Chapter 22
Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about cornering a killer at a party.
The killer is the easy part. The party is the problem.
The Valhalla Lounge hasn’t gotten the memo that justice is about to be served. Women are laughing, champagne is flowing, and the music thumps hard enough to rattle the chandeliers loose from their moorings.
The oiled-up cover models are still flexing for photos, and the whole scene feels surreal the way parties do when you’re standing on the edge of solving a murder while everyone else is simply trying to have a good time.
Somewhere between me and a confession stands a wall of velvet capes and a shirtless man named Sven whose bicep has its own fan club.
Magnus floats over, grinning. He knows exactly what I’m thinking. He usually does. It’s one of his less charming qualities.
“The devoted queen stands alone,” he observes as he drifts alongside me. “How very poetic. How very convenient. Shall I loosen her tongue for you? In my prime, I could make a woman confess to any number of things. Most of them enjoyable.”
“Don’t start,” I mutter under my breath.
“I haven’t said anything incriminating yet.”
“Yet being the key word.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
I grab Marina’s arm and start weaving through the crowd, dodging women in elaborate gowns and men whose entire job description boils down to two words: be shirtless.
The party is reaching that point where everyone’s had enough champagne to be loud and uninhibited, and I have to navigate around several enthusiastic conversations about Viking book boyfriends and historical accuracy.
Spoiler alert, ladies. The real Vikings smelled like herring and wet wool, and the closest any of them came to a skincare routine was sea spray to the face.
We pass the dessert table, and I spare one longing glance for the saffron buns. Justice now. Carbs later.
We find the exact woman we’re looking for at the windows overlooking the dark ocean, standing alone in her gold gown, the candlelight turning her into a woman gift-wrapped in actual treasure.
Her honey-blonde bob is perfect as always, her posture elegant, one hand resting on the window frame as she stares out into the black water.
Poppy Lindgren looks beautiful. Composed. Completely in control.
And, if I’m right, absolutely guilty.
Marina and I approach slowly, and I note the way she’s holding her shoulder. It’s subtle, but it’s there. A small roll, a slight adjustment, a woman managing pain nobody else would notice unless they were looking for it.
I’m looking for it.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Marina says gently as we stop beside her.
She turns, and her face lights up with that warm smile. “Oh, just reflecting on the cruise. It’s been quite the journey, hasn’t it?”
Quite the journey, indeed. One of us won’t be finishing it without handcuffs.
Magnus drifts closer and eyes her with obvious appreciation. “Such poise. Such beauty. I wonder what she looks like when that mask cracks. I’d happily volunteer to help her out of it. The mask, that is. Among other things.”
He reaches toward Poppy’s neck, and I swat at him reflexively. The man flirts the way other people breathe. Death hasn’t slowed his rotation one bit.
“Would you go away?” I hiss through my teeth.
Poppy’s smile falters. “I’m sorry?”
“Not you,” I say quickly, realizing exactly how that looked. “I was just... there was a bug.”
“A bug?” She glances around the pristine lounge with its sparkling chandeliers and expensive decor, a lounge so clean you could perform surgery on the dessert table.
“It’s gone now.”
Magnus laughs. “Oh, this is delightful. You’re terrible at this.”
I’d argue, but he’s not wrong.
Marina bites down on a laugh and disguises it as a cough. Our arms are touching, which means she can hear every word out of the LARPing lothario’s mouth.
Ghost-hearing by osmosis. It’s a package deal nobody signs up for and nobody gets to return.
Poppy looks between Marina and me, her composure springing its first tiny leak. “Are you two okay? By the looks of it, you’re not getting along.”
I take a breath. “Actually, we’re getting along fine. But I think you’re familiar with disagreements among friends. Sort of like the one you had with Astrid.”
Her smile freezes. “What are you talking about?”
“You and Astrid were close, weren’t you?” I ask, keeping my tone conversational. “Lunch dates whenever she swung through Connecticut. Text messages about book recommendations. She sent your daughter a graduation card.”
“Yes, we were friends.” Poppy blinks back her surprise. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Friends share things,” Marina says quietly. “Confidences. Secrets.”
“I suppose.” Poppy glances toward the party as though scouting an escape route. She doesn’t look surprised anymore. In fact, she looks downright worried. “But I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
“I’m talking about the fact that Astrid discovered your secrets,” I say, watching her face carefully. “The ones you’ve been hiding behind your perfect smile and your helpful demeanor.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her eyes widen a notch. For a woman with no idea what I’m talking about, she certainly seems well-informed.
