Chapter 15
I can’t bring myself to call forward anyone else for the rest of the morning.
I’m so unsettled by the turn things took with Jackie that my guardian angel, the server in the peacock bow tie, brings over
a silver platter laden with seasickness medication options arranged in a neat little circle.
I’m so startled by his sudden presence over my shoulder, however, that I scream and push the platter over, and all the bottles
of pills scatter onto the floor (which turns into one long circuitous round of us both apologizing back and forth while gathering
pills on our hands and knees).
Eventually Nash comes back and—seeing my white face—immediately vows to stick around from then on, peanut butter on jelly
style, and I can’t say I complain. Enough independence from me.
The rest of the day is one big buzz of activities, filled mostly with me racing around the ship from one speaking space to
another, solving problems.
Gordon getting lost on the ship and not being able to find his session meeting place. Gordon not knowing how to work the projector screen.
Crystal being MIA for her session.
Gordon finally getting the projector sorted out, only to realize when a giant heart pops on the wall that he somehow opened
Neena’s presentation.
Mostly Gordon problems.
Nash tags along as I move from problem to problem, which I highly appreciate. His company is reassuring, and the comment about
me being his lucky star rings in my ears whether I mean it to or not.
It feels . . . I don’t know . . . immature even to think about it at a time like this, but I can’t help it. And of course,
there’s the whiplash of the interview thoughts.
Did he mean it?
Or did it mean something more?
And also . . . is Jackie a murderer?
Or was Nash just looking out for me? As a friend?
It’s a challenging thing to analyze, simply because he’s the best human being I know.
Other, lesser human beings would make it easier to tell if they liked you.
Am I just a small, frail friend he realizes he needs to look after in these dire circumstances?
The man missed his own award ceremony to head out to the Appalachian Mountains, riding his horses up and down the mountains
providing hurricane relief after the Helene storm.
Am I just another recipient of his far-reaching goodwill?
How is it possible that Jackie has used a ghostwriter all this time? Really? You think you know someone . . .
At three, I stick around for Nash’s session.
And believe me, he took his vow to stick close by seriously.
I tried at one point to step out the door to answer a call and he broke off his lecture to say, in essence, seize her.
(They did in fact seize me.)
So. Staying wasn’t really a choice.
“How did it go?” Nash says, shutting the workshop door behind him.
We’re the last ones to leave the session room. Fifty or so of the readers from the workshop have stayed to linger just ahead
of us, each, I notice, keeping their steps slow and bodies as close to Nash as possible. Waiting for a moment to strike up
a conversation.
I’ve seen it at the other workshops too.
One person tripped and fell to the carpet, faking a massive knee injury, to get Ricky’s attention from the crowd two hours
ago. The medics came and everything.
“Jackie did say something, I don’t know, freaky to me this morning.”
“Oh? Which was?”
“Well, for one thing she said I’m probably not supposed to be telling you. What with you being a suspect and all. She said
I’m showing favoritism.”
“But I’m not the killer.”
“A good thing for a killer to say.”
“Well,” he says, “if we’re really going to go down that road, you’re as much a suspect as any one of us. Maybe more.”
“Me?” I say in a how dare you tone. “How so?”
“You do have more to gain.”
“Like what? His nonexistent crown jewels? I’m out of a job now.”
“You still have managing The Seven. Now Six.”
“Fine. I’m out of a job except for managing this unruly group of The Seven. Now Six. Still. It’s not like he put me in his will or anything. I know. I’ve
seen it. I’ve memorized it.”
Nash’s brows shoot up. Somebody casts a glance backward, and he says under his breath. “You . . . memorized it?”
“Yep. In my first month with him he showed me the two locations for his will and asked me to read it. You know how he was.
I think he was always coming up with creative ways to worry about someone doing something criminal to him and getting away
with it, so he always was thinking five steps ahead. I guess you can’t be thinking about devious ways to get away with murder
and theft for a living without getting a little paranoid. I always took his paranoia as a funny little part of the job. Until”—I
shrug—“of course, he was right.”
“What does the will say?”
“I’m actually not sure I should tell you, if you are a true suspect. It’s stupid, but . . . Jackie did have a point.”
Nash lowers his voice. Leans closer. “Pip, I’m not your killer,” he says, his words tickling my ear. “And you know it.”
I ignore the hairs that have raised on my arm for entirely different reasons than fear. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, for starters, we share a room.”
“Subsistence reasons only,” I say (lie). “I had to go with my best odds of survival.”
“And you knit me a scarf when I went to Point Barrow for research.”
“The Arctic Coast gets chilly. It’s just common sense to keep your employers alive when they get stupid ideas.”
“It wasn’t a stupid idea.”
“YouTube exists. One need not camp alone in negative-thirty-degree weather with the polar bears just to see if”—insert air
quotes—“‘my character can do it.’”
“And you wouldn’t have let me get this close.”
I look forward and realize everyone has turned a corner. It’s just us in the hall.
Alone.
And . . . okay, fine. I love it.
Somehow I’ve drawn myself toward him in the past five minutes.
I don’t know who is really in charge of my arm, because I don’t consciously recall setting it on his shoulder.
Heat immediately floods my cheeks.
He has a point.
