Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise (30 page)

So while Darren and Marko head down the stairs to Deck 9 so they can do their pre-show showering or rock star primping or whatever, the three of us go up to the Schooner Buffet. And this time,
boy
, I load up! I do the whole buffet line and hit all the islands, plus fill up two glasses of pink lemonade.

“So,” I tell Kip when we’re sitting down. “Start talking. Whose insane idea was all this?”

“Grandfather’s,” he says, and there’s not even a hint of him acting like a secret-keeping Kensington. “Apparently the last time he and Grandmother were in Kenya on business, Bradley, Lucas, and Teresa all called him several times asking for money. He was in a very poor part of the country where there were starving kids and really bad conditions, and he decided his own kids were greedy and spoiled and didn’t deserve another dollar. He wanted to cut them out of the will, but Grandmother argued against it. But then Grandfather got really sick with some virus and thought he
was going to die in Africa. Nobody told me anything about it, but Grandmother told the rest of them, and instead of flying out to see him, they tried to get the lawyer to tell them what was in his will. When Grandfather heard about that, he got so disgusted that he came up with the idea of faking his own death to prove to Grandmother that all the three of them cared about was money.”

“Looks like your grandfather was right,” I tell him with a frown.

Kip sighs. “Yeah. It’s pretty sad.”

“So who all was in on this? And when did
you
find out?”

“At first it was just Grandmother, but after the big blowout over me being in line to inherit a quarter of the estate—which I had no idea about—she told Ginger, and Ginger got Noah involved.”

I make a little face. “I think we got Noah in trouble with the captain.”

Kip nods. “He’s been ‘relieved of his duties.’ But now that everything’s out, I’m sure Grandmother’ll find a way to fix all that.”

“So your grandfather was on board the whole time,” I mutter.

He nods. “Down in cabin 3877.”

“And Kate just couldn’t take the way her kids were acting, so she went to hide out with him?”

“Right. Only they didn’t stay locked in the cabin the whole time. They went out in disguises.”

“They did?”

“Grandmother told me she
loved
going out in disguise and spying. You would never have recognized her, either.
She wore a black pantsuit with a black wig and had a gnarly mole on her lip—”

“That was
Kate
?” Marissa and I cry.

“You saw her?”

“She had a cane, right?” I ask. “And a big, ugly plastic necklace? And sunglasses?”

“Yes! That was her!”

I think a minute, then say, “That day we were trying to find Noah backstage … Ginger was getting Kate a disguise?”

He nods.

“Wow,” I laugh. “Hiding in plain view, just like Darren and Marko.”

“She and Grandfather eavesdropped on the others like crazy.” He eyes me and says, “By the way, she called Kensington Clue ‘eye-opening.’ ”

“She did?”

He nods. “She said that after she got over the shock of it, she thought it was funny, too.” He takes a deep breath. “She also said that what you guys seem to have as family and friends is something money can’t buy … but sure can destroy.”

“Whoa. That’s deep,” Marissa murmurs, and I know she can relate—money’s the thing that destroyed Marissa’s family, and I’m pretty sure that no amount of it will ever patch it back together.

Anyway, Kip goes on to tell us how Ginger bribed the stewards to call the Royal Suite with news on Bradley’s or Lucas’ or Teresa’s comings and goings. “Help is invisible to the three of them, so they never even noticed.”

We’re all quiet a minute, and then I tell Kip, “We were worried about you, you know.”

He nods. “And I’m sorry. Noah said he put a note under your door.”

“Yeah, but it was typed. I figured if it was from you, you’d write it by hand.”

“I probably would have,” he says, “but I was still sort of freaked out by … by …”

“By what?” I ask.

He sort of looks away. “You know that night I hung out with you guys?”

“The night you disappeared?”

He nods. “I woke up at three in the morning, and my mother—well, Teresa—was standing over me with this really scary look on her face. It looked like she wanted to
kill
me. So I grabbed some stuff and went up to Aunt Ginger’s, and that’s when she told me that I was really adopted by my grandfather and was in his will to get a fourth of everything. She also told me what was going on.” He shakes his head. “I was mad and happy and scared for my life and hugely relieved.… It was a really weird night.”

