Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise (21 page)

I zip up, up, up the stairs until Marissa finally calls, “Hey!” ’cause her quiet little feet cannot keep up.

I wait on the Deck 8 landing, and for the first time since we’d left the ship, Kip Kensington takes over my mind.

“No,” Marissa says when she meets up with me, because I’m seriously eyeing the library door.

“He’s probably not there,” I tell her. “It’ll just take a minute.”

She grumbles, “He probably
is
there, and it
never
takes just a minute,” but she follows me inside anyway.

And it
would
have taken just a minute, because Kip’s
not
there, but the Puzzle Lady spots us. “He hasn’t been here all day,” she says from across the room.

Which means she
has
.

Now, really, I would have waved and said thanks, but Marissa notices how far she’s gotten on the puzzle and goes over, saying, “Wow, that’s”—and then she sees the image that’s shaping up—“one weird puzzle.”

“Isn’t it?” the Puzzle Lady says. “What on earth is a skull doing in a tree?”

Which anyone would agree is a great question. I mean, it’s just perched there. On a branch. By itself.

It’s definitely a human skull, but it’s way bigger than the head of the man straddling the branch of the tree. And it’s smiling. Even though there’s a spike coming out of the side of the head.

And I don’t know if it’s a perspective thing—you know, where the man in the tree is farther back than the skull in the tree—or if the artist didn’t know what they were doing. Or maybe was on drugs. Or whatever. All I know is that this puzzle is more than hard.

It’s
creepy
.

“Obviously, I can’t stop now,” the Puzzle Lady tells us. “Got to figure out the rest of it.” Then she looks at me
and says, “I’m guessing you and your friend decoded your own puzzle?”

So yeah. Can you say
eavesdropper
? But I just shake my head and try to be polite. “He might’ve. I don’t know. We’ve been gone all day.”

“Ah,” she says, going back to the puzzle.

Now, I don’t know how one little
ah
can make a person feel so guilty, but that one little
ah
sure did. It seemed to be all wrapped in a giant bow of disappointment. Like, Ah … you’re one of
those
. Abandons her friends. Puts pleasure before problems. Lives in a haze of take-it-or-leave-it ignorance.

Which ticked me off!

So I wag my flip-flops at her a little and say, “That’s not fair! I barely even know him! Am I supposed to spend my whole cruise trying to help him figure out his crazy family’s problems?”

“My,” she says as she puts a piece into place. And without even looking up, she says, “Aren’t those supposed to be on your feet instead of wagging in people’s faces?”

Well, that does it. I tell Marissa, “Come on,” and walk my bare feet right out of there.

“Wow,” Marissa says as we’re heading toward the stairs. “What was that all about?” But the weird thing is, she says it like she doesn’t understand
my
reaction.

“Didn’t you get that?” I snap. “The way she said, ‘Ah’?”

“The way she said, ‘Ah’? You bit her head off because she said, ‘Ah’?”

“It was the
way
she said it.” I start stomping up the steps. “And I didn’t bite her head off!”

“Like you’re not biting mine off right now?” she mutters.

Then I put my sea-pass card in the door lock and nothing happens.

“What?” I cry, and try again.

Still nothing.

And I can feel myself getting all
flushed
.

Mad.

I can’t even open a stupid door when I have the
key
?

Finally, Marissa asks, “Did you forget to switch back with Marko?”

Which for some reason makes me feel even stupider, and I actually stomp my foot when I go, “Maaaaaan!”

So Marissa lets us in and tells me, “There’s no reason for you to be feeling guilty about not helping Kip today.”

I follow her inside. “Who says I feel guilty?”

“Please,” she snorts.

“Besides, he must’ve decoded it or he’d have been in the library today, right? So what’s there to feel guilty about?”

“Hmm. Then maybe you feel like you missed out?” She gives a little shrug. “You’re the one who always figures things out. Maybe you’re jealous?”

“What?!”

She laughs at the face I’m pulling. “Oh, just go take a shower.”

“I can’t believe this!”

She eases my picture and flip-flops from me. “Shower. Go. I promise you, you’ll feel better.”

