13. Dress the Part #2
“I probably won’t make it home in time for her party. I don’t need to worry about this right now.” He scratched his head, visibly overwhelmed by the choices. It was sweet how much he cared about his young niece.
“Let me take care of it for you. Can you please gift-wrap the small seashell studs for us?” Poppy asked as Melina returned with their bags.
“Of course,” Melina replied, pulling the earrings from beneath the counter.
“Also, we need a strap for a watch. Could you have it done by this evening?”
“I need to see the watch first,” Melina said.
Poppy turned to Isaiah, who had clearly learned not to argue; he handed it over.
“Vintage Rolex, very nice. We can definitely have it done. Do you have any colour or style preference?” Melina inquired.
“Classic, as close as possible to the original,” Isaiah said reluctantly, clearly cautious about leaving the watch with her. “Just be careful with it.”
“Would you like your purchases now, or when the watch is ready? We can have everything delivered to your suite this evening,” Melina suggested.
“We’ll take the bags ourselves.” Poppy knew Isaiah wouldn’t want her giving out their room number. “We’ll collect the watch on our way to the opera later,” she added. Seeing how much Isaiah cared about it, she doubted he would trust it to anyone else.
Later that night, Poppy heard the door to their suite click open while she tried to avoid burning herself again with her curling tongs.
They had only about an hour to get ready before heading to the theatre, and she couldn’t understand why she felt so nervous.
Her hands trembled every time she thought about attending the opera.
There was no reason to be frightened; Isaiah would be there with her, and no one would dare try to harm her in such a public setting.
However, ever since she’d found the tape, she had been anxiously waiting for Calliope to discover that it was missing.
Although the woman had no reason to suspect that Poppy was the culprit, she couldn’t shake the knot in her stomach whenever she thought about it.
“I come bearing gifts,” Mina announced, dancing across the suite before placing a tape recorder on the dressing table. Poppy finished clipping the rollers in her hair, then jumped up and wrapped her arms around Mina.
“How did you get this?” she asked, clutching the recorder.
“It’s not Patrice’s, so hopefully the tape will still play,” Mina replied.
“There was no way I could get into the morgue. But I ran into that Grammy-winning songwriter, LUV, who’s married to the tech billionaire – that guy who invented Eagle Eye security.
Anyway, he was using it to record himself with his guitar in the library, and I asked if I could borrow it. ”
“The ship has a library?” Poppy asked, intrigued, although she couldn’t remember the last time she had read a book.
Mina nodded. “Eckells insisted on it when the ship was being built. He prefers books to people – even had a secret office made for himself.” She paled. “Don’t tell him I told you that.”
“I won’t,” Poppy promised. After everything she’d heard about this man, she didn’t know whether she wanted to meet him or hide from him.
“What secrets are you two keeping now?” Isaiah walked out of the bathroom, dripping water all over the carpet. Poppy swallowed as she watched droplets cascade down his chest, feeling a mixture of attraction and discomfort in his presence.
“You’re making a puddle. You could have dried off before coming out,” Mina scolded him.
“Poppy doesn’t seem to mind.” Isaiah winked, obviously noting that she was gawking at his bare chest.
Poppy didn’t dignify his comment with a response. She simply picked up his clothes from the bed and tossed them at him. Isaiah caught them quickly, chuckling to himself as she blushed.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were off with your driver?” he asked, dropping the clothes on the desk and turning his attention back to Mina.
“You really underestimate me, don’t you?
” Mina picked up the tape recorder and waved it at him.
“A simple ‘thank you, Mina; we are lucky to have you’ would suffice. ‘Thank you for getting the tape recorder so we can listen to the tape without having to go to a creepy morgue and search through a dead woman’s belongings’. ”
Isaiah rolled his eyes, drying his hair roughly with a towel. “Thank you, Mina.”
“You’re welcome, Isaiah.”
“If you two are finished, can we listen to the tape?” Poppy interjected. These two bicker like siblings.
She grabbed the small tape from the bedside table, thinking that hiding blackmail material next to a dusty bible seemed ironic. Inserting the tape into the recorder, she pressed the rewind button until it clicked.
