8. Blood-Stained Tiles
I saiah had been right about sleeping on the tiles, Poppy thought, stretching her neck and sore back. She opened the bathroom door slowly to find Isaiah asleep in the armchair by the desk. He could have slept on the bed! She wouldn’t be the only one with a sore neck today.
After some not-so-subtle knocking, Mina opened the door. Her heavy eyes looked as hungover as Poppy felt.
“Oh, thank God. I was so worried about you,” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Poppy. “Isaiah was freaked when you didn’t return with me from the bar.”
“I can see that,” Poppy said, noticing the unmade bed in Mina’s adjoining room.
“Don’t look at me like that. I did look for you!
When I returned, I figured Isaiah had found you because I couldn’t get into either of your rooms. My smartwatch would only work on my own room door.
Those shots of tequila did me in. I don’t know if it’s being at sea or what, but I’ve never been such a lightweight,” Mina explained, still looking a little green.
“That’s strange. We couldn’t get into the suite either. Is the adjoining door on your side locked?” Poppy asked.
“I assumed you must have locked it when you got back.”
“We should pay more attention to what doors we lock just in case,” Poppy said thoughtfully. “It’s not a big deal. I fell asleep in Isaiah’s room after he found me in the spa.”
“You slept with Isaiah?” Mina’s hands covered her shocked smile.
“Not with Isaiah; I fell asleep in the bathroom. I’ve never been so sick. I’m never drinking champagne again.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue. One thing was for sure: there was no risk of her becoming an alcoholic like her aunt.
“Isaiah could’ve offered you his bed if you were that sick,” Mina remarked, clearly surprised by his ungentlemanly behaviour.
“Don’t be hard on him. Poor guy slept in the armchair while I yacked my guts up all night,” Poppy said. “I’ve never been so mortified in my life.” She couldn’t remember another time someone had stayed by her side all night to ensure she was alright.
“Aww, it’s nice that he looked after you. Maybe we judged him too quickly.” Mina walked to the suite’s double doors.
To their relief, the door to Poppy’s suite blinked green, allowing them to enter.
“The drill last night must have caused some glitches with some of the doors; at least they’re working now,” Mina said.
“I should’ve come back with you – I can’t believe I picked the night of a drill to wander off.
I bet Isaiah is going to be keeping a closer eye on me now,” Poppy said, wishing she hadn’t left her bracelet behind.
He must have been frightened when he couldn’t find her. They weren’t off to a great start.
The sight of her freshly made bed called to her, but the room service menu by her bed was even more tempting. “Are you hungry?” she asked Mina, who was lying on the couch.
“Starved,” she grumbled.
“The brunch menu goes all day.” Poppy beamed, picking up the room service menu. “Maybe I can make up for my disappearing act last night by ordering Isaiah breakfast. Do you think he’s more of an Eggs Benedict or breakfast-sandwich-with-extra-bacon kind of guy?”
“Definitely a breakfast sandwich,” Mina said, with a yawn.
“We’ll get two of those, then.” Poppy handed her the menu. “Order whatever you like; I’m going to take a quick shower before the food arrives.”
“So, one of everything?” Mina joked.
“Make it two,” Poppy laughed.
An odd metallic smell met her when she closed the bathroom door. Since the bathroom hadn’t been used yet, she figured it might just be the cleaning products. As she washed her face at the sink, the smell grew stronger.
“What is that?” she muttered, dabbing her face dry with a fluffy towel.
It wasn’t the towels that were causing the odour.
She examined the drain, wondering if something had been washed down and got clogged, but it didn’t seem to be coming from there either.
She decided that a shower would help wash away whatever might be lingering in the drains.
“Food should be here in thirty minutes,” Mina called through the door.
“Thanks! Could you check if Isaiah is awake?” Poppy called back as her stomach grumbled.
Thirty minutes was just enough time for her to scrub away the effects of her night out before diving into something delicious.
She dreaded the thought that, after a night of drinking and throwing up, the smell could be coming from her. She pulled back the shower curtain.
Blood. The smell is blood.
Patrice, the woman who had greeted them only yesterday with warmth and a bright smile, stared up at Poppy accusingly with wide, blank eyes.
Poppy wanted to scream or call for Mina, but no sound came out; her vocal cords had knotted together painfully.
She covered her nose and mouth to stop herself from gagging, breaking out into a cold sweat.