“Your husband’s affair,” I say, just above a whisper. “The one you’ve known about for years. And the painkillers you’ve been borrowing from his medical practice. If borrowing is the right word for pills that never find their way back.”
The color drains from her face. “That’s... that’s ridiculous. Who told you that?”
“Does it matter?” Marina asks. “Your husband is a surgeon. You had access to the drugs. Astrid was going to expose you at the costume gala.”
“Those are lies,” Poppy says, but her voice has gone thin. “Rumors. Mean-spirited gossip.”
The lady doth protest with suspiciously excellent posture.
“You mentioned your recent shoulder replacement,” I say, nodding toward the shoulder she’s been favoring all cruise. “You’ve been taking painkillers for a while now, haven’t you?”
“They’re well known to be addictive,” Marina adds. “Especially when you’re dealing with chronic pain.”
Poppy’s facade is crumbling now, her eyes filling with tears. “I... my shoulder... the pain was unbearable. The pills helped. That’s all. It’s not what you think.”
“Astrid threatened you, didn’t she?” I press.
“She knew about the affair your husband was having. She knew you couldn’t leave the marriage because your design firm barely pays for its own fabric samples.
You needed the financial security. I understand that on some level.
Astrid didn’t. She wanted to publicly humiliate you. That’s why you killed her.”
She gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. “No. No, you don’t understand...”
“Then help us understand,” I say.
The tears spill over, ruining her makeup.
“She was going to destroy me. Stand up at the gala in front of everyone and announce that my perfect marriage is a sham. That I’ve known about the affair for three years and stayed anyway because I’m financially dependent on him.
That I’m stealing pills from my husband’s practice like a common criminal.
” Her voice breaks. “My kids go to Yale and Stanford. I serve on charity boards. I have a reputation in my community. Astrid was going to take all of that away just to prove she had power over everyone.”
Yale. Charity boards. A pharmacy in her evening bag.
For half a second, my heart aches for her.
She’s spent years smiling through a marriage that hollowed her out, managing the pain with pilfered pills and a flawless blowout.
Then I remember Astrid gasping for air on the floor of this very lounge, and the ache packs its bags and books the first flight home.
“So you poisoned her,” Marina says.
“I had to!” Poppy’s voice rises, and a few women nearby glance over.
She lowers it to an urgent whisper. “Don’t you see?
She was relishing the humiliation my husband had already put me through.
We’re friends, Trixie. Please. I have children.
I didn’t think the drugs would actually kill her.
I was just going to teach her a lesson. Make her a little sick.
Make her stop the madness she was wielding over each and every one of us.
Do you know what her favorite Viking trait was? Humiliation.”
“But her heart was weak,” I say. “And the oxycodone triggered a heart attack.”
“I didn’t know!” Tears sprout from her eyes with sprinkler force. “How was I to know that? I didn’t know about her heart condition. I just wanted her to feel what it was like to be vulnerable. To be powerless. To—”
She stops as Magnus suddenly materializes directly in front of her, his face inches from hers even though she can’t see him.
“Murderess,” he says quietly. “You killed my Astrid.”
Poppy shivers and wraps her arms around herself. “Why is it so cold suddenly?”
Funny how the temperature always answers to the dead. If only the dead answered to a heat wave. Now that would be a happy haunting.
“I think we need to have a chat with security,” Marina says, pulling out her phone.
“No!” Poppy lunges forward and grabs Marina’s arm. “Please, you can’t—my children—”
“Let go of her,” I say firmly.
Her manicured nails dig into Marina’s wrist. “You don’t understand what this will do to my family. My reputation. Everything I’ve built...”
“Please let go,” I tell her. “We don’t need to say anything to anyone right now.”
Marina tries to pull away, but Poppy’s grip tightens.
“It was an accident!” the woman cries.
“And we will back you up on that,” I say as I do my best to pull Marina in my direction, and just like that, a tug-of-war breaks out with Marina playing the part of the rope.
Poppy yanks her in one herculean move, and both women stumble in an effort not to fall.
I grab for Poppy’s arm just as Magnus roars and somehow, impossibly, shoves Poppy backward.