Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise (23 page)

“Better than getting shoved overboard,” I grumble.

She stops and glares at me. “Sammy, I am so mad at you right now. A cruise is supposed to be
fun
. A cruise is
supposed to be
relaxing
. But somehow you’ve turned it into locking people out on balconies and hurling a dead man’s ashes through the air!”

“Sorry.”

She shakes her head and starts running up the stairs two at a time. “I need a yogurt.”

So I follow her up to Deck 11 and outside to the frozen yogurt dispensers, begging her to forgive me, but she’s basically not talking to me. So I finally give up and focus on behaving myself as we park on two loungers near the swimming pools. I don’t make excuses or talk about Kensingtons. I don’t mention Noah proving that Bradley could have squeezed under the balcony divider and murdered his mother. I just sit there, trying to act relaxed and like I’m loving soaking in the sunshine as I lap up my yogurt like a best friend should.

I’m still totally freaked out about what happened in the Royal Suite, but I’m trying.

I’m really trying.

It’s
Marissa
who suddenly goes into bloodhound mode when we hear loud laughter come from the whirlpool area. She perks up and sits forward, and her nose points straight ahead as she zeroes in on one of the whirlpools.

“Let me guess,” I say from my kick-back position. “JT.”

“JT and about eight girls!” she says, all disgusted-like.

I slurp up some dripping yogurt. “Be glad you’re not one of them.”

I can tell she’s still all fired up about what I’d put her through, because she says, “Exactly!” in a real don’t-mess-with-me way.

But a couple of minutes later she’s still in pointer position, and doesn’t even seem to notice that her yogurt’s dripping down her hand.

I lap up some more yogurt. “Obviously,
he’s
not too worried about his grandmother or cousin.…”

“Obviously!”

Lick, lick. “Out there having the time of his life.”

“What a jerk!”

Lick, lick. “Uh, Marissa?”

She stays in pointer position. “What?”

“You’re dripping?”

She finally snaps out of it and sees that her hand is covered in melted yogurt. “Oh!” she cries, jumping up like she can somehow escape it. “Oh!”

All she has is one tiny napkin, so I run to get a bunch more while she slurps like crazy. Only the napkins don’t exactly cut it. “I’m a sticky mess!” she moans. “I need to wash up. Let’s go.”

But even leaving, she can’t help watching JT and his little, you know,
murmuration
of mermaids. “Who does he think he is?” she mutters.

And the truth is, I’m really relieved she’s shifted her anger away from what had happened in the Royal Suite and onto JT. So instead of saying nothing, or something like, Yeah, really, out of my mouth pops, “Uh, future heir to the Kensington throne?”

Now, I knew it didn’t really work that way, but something about it did ring true. JT had his grandfather’s actual name, was a guy, and was a blood relative. Even if he wasn’t the first or only grandkid, it still seemed like he
had more perks built in than two granddaughters or an adopted African boy.

A real chip off the ol’ block.

“It’s disgusting,” Marissa grumbles, eyeing the whirlpool. “They look like they should be feeding him grapes.”

I laugh, picturing a fat old Roman guy with grapes.

“And you’re right,” she huffs. “What kind of person frolics in a whirlpool while his family’s in crisis?”

I laugh again. “Frolics?”

“It’s a good word,” she growls. “Even if he’s just sitting there.”

“Waiting for someone to feed him grapes.”

“Exactly.”

When we get to our room, Marissa lets us in and the first thing we see is a folded note on the floor. I snatch it off the ground and unfold what turns out to be a full sheet of unlined paper with three computer-printed words on it:

“See?” Marissa says, slapping it with the back of her hand. “You did all that stupid stuff in the Royal Suite for nothing!”

But something about the note seems … off. “Except I don’t think this is from him.”

She turns back to the note. “Why not?”

“Because he wouldn’t waste time printing something he could write in three seconds, the other note he left us was handwritten, and his writing would be really hard to forge.”

“But … who else would leave a note like that?”

“Someone who wants us to think Kip’s okay when he’s not.”

“Who would do that?”

I sit down on my bed. “Someone who knows we’re looking for him.”

“Like Noah?” Marissa asks. “Or Ginger?”

