Carter
Now she’s making him do homework before dinner.
He thought about telling Gramps, but ever since that weird phone ping before dawn, after which Gramps made a phone call, then left the room saying he needed air, his grandfather has been distracted. Not normal.
The person who would actually believe him is Poppy Poirot.
“So what does the Minotaur and Theseus teach us?” Mom asks. “What did you learn in the labyrinth today?”
He starts banging the back of his heel against the chair again. Thump thump thump.
“Carter, please stop that,” his mother snaps irritably. “Let’s just finish this, and then we’ll go for fish and chips, okay?”
He nods, but his mind replays Arrabella in her little white shorts, fighting with the sweaty blond man. Then the orchid man following them. He wishes that stupid tour bus hadn’t blocked his view.
“So,” his mother continues, “when did the Minotaur story originate?”
He tries to focus. “Late Bronze Age? Early Greek Dark Age?”
“Correct. Somewhere around 1600 to 1100 BCE. It was already a deep part of the oral tradition before written records appeared in Homeric and Hesiodic poetry.”
He zones out again.
“Carter—did you not enjoy the labyrinth today?”
“I got lost,” he mutters. “You know I did. My fake torch died, and the older kids ran off yelling. Their shrieks echoed in the caves like a monster roaring.”
It had only been a minute or two before one of the guides handed him another torch and helped him out into the sunlight, but he’d been truly scared. He’d cried.
He hadn’t even been able to face his own inner beast—his fear of the dark—let alone the stupid fake one in a cage.
His mom softens. “Okay, you’re tired. Let’s finish this up. What does Theseus’s slaying of the Minotaur symbolize?”
He sighs. “Don’t know.”
“Come on, Carter. I know you know it.”
“The triumph of reason over chaos,” he mumbles, “because Theseus wins with cleverness, not brute force.”
“Exactly.” Her “teacher” voice warms. “Some also say it represents Athens rising over Crete. Or a shift from the old matriarchal, more pagan-like culture to the new male-dominated one.”
Her words roll over his head. He wishes again his father would come home, and Mom would be less focused on him all the time. He’d like to go to real school for a change. With other kids.
“Theseus might have been a man, but he didn’t win without a woman’s help,” Carter counters.
“Ariadne gave him the twine so he could find his way back. It was pretty stupid of her to trust him, though, seeing as he dumped her on Naxos afterward. If I’d had twine today, I could’ve found my own way out. Even without the torch.”
His mom laughs softly. “Very good.”
“Can I go downstairs now? I’ll wait for you and Gramps in the atrium where the big poufy seats are—near the bookstore?”
His mother inhales, summoning patience.
“Fine. Take your phone so I can track you. And stay near the bookstore, okay? We’ll be down in about twenty minutes. I’ll go wake your gramps up.”
Carter scrabbles his stuff together, including his book of suspicious happenings. He stuffs it all into his yellow backpack, leaves the suite, and bounces along the hallway to the elevators, spirits lifting already.
Down in the atrium Carter flops onto a big pouf and watches people milling about, chatting, eating ice creams, looking into the windows of boutiques dotted around the perimeter of the atrium.
He spies Maxine—the friendly lady who welcomed them onto the ship. She’s at a nearby concierge desk, talking to another crew member in a white uniform. Their conversation looks serious.
His thoughts turn to Arrabella, and he wonders if she made it back onto the ship, or if she’s still missing. Or why she was talking with the orchid man in the first place in front of the mural about a lady who poisoned her husband.
And Gramps? The early text. Him disappearing in the dark dawn?
It’s a weird mystery to Carter. So are those photos in Gramps’s files.
He can’t share that information with his mom.
He really wishes there were someone he could talk to.
He’s lost in his own labyrinth. One that has nothing to do with a Minotaur.
Suddenly he spots her.
Poppy Poirot.
Anticipation and a zing of pleasure burst through him. But as she nears, Carter realizes she looks . . . wrong. Disheveled and hot and red in the face. She’s walking fast, head bent forward, like a rumbling little train that will bowl over anything in its way.
As she passes him, he calls out, “Poppy?”
She doesn’t hear him, just marches straight for the counter where Maxine stands. She halts directly in front of Maxine and says something. Maxine looks concerned as she responds, and Poppy grows agitated. Her voice rises. Curiosity sinks teeth into Carter.
He scoots off the pouf and edges closer. He hears Poppy say, “But I need my passport back. I need to get off this boat. Why is this even complicated?”