Like a bunch of seagulls following a piece of shrimp dangling from a fisherman’s hand, the group seems to have noticed their
shrimp (i.e., Nash) has disappeared from view and rushes back. Several heads peek around the corner, then nonchalantly-but-extremely-chalantly
walk back to us, wait until we are right with them, and then start walking again.
A woman in a brown T-shirt of Nash’s head on a sandwich smiles at us.
I smile back politely and pretend not to notice.
“Right. Well, I know,” I whisper back. “But the fact is, I would’ve assumed none of The Seven were either. And it’s gotta be someone. Someone’s killed them.”
My arm, I’ve realized, has not moved off him. It’s still playfully hanging there, holding on to his bicep. Gripping the flannel.
His eyes crinkle as a smile plays on his lips.
He ducks his head a little as he tips himself closer.
“Interview me next then,” he says in a hush. “Cross me off your list. Then we’ll trade secrets.”
I raise a brow. “You have secrets you can share with me?”
“I have one.”
“Death secrets?”
“Not death secrets.”
“Secrets I’ll actually care about? Something worth trading will information for?”
“Something worth trading information about a will for. I hope.”
I take a breath.
Who are we kidding?
I was going to say yes all along.
“Fine,” I say at last. “I interview you, clear you from suspicion, and then we’ll swap secrets.”
“Deal.” He’s grinning as he leans back, and I feel the void, the cold air where his arm used to be.
He points at my back pocket.
“Plus, to be fair, if I’m going to be sleeping on the floor of your bedroom, I probably ought to be cleared of murder. It’s
just the right thing to do.”
Two people directly ahead throw glances back at us. The lady with the Nash-head T-shirt sizes me up with a frown.
I elbow him, although my elbow against his layer of flannel does little.
“Fine,” I say pulling the phone from my pocket. I type down his name. “We’ll get this over with. Where were you—”
The ladies directly ahead of us squeeze in closer.
“The night . . .”
I pause. I’m about to trip on them, honestly.
I stand on tiptoe to reach him.
“Hugh,” I whisper in his ear, at such a hush a mouse wouldn’t hear it, “was—”
“Hold tight,” Nash says.
“Why?”
But before I know it, he reaches around my waist, swings me into his arms like a maiden in distress, and turns down another
hall.
And then tears down it.
“Nash!” I scream in shock.
I’m supposed to say Put me down and We are in the middle of a book cruise here and This is NOT professional and of course I am in mourning! but the words just aren’t coming.
Instead my arms are wrapped around his neck and I look back, seeing the group pour into the end of the hall and stare at us
as Nash carries me farther and farther away. He carefully keeps my feet from whacking the wallpaper and gilded paintings as
we pass.
A woman steps out of her room. “Excuse us, ma’am,” he calls, turning us sideways to squeeze past but not slowing.
“They’re trying to video this!” I say, my nose peeking over his collar.
“Sorry, everyone! Late for a meeting!” he calls over his shoulder.
I laugh outright—my first real burst of laughter in what feels like forever—and then duck my head into the neck of his shirt
to hide my face. “This is going to end up everywhere on social media. Conspiracy theories will abound. Headlines running:
‘Did We Really Go to the Moon?’ and ‘Nash Eyre Steals a Faceless Woman off a Ship.’”
“You think?”
“Yes. I think.”
He doesn’t put me down, though, which I halfway feared, halfway really needed.
Instead he takes a couple more steps and then suddenly swings me around to face them head-on. “I’m taking this here lady with
me!” he drawls in a most countrified, ne’er-do-well voice. “A Miss Penelope Mae Dupont, and I claim her. She’s-a-mine!”
He waits as people take several pictures, then swings me around, and we carry on down the hall.
“There,” Nash says. “No more faceless women here.”
That’s it. I can’t help myself now. I shriek with laughter, bouncing in his arms all the way down the hall. The group of ladies
who all have their phones out now gets smaller and smaller, until they are out of sight entirely as we turn another corner.
“You know, it’s a little unsettling,” Nash says when the laughter subsides and I can breathe again. “Not one of them even
considered coming to your rescue.”
“Why would they? They were too busy wishing they were me.”
The words pop out of my mouth in the spontaneity of the moment, and as soon as I say them, I feel myself flush and bite my
lip. Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Everyone has a little crush on Nash Eyre.
The five o’clock shadow on Nash’s jaw tightens, and while looking straight ahead, I see the tiniest flicker of a smile on
his lips that makes my stomach churn.
“So. Where do you intend on stealing me away to, then?” I say, trying to change subjects and direct attention elsewhere, but
finding even that question a little too on point.
“To a place where we can finish the interview. Clear my name.”
We reach the end of the hall and he presses a button.
The door opens.
We step—he steps—inside.
As the golden doors shut, and we—or rather, he—stands in silence, he presses the button for the ground floor. We begin to
move.
I hesitate, seeing that glowing button 1, and fight a flip in my stomach.
It’s fine. Focus on this moment.
It’s fine.
One last person steps in front of the elevator doors just as they close and snaps a picture.
“Congratulations. I just went from faceless to the envy of every woman on this ship. If I go missing, check that lady with
your head T-shirt first.”
To which Nash cocks a brow.
He shakes his head. “Have you met yourself? Nothing about you, Pip, is faceless. Nothing about you is unoriginal. At all.”