“Or Bradley.” I eye her. “Or even Teresa.”

She thinks a minute, then says, “Or maybe someone told Kip we were worried about him and it
is
actually from him?” Her face screws to one side and she adds, “And how many of them know which room is ours?”

I look at her, and all of a sudden there’s a huge lump in my throat. She isn’t acting all miffed at me. She isn’t telling me to shut up about Kensingtons. She’s trying to help me
think
.

“I’m really, really sorry about before,” I choke out.

She plops down next to me. “Can we please just stay away from Kensingtons and try to have some
fun
before we get thrown off the ship?”

My eyes get all big.

“Not that kind of thrown off, stupid! I mean
escorted
off. Like we were in the hat shop? And the perfume shop? And the ten-dollar store?”

“Hey,
you
started the spritz war, remember? And
you
put those stupid hats on my head.”

She does a little tisk and shakes her head. “You and I have a long, checkered past.”

“Yeah,” I tell her, and heave a sigh. “We sure do.”

* * *

While Marissa was in the bathroom washing up, I remembered the brainstorm I’d had about decoding the
other
Kensington note by using the number pad of a phone.

Which got me up and looking at the phone.

Which got me drawing the keypad on the
I’m OK
note and jotting down which letters went where.

“What are you doing now?” Marissa asks when her hands are all de-stickified. And then she sees what I’ve drawn. “Oh, right.”

“Did you know that one and zero don’t have any letters?”

“Is that a problem?”

“I’m remembering ones and zeroes on the coded note.”

“But … do you remember any of the actual numbers?”

“Kip and I were looking for patterns and I remember the combinations that had 53 in them.” So I write them down:
9–53–60, 19–53–60
, and
53–9–53
.

“Don’t forget
LIONN
,” Marissa says over my shoulder.

So I write that down, too, and then start trying to decode it, putting
WXYZ
under the first 9,
JKL
under the first 5,
DEF
under 3, and
MNO
under 6.

“You think the zeroes are maybe
O
s?” Marissa asks. “And the ones are maybe
I
s or
L
s?”

I look back at her. “Wow. Could be.”

Then we both stare at the paper, trying to fish words out of the little pool of letters under 9–53–60.

“There’s nothing here,” Marissa finally says. “What about the
LIONN
?”

So I go back to the keypad decoder and write down
54666
under the letters.

Marissa shrugs. “You’ve got a 6-6-6. Sign of the devil, right? Maybe somebody born in fifty-four is the devil behind all of this?”

I heave a sigh. “Just tell me it’s a dead end.”

“It’s a dead end.”

“Thanks.”

Just then the phone rings, which about shoots me through the roof. Marissa snatches it up and says, “Hello? … No, this is Marissa.…” and then I sit there, watching as her eyes get bigger and bigger, and she gasps, “Really?”

“What?” I whisper, because I’m sure there’s been some big breakthrough with the Kensingtons.

But she stands there with her eyes about ready to pop, going, “Really? Wow! Okay! I’ll tell her!” She puts the phone down and gasps, “Unbelievable!”

“What?”

“Change of plans! That was your dad. We have a private seating
with the captain
!”

“A private seating for what?”

“For dinner!” she squeals. “It’s not just at the captain’s table, either. It’s actually a private dinner
with the captain
!”

“What’s the difference?”

“The captain’s table is a big, long table in the middle of one of the dining rooms. He hardly ever actually
eats
there, but even being invited to sit at the table—whether he shows up or not—gives you bragging rights.”

“Bragging rights? Who would you brag to?”

“Other cruisers! Only platinum cruisers or VIPs get to
sit at the captain’s table. But we’re actually eating
with
the captain and not at the captain’s table!”

“Why have a captain’s table if he’s not going to eat at it?”

“Oh, Sammy,” she sighs as she heads for the closet.

“No, I’m serious. Why are other people invited to eat at the captain’s table where there’s no captain and
we’re
invited to eat at some
other
table that
isn’t
the captain’s table
with
the captain?”

“Because the captain,” she says, all breathy, “is a fan of your dad’s!”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am!” She gives a little giggle. “Apparently the Troublemakers are huge in Norway.” Then she adds, “It was a personal invitation and your dad didn’t think he could say no, even though it’s at eight and you have to dress up.”