All she could do was stare at the poor woman with a knife sticking out of her chest where her heart should be.
There was so much blood that she could barely make out Patrice’s once perfectly pressed Midas uniform. The cream shell-shaped tiles were painted red, and the grout was varying shades of brown.
A scream shocked Poppy out of her frozen state. Mina had followed her inside.
“Don’t look, don’t look at her!” Poppy cried, trying to turn her away from the horrible sight.
“Is she—?” Mina stammered,covering her eyes even though she was already facing the wall.
“She’s gone,” Poppy choked.
Isaiah ran in with his gun drawn.
“Mina, go outside and call security. Then go out into the hall and wait. Don’t touch anything,” he instructed. Mina didn’t need to be told twice.
“Wh-what do I do?” Poppy stammered, trying not to look at Patrice.
“Just stand there. The scene has been disturbed enough, and you have blood on your feet,” Isaiah said calmly. “I don’t want you to trek bloody footprints around the room.”
Poppy looked down. She hadn’t even realised she’d stepped in a small pool ofblood. “Oh God, I think I’m going to pass out.”
“Just breathe and focus on me. What did you see when you first came in? Did anything look out of place or disturbed? No detail is too small.”
Poppy took a deep breath and tried to focus her thoughts.
“I don’t think so. Mina helped me unpack my toiletries yesterday, and they’re still in the same place by the sink where I left them before we went out,” she said, trying not to think about the cold, thick slime beneath her feet.
“The shower curtain was open when we left. Closed shower curtains always give me the creeps.”
“You didn’t see the blood before you opened the curtain?”
“No, I only realised what the smell was when I opened it…” She saw for the first time that blood was dripping from the end of the shower curtain. “Please get me out of here.”
“I will, I promise, but I need to get this straight. When you opened the curtain it must have come out of the tub and dripped on the floor, but there was no blood on the floor for you to notice when you came in?”
Poppy nodded shakily. “I must have pulled the curtain out. I didn’t realise it, and then I froze. I didn’t snap out of it until Mina screamed.”
“You’re in shock. Freezing is a totally normal response,” Isaiah said calmly.
“Our butler is dead in the bathtub. There is nothing normal about this!”
“Sorry– this is just a normal Tuesday for me,” he answered, examining the bathtub. Her nausea increased the closer he got to the body. He was studying the knife when something sticking out of Patrice’s pocket caught her eye.
“Wait, is there something in her pocket?” she said, swallowing her horror. “I think it’s an old tape recorder.”
Isaiah looked at her as if he was expecting her to have a panic attack, but she met his gaze levelly. She was used to pushing down the tough stuff.
“I’ll be right back. Just close your eyes and breathe.” Isaiah disappeared and returned a moment later wearing black latex gloves. She wouldn’t ask why he had them, but maybe they were part of some bodyguard/detective start-up kit.
Carefully, he removed the object from Patrice’s body.
“Why would she be carrying around a tape recorder?” Poppy asked, trying to get a better look.
He stood up and showed her the small device.“Have you seen this before?”
“No, it’s definitely not mine.”
“Hmm. She might have been using it to record guest conversations. Since they don’t allow phones on board, it makes sense that she’d need some other device.”
“Do you think she was planting it in the suite?” Poppy asked, worried about who might want to listen to her conversations.“Why was she even in our suite in the first place?”
“She might have come by when you weren’t present for the muster drill.” Isaiah shrugged. “She discovered someone planting it and was murdered to conceal what she knew. Or she knew we wouldn’t be in our rooms because of the drill, and she was going to plant the recording device herself.”
“Or she just records guests to sell secrets or to protect herself from some self-entitled pricks. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions that her murder is related to the recorder,” Poppy reasoned.
“Why think it’s unrelated?” Isaiah frowned.
“Because if someone killed her because she recorded something she shouldn’t have, why didn’t they take the recorder with them?” Poppy snapped.
“Good detective skills,” Isaiah said, hitting the ejection button on the side of the recorder.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she said, staring at the empty pocket.
“They didn’t take the recorder because they took the tape instead,” he said, returning the recorder to Patrice’s pocket.
“I’m going to inform the captain and see if we can return to port as soon as possible.” He took a picture of Poppy’s feet, the shower curtain, and the pool of blood.
“Where did you get the phone?” she gasped.