Chapter 17
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Nettie and Candy as they hover near the Blarney Castle gift shop like tourists experiencing withdrawal from overpriced souvenir therapy and possibly contemplating whether they really need seventeen different types of shamrock-themed merchandise.
“Famous last words,” Nettie says my way while adjusting her IRISH I WAS DRUNK sweater with the swagger of a woman who’s witnessed my investigative instincts in action. “Your magnetic attraction to suspicious behavior at tourist attractions is more reliable than the ship’s GPS system.”
“I’m just going to buy postcards,” I lie with enough conviction to make just about anyone believe I’ve never told a lie in my life. Or at least I hope Mark believes it, in the event he heard.
“Postcards don’t usually require stalking men with forehead tattoos,” Candy points out with cotton candy sweetness that somehow makes the observation more damning than if she’d just called me a lunatic with boundary issues. And I certainly hope that Mark didn’t hear that either.
“Details.” I wave them off, already speeding my way to Mark Sterling, who’s standing by the ancient stone walls looking like he’s mentally reviewing everything incriminating he’s ever said or done.
And I don’t know who that woman was that just handed him something, but she looked like trouble. Trouble in a designer coat, but still.
The afternoon air carries the scent of damp Irish earth mixed with the tourist-friendly aroma of overpriced coffee from the castle café, while the distant sound of cameras clicking mingles with excited chatter in twelve different languages.
A tour guide’s voice drifts across the grounds, explaining something about medieval architecture to people who are probably more interested in selfie opportunities than historical accuracy.
Mark Sterling stands near a weathered stone wall, his cringy I’M MARRIED tattoo catching the filtered sunlight like a billboard for marital complications. The man looks rattled—not just I kissed an ancient rock and survived rattled, but someone just threatened my comfortable existence rattled.
Time to find out what’s shaking his carefully constructed world other than commitment issues.
“Excuse me.” I approach with a friendly confidence that hopefully suggests I’m definitely not about to interrogate a potential murder witness. “Aren’t you from our cruise? The Emerald Queen?” I want to add the floating palace of romantic complications—but don’t. This guy has enough going on.
Mark startles like I’ve just announced his browser history over the castle’s public address system. His hand flies instinctively to his forehead, covering the tattoo with the shame of a husband who’s spent months perfecting the gesture.
“Do I know you?” he asks with a suspicious politeness. I take it he’s learned to be cautious about unexpected conversations—the hard way.
“I believe we met at the welcome party,” I say gently, offering my most sympathetic smile. “The one where things got a bit awkward with the chocolate fountain incident. I’m Trixie Baxter, professional bystander and accidental witness to cruise ship drama.”
His shoulders relax slightly as he recognizes me. “Right, you’re the woman who was standing there when—” He shudders. “What a nightmare that whole evening turned out to be.”
“I can only imagine.” I pause, choosing my words carefully. “How are you managing?”
Mark’s laugh carries no humor whatsoever. “I know how it looks,” he says, gesturing helplessly at his tattooed forehead and giving me a look that suggests he’s given up on his dignity entirely. “Trust me, it wasn’t my first choice for self-expression.”
The vulnerability in his voice surprises me. I expected defensiveness, maybe hostility. Instead, I’m getting raw honesty from a man who looks like he’s been carrying the weight of his poor decisions across two continents and an ocean.
“We all make choices we’d rather forget,” I offer with genuine sympathy, because despite my suspicious nature, there’s something heartbreaking about a man who’s literally branded himself with his failures.
For a moment, I envision Stanton running around our old stomping grounds of the country club back in Brambleberry Bay with those words emblazoned on his forehead and shake my head.
Some of those women would consider it an open invite.
I clear my throat as Mark comes back into focus.
“However, most of us don’t have to wear reminders of regretful decisions on our foreheads.
” For the entertainment of passing strangers and confused tourists.
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Mark runs his hand through his hair, a gesture that does absolutely nothing to hide the tattoo but seems to bring him comfort anyway.
“I had an affair. That’s why this exists.
” He gestures to his forehead with the kind of resignation usually reserved for discussing terminal diagnoses. “I did it, and now I have to pay.”
The confession hangs in the Irish air like expensive perfume mixed with regret and possibly the scent of approaching thunderstorms, and I get the feeling I’m witnessing something far more complex than simple marital drama—I’m witnessing the kind of dysfunction that requires professional intervention and possibly its own tell-all book. I admit, I’d read it.
“I genuinely love her,” he continues, his voice cracking with emotion that no amount of acting could fake. “What I did... it was the biggest mistake of my life. I’ll do anything to keep my marriage to Claudette intact.”
There’s something about the way he says the word anything that makes my detective radar ping.
Men who are willing to do anything sometimes choose very permanent solutions to temporary problems, especially when those problems involve people who know too much about their past mistakes.
Not that he seems to be hiding anything about his past.
“That’s... that’s actually really touching,” I say, and I mean it. “A lot of couples wouldn’t survive something like that. You two must have something special.”
“We did. We do.” Mark’s expression shifts and becomes more complicated by the second. “Lavender and Claudette were close friends. Really close. Before everything went sideways like a bad carnival ride.”
The casual way he drops this bombshell makes me wonder if the Blarney Stone actually did give him the gift of inadvertent revelation, or if spending months with a forehead tattoo has simply destroyed his ability to keep secrets like a normal person.
“Really?” I try to keep my voice neutral, although my brain is doing victory laps around the castle grounds. “They seemed like such different people.”
Complete opposites, actually. Like vampires and garlic, but with better shoes.