The truth is, I did feel like a crusty crab from all the seawater and sun.

But I wasn’t jealous!

Good grief.

And it turns out I
did
feel a lot better after the shower.

But I wasn’t jealous!

Good grief.

I
was
kinda curious, though.

Had
Kip broken the code?

And if so, what did the note say?

Was it from a kidnapper?

A blackmailer?

A
murderer
?

Or maybe Kate had been found?

So while Marissa’s taking her turn in the shower, I sit and think. And there comes a point where I just can’t stand it—I really want to know! So since there’s no way Marissa’s going to want to run around and track down Kip, I finally decide to just call his room.

I know he’s probably not there, but it feels like an easy place to start. So I pick up the phone and punch in 9584. And after four rings, I’m about to hang up when suddenly there’s someone on the other end saying, “Yes?”

It’s a soft voice.

Female.

“Uh, Ms. Kensington?” I ask, not really knowing what to call her.

“Yes?”

“It’s Sammy. Kip’s friend?”

“Why … hello.” She sounds calm with maybe just a hint of being surprised. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh … I was hoping Kip might be there?”

“Here?” She hesitates, then says, “I thought he might have been spending the day with you.”

“With
me
?”

“Like he was when we didn’t know where he was before?”

“Uh, we’ve been gone all day? We went to shore.”

“Oh, well,
that
would have been nice,” she says, which reminds me of what I’d overheard JT’s parents saying over by Fruity Island.

About being trapped on board.

“So … you haven’t seen him all day?” I ask.

She heaves a little sigh. “You probably know he’s miffed at me?” My brain races around for what to say to
that
, but she saves me from having to answer by saying, “It’s okay. I’m sure you have issues with your parents, too. The teen years are tough, and he’s certainly a teen. Moody, impulsive, not always rational …” She laughs, “Not that I’m trying to insult
you
, but I’m sure you’ve noticed these tendencies in him, hmm?”

There’s a lot I could say or maybe
should
say, but the person on the phone is not really matching up with the person Kip’s talked about. And a lot of what she’s said about Kip is true—he’s definitely been short-tempered and hotheaded in front of us, and we’re basically strangers. What’s he like in front of people he actually
knows
?

Anyway, I’m kind of thrown by all this, so instead of
answering her, what comes out of my mouth is, “I’m just wondering if someone broke the code?”

“The … code?”

A little chill tickles through my ear to my spine. And my brain’s going, Uh-oh, because there’s definitely been a shift in her voice. So I tell her, “Never mind. Not important,” but before I can get off the phone, she asks, “He told you about that? When?”

Now, the way she says
when
is pretty intense. Like she really wants to know.

Like it
matters
.

So I try to sound all casual as I tell her, “Yesterday he said he didn’t want to go rock climbing or anything else until someone had ‘cracked the code,’ whatever that meant. I figured it was a brainteaser, but … it was more than that?”

She hesitates, then says, “Things are always a bigger ordeal in this family than they should be.” The intense edge in her voice is gone now, and before I can even try to get a real answer, she adds, “I’m sorry he’s not here. Have you tried the teen lounges? Or the pool? Or maybe the pastry shop? That boy loves pastries.”

I can tell she’s getting ready to hang up, so I just blurt out, “When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Like I said, he’s playing the teen card. My advice would be to check the Royal Suite. He may have moved in there.”

“Moved in?”

I can practically see her shrug. “Some of his things are gone.”

I want to cry, Are you serious? But you don’t know where he went? but I hold back and ask, “Has Kate turned up?”

There’s a short silence before she says, “No.”

“And you’re not worried about Kip?”

“Like I said, some of his things are gone.”

“Like what ‘things’?” I demand.

“Look, I overreacted once already on this trip. I’m not going to do
that
again.” Then she says, “I suggest you check the Royal Suite. I’m sure that’s where he’s staying. Ginger just
loves
to interfere.”

And without another word, she hangs up.

Marissa did
not
want to go up to the Royal Suite. “Why can’t you just leave it alone?” she moaned as I dragged her up the stairs. “Or why not just call there like you called Kip’s room?”

