“Something like that.”
“It’s a big empire that Ethan runs. That’s not including crew. I was going to try to stick to the rich men this time. We can fondle the crew later. We’re lucky it’s only a thousand people. This is actually a medium-sized cruise ship. On some cruises, there’s like four or five thousand people. This is a baby cruise.”
“I haven’t seen many crew,” I said.
“They’re all in their spa rooms or shops or...” She casually waved toward the ship, where there were wide windows that looked out at the pool. I barely made out a man standing behind the glass, casually watching the pool area. “They stay out of sight, mostly. I think on a normal cruise, you’d see more around, but they’re told to remain mostly invisible for these folks.”
“Any reason?” I asked.
Fancy turned and waved a big goodbye to the bunnies. They took the hint and dipped themselves into the pool. Fancy hung onto me, drawing me to the rail with her. “Honey bun,” she said softly in a less exuberant voice than normal. “These are rich dicks. And vaginas. I can’t forget the vaginas.”
I hid an eye roll from her. “Got that part,” I said.
“So servants do what servants do. They remain invisible until you need them, and then they’re everywhere.” She reached out, touching my glasses to straighten them. “Stop glaring at people.”
“I’m not glaring,” I said.
“You’re pissed,” she said. “I can tell. I heard about Blake.”
“How?”
She pointed to her ear. “I’ve got Avery, the cutie patootie.”
“How is Avery doing?” I asked. “He seemed nervous earlier.”
“Seems to be doing fine. He doesn’t talk much, just says hello and then does some whispering to Ethan. I swear, I need to work on him.”
“He can hear you.”
“I know he can hear me. It’s funny that he can’t do anything about it right now. I like making the girls talk about sex. I wish I could see his face. I can almost hear him blushing right down to his nut sack.”
Talking about Avery was worse than talking about Blake. I tried changing conversation back to the job. “I’m waiting on someone else to talk to. Tara Wayward seems innocent.”
“She can’t be that innocent.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because she’s talking to Avery right now about some secret girl working directly under Mr. Murdock that she didn’t know about.”
I snapped my head around to the bench where Ms. Wayward and Raisin had been. Hill and Kroner were absorbed in conversation with Brandon. “Does she suspect I’m not what I said I was?”
“She’s digging for dirt. To me, she sounds jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Like catching your man dick deep in a floozy.” She put a hand on my arm. “Not calling you a floozy, sweetie. I’m just painting a picture for you.”
That produced a big mental ew in my brain. Tara was maybe in her thirties, late thirties at most. Would she be interested in old Mr. Murdock? He had thin white hair and wrinkles and was just old. I couldn’t remember if she was married. She did have three little yapping dogs at home. “I can’t picture her being really romantic with him.”
“If you’re rich, you pay for better than her,” she said. She wriggled her hips, causing the cover dress to sway.
“Maybe it wasn’t romantic,” I said. “Maybe she’d want a job like the one I claimed to have. Maybe...”
“She’s the writer,” Fancy said.
I blinked, considering what she was saying. It took a moment, but I remembered and snapped my fingers. “Holy crap. Right. Maybe she’s digging for dirt. She writes books, doesn’t she? Aren’t they political or business or something? Are any of these people political?”
“Maybe she has dirt,” Fancy said. She swayed her hips some more, moving with the music. “Yay! We’ve got a lead.”
“Her laptop might be invaluable, if that’s true,” I said. “I still could be right. She might be interested in the position more than getting a story.”
“True,” Fancy said. “But now you’ve got something to talk to her about.”
There was a rush next to me and Brandon appeared at my elbow. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said.
“Never be sorry,” Fancy said. She danced a little, moving toward him, grabbing at his hands and tugging. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get these people going. Dancing. Swimming. I hope you brought a swimsuit. It’s okay if you didn’t, though. I bet at night there’s nude swimming.”
“Tell me that’s not a thing,” I said.
“We could make it a thing.”
I shuddered at the idea of a bunch of old men going skinny dipping at night. Maybe I would stay out of the pool.
Brandon coughed, clearing his throat. “No, no, I need Kayli.” He wriggled out of Fancy’s grasp and tugged me by the elbow. “We need to go inside.”
“Aw,” Fancy pouted. She continued to sway anyway and then turned to the pool. “Fine, I’ll just get into the pool.”
I turned away, afraid to see how Fancy would get into the pool with her special package in her bikini bottom. As I turned, I caught her stripping off the cover-up dress. Maybe she tape-tucked herself in well enough for this.
Brandon took me into a hallway and at first headed in one direction, and then backtracked to a stairwell, heading down.
“Where are we going?”
He turned back, taking my wrist and tugging. “Colt Baker is here. And he’s in the galley.”
Colt. The nerd in the glasses I really wanted to talk to. “Did he just get on board? Is he with anyone?”
“He’s been on the ship for a little while. Someone said he might be an ally?”
“I’d suspected that but we won’t know until we meet him.”
“Well, Colt’s in the galley asking a lot of questions about the crew and making them uncomfortable. Kevin is trying to get him out of there.”
That’s odd. “What kind of questions?”
“Very specific. How many cooks and how many servers. He wants to see their accounting books.” Brandon checked another map and then headed down the hallway, moving too quickly. When I couldn’t keep up, he turned, tugging me by the wrist. “And asking about their salaries. Hurry.”
My chest was tight and I was short of breath as I tried to jog, an action akin to exercising. My body wasn’t used to it and the shoes weren’t cooperating, either. I jammed my hands into the pockets of the corduroy dress, just to make sure I wasn’t flashing butt along the way.
Brandon went through a large swinging door ahead of me. Before I could follow him, there was a crash and then a slam and shouting. I hesitated outside the door, listening.
“What are you doing in here?” I didn’t recognize the voice.
“This isn’t the dining room?” Brandon asked. There was a swishing noise. “Sorry, man. Here, let me help.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir,” someone else said.
I cracked open the swinging door enough so I could peek inside.
Brandon was by the door, bending over with one of the crew to pick up pieces of broken dishware. There was glass all over the floor. Another of the crew members had a broom. Kevin was there, standing next to Colt and a few other staff members in black with aprons tied on, watching the scene.
Colt was wearing coffee on his suit, a cup still dangling from his finger. Whatever the chain reaction had been from Brandon pushing his way in, it was pretty catastrophic. Not a great first impression.
“Can I escort you to your room?” Kevin asked Colt. “I’ll be happy to get your suit cleaned.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Colt swiped at his clothes, getting little droplets of coffee onto the floor, but far from saving the blue tie and white shirt. He did wear glasses, but now outside of the horrible photo, he was different. Colt was a nerd but he wasn’t an ugly duckling. The glasses masked a clever, stern face. The suit fit him well. He unknotted his tie and then st
uffed it into his pocket. “I wasn’t going to stay on board.”
“You’re not here for the whole thing?” Brandon asked. “Why? Working?”
“I’m just not the cruise type,” he said. “I’m just here to catch up with Mr. Ethan about a few things. Maybe even Mr. Murdock if he arrived. He’s hard to get a hold of.”
He was my best lead and I was going to lose him. My brain went into overdrive. I needed Colt to stay. How could I...