“Claudette was more on board with the Crimson Key Society than you’d think, at least in the beginning,” Mark says, then immediately looks as if he wishes he could retract the words and possibly his entire existence, if not the last few years.
I blink at him with a stunned expression, like someone who’s just discovered their grandmother indeed had a secret career in exotic dancing. I hate it when Elodie is right. “Claudette? Traditional marriage values Claudette?”
“But then I had my affair, and she pulled the ripcord on everything—her friendship with Lavender, the lifestyle exploration, all of it.” Mark’s voice drops to barely above a whisper, as if speaking quietly might make the confession less devastating, or possibly erase it from reality through the power of wishful thinking.
“Claudette basically reinvented herself overnight.”
The pieces of this murder puzzle start rearranging themselves in my brain like furniture in an earthquake.
Claudette isn’t the innocent traditional wife she appears to be.
She’s a woman with secrets worth killing for, a past worth burying, and apparently the acting skills to convince an entire cruise ship that she’s never met a lifestyle choice she didn’t disapprove of on moral grounds.
“So, she went into marriage counseling after that?” I prompt, trying to sound like someone making casual conversation instead of the fact that I’m mentally updating my suspect list and possibly planning intervention strategies that might require protective custody.
“She ventured into a successful traditional counseling career after that,” Mark confirms. “She’s giving me this chance not only because she loves me, but because it would be a tough sell if her own marriage couldn’t last.”
The irony is so thick I could cut it with a knife and serve it at the ship’s midnight buffet as a dessert course for people who enjoy their drama with a side of chocolate sauce.
A woman who once explored alternative relationship structures now makes her living preaching traditional marriage values, and her husband’s affair is both the catalyst for her career and the potential weapon for its destruction.
It’s like watching someone’s entire life become a cautionary tale in real time.
“I won’t lie,” Mark continues with brutal honesty that probably violates at least six different NDAs his wife had him sign, “I’m not too upset about that pressure.
I really do want to repair what we had, even if it means wearing my mistakes on my face for the rest of my natural life and possibly into the afterlife. ”
“That must be incredibly stressful,” I venture with sympathy as I begin to wonder if this marriage is held together by more than love—it’s held together by mutual career interests and the kind of blackmail material that could destroy lives, “especially with Lavender being on the same cruise. All those old dynamics coming back up, all those buried secrets threatening to surface during formal dinner nights.”
Mark’s face goes pale enough to make his tattoo look like it’s been written in blood. “As much as I’d like to put it all in the past, it’s not time for that now.”
The way he says it makes me think the mysterious woman who just left might have delivered news that puts the past firmly in the present tense—with interest.
“The woman you were talking to earlier,” I press gently. “Did she know about your history with Lavender and Claudette? Was she part of that whole lifestyle scene?”
Mark’s head snaps up like I’ve just read his diary aloud to the tour group. “You saw that?”
“Hard to miss. She seemed... intense?”
“You can say that. That was Veronica. She used to run some of the Crimson Key events. I left my reading glasses in the main dining room and she was giving them back. She reminds me of that whole period,” he says carefully, like someone navigating a minefield while blindfolded.
“I can’t believe we’re on the cruise with those people.
Sometimes the past has a way of catching up with people when they least expect it. ”
Before I can ask what exactly the past is threatening to catch up with, the sound of heels clicking against ancient stone interrupts our conversation like a marital smoke alarm.
“Mark! There you are!”
Claudette Sterling appears around the corner of the gift shop with the precision of a scorned wife who’s been tracking her husband’s movements with GPS accuracy.
She looks absolutely radiant in her cream wool coat, like a woman who’s just spent the afternoon engaged in wholesome tourist activities instead of covering up potential homicidal tendencies.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she says, linking her arm through his with possessive affection that would seem sweet if I didn’t know about her secret past with alternative lifestyle exploration, or her husband’s propensity to wander.
“Just chatting with a fellow passenger,” Mark says with ease, as if he’s gotten very good at casual deception.
“How lovely.” Claudette’s smile could frost windows, but there’s something calculating in her eyes as she looks at me. “I hope Mark wasn’t boring you with too much talk about our marriage renovation project.”
“Not at all,” I reply, matching her artificial sweetness. “It’s inspiring to see couples working so hard to rebuild trust.”
The word trust makes Claudette flinch her cheek as if I’ve just slapped her with a fish.
Her grip on Mark’s arm tightens enough to cut off circulation, and I realize I’ve just witnessed a woman who’s spent years building a new identity only to have it threatened by a casual conversation with a nosy cruise passenger.
“Well, we should get back to the bus,” Claudette announces, quickly ending the conversation before it can do any more damage. “Lovely meeting you again, Trixie.”
They walk away with the careful coordination of people who’ve learned to present a united front even when their marriage is held together with permanent ink and professional necessity.
I watch them go, as my brain processes revelations that change everything about this case.
Claudette isn’t just protecting her marriage—she’s protecting her entire career, built on the foundation of traditional values she once rejected.
Lavender didn’t just represent ideological opposition—she represented the living embodiment of Claudette’s buried past.
“Did you get your postcards?” Candy appears at my elbow with timing that suggests she’s been watching the entire interaction.
“Something better,” I reply, still staring after the Sterlings. “I got the truth.”
“The truth about what?”
“About why someone might kill to keep their secrets buried,” I say, finally understanding that the most dangerous murderers aren’t the ones driven by passion. They’re the ones driven by the desperate need to protect everything they’ve built on lies.
When your entire livelihood depends on being someone you’re not, murder isn’t just an option—it’s a prudent business decision.