Curse of the Arctic Star (13 page)

“I wish!” Lacey’s hazel eyes widened. “Did you hear about the chandelier?”

“Yeah, we heard.” I picked at my sandwich. “Crazy,
huh? It’s a brand-new ship, after all. You guys didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious around the time it happened, did you?”

George shot me a look. I could almost see the thought balloon over her head:
Real subtle, detective!

Luckily, Vince didn’t seem to think the question was weird. “We spent practically all day holed up in the gym, so we haven’t seen a soul except for the attendant.” He chuckled. “It’s always so crowded in there—we figured today was the perfect chance to not have to wait in line for our favorite machines, or share space in the sauna. It was great! Right, honey?”

“Yeah.” Lacey still looked troubled. “Now I’m thinking we’re lucky the elliptical machine didn’t blow up or something. It’s crazy how many things are going wrong on this ship. Maybe it really
is
cursed!”

“I’m sure it’s all simply a series of unfortunate coincidences,” Bess said in her most soothing tone. “It’s just too bad it had to happen on your honeymoon.”

“Definitely.” Vince checked his watch. “Hey, sweetie, we’d better roll. Iris made us an appointment to get
massages before the crowds return, remember? We don’t want to be late.”

“Okay.” Lacey stood up and smiled wanly at us. “See you at dinner.”

“Yeah.” Vince slung an arm around her shoulders and grinned. “Don’t let the ABCs eat all the rolls before we get there, okay?”

After they left, my friends and I sat there and finished our food. We also went back to talking, going over everything that had happened and all our possible suspects. But we still couldn’t come to any new conclusions.

“It just doesn’t fit,” I mused, picking at my last few fries. “It’s like there’s a puzzle piece missing—some clue or connection we’re not quite getting.”

George shrugged and popped a pickle slice into her mouth. “Maybe we should bring the ABCs in as junior detectives,” she joked. “I mean, they know everything there is to know about cruising, right? Maybe they could figure it out.”

Bess sighed. “Or maybe we should just give up and
go get a massage too,” she said. “That might help us think about all this more clearly.”

I stared at her for a moment, then turned to look at George. “The ABCs . . . ,” I murmured, my eyes going wide as that final puzzle piece finally clicked into place in my mind. “That’s it!” I exclaimed.

“That’s what?” Bess blinked at me. “You don’t think the ABCs are the bad guys, do you?”

“No, but I think I just figured out who is, thanks to you two.” I jumped to my feet, grabbing my leftovers and flinging them in the general direction of the trash bin. “I just want to check one thing to confirm it before I tell Becca. Come on!”

“ARE YOU GOING TO TELL US WHAT YOU’RE
thinking, or what?” George panted as she raced through the halls at my heels.

“Yeah, spill it, Nancy,” Bess added.

In response, I just put on another burst of speed. “There’s no time to explain,” I tossed back over my shoulder. “If we hurry, we should be able to get this cleared up before the rest of the passengers come back.”

I could hear George grumbling under her breath, but I ignored it. Soon enough we’d all know whether my new theory was right.

“Will you at least tell us where we’re going?” Bess asked.

“The gym.” We rounded another corner. “And here we are.”

I skidded to a stop at the glass doors leading into the ship’s state-of-the-art workout facility. Pushing through, I was greeted by the mingled scents of sweat and talcum powder. The lobby was all glass, steel, and dark wood. A bored-looking young man in a silver-piped tank top was perched behind a counter, reading a muscle magazine.

“Can I help you?” he asked, glancing up as we entered.

“Yes, I have a question for you.” I did my best to sound normal, like an ordinary passenger with an ordinary question. “Some friends of ours were here working out today, and I just need to know—did they stay here the whole time, or did they leave for a while and then come back?”

“Friends of yours?” The attendant wrinkled his brow. “Who do you mean? The only person who’s been
in here all day is that guy.” He jerked a thumb toward the large, open gym area off to the left.