“So are you going to start living with your grandparents?”

Marissa adds, “Who are legally your parents?”

“I can’t call them anything but Grandmother and Grandfather,” he says. “The whole thing is just too strange.” Then he takes a deep breath and says, “But yes. We talked a lot the last two days. It’s going to be really good.”

After that, he wants to know how I’d figured out the
code, so I tell him, and when I’m all done, he shakes his head and goes, “I don’t know
why
I didn’t think of it. Grandfather couldn’t believe none of us thought of it, either. He said it should have been obvious to any Kensington.”

“Obvious?” I cry. “Please.”

“I know. He was pretty upset when he said that. But he also said he wanted to see them put an effort in—to really work at something. And Grandmother was hoping the three of them would come together to solve it.”

I frown and shake my head a little. “I think the only thing they worked together on was planning a forged suicide note.”

“A what?”

So I catch him up on that little find, and then have to answer a bunch of other questions—like how come we locked Ginger and Noah on the balcony and how we got Bradley’s copy of the coded note and stuff like that. And we wind up talking about the details of everything until finally Marissa says, “I am
not
going to a rock concert looking like this.” She eyes me. “And you are not hauling along that backpack.”

I laugh, because it’s not the first time someone’s told me I can’t bring a backpack to a concert. “Right.” And then I see how late it is. “Oh, wow! Let’s go!”

It was definitely time to rock ’n’ roll!

There should have been a big warning sign outside the theater that said N
OW
E
NTERING
C
OUGARVILLE
. “Where did all these women come from?” I whispered as we tried to find seats together. They were all wearing the cougar uniform, too—jeans with rhinestone detailing, skanky tops, and way too much eyeliner.

And you could just tell from the energy in the room—they were die-hard groupies.

“I’m kinda grossed out,” I tell Marissa.

“He loves your mom,” she whispers back. And for some weird reason, that makes me feel a whole lot better.

We actually get good seats about three rows from the stage by asking one person to move over one seat. And if it was even possible, I think Kip was more excited than Marissa. “I can’t wait to see him play!” he kept whispering, and it took him saying it a few times for me to realize he was talking about Marko, not Darren.

And then something very un–rock ’n’ roll happened.

The Troublemakers started on time.

Christie introduced them, the curtain went up, and
from the moment Marko whacked out the intro beat, the audience was on its feet.

Cougars everywhere danced.

And so did we!

Kip played air drums and whistled through his fingers and was so excited that, at one point, Marissa and I looked at each other like, Who
is
this guy?

But for me, it was watching Darren that was surreal. I knew his music before I knew him, but I hadn’t actually seen him play before. The way he interacted with the audience and the band … the way he got caught up in the words of a song and made you really
feel
them … it was easy to see why people loved him.

He was
awesome
.

Anyway, about an hour into the concert, Darren starts telling the audience, “Hope you don’t mind—we’re gonna try out a new song on you. This one’s for my daughter, Sammy.” Then he looks out through the lights and goes, “Hey, you little troublemaker, where are you?”

I put up a hand like I’m not quite sure of an answer in Ms. Rothhammer’s class. But Kip puts his fingers to his lips and lets out a whistle, and Marissa waves like crazy with one hand while she points at me with the other and shouts, “Right here!”

So great. Every cougar in the place turns her eyeliner on me. But then Darren goes, “Here’s ‘Nothing but Trouble,’ ” and launches into a song about a girl who’s nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble.

“He wrote a song about you!” Marissa cries.

“Who says he wrote it about me?” I shout back. “He just said it’s for me, not that it’s
about
me.”

“Listen, you idiot!”

And when he hits the chorus, which goes, “Brought down hard, brought down fast, by a girl full of trouble and her heart of glass,” I tell Marissa, “I don’t have a heart of glass!”

“For someone so smart, you sure are stupid!” she yells in my ear. “That just means he knows not to break it. That you’ve been hurt before. By your
other
parent.”

“You cannot get all of that out of those three words.”

“Sure you can!” she says. “If you know the situation.” Then she pulls away from me and says, “Now shut up and listen!”

