Chapter 2 #3
“Oh, Trixie.” Marina’s lips open and close. She looks back at the fading city lights, and her mouth pulls tight at one corner, a wince she can’t swallow fast enough. “I’ll share that with you. I promise. I’m just not ready yet.”
“Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here,” I say, and I mean that down to the ground. This ship handed me a second chance when my old life fell apart, and I fully intend to pay it forward.
Whatever Marina is lugging around, she won’t be lugging it alone forever. Not on my watch.
She glances back at the lounge entrance. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to powder my nose.”
“Before the captain arrives?”
She gives a little wink. “A girl’s got to look her best.”
At least she’s forthcoming about some things.
She heads off toward the restrooms, and I can’t help but chuckle. Marina Maxwell, resident woman of mystery, has a crush. She is human after all.
The party cranks up another notch around me. The music seems to grow louder, the laughter wilder. Someone’s started a conga line between the Vikings. Nettie’s third from the front, naturally. The champagne is flowing freely, and these women are having the time of their lives.
I grab a chocolate-covered strawberry from a passing server. I truly am dedicated to my obsession with sweet treats. And I never abandon a cause.
Ransom’s security team floods into the room, six guys in crisp uniforms doing a casual patrol, and the women go absolutely feral. Hoots and whistles break out. Someone yells, “Fresh meat!”
It’s Nettie. From the conga line.
I’d apologize on her behalf, but she’d only take it as an encore request.
I watch three of Ransom’s officers turn bright red and start tugging at their collars. As if they weren’t used to it. They’re all handsome to a fault.
Speaking of handsome, my lethally handsome hubby strides in behind them, scanning the room out of habit, and the hoots and whistles double by a mile. I can’t blame a single one of these women. I took one look over a year ago and never recovered either.
A microphone squeals, cutting through the chaos, and we turn to see Astrid standing on a small platform near the banner, her blue cocktail held high. Reunited with her radioactive drink at last. Some love stories are meant to be.
“Ladies! Ladies,” she calls out. “May I have your attention?”
The room settles into eager anticipation. I spot the raven-haired woman near the bar, the only guest in the room not raising a glass.
“Welcome to the Velvet Viking Book Club cruise!” Astrid’s voice carries across the lounge like she’s three glasses of champagne deep and generously rounding up.
“Willow Creek, Connecticut, has officially invaded the Baltic! We’re here to celebrate eight glorious days of Nordic adventures, literary discussions, and the men, fictional or otherwise, who have ruined us for the ones waiting at home! ”
Cheers erupt. Glasses clink. Someone hollers, “PLUNDER ME, VIKING!” and something tells me it’s not the first time she’s uttered those words. Or the last. Or the loudest.
“May your books be steamy, your Vikings be shirtless, and your secrets stay buried where they belong!” Astrid raises her glass higher. “To adventure!”
“To adventure!” the room echoes.
Given the ghost that mowed me down in the atrium this morning, I’d feel a whole lot better if everything on this ship stayed buried, secrets and otherwise.
Astrid tips back her glowing blue cocktail and begins to drain it before stopping cold about halfway through.
Her eyes go wide.
Her free hand flies to her throat.
The glass drops from her fingers and shatters on the floor.
She starts choking. Gagging. Clawing at her neck as her face turns purple.
“Astrid?” someone near the platform calls out.
She lurches off the platform and comes at me in a lopsided run, knocking a chair sideways, sending a woman’s champagne flying, and she covers the last ten feet in a stagger before she slams into me hard enough to nearly take us both to the carpet, but I manage to catch myself, and her by proxy.
Her hands grab my shoulders, shaking me, her eyes bulging as she gasps for air that won’t come.
Ransom shoves through the crowd, trying to help, but Astrid spins out of his grip. She careens backward into the buffet table with a hearty thunk.
Food goes flying—meatballs, lamb shanks, finger sandwiches airborne. The ice sculpture wobbles. People are screaming at top volume for entirely different reasons than they were before.
Astrid collapses onto her back, convulsing, and the four-foot Viking ice sculpture tips forward in slow motion. It crashes down directly on top of her with a sickening crunch.
The room goes silent except for the music still playing through the speakers.
My strawberry hits the floor. I don’t remember dropping it.
Ransom heaves the ice sculpture off her and checks the poor woman for a pulse. He looks up at me and shakes his head.
I stare down at Astrid, crushed by a melting Viking, her cocktail still spreading across the floor in a radioactive puddle. She won’t have to worry about which Viking has the best cheekbones anymore.
Astrid Storm is dead.