Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise (24 page)

“Hmm,” he says, after reading it. “Well, maybe he’ll come out of the woodwork tonight.”

“What’s this part?” Darren asks, taking the paper and pointing to my writing. “Why 6-6-6?”

“Told you!” Marissa cries.

So I fill him in on my not-so-brilliant decoding idea, which he kind of nods along with, then says, “So this is what you’ve been doing for the past two hours?”

“This?” I laugh. “No! That took about thirty seconds.”

Now, I don’t want him to think I’m some decoding
dork, but I also don’t want to tell him how I locked the cruise director and his mother outside on a balcony, rummaged through the Royal Suite, and tossed Dr. John Tyler Kensington through the air.

So I try to straddle those extremes by saying, “We spied on Kensingtons and, uh, tried to get some answers about Kip and, uh, watched JT flirt with a murmuration of mermaids in the hot tub.…”

“A murmuration of mermaids!” Marko says. “Dude, all we did was talk to the hairless Wolfman and get wrangled into a hoity-toity dinner with the captain.” He eyes me over his shoulder as we get to the Deck 4 landing. “I’m totally ditchin’ your dad for the two of you from now on.”

“You have no idea what you’re saying,” Marissa tells him. “Being around her is nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble.”

Marko laughs as we follow Darren into the dining room. “Just the way I like it.”

It was just the six of us and Captain Harald. We were seated in a way-back corner of the fancy dining room, which was one deck down from the one we’d eaten in our first night, and the first thing I thought when I saw the captain was, Oh,
no
—another blond?

His eyes were brown, though. And he didn’t look or act anything like a Kensington. Plus he had that Norwegian accent, which
was
very cool.

Once we’re settled in, the captain gushes to the band, “I saw you in Oslo! At the Spektrum Arena!”

Drew looks at Marko and says, “Wasn’t that the place where you got lost on some lunatic quest to find a troll and almost didn’t make the gig?”

“Right! Right!” Cardillo says. “You had to bum a ride on the back of a Vespa!”

“From that big girl with the monster pigtails!”

“That wasn’t part of the show?” the captain asks, and his cheeks are all flushed. “You roared through the crowd with a
huldre
on a Vespa right up to the stage! Everyone thought it was fantastic!”

“I wouldn’t call it
roaring
,” Marko tells him, and then Drew asks, “What’s a
huldre
?” and after that, stories start flying and Troublemakers are laughing and Marissa and I just enjoy soaking it all in.

The captain did try to include Marissa and me in the conversation. The first time was when our appetizers were served. They came in fancy chilled shrimp cocktail glasses, but instead of shrimp, there were chunks of raw fish buried under a red sauce.

Fancy dish or not, it looked pretty gross to me.

Marissa was sort of playing with hers, too, and the captain took a break from his conversation about music to tell us, “Oh, try it. It’s delicious!”

“What is it?” Marissa asks in a kind of squeaky voice.

“Herring!” he tells us. “A favorite in Norway!” Then he chuckles and says, “Go on. It won’t bite.”

And he’s, you know,
watching
us, so we’re pretty much forced to use our fancy little mini-forks and take bites of saucy red herring.

“See?” he says, like a happy little boy.

We smile and nod to be polite, but it’s tangy and salty and cold.

And also … interesting.

So even though Marissa’s had enough after one bite, I wind up trying another piece. And another. And pretty soon I have to admit I
like
it.

During the main course, he asks me, “So how do you like being the daughter of a rock star?”

I almost laugh and say, Well, it’s been a weird couple of months, that’s for sure! But when I glance over at Darren,
I don’t know—it’s like he’s holding his breath. Like what I answer matters to him.

Or maybe he just doesn’t want to get into how it was he didn’t know he had a daughter until a couple of months ago.

Which I totally get.

So what winds up coming out of my mouth is, “You can have the rock star part, but the rest is good.”

The captain does a kind of nod. Like, Ah. Only I can tell he’s not really sure what I mean.