So I do.

And the truth is, I don’t really hear much of the end of the concert after that song. I’m too dazed by the truth behind what Marissa had said, and the thought that somehow, despite everything I’d muddled through the past few years, I’ve wound up
here
, on a cruise ship of all places, teary-eyed over the words of a song.

A song written just for me.

Backstage on a cruise ship is small. And full of cables and cases and random
stuff
. But Marissa and Kip thought it was amazing. Kip, especially, since we were right near the drums during the second show and he could watch every little thing Marko did.

Darren didn’t do “Nothing but Trouble” again, and I was glad. And after their
third
standing ovation, the curtain
came down, and Christie told the crowds about everything they could still squeeze into their night and what was on the calendar for “tomorrow’s exciting day at sea!”

Drew and Cardillo were happy to go check out the hot spots, and took off after their gear was packed away. But Marko made Kip sit at the drum kit for a basic lesson, and after he got a boom-
pow
, boom-boom-pow groove down, Darren played part of a Troublemakers song with him, and we all sang along at the tops of our lungs.

I don’t think I’ve seen a happier boy in my entire life.

“I told you,” Marko said with a grin after they were done. “All he needed was to beat on some drums.”

After that, Marko and Darren were only interested in one thing:

Food!

They didn’t want to go up to the buffet because they didn’t want to deal with any rock star stuff, so the five of us holed up in a corner at Le Petit Café on Deck 5 and ate lots of little sandwiches.

We spent time talking about how awesome the concerts were, and then Darren asked me to fill in the holes of the whole Kensington mess.

“And no skippy-doodlin’ around!” Marko tells us. “That whole situation is confusing enough without you skippy-doodlin’ around!”

So we fill in the blanks the best we can, and when we’re all done, Darren shakes his head and goes, “That is one bizarre story.” Then he turns to Kip and says, “So what are you going to do, do you know?”

“Get some drums,” he says, grinning at Marko. Then
he looks back at Darren and says, “But seriously? I’ll be staying with my grandparents. It’ll be okay.” He checks the time and says, “Actually, I should get up there. Old people go to bed so early.”

I laugh, ’cause it’s not exactly
early
. And not long after he’s gone, the rest of us decide to hit the hay, too.

“I am
not
talking Kensingtons tomorrow,” Marissa says on our way up the stairs. “I’m going rock climbing and ice-skating and swimming and golfing and … and anything else I can squeeze into our one last day on this ship.” She gives the rest of us a stern look. “And you’re coming with me!”

We all laugh and say we will, but when we get to Deck 8, it hits me that I still have homework and haven’t messaged Casey.

“No!” Marissa says, when I say something about it. “NO! You can do your stupid chemistry on the ride home. You’ll have
tons
of time in the car.”

Which is actually true. And, since I now know how to do the problems, doable.

“Okay. But I’m going to message Casey. You guys go up without me. I’ll be fine.”

But they follow me in, and the first thing we notice is that the puzzle is done.

No Puzzle Lady, just the finished puzzle with a paperback book on top of it.

Marissa picks up the book and admires the puzzle. “No missing pieces,” she says. Then she looks at the book and gasps, “ ‘Sue Taylor’?”

“What about her?”

She hands me the book, and there on the cover in big bold letters is her name. “ ‘
A Bad Place to Die’
?” I say, reading the title. “She’s a
writer
?”

“Hey, I’ve heard of her!” Marko says, taking the book. “She’s a mystery writer!”

“Hmm,” Marissa says, peeking around him at the book. “That would explain why she can’t leave a puzzle alone until she’s solved it!” She grins at me. “Kind of like somebody else I know …”

Marko snickers. “This whole time she’s probably been taking notes for her next novel.”

“What?!” Marissa and I cry, but Marko gives us a mischievous shrug and says, “I’ve heard that’s what writers do. They sit around watching people, then stick them in their twisted tales!”

“Give that to me, man,” Darren says, and takes the book. And after he’s looked it over, he opens it to where there’s a little paper-scrap bookmark.

“What?” I ask, because he’s grinning.