he was jumping around like a caffeine-infused kangaroo, or telling a story that surely everyone could relate to, he could capture people’s attention. I could already imagine he was telling a story about me.
“So this girl, our heroine, we’ll call her… Nebraska Nellie. She went on an adventure. And what kind of adventure does every young American think is unique to them? That’s right. A road trip.”
My stomach began to churn. There’s identifying with a story, and then there’s feeling like it’s actually about you. I peered around the room at the rest of the audience. Were they feeling the same as me? Could they identify with the story just as much?
After a few more details about preparing for the road trip, setting out on the adventure, and driving for a couple of days, all things which could apply to any road trip, the feeling that he was talking about me specifically faded somewhat.
“…But then it all went wrong for our Nebraska Nellie. Her life, as she knew it, ended. While stopped in the Southwest, she was kidnapped.”
The audience all gasped, but no one as loudly as me. I crouched down on the floor in the aisle, my hand reaching up to the table beside me for balance. Paul Parker continued telling the story that seemed to be my very own.
“… But she escaped! After struggling, she overcame her adversity—being kidnapped—and went on to live her life happily, only occasionally being reminded of that awful time in her life. She remembered the kidnapping forever, the thought of it often popping back into her mind. But when it did, it was a reminder to her: if she could overcome that, she could overcome anything. She didn’t let it ruin her life.
“But her own kidnapping wasn’t the only horror she faced. Another girl had been kidnapped too, a girl who didn’t escape and was never returned to her family. A girl still missing to this day. Nebraska Nellie could have let survivor’s guilt ruin her life, but she didn’t. She soldiered on. The guilt of surviving doesn’t hold her back to this day. And now? Well, she’s not famous, she’s not a megastar, but thanks to making the decision to claim her million, she is a successful businesswoman and millionaire.”
This was crazy. It was insane. Had Paul Parker really just told my story to the audience? He didn’t even know me. How could this have happened? The only parts that didn’t ring true were the name, the survivor’s guilt, and millions she supposedly made. Another girl hadn’t been kidnapped, at least not that I knew of.
Taking slow, deep breaths to avoid a panic attack, I crept to the back of the room and leaned against a wall. Paul Parker hadn’t finished yet. He started on another story about a young immigrant but I tuned it out.
I couldn’t listen to anymore, not after what I’d just heard.
For the next half an hour or however long Parker went on telling his stories, I focused on my breathing. I’d had a bad experience with a panic attack in the recent past, and I didn’t want to bring another one on.
When I could tell Parker was nearly done, I pushed myself up straight again and looked around. The audience was all still totally rapt, staring at the wooden stool at the front of the room as he finished up his stories. While I’d missed most of the tales, I had caught the fact that every single happy ending involved Paul Parker’s motivational training and each and every protagonist earning themselves millions thanks to him.
The only other person who didn’t seem to be enjoying it was Alejandro Ciudad. He was also standing at the back of the room, leaning against the back wall with his eyes closed, a few yards away from me. His skin appeared damp and ashen and it looked like he was trying to tune o
ut Paul Parker, like I had been.
“…and so what I want you all to do now is look at your products. Really look at them. I want you to come up with your own adversity story, and how you can relate it to what you’ve created. Then tell each other about them. Explain what you overcame and how you overcame it to become the millionaire you are today. And it’s important you phrase it like that—the more often you tell people you’re a millionaire, the sooner you’ll actually be one. It’s all about positive thinking—which is, of course, how we overcome adversity. Does everyone understand what to do?”
“Yeah!” cheered the crowd, now switching from deep-listening mode back to their normal raucous enthusiasm.
“Then, let’s…”
“Make some mo-ney!”
I held up both hands to my temples and massaged them. My head was aching and not just from the noise.
Paul Parker was walking toward the back of the room and I caught his eye. I gestured for him to come and speak to me. Looking slightly annoyed, he headed my way.
“Did you enjoy my stories? They’re all true, you know.”
“Yes. I know. I have a question.”
“Go on. What is it?”
“The first story you told. The kidnapping story. Where did you hear it?”
Parker’s expression hardened, as if he didn’t like being questioned.
“All my stories are true. They come from people who’ve been through my program, people who’ve overcome adversity to become millionaires.”
“But that story, specifically, who told it to you?”
He was already shaking his head. “Oh, no. It’s a great story, isn’t it? But I’m afraid I can’t tell you the source. All of our participants sign a confidentiality agreement, and so do I. They don’t reveal my secrets, and I don’t reveal theirs. They agree to share their stories, but nothing more. I give them an ironclad guarantee of confidentiality.”
I stared at him, trying to figure out how much of what he was telling me was true and how much he was making up as he went along.
Could it be possible that he really had heard the story from someone else? Maybe I wasn’t the only person who’d been kidnapped. He could have just chosen Nebraska at random. And Nebraska Nellie had supposedly attended Parker’s course and become a wildly successful millionaire herself. That part certainly hadn’t happened to me.
“You know what?” he said to me.
“What?”
“You should listen during my events. Really listen. You’re hearing solid gold, which a lot of people paid a lot of money to hear, for free. And you’re getting paid to listen to it! If you really pay attention and apply yourself, you’ll be a millionaire before you know it.”
I had a lot more important things to think about than becoming a millionaire. My silence seemed to satisfy him though, because he turned and headed toward Alejandro, who still looked pale and shaken.
I stared at the two men as they spoke. I remembered Parker had started a story about a young immigrant boy before I’d stopped paying attention. Had he used Alejandro’s story too? If he had, then that would be the nail in the coffin of his claim that the story came from one of his previous participants.
