Chapter 10
The casino noise continues all around us—slot machines chiming, someone at the craps table shouting sweet nothings at the dice, Elodie’s bubbling laugh carrying from the bar where she’s cornered another Viking-costumed staff member and is clearly winning whatever game of flirtation they’re playing.
She always wins.
I suspect the house knows better than to bet against her.
The men never stand a chance, and here’s the part that fascinates me most—they know it, and they line up anyway.
Elodie doesn’t play the odds. Elodie is the odds.
That woman could talk a monk out of his vows and have him thanking her for the honor on his way out the door.
“Define ‘not who she says she is,’” I say carefully, pulling my own lever and watching the reels spin uselessly past a winning combination. Story of my night.
Because that’s where we are. Two minutes ago, my husband dropped the bomb that Marina Maxwell, our brand-new cruise director, our friend, the woman Wes has been mooning over since Copenhagen, might be sailing under false pretenses.
He ran a background check. He found things. And now the three of us are huddled in the corner of a Viking casino pretending to gamble while we quietly dismantle a woman’s biography over slot machines.
Ransom watches his reels land, and his machine chirps out a six-token win he doesn’t acknowledge.
Figures. Ransom is a winner no matter what else is happening in the world.
“I ran a routine background check,” he tells us. “Nothing invasive. Standard protocol when someone new joins senior operations.”
“And?” I fold my arms, ignoring my machine entirely now. The animated Vikings on my screen have noticed.
Three little pixelated raiders stand frozen mid-pillage, axes drooping, glaring at me for cutting off their token supply. Wooden coins, the breakfast of Viking champions. Modern-day plundering, one quarter-sized ration at a time, and I’ve just imposed a famine.
The boisterous music shifts to something with more drums, and a cheer erupts from the roulette wheel.
Marina’s laugh cuts through the noise. She’s moved to that table now, standing beside a woman in purple velvet who just won something.
The warm lighting turns Marina’s crimson hair to burnished copper and makes her green dress shimmer.
She is, hands down, the most gorgeous woman on this ship.
Drop-dead gorgeous, in fact. And the question currently ruining my evening is whether the emphasis belongs on the drop-dead part. Who knows what we don’t know.
Ransom exhales slowly, setting each word down carefully, the way you’d handle a live grenade. “Her previous employer confirmed she worked there. Hospitality management in Minneapolis. She worked events for a chain of luxury hotels. Five years. Strong performance reviews.”
“She’s a saint,” Wes says flatly, feeding a token into his machine without looking at it. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find.”
“That sounds reassuring,” I say to Ransom, though I can already tell from his tone there’s a “but” coming.
With Ransom, there’s always a “but” coming.
The man could deliver a birthday toast and have half the guests lawyering up before the cake gets cut.
The other half would confess to things they didn’t do.
“It would be,” Ransom replies, “except she told us she left to ‘relocate for better opportunities.’”
“And where is the crime?” Wes asks quietly, his jaw tight.
Nettie’s voice carries over from the slots. “Come to mama! Show me those Viking hot cross buns! I’ve got the butter, and I am not afraid to use it!” There’s a brief pause. “BETRAYAL! This machine is a liar and a cheat! I want it tried for piracy!”
Bess checks her watch. “You’ve been playing for three minutes.”
“Three minutes of lies!”
“The Vikings would be so proud.”
Nettie responds by baying at the moon, undeterred by the fact that we’re indoors, it’s a casino, and the moon declined the invitation.
Somewhere in Scandinavia, actual wolves are sitting up and taking notice.
A cocktail waitress sails past our row without flinching.
Someone has briefed the staff. Possibly with diagrams.
“The HR file lists her contract as terminated,” Ransom continues, tuning out the chaos around us the way only a man married to me can.
“Terminated how?” I press, my slot machine dinging for attention because I’ve won something small. I ignore it. Riches can wait. Gossip cannot. My pixelated Vikings are now beside themselves. There’s a payout sitting right there, woman. In their day, people got pillaged for less.
“No misconduct listed. No explanation either. Just terminated.” Ransom feeds another token into his machine and pulls the lever. Nine tokens rattle into his tray. He doesn’t blink. The man can’t stop winning. “It’s not a crime,” he continues. “It’s just incomplete.”