For a moment, she hesitated, her thumb hovering over the play button.
“Do you want me to do it?” Isaiah asked.
Poppy wasn’t sure why she felt so afraid – it was just a button – but she couldn’t bring herself to press it. Instead, she handed the recorder to Isaiah, her mind racing with fear and uncertainty.
He set it down on the dresser between the three of them and pressed play.
All they heard at first was static. Poppy frowned, about to check if the tape had been inserted incorrectly, but suddenly Calliope’s voice rang from the recorder.
“How dare you try to justify your mess? You can forget about the other half of your money. You fucked up, and I’m not paying for a messy job,” she snapped. Poppy had never seen this side of her before.
The other voice was just a static whisper; she couldn’t make out who she was talking to. Could Calliope be using a phone or a radio?
“Don’t take that tone with me. You said you would make it look like a simple overdose. No mess, no investigation – and most importantly, you were supposed to do it when Poppy wasn’t home. You promised me no witnesses,” Calliope barked.“You’ve had unfettered access, and you screwed it up.”
Poppy’s stomach flipped. Calliope plotted to murder Martha?
It felt like the rug had been swept out from underneath her.
The two had had a tense rivalry, but Poppy had never thought Calliope would hate Martha so much as to hurt her.
Witnesses? Is she trying to have me killed now because she thinks I’m investigating Martha’s death?
Whoever she was talking to had had unlimited access to Poppy’s home.
Was she talking to Dug? Poppy’s eyebrows rose.
Based on their conversation in the boutique, Calliope hadn’t known that Dug had been fired since Martha’s death, so his access was gone now.
Still, she didn’t understand why Duggery, after so many years of loyal service, would be willing to betray her aunt just to strangle some cash out of Calliope.
He would’ve made more in the long run if her aunt had lived and Poppy remained under his thumb.
The pieces didn’t quite fit.Who the hell was she talking to?
Were they on the ship, or had she smuggled on a phone?
She’d hoped the tape would give her answers, but it was only adding to her questions.
“All you had to do was swap out her pills with the higher doses I gave you, and it should have knocked her out cold. There’s no way she should have been able to get out of bed,” Calliope continued.
Poppy felt a surge of shock and disbelief at the depth of the woman’s hatred.
She must have been really desperate for that Academy Award.
Duggery had been in charge of securing her aunt’s ‘prescription’, so he must have swapped out the pills for something more potent but underestimated the tolerance she had built up over the years.
“How can you tell me not to worry? Falling down the stairs? Breaking her neck? Poppy witnessed it. What if she insists on investigating the pills Martha was taking—?”
Calliope was cut off, and there was a moment of quiet before she spoke again.
“Calm down? Are you a fool or an idiot? You promised me that you would get rid of Poppy.”
That’s why Dug persuaded Joshua to kill me. Poppy was the only one in her aunt’s life who could have thrown suspicion on her death. At least Joshua had had the sense to back out.
“Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Poppy. She was raised by the devil in disguise, and you must take every precaution before proceeding. Don’t contact me again if you know what’s good for you,” Calliope threatened, and the static returned.
The tape recorder clicked, cutting off the rest of the conversation. On the small tape, that was all there was room for.
Poppy took a moment to process what they’d discovered.Thinking back on the night of her aunt’s death, she couldn’t help but wonder if the pills would have killed Martha without the extra push. Was she already a dead woman walking when she took the plunge?
She saw Isaiah’s lips moving, but she couldn’t hear him. She rewound the tape to listen to it again, but he placed his hand over hers, snapping her out of the trance.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
Poppy nodded, swallowing the bile rising in her throat. Dug and Joshua were only pawns in a bigger game. Calliope was the puppeteer.
A plan formed in her mind. After the opera, she would find Calliope.
She didn’t want Mina or Isaiah around during their conversation in case she had to confess to things she didn’t want them to know.
There was no point in Calliope wasting resources trying to harm her.
Poppy would keep the tape as insurance, and they could continue their voyage in peace. Mina and Isaiah would be safe.
However, once the voyage was over, Poppy would get justice for Patrice. Calliope was right; she had been raised by the devil. And anyone who sins deserves to burn.