Darren, though, gives me a smile that’s either grateful or relieved, or maybe both. Then, probably trying to switch subjects, he makes the mistake of asking what it takes to become a cruise ship captain, and for the next half hour we hear all about Captain Harald’s childhood and his dream of becoming a mariner and his training in the fjords of Norway—including the
names
of all the fjords—and the extensive knowledge and skill required to become captain of a cruise ship.

I guess even he knew he’d been going on forever, because he finally looks around the table and says, “But enough about me. How do
you
like the cruise so far?”

Drew and Cardillo tell him that they basically just got there but that so far “everything looks rockin’,” which seems to make the captain happy. And Marko and Darren make nice comments about the ship and how we’d had a great time snorkeling in Puerto Vallarta, which gets steady nodding and smiles from the captain.

But then he turns to Marissa and me and says, “How about you? Are you having a good time?”

Now, I was about to say, Yeah, and let him get on with conducting the conversation, but Marissa,
Marissa
, says, “It’s been great except for the whole Kensington mess.” She rolls her eyes. “That’s taken up a
lot
of time.”

“The Kensington mess?” he asks.

And that’s when it finally hits me.

HOLY COW!

This is the CAPTAIN!

He knows EVERYTHING!

So I say, “You know—because Kate Kensington disappeared?”

“Who?” he asks.

One look at him and I can tell he really doesn’t know who I’m talking about. So as calmly as I can, I ask him, “Noah hasn’t talked to you about that?”

“About what?”

“His aunt’s disappearance?”

“From
this
vessel?”

I nod. “She hasn’t been seen since Sunday night.”

He looks horrified. “You’re referring to Noah Marlowe? Our cruise director?”

I nod again. “He said he was doing everything he could, but I didn’t understand why we just kept going if someone went overboard.”

“Overboard!”

“That’s what her grandson thinks.”

Marissa butts in with, “He’s the reason we know any of this.” And then Marissa,
Marissa
, says, “And
he
seems to be missing now, too.”

“The grandson is?” The captain looks back and forth at us and finally says, “You’re not just pulling my leg here?”

We shake our heads.

“Well, you did get that note,” Darren says to me.

“Which I think someone else wrote,” I tell him, then hand the note over for Captain Harald to see.

“What’s this 6-6-6?” he says, and he sounds worried.

So I have to explain that it has nothing to do with the devil and about the coded notes and all of that. And when I’m done, he hands the paper back and says, “People use reunions on our ships for all sorts of purposes. Maybe this is like a dinner theater?”

I fold the paper up and put it away, saying, “Or maybe someone shoved a billionaire grandma overboard because they wanted to inherit a bunch of money.”

He studies me. “I’ll ask Mr. Marlowe about it. But I’m sure if it were serious, he would have reported it to me.” And since our waiters have come to take away our dessert dishes and refill coffees, he uses that as an excuse to totally switch topics. “So,” he says, turning to look at Drew and Cardillo, “are you two on board for the duration, then?”

“No,” Drew tells him. “We’re being flown out Friday morning.”

“Apparently a ventriloquist is taking our place,” Cardillo says with a grin.

And that’s when something else hits me.

Hard
.

I butt in with, “We’re at sea the whole way back, right? No more ports?”

“That’s right,” the captain says.

I look at Cardillo. “So you’re flying out on a helicopter?”

Cardillo nods. “That’s what we’ve been told.”

My heart starts beating faster and my head starts feeling like it’s going to float away, ’cause I’m sure I’ve just figured it out.

I mean, if you’ve got a billion bucks and you’ve had a major fight with your family and you’re stuck on a cruise ship with them and just want to get
away
, you don’t need to jump overboard!

You can hire a helicopter to come fetch you!

So I ask the captain, “Were there any helicopter transports on Sunday or Monday?” and let me tell you, I am totally perked up in my seat.

“On this cruise ship?”

“Yes!” I pant, all eager-eyed and waggy-tailed.

And you know what he says?

He says, “No.”

No!

Not “Not that I know of,” or “Not on my watch,” or “I’d have to check the heli-log.”

Just no!

The perky in me starts to sag, but I’m still holding out hope. “Are you
sure
?”