Glancing over, I was surprised to see Mr. Hawaiian Shirt plodding along on one of the treadmills. That was kind of weird—he didn’t exactly seem like the gym rat type.

But I wasn’t too interested in that just then. My heart was pounding as I leaned forward. This was even better than I’d thought!

“Are you positive about that?” I asked the attendant. “Our friends Vince and Lacey weren’t here a little earlier?”

“Nope.” He shrugged. “Trust me, I’ve been sitting here all day.”

I glanced at Bess and George, who both looked confused. “Vince and Lacey?” Bess murmured.

“Thanks,” I told the attendant. Then I hustled my friends toward the exit. “Come on,” I told them. “We’ve got to get over to the spa. And let me borrow a phone—I need to text Becca again.”

George handed hers over as we rushed out of
the gym and back down the hall. “What’s going on, Nancy?” she asked. “Do you really think Vince and Lacey are the ones we’re after?”

I sent the text, then grinned at her as I returned her phone. “Yeah. And you guys were the ones who made me realize it,” I said. “When Bess talked about how we should get a massage and then you mentioned the ABCs, it made me remember a couple of things I’d forgotten about until then. Like that one of the ladies thought she recognized Lacey from a Jubilee cruise they took once.”

“I remember that,” Bess said. “She said Lacey must have a sister who worked there.”

“Only what if it wasn’t Lacey’s sister, or just her doppelgänger or whatever?” I said, jogging around a corner with my friends right behind me. “What if it was Lacey herself? The ABCs said the woman on the Jubilee cruise was her spitting image except for hair and eye color. And both those things are easily changed.”

George gasped. “You mean you think Lacey worked for Jubilee?”

“That’s my guess,” I said. “And there’s our motive. Lacey—and probably Vince, too—could be working undercover for Jubilee. What better way to sabotage their greatest competition? Especially since everything on the
Arctic Star
is totally state-of-the-art.”

Bess and George still looked kind of confused, but there wasn’t any more time to discuss it. We’d just rounded another corner into the hall where the spa was located. Becca was already there waiting for us, along with Captain Peterson and a pair of beefy uniformed security guards.

“Nancy!” Becca rushed forward to meet me. “What’s this all about?”

Captain Peterson strode forward as well. “Yes, I don’t understand what’s going on here.” His voice was stern, but his eyes looked anxious. I guessed all the trouble on his ship must be weighing on him even more than it was on Becca.

“I’ll explain everything in a minute,” I promised them both. “First we need to get in there.”

I led the way into the spa. The front doors opened
into a large, luxurious waiting room. There was a table at one end where I guessed the receptionist normally sat, though it was deserted at the moment. One side wall featured a large mural of a peaceful ocean scene. The other wall was lined with shelves full of various spa-type products for sale.

When we entered, Lacey was kneeling in front of the shelves, holding one of those product bottles. The cap was off, and she was watching as Vince carefully poured something into the bottle from an unmarked flask.

“Hey!” one of the security guards blurted out. “What are you two doing?”

Vince and Lacey looked up, somewhat shocked. Vince recovered quickly.

“Oh!” he said with his usual easy smile. “Sorry, you startled us. Uh, we spilled some of this lotion here and were just trying to fix it. Sorry! We’ll pay for it, of course.”

“Yes you will.” I stepped toward them, gesturing for the security guards to come forward as well. “Better grab that from him. The police will need it as evidence.”

“Police?” Lacey exclaimed, jumping to her feet as the guard stepped toward her and plucked the bottle out of her hand. She grabbed for it, but it was too late. “We just said we’d pay—we didn’t do anything wrong!”

Captain Peterson cleared his throat, looking confused. “Exactly what is going on here?” he asked me. “I can’t have my passengers harassing one another, or—”

“These particular passengers are onboard under false pretenses,” I broke in. “I’m pretty sure they’re the ones who planted that fake body on the first day, and they were also responsible for the crashing chandelier earlier today. Among other things. Like tampering with the products in here—what’d you put in that lotion bottle, guys? Itching powder, permanent dye, or maybe something more deadly?”