“Of course, Ms. Buchanan,” Maxine replies calmly. “They’re kept in the purser’s office. You’ll need to meet with him, and formally request disembarkation and sign a waiver. Then you’ll be fully released from the ship’s responsibility.”
“Fine. I want to do that. Now.”
“Our next port’s in Turkish waters,” Maxine explains. “You’ll need a visa to get off there. Alternatively you can wait until Santorini—no immigration issues there for a UK citizen.”
Poppy hesitates. She appears confused. Her face is going redder.
Maxine says, “I can have Roshaan organize you a tender ashore from Santorini for early the following morning?”
“Fine,” Poppy grumbles. “I’ll wait for Santorini.” She walks away and drops heavily onto a bench nearby, as though too exhausted to gather up steam again. She takes off her glasses and begins to wipe them with a little pink cloth.
Carter hesitates, then approaches.
“Poppy?” he says softly.
She squints at him, puts her glasses back on. “Oh. It’s you.”
“Are you okay? Should I get water or something?”
She stares into the middle distance for a moment, as though determining whether she is in fact okay.
Carter meanwhile shrugs off his yellow backpack and sits tentatively on the bench beside her. Not too close. He places his backpack on his knees.
“I wanted to ask you something,” he says. “You know, as a fellow detective.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Like what?”
“Well—” He’s suddenly nervous. This might be a mistake. But he needs to tell someone. He lowers his voice. “It could be dangerous. It’s about real crimes. Serious ones.”
“What crimes?”
He almost backtracks but pushes on. “You know my gramps—”
“Dr. Marsh, yes.”
“I think he followed someone onto this ship.”
“What do you mean?”
“A criminal.”
“What?”
Her sudden sharp focus unnerves him. Nerves nip at Carter. He treads carefully, not wanting to admit he snooped in Gramps’s files.
“My grandfather’s writing a book—”
“I know. About Vincent Kapoor—the Bikini Killer. He told us at the talk. He said he’s made a stunning breakthrough.”
Carter blinks. “He said that? To an actual audience?”
“Yes, he said he had new and compelling evidence.”
Carter frowns.
“Is it Sanjay Lohar?” Poppy presses. “Is that what you mean by Dr. Marsh following a criminal onto the ship? Is he still alive? Or . . . is it Vincent himself? He did say Vincent had been released.” Poppy Poirot is getting excited. It almost scares Carter.
“Well, I—ah—I’m not sure his book is exactly about Vincent.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s got a funny title. It seems it could be about something else.”
“His accomplice?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It has ‘thrall’ in the title.” He hesitates a moment. “I took pictures of some images that my gramps has in a file.”
She studies him. “Carter, why are you even telling me this stuff?”
He glances down. “Because I can’t talk to my gramps, and I can’t tell my mom because she’ll be mad. And sad. And I think someone needs to tell the police or something.”
“Tell the police what, exactly?”
He gets his phone out of his backpack and shows Poppy the first picture he took—of the newspaper image showing Vincent and Aline-Claire looking like movie stars with their monkey and a bunch of money.
She peers at it. Suddenly she makes a little gasp and leans sharply closer, then snatches his phone from his hand.
She brings it near her face, enlarges the image with her fingers.
She peers more closely through her thick glasses.
Her gaze shoots back to his. Her eyes behind the round frames are huge.
“What is it?” he asks.
She swallows. “Can I see the other one?”
Carter takes his phone back, finds it, and shows her the image of the man in a suit on a bridge over a canal.
“On the back of the photo it says Vincent. Amsterdam, Dec. 2018,” Carter explains.
The color drains completely from her face. She continues to stare at the photo, mouth open, breathing rather heavily.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
She closes her mouth, nods.
“I’ve seen him,” Carter says. “This man in the picture. He’s on the ship. Wait—” He fishes his notebook out of his backpack, opens it to the map he drew of the elite deck. He points to the diagram.
“He’s staying in this suite.” He meets her gaze. “He’s right on our deck. Have you also seen him?”
She opens her mouth to say something when Carter hears his mother’s voice.
“Carter!”
He quickly shoves his phone and notebook into his pack as his mother comes marching over.
“What are you doing? I’ve been calling you. Why didn’t you answer?”
“Sorry, Mom. Sound must be off. This is Poppy.”
She glances at Poppy, smiles tightly. “Nice to meet you.” She grabs his hand. “Come on. You shouldn’t talk to strange adults.”
“It’s a cruise, Mom. And I haven’t found any other kids to talk to.”
He glances back over his shoulder as she pulls him away.
Poppy sits there—frozen. Like someone who’s just stuck a finger in a socket and gotten electrified. He did that once. He knows how it feels.