He chuckles. “If a helicopter landed, I would know about it.” He smiles at me. “It takes a coordination of efforts, you know.”

I think about that and go, “Oh, right. The ship is moving.”

He smiles at me. “Exactly.”

But I still can’t believe that I’m not onto something. I mean, it seems like the
perfect
explanation to everything!

Well … except for the coded notes.

And Kip disappearing.

Still. I can’t let it go. So I ask, “Well, what if there was a medical emergency? What if someone flew out in the middle of the night? What if—”

He puts a hand up. “I would know about it.”

“But … don’t you have a co-captain or something? I mean, who’s driving the boat right now? When do you sleep?”

His smile’s not looking too smiley anymore. “It’s a ship, young lady, not a boat. And yes, the staff captain and I work together to navigate the vessel. If there was a medical evacuation or another unexpected need for the heliport, I would absolutely know about it!”

I sit back with a little frown. “So there’s no way Kate Kensington flew out of here without you knowing about it?”

“That is correct.”

I take a deep breath and finally let it out. “Thanks.”

He gives me a kind smile now and says, “Try to enjoy your family instead of worrying about theirs.”

“That is very good advice!” Marissa tells him.

And I guess he thinks that’s a good note to end things on, because he stands up and thanks us for joining him for dinner. “You’re welcome to stay and enjoy your coffee,” he says to the guys, “but I need to get back to the bridge.”

So everyone says thanks and nice to meet you and all that jazz, and then off he goes.

“Sorry,” I say, looking around the table, because it feels like I’ve messed up dinner with the captain.

“Are you kidding me?” Marko whispers. “If I hear the word
fjord
again, I think I’ll fjart!”

“You’ll fjart?” the other guys laugh.

“Yeah, and it won’t be fjun. Not fjor anyone.”

Darren tosses down his napkin. “So let’s fjind something else to do.”

“I’m hangin’ with the Samster,” Marko says as we all stand up.

My eyes pop. “The
Samster
? Sounds like
hamster
.”

“The Samminator, then,” Marko says.

“That’s
way
more like it,” Marissa tells him.

“So where’re we goin’?” Darren asks, putting his arm around my shoulders as we walk away from the table.

I grin up at him. “Haven’t got a clue.”

He grins back. “Perfect.”

We wander out of the dining room and through the elevator area, and then Marissa starts making noise about going to the Poseidon Theater to see what show’s playing tonight. “If I remember from the Cruzer, it’s
Music Across the Ages
. That sounds like something we’d all like, right?”

Darren kids her with, “Our very own cruise director.”

“Better than our real one,” I grumble, because knowing that Noah never reported Kate’s disappearance to the captain didn’t just bother me, it kinda scared me. Especially after what had happened in the Royal Suite.

I’d been trying to come up with reasons why Noah hadn’t told the captain. The obvious one was that he had something to do with Kate’s disappearance. What better way to control the situation than convince everyone you had authority to get to the bottom of things and then do nothing?

But … he didn’t seem to have any
motive
for getting rid of her.

So maybe he hadn’t told the captain because the Kensingtons were his family and private people, and he thought he could handle everything himself.

Or maybe by the time they knew Kate was missing, it was too late to turn the ship around, so why tell the captain? And maybe other people in the family wanted to avoid a scandal. Or the press. Or whatever people with big bucks who don’t want their image tarnished worry about.

But if he never reported it to the captain, then there was probably no Coast Guard on the lookout for rich old ladies flailing in the water, and no alerts sent out to other boats, or anything!

So when Noah told us that he had a lot of authority on the ship and was doing everything he could, what did that
mean
? He must have done
something
, because Lucas and the others had made it sound like they weren’t allowed to leave the ship. But I hadn’t seen anyone going around questioning Kensingtons. Kate couldn’t be holed up in some bar drinking blue martinis for three days. Shouldn’t there be an official investigation going on?

Or … maybe there was, but they’d kept it quiet, like Bradley had said.

And maybe Kip had been right when he’d said he thought Noah was acting the way he was because he didn’t think Kip could handle the truth.

Or maybe Noah
did
have a motive and I just hadn’t figured it out yet.