I waited until Parker had finished talking to Alejandro before approaching him to ask.
“Hey.” I tried to make my tone light and amiable even though I wasn’t feeling it. “Did you enjoy the stories?”
Alejandro’s eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean? They’re for them, not me.” He jerked his head forward, toward the rest of the room.
It wasn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting. Alejandro hadn’t seemed hostile in the slightest when I first met him in Kelly Cline’s office.
“I just… I thought the stories were interesting. One of them really resonated with me. Not you?”
Alejandro shook his head. “Not at all. Probably because I’m one of the investors, not one of the wannabes.” He gave me a look like I was one of the so-called wannabes.
“Right. I see. I just thought one of the stories might have been about you, because he—”
Alejandro shook his head emphatically. “Nope!” He spun around to make his exit, but unfortunately someone was right behind him.
“Oh!” shouted Milton McPherson as Alejandro crashed right into him.
Milton had managed to create another prototype of his travel pillow. All was not lost for him in the competition—not yet. I got a good look at the inflatable thing as it soared up into the air. We were inside this time, so there was no chance of it going overboard.
“My pillow!” shrieked Milton.
Alejandro sidestepped the panicking contestant and continued on his way with a mumbled apology.
Milton and I watched as the inflatable fell. It landed a few yards behind him, on the far side of the table he had been assigned to.
“My eggs!” screeched a young pink-haired woman at his table.
The pillow had landed on top of the pink-haired woman’s thing. In front of her were what looked like three broken eggshells and a series of tiny vases made from shells that were still intact.
Uh-oh. It looked like there’d been some damage.
“You idiot!” the woman with the pink hair screamed at Milton.
“It wasn’t my fault! It was… hers,” he said pointing at me.
“Wait, what!? It wasn’t my fault. It was the in—” I stopped myself. “It was that other man who crashed into you, not me!”
“Why are you blaming her? She’s only trying to do her job! It’s your fault. Has anyone got a knife? I’m going to stab—”
My eyes went wide and my mouth dropped open.
“—this stupid thing and throw it in the trash.”
“My invention! No!” Milton leaned over the table, his short arms extending as far as they would go to grab at his homemade inflatable travel pillow that looked like… something else.
As Milton dragged it back toward him, it knocked over another one of the pink-haired lady’s egg vases.
“Idiot!” she screamed at him.
“Am not! And it’s just eggs! Go find a chicken and you can get some more!”
“We’re on a cruise ship! There are no chickens!”
“Well… go and lay an egg yourself! You’re squawking like one!”
“At least I don’t look like a puffed-up Thanksgiving turkey!”
As if it had been a command rather than a description, Milton puffed up his cheeks in anger. With sudden realization, he blew out the air in a frustrated sigh.
The two adversaries stared at each other in a stalemate. Milton was clutching his prototype pillow to his chest protectively, while the pink-haired woman hovered over the remains of her eggs.
“Maybe you could work this into your adversity stories for your products…?” I offered.
My suggestion went down about as well as a lead-balloon travel pillow on a miniature eggshell vase.
With both Milton and the woman glaring at me, I decided it was time to make my exit. I had a lot to think about, and phallic pillows and smashed eggshells were way down my priority list.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, Ethan and I weren’t able to have our Croissant Club breakfast date. In fact, we weren’t finding much time to see each other at all.
He had to write a stack of reports about what happened to Lesley, and that was on top of his regular duties. The only time he had ‘free’ to do this was in the morning, when he usually went for a run and then had his breakfast date with me.
Both were sacrificed for Lesley.
The Claim Your Million participants were going ashore to check out some Mayan ruins. We had pulled into port at Cozumel early that morning, and the money-hungry contestants were being sent to explore the ancient remains of old buildings from the Mayan civilization.
While they were gone, it would give me a chance to get ahead with my own work—writing some more articles about cruise ship life, captioning a few more photos I’d already
taken, thinking up some one-liners for Twitter and the like—and to continue my investigation.
I had a friend’s name to clear, after all.
I spent the morning on the boring stuff. I managed to produce a whole five-hundred-word article about the benefits and drawbacks of straight drinking straws versus bendy ones versus full-on curly straws.
I closed my laptop and stood up from the small desk in my cabin. While I’d been typing, my mind had been whirring away in the background, thinking about what facts we knew about Lesley’s murder and their implications.
We knew there had been a bottle of champagne in Lesley’s room, so I was going to see what I could find out about it. If I could source the champagne, maybe I could figure out who else had been in Lesley’s cabin.
And I knew just the man to see.
Just before lunch, I headed to the kitchens of the International Buffet, the ship’s largest restaurant and the workplace of Greg Washington.
I slipped through the doors and into the cavernous kitchen beyond. It was full of chefs and their assistants, all with their own jobs to do, bustling about as they finished their preparations for lunch.
Greg Washington was near the back of the room, and he was demonstrating to a junior chef how to use a pastry bag to decorate the top of some dessert that looked like a decadent cheesecake.
I hovered nearby as I watched, trying not to interrupt.
“There. Easy, isn’t it? Now you try.”
Greg handed the bag to the young female chef he was training. “Thank you,” she said with sounded like a French accent. She carefully held the bag over a fresh dessert, squeezed it, and then I had to cover my mouth to stop from giggling as a giant spurt of it burst out right into the middle of the cheesecake.
Cruise Millions: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 6) Page 9