Cruise Millions: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery (Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 6)

by A. R. Winters

  “Most cons are run in pairs, aren’t they?” I took a big swallow of coffee. “I think I need to speak to Helen again. Coming?”

  I was already standing up before Sam could reply. She still had half a plateful of food, and from the way she looked down at it I knew her answer before she gave it.

  “I’d love to, but Kelly’s got me doing something with the VIPs. Let me know how it goes.”

  “Will do.” I snatched up my last half of a piece of toast and munched on it while I walked. It was time for another word with the coffee cup entrepreneur.

  I found Helen thanks to the comprehensive tracking system Swan employs on customer purchases and reservations.

  Ethan hadn’t been able to find Alejandro using the tracking system because he hadn’t made any new purchases or reservations, but Helen Johannsen had made plenty of them. That morning, she was booked for a beauty treatment at the ship’s spa.

  I usually loved going to the ship’s spa, even if it was just to take pictures. It was decorated in a kind of corporate Thai style, with lotus leaves painted on the entrance doors.

  As soon as you entered, you could tell you were entering a place of calm. The floors and walls seemed to absorb all sound, apart from water bubbling away in a decorative fountain that puffed out a white mist. The dim lighting was tinged a slight rose color, and the air smelled of incense, jasmine, mud packs and vanilla.

  I was greeted by a Thai woman dressed in what appeared to be a beautiful silk dress. She was working the spa reception desk.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Helen Johannsen. I think she’s in here?”

  “Just a moment.”

  The receptionist seemed to almost float as she headed through the curtained passageway that led back to the treatment rooms. After less than a minute, she returned, a faint smile on her face. It was the kind of smile that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside, a smile of harmony and tranquility rather than something as crass as pleasure.

  “Come with me.”

  I followed as she glided down the quiet hallway past closed doorways. Each of the treatment rooms was named after a rock or mineral, and Helen Johannsen was in the Amber Room.

  “I suppose I should have expected it,” Helen said as a greeting.

  She was in the middle of receiving a mud-treatment to her face, and she was lying on her back on a massage and treatment table. On either side of her head were two round slices of cucumber, tinged with dark-gray mud. She had clearly removed the cucumber due to my interruption.

  “Hi, Helen. I was just—”

  “I know. You’re here to take pictures. It’s all anyone does these days, isn’t it? Everything has to be on social media, doesn’t it?”

  That hadn’t been what I going to say, but it would work for my purposes.

  “Right. Yes. Social media is very important. In fact, it’s my job!”

  Helen sat up. She was wearing a spa-provided silver colored robe cinched tightly around her waist.

  “A moment, please.”

  Helen slid off the massage table and walked over to a mirror to examine her face. Using her fingertips, she dabbed at the mud that covered it, rounding out the edges and balancing both sides of her face so the coverage was symmetrical.

  “Prince Rakim, who consults for me, says that it’s very important to post high-quality pictures. You do take good quality pictures, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes. In fact, I even lecture about photography sometimes.” This was a bit of an exaggeration. Much like the social media talk I’d given the day before, on a previous cruise I was roped into giving a photography lecture with very little notice.

  “Goodness. I didn’t realize you had a talent,” said Helen. “I’m ready.”

  Helen walked back to the massage table and lay back down again. I hovered over her, snapping pictures of her mud-encrusted face with my phone.

  When I had a few good pictures, I figured it was time to nudge Helen in the right direction.

  “Sorry if I gave the wrong impression yesterday. Your social media success is really something.”

  I was nervous as I said it. Most people wouldn’t buy that I had a change of heart. But there are certain kinds of people—vain, self-absorbed, narcissistic types—who never doubt that you’ve come around to their way of thinking. Helen seemed to be this kind of person.

  “Yes, it is. I do worry that I might be too successful though. Once production gets rolling, it would be a shame if the factories couldn’t keep up with the demand.”

  “Right!” I held out my phone, so that Helen could take it from my hand. “Why don’t you show me your profile with all your followers? I’d love to see it.”

  Helen sat up again and eagerly tapped at my phone. She pulled up her profile, which now had ten thousand and five followers. She’d gained one.

  “They just don’t stop coming!” she said with a little laugh.

  I took my phone back from her and scrolled through her profile.

  “Amazing stuff.” Compliments were a great way to distract someone, in my experience.

  While she was lying on the massage bed, I was checking her friends and other linked accounts. I wanted to know if she was who she said she was, or whether she was a fake like Alejandro had turned out to be.

  Unfortunately, from what I could see during my foray into her online world, she was legit. Sam’s idea had been a good one, but not the right one. But just because Helen was real didn’t mean she wasn’t working with the fake investor.

  “Have you seen Alejandro since yesterday?” I asked as casually as I could.

  Helen sat up. “What?”

  “Alejandro. Have you seen him?”

  Helen squinted at me, sizing me up. “Why would I have seen him? He was outed as a conman yesterday.”

  “Right. I know. We’re looking for him. So I was just—”

  “Unbelievable.” She swung her legs off the massage table and stood up in front of it, glaring at me.

  “Sorry?”