Wes makes a low growling sound, and for a second he sounds exactly like Magnus Darkwater, which is both funny and concerning. “People get let go. It happens. Budgets change. Management shifts.”
He’s campaigning for her innocence harder than a man running for mayor of a town with one voter. And I’d bet my token pouch the platform he’s really pushing includes a certain private stateroom with a captain’s view. Vote Crawford. His door is always open. Especially to redheads.
“Agreed,” Ransom says evenly as his machine spits out another small win he treats as background noise. “But usually there’s a reason on file. Restructuring. Performance issues. Budget cuts. Marina’s file has none of that.”
Across the casino, Elodie has fully abandoned any pretense of gambling and is now deep in conversation with two different Viking-costumed staff members, flirting with both of them at once.
It’s impressive, honestly. She’s got one laughing while the other fetches her a drink, and she’s doing that thing where she touches one man’s arm while maintaining eye contact with the other.
Vikings spent three centuries raiding the known world, and not one of them hauled off half of what Elodie will collect by midnight.
And her plunder delivers itself. With cocktails.
The horned helmets should be taking classes from her, not the other way around.
Nettie spots Elodie’s technique and immediately pivots. “I’m learning so much tonight.”
“Please don’t,” Bess says.
“Too late. I’m taking notes.”
“On what, cocktail napkins?”
“Bar napkins are how all great knowledge gets passed down.”
She’s not wrong.
I glance at Marina again. She’s moved away from the roulette table, making her way through the crowd with a tray of fresh Viking tokens to distribute. Someone bumps into her and she sidesteps gracefully, never losing her balance, always keeping her eyes on the room.
“What else?” I ask Ransom. His expression says there’s more. Marriage has taught me many things, and chief among them is this—when Ransom uses the word routine, nothing that follows will be.
The slot machine beside me erupts in a cascade of clanging bells and flashing lights.
An elderly woman in a velvet cape shrieks with joy as tokens pour into her tray.
“VALHALLA ACCEPTS ME!” she announces to everyone within earshot.
“And tell Odin I’m single! The eye patch doesn’t bother me one bit! ”
Odin, the Norse god of wisdom, war, poetry, magic, and apparently showing up at every Renaissance fair and casino within driving distance.
Or in our case, boating. Considering what happened to the last woman who made a big announcement at a Viking party, I’d keep my voice down if I were her. But that’s just me.
“There’s also a two-year gap in her address history,” Ransom says once the celebration dies down.
“What does that mean?” I ask, though I’m starting to get a sinking feeling about where this is going.
“No lease records. No utility accounts in her name. No property filings. No clear residential footprint.”
Wes opens his mouth to mount another defense, and I watch the argument die somewhere between his brain and his lips. He closes his mouth again. It’s a Shakespearean tragedy in one act—noble captain versus mounting evidence, and the evidence has all the good lines.
And here I was hoping they were Romeo and Juliet with a better ending.
The casino air-conditioning kicks on and delivers a bouquet of dueling perfumes, buttery popcorn, expensive cologne, a hint of hard liquor, and just enough coffee to convince everyone they’re making excellent financial decisions.
It’s the official fragrance of poor judgment in velvet, and if the ship’s gift shop bottled it, I’d wear it. The sensory combination is oddly grounding even as Ransom’s dropping revelations that are rocking my world—and Wes’ world too.
“She could’ve been staying with someone,” I offer, watching Marina distribute tokens to a group of women near the blackjack table. “A boyfriend. Family. Friends.”
“She could have,” Ransom agrees, his voice neutral but his eyes sharp. “But people usually leave a trace. Credit activity. Mail forwarding. Phone bills. Streaming subscriptions. Something. Marina’s got nothing. Not erased. Just absent.”
Not erased. Just absent.
I don’t know why that distinction makes the hair on my arms stand at attention, but it does.
Wes feeds a token into his machine with more force than necessary. “So she moved to Europe. She was traveling. Remote work. People do that. Digital nomads. It’s a whole lifestyle now.”
And he’s back. There goes Wes again, riding shotgun on the Marina Maxwell fan club float.
I sit up a little straighter as a ridiculous thought elbows its way into my head.
Oh, this isn’t just a crush. This man isn’t kicking the tires.
He’s already picking out china patterns.
I think Wes would love to put a ring on her finger.