“Dress up? Why?”

She frowns at me. “You can’t dine with the captain looking like
that
.”

“Dine?” I pull a face at her. “You make it sound like he’s the king.”

“It’s like that, Sammy. It’s just like that!”

I squint at her. “But why? So he drives the boat. So what? I don’t dress up for the bus driver. Or the taxi driver. Or—”

“This isn’t a bus! Or a cab! And it’s not a
boat
. This is a floating island! It’s its own little sovereign entity on the high seas. And he’s in charge of it, okay?”

“ ‘Its own little sovereign entity’?”

She flings a dress at me. “Just get dressed, would you?
And be glad he’s inviting us to dinner instead of kicking us off the ship!” She shakes her head and actually giggles. “Wow. What a roller coaster today has been!”

Well, obviously she’s over the moon about having dinner with the captain, but while I’m getting dressed, my brain wanders back to the
I’m OK
note and how all the coded notes slipped under the Kensingtons’ doors had also been typed and printed on plain white paper.

Marissa’s packing a little purse, so I ask her if she has an extra one, which of course she does. And she’s happy to lend it to me, but when she sees me fold up the
I’m OK
note and slip it inside it with a pen, she goes, “No!”

I give her a back-off look, and she just mutters, “Whatever,” and leaves me alone.

Anyway, at 7:45 there’s a knock on the door, and when Marissa answers it, she calls, “Troublemaker time!” at me over her shoulder, because the whole band’s out in the hallway.

Darren’s hair’s still wet from a shower and he’s wearing the snazziest suit coat I’ve ever seen. It’s a smoky gray with a darker gray pattern and really dark red—almost black—buttons. And I can’t help saying, “Wow. I
love
that coat.”

“Yeah?” he asks, and gives me a happy-guy grin.

“You look nice, too,” I tell Marko, ’cause he’s doing a big ol’ pout. “And I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

“Thanks,” he says, running his hand over his shiny scalp. “Took hours.”

“You remember Drew and Cardillo?” Darren asks, and I nod, because I
had
kinda met them once before.

In Las Vegas.

When I found out who my dad was.

Let’s just say it was good to start over.

So I shake their hands and tell them, “And this is Marissa.”

Well, Marissa practically
dies
as she shakes their hands, ’cause yeah, they’re younger than Darren and Marko and have definitely got that whole rock star thing going on.

As we head for the stairs, Darren tells me, “Sorry about the dress requirement, but you do look great.” He gives me a quick one-armed hug. “Have a fun couple of hours without us?”

I laugh. “
Fun
doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

“Oh?”

Marissa snorts. “Can you say Kensingtons?”

“I can!” Marko says as we start down the steps. “I saw one!”

I turn around to look at him. “You did?”

“Yup. I stopped in at the library on our way up to see if maybe the Kipster was there.”

I blink at him. “Really? Why?”

“I thought we’d have some fun with these.” He pulls a pair of drumsticks out of his back pocket as we keep going down the stairs.

“You’re bringing those to dinner?” Marissa asks with a definite squint.

Darren laughs and I notice Drew and Cardillo roll their eyes. And in a flash I understand that we’ve been really lucky the last few days to have Marko’s equipment locked away somewhere down in the hull.

“So you saw him?” I ask.

“Nope. The Kensington I saw was”—he does a little drumroll along the handrail—“the Kipster’s mother.”

“Teresa?” My eyebrows go shooting up. “When?”

“About an hour ago.”

“And …?”

“Well, I didn’t
talk
to her.” He grins. “Most moms don’t want their sons influenced by the likes of me or my drumsticks.” Then he kinda shrugs and adds, “Besides, she was talking to that puzzle woman.”

“She
was
?”

He eyes me as we turn another bend. “That’s a big deal?”

“No …”

But it did feel like … 
something
.

“Anyway,” I tell Marko as we start down the next flight, “Kip hasn’t been seen by anybody all day and we’ve been kinda worried about him.” I open my purse and show him the
I’m OK
note. “We did get
this
shoved under our door, but we’re not sure he wrote it.”