  “Unbelievable. Of all the insults you’ve thrown my way this cruise, this has got to be the worst of them.”

  “Insults? I didn’t… I haven’t—”

  “Don’t try and act smart with me, missy. I’m your better in every way that matters, and you’re not going to outsmart me.” She took a step toward me and pointed a finger in my face. “How you can stand there, implying that I— me! Helen Johannsen!—am somehow connected to a conman is beyond insulting!”

  “I was just asking if you’d seen—”

  She pushed her finger against my lips, shocking me into silence. It was such a rude thing to do I couldn’t believe it.

  “I’ve had enough of your insolence. Go away. Leave me be.”

  Fine. If that’s what she wanted. Her sudden turn didn’t exactly alleviate my suspicion of her, though.

  “Bye,” I said, turning to leave.

  “Wait!” she commanded.

  Turning back around again, I lost my usual politeness. “What?”

  “Give me your phone. I don’t want you using those photos of me that you took. You don’t deserve them.”

  “Really?”

  This woman is just the worst, I thought to myself. And it didn’t look like she was going to calm down any time soon. Wanting to keep a record of whatever she did next, I turned on the video recorder on my phone.

  “Of course. Why should you and the cruise line profit off of me when you’ve insulted me? You’ll be trying to steal my followers next!”

  I was still holding my phone in my hand, pointing it at her as the camera rolled.

  “There have already been pictures of you posted online, from the group shots,” I pointed out. “And when you signed up for the cruise, you signed a photo release form. You’ve already agreed.”

  “I demand you delete those pictures this instant! Give me your phone!”

  Helen lunged for it. I snatched my hand away before she could get it and jumped back.

  “What are you doing?” I sa
id, exasperated.

  With a steely look in her eyes, Helen leaped toward me. I was ready this time, and I skillfully stepped aside, but I accidentally left one leg outstretched behind me.

  Helen had already been prepared for me to move, and as she went to follow, she tripped right over my leg.

  As she fell, she flung out her arms in a swung them in circles through the air like a deranged windmill.

  Helen’s right hand smashed into the large dark blue plastic bowl that was used to hold the mud, throwing it to the ground and sending mud splattering everywhere. Her other arm caught a big bowl of cucumber water, which, like its friend the mud pot, smashed into the ground in solidarity, mixing its cucumber water with the mud and turning the floor into a slippery mud pit.

  “You fool!” screamed Helen as she fell on the floor.

  Although my jeans and shoes were spattered with little muddy patches, she was absolutely covered with the stuff.

  Stepping back to avoid the ever-growing mud puddle, I peered down at her.

  “Clumsy,” I said.

  “It’s your fault! It’s all your fault!”

  It really wasn’t. But I was worried I would get in trouble despite my video record of the proceedings, so I decided to see if I could smooth things over.

  “I’m sorry you tripped. I was a little clumsy, as I said. Here, let me help you up.”

  I grabbed a couple of towels, handing them down to Helen, before offering her a hand to help her up.

  When she was finally standing, she was glaring daggers at me. “Imbecile!”

  “My apologies.”

  “I came here to relax! And now look what’s happened!”

  “Sorry,” I said again as humbly as I could manage.

  “I thought after a relaxing day at the spa I’d be able to have a night off from the pills, but now I’m more stressed than I was before I arrived!”

  I tried to feel sorry for her—I really did—but I just couldn’t.

  “I’ll send someone in to assist you,” I told her. “Maybe another massage will help.”

  “Nothing can help now!” She clambered back up onto the massage bed, sitting with her legs swinging and a furious look on her face. “Get out of here!”

  “Sorry again,” I said as I departed.

  In the entrance lobby, I found the serene receptionist again. She glanced at me curiously. “Is everything okay?”

  “She had a bit of an accident. She might need a hand cleaning up. Watch out though. She’s got a bit of a temper.”

  The lady just nodded and continued to smile, unfazed by the possibility of an irate customer.

  When she had disappeared into the back, I tapped the red button on my screen to stop the video recording I started when Helen had begun her meltdown.

  While it had been filming, I missed a call and then received a message from Ethan.

  Checked all CCTV. Alejandro didn’t leave the ship. At least not on his own. Someone else did though. Come to my office?

  So our quarry hadn’t escaped. It sounded like Ethan had uncovered something interesting. Otherwise, why mention someone leaving the ship?

  As fast as I could, I left the spa and half-jogged, half-speed-walked to Ethan’s office.

  Maybe we were getting somewhere.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When I got to Ethan’s office, I felt obligated to tell him an abridged version of what happened between Helen and me.

  It was fortunate I did, because just as I finished the phone rang. It was Helen herself. I could tell because Ethan ended up holding the device several inches away from his head so as not to be deafened by her shrieks of complaint. I could hear her myself, sitting on the other side of Ethan’s desk. After several minutes of ranting, there was a lull.

  “Please hold on just a minute, Helen.”

  Ethan muted the phone and looked at me.

  “She really doesn’t want the pictures from the spa to be used. I know she signed a release form when she joins the cruise, but do you think…?”