The captain shot the pair a glance, a relieved expression flitting over his face. “Well, innocent until proven guilty and all that, but perhaps we’d better examine the bottle and its contents and see what we can find.”

Vince and Lacey traded a glance. Their expressions had gone hard and wary—they clearly realized they
were busted and there was no way they were going to talk their way out of it.

“We’re not saying another word until we speak to a lawyer,” Lacey said, her voice steely. So much for her sweet-and-sensitive act.

“We’ll sue for wrongful arrest!” Vince sounded slightly hysterical. “Our lawyers will put you and the entire company out of business!”

“Yeah, that was your motive all along, wasn’t it?” I turned toward Becca and the captain. “We’re pretty sure they’re working for Jubilee Cruises,” I explained. “They came on this cruise to sabotage it—to do everything they could to cause negative publicity and press for Superstar. One cursed voyage is all it takes, right?”

“What?” the captain exclaimed.

“So how did you figure it out?” Becca asked me. “I didn’t even realize that Lacey and Vince were suspects.”

“They weren’t until just now,” I admitted. “But once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t help but be suspicious that they were the ones who just happened to ‘discover’ that fake body in the pool, remember?
Lacey’s scream was what attracted the attention of everyone within earshot, so lots of people would be sure to see it.”

“That’s right!” Bess exclaimed. “Then she stuck around to cry and shudder and tell everyone who’d listen how terrible it was.”

Lacey glared at her, then at me. “You can’t prove anything,” she snapped.

I ignored her and explained to the captain and the others about the ABCs’ comment at dinner the first night. “And there was one other clue that helped me put things together,” I went on. “Something Bess said reminded me of it. See, when we ran into Vince and Lacey a little while ago, they said something about Iris scheduling a massage for them. That made me realize that Iris must be the maid assigned to their cabin.”

“Iris?” George frowned. “You mean the same Iris we keep seeing in the hall outside our suite? I thought she was the maid for Tobias’s cabin.”

“No—Tobias’s parents said she wasn’t, remember?” Bess’s eyes went wide. “Oh, now I get it!”

I smiled at her. “Yeah. That bugged me when they said it, but I forgot about it until the massage thing came up. Iris didn’t have any reason to spend so much time in our hall—unless she was just snooping around the ship looking for trouble. When I found out she was Vince and Lacey’s maid, I started to consider that maybe, just maybe, she was working undercover with them.”

Captain Peterson turned to one of the guards. “Go find Iris and bring her to me,” he ordered.

As the guard hurried off, I continued explaining. “I’m guessing Iris spotted that tarantula by chance the first time.”

“Well, probably not chance exactly,” George put in with a grimace. “I bet Tobias scared her with it on purpose.”

“Whatever.” I shrugged. “The point is, she must have told Vince and Lacey about it, and the three of them cooked up the idea to freak everyone out by planting it on the buffet. I’m guessing Iris sneaked into the cabin and stole the spider, and then one of the other
two slipped it onto the buffet and just waited for the fireworks to start.”

“Poor Hazel.” Bess shook her head. “She could’ve been hurt or killed!”

George shot her a disbelieving look. “Are you seriously feeling sorry for a spider?”

“What can I say?” Bess shrugged. “I’m an animal lover.”

I ignored them. “Once I figured out the first two big pranks—the spider one and the body in the pool—it wasn’t hard to guess how they might have pulled off some of the other stuff. Iris could probably get access to the temperature controls, so that explains all the hot and cold cabins last night. Any of them could have started the rumors about the crew not getting paid, or sent Brock Walker that e-mail threat. And of course the happy honeymooners stayed onboard while almost everyone else was gone, so it would have been relatively easy for them to mess with the chandelier. Especially since we just confirmed that they weren’t anywhere near the gym, where they claimed to be all day.”

“Bad cover story, guys.” George smirked at Vince and Lacey. “You should’ve just said you were in your cabin all day, or smooching on some deserted deck somewhere. You’re supposed to be honeymooners—we would’ve believed it.”