She already knew the answer to her first question, but I did answer the second one. “Because I don’t know the number. All it says on the door is R
OYAL
S
UITE
, remember?”

“No,” she snaps. “I don’t remember. I don’t spend my life noting every little detail of every little door I see!”

So yeah, she’s miffed, but as we reach the Deck 10 landing, an idea suddenly storms my mind. “Hey! You know how sometimes phone numbers are given as words—like 1-800-GET-RICH?”

She’s obviously somewhere else in
her
head, too, ’cause she goes, “Get rich—what?”

“Or GET-THIN or GET-FISH or whatever!”

“Get Fish? Who would have a number that was Get Fish?”

“A fishing company!” I shake my head. “Never mind! The point is, what number would
Royal Suite
translate to on the keypad of a telephone?”

“What?”

“Forget it. It’s stupid. It would be way too long to be a cabin number … unless maybe you used just
Royal
 … which”—I tick off the letters on my hand—“would still be one number too long.”

“Sammy, I’m sorry, but could you stop thinking out loud?”

Which I do for all of three seconds.

But then another thought hits me, and it’s so big that it stops me in my tracks, and I just
know
that Marissa will want to hear it. “What if the decoder to the Kensington notes is the keypad of a telephone?”

Marissa squints at me. “The keypad of a phone.”

“It could be, don’t you think?” I whisper, and even though we’d already decided
LIONN
didn’t decode to a phone number via the alphabet, something about using the keypad as a decoder has me all excited.

“Sammy!” she whispers back, but instead of sounding excited, her voice comes out all fierce. “You said yourself he’s probably figured it out. Can’t you just let it go?”

“But what if he hasn’t? And what if it’s as simple as decoding from a phone? What if—”

“Sammy!”

Well, I can’t believe she isn’t even a
little
bit excited and I’m about to tell her so, only right then the door just to the left of the Royal Suite opens and Bradley Kensington steps out.

My first thought is
Hide
. But we’re standing
right there
with nothing to hide behind, so instead we just freeze.

Bradley’s wearing the same kind of clothes we’d seen him in at the Schooner Buffet two days ago—they could even be the
same
clothes—but the shirt’s all rumpled and half untucked, the tie’s gone, and the black folder is now bursting with papers, sticking out like too much lettuce on a tuna fish sandwich.

His jowls are kinda red, too.

So is his nose.

He closes the door, then tries the handle to make sure it’s locked, and pushes on the door to make sure it’s latched.

Then he sees us and freezes, too.

So there we are, like silly ice sculptures on the Deck 10 landing.

I make myself thaw out and go, “Hi, Mr. Kensington. Any word on your mom?”

His eyes sharpen down on me as he goes from frozen to dripping at the temples. “You know about that?”

“Uh … yeah?”

“Oh, right, right,” he says, wiping a hanky over his brow, “from the kids.” His voice is a little slurred, and I can tell he’s trying to act cool, but he’s rumpled and sweaty and, it hits me, drunk. “It’s not looking good,” he says. “But we’ve been told to keep it quiet so as not to worry other cruisers. Which is why I asked. Now if you’ll excuse me …”

But I kind of follow him over to the glass elevators and ask, “We’re actually looking for Kip. Have you maybe seen him?”

He punches the down button. “I have maybe
not
seen
him,” he snaps—well, as much as you can snap when your words are sort of tumbling over each other. Then he jabs the elevator button a bunch and turns an angry eye on me. “And if I never see that conniving little weasel ever again, it’ll be a
good
thing.” And when an elevator opens, Bradley gets in without even looking at us.

I race around so I can watch it go down, and Marissa follows me, going, “Well, that was … interesting.”

The elevator stops just one deck down, and even though there are other people on board and I can’t be sure, I have a hunch Bradley’s getting off.

“Come on!” I tell Marissa, and run for the stairs.

“Wait! What? Why?”

I laugh, “Who? Where? When?” Then I say, “It was Bradley! In the elevator! With a folder!”

“You’re driving me crazy, you know that, right?” Marissa calls as she flies down the stairs after me.

But when we get to the Deck 9 landing, I peek down our hallway and whisper, “Crazy, maybe, but I’m right.”