  I knew Ethan would support me either way, but I didn’t have any need for photos of Helen Johannsen. No offense to the woman, but she wasn’t the most photogenic person on the ship. If I released the video footage of her sliding around in the mud it would probably go viral, but I didn’t think it would be helpful to Swan as a business or my position with the company.

  “Sure. I won’t use her pictures or video at all. All she had to do was ask nicely. Tell her she shouldn’t be trying to snatch other people’s phones off of them, though.”

  Ethan nodded at me. “Will do.”

  Actually, it wasn’t even my phone; it was issued to me by Swan as part of my job, but it was my responsibility. People like Helen should know better than to try and nab devices that didn’t belong to them.

  Ethan spoke to Helen over the phone for several more minutes before he could finally hang up and we could get down to business.

  “By the way, you’ve got mud on your cheek.”

  I wiped a finger and it indeed came back with a streak of mud.

  “A bit more…”

  Frowning, I pulled out the phone Helen had tried to snatch from me and used the selfie camera to turn it into a mirror.

  “Ethan!” I screeched. “Why didn’t you tell me!?”

  I didn’t have a single splotch of mud on my cheek. Instead, I was spattered in it, looking like I’d gotten into a mud-wrestling match. The spray of mud must have gone a lot higher than I realized when the bowl fell onto the floor.

  “Here.” He tossed me a package of wet wipes he had pulled out of a desk drawer, and I began the careful business of cleaning my face. Looking down, I realized I needed to change clothes too.

  “So what did you find?” I asked while I rubbed at my face. When I inspected the first wet wipe, it had turned completely gray. I pulled out another and kept at it.

  “Take a look at this.” Ethan turned the computer monitor around so that we could both see it. I scooted my chair forward so it was right in front of the desk.

  Ethan had stopped the footage just in time for us to see a man wheeling a large suitcase off of the ship. As we only boarded and disembarked passengers in New Orleans, this was an unusual sight. People generally only carried smaller backpacks and handbags when leaving the ship. Even when they did extensive amounts of shopping, it wasn’t until they returned that they would be heavily burdened.

  People didn’t just wheel giant suitcases off the ship in the middle of a cruise.

  “Who is…” I started saying under my breath. Then the man on video looked up, almost as if he was looking right at us. “Is that…!?”

  “Yep,” said Ethan. “It’s the captain. And check this out.”

  Ethan clicked a few times and brought up another window on the computer. It was more footage, from the same camera, but recorded at a later time.

  He pressed play, and after a few seconds of nothing the captain walked back into view, re-boarding the ship. This time with no suitcase.

  “That was a huge suitcase he took with him,” I said when Ethan had stopped the video.

  “It was, wasn’t it?”

  There was a thought in the back of my mind that I wasn’t quite ready to say. I was pretty sure Ethan had the same one.

  “Did the captain know Alejandro?” asked Ethan, leaning forward on his desk.

  “Not that I know of. I never saw them together and I haven’t heard anything about them knowing each other.”

  I finished wiping my face. The third wet wipe seemed to have done the job. My clothes would need a proper wash, but at least my face was somewhat presentable now.

  “But they do both have a lot of secrets,” said Ethan.

  “Yes. And that was a big suitcase,” I said.

  “Yes…” Ethan drummed his fingers on the desk. “Big enough…”

  “…to hide a body?” I finished.

  With a grim nod, Ethan confirmed that his suspicion was the same as mine. He stood up, his chair scra
ping across the floor. “Come on.”

  The captain’s office was just around the corner from Ethan’s. After a brief consultation with the orderly stationed outside, we were buzzed in.

  There was wood paneling along the walls, a pair of expensive-looking sofas around a tasteful glass coffee table, a large antique desk, and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Unlike Ethan’s office though, there was another room off to the side accessed by an archway. The second room appeared to be a dining room, with a large table and a dozen chairs around it.

  The captain was sitting behind his desk, hands clasped in front of him, with a slight smile on his lips.

  “Ethan, Adrienne.” The captain paused a moment, his eyes lingering on me. Or at least my mud-splattered clothing. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Ethan’s voice was measured as he answered. “Sir. We’ve been looking into a missing person.”

  The captain raised one eyebrow. “Missing? I thought they were dead?”

  “Not that one. She’s still dead. But now someone else from the same group—the Claim Your Million event—has gone missing. It’s one of the investors.”

  “They’re probably lost on shore. Or perhaps they’ve had enough of all the noise. I’ve heard the racket that group keeps making. I’d be tempted to leave too.”

  Ethan shook his head. “No, sir. I reviewed the footage from the CCTV cameras. He didn’t leave.”

  The captain seemed to pale. “Did you?”

  Ethan nodded but didn’t say anything right away. He was letting the captain stew.

  The silence only carried on for a few seconds, but each moment was more uncomfortable than the last.

  I couldn’t take the heavy atmosphere anymore.

  “We saw you wheeling a giant suitcase off the ship. And you didn’t bring it back.”

  The captain shot up, his hands launching him up as his chair toppled over backward, landing with a thud.

  I took a step back, frightened by the sudden explosion of movement.

  “You are a junior employee! I am the captain of this ship! How dare you!”