Chapter 28
There she is.
My feet are already moving in Claudette Sterling’s direction before my brain or any other part of me can stop them.
The Royal Ballroom continues to pulse with Valentine’s Day excess that would make Cupid file for overtime as heart-shaped ice sculptures slowly melt into romantic puddles while easy listening music provides a backdrop to what appears to be the world’s most expensive relationship therapy session.
The scent of red roses mingles with champagne bubbles and whatever pheromones are apparently standard atmosphere at formal cruise ship events, and it all spells out romance or die trying.
Across the ballroom, Claudette stands alone by the floor-to-ceiling windows like a woman contemplating either the infinite beauty of the Atlantic or the finite nature of her marriage prospects.
She’s balancing a towering plate of mini cream puffs, and good for her because we all know that calories don’t count during emotional crises.
A spray of miniature red stars materializes beside me like supernatural glitter, as Richard appears in all his ghostly glory. He looks distinguished in his glowing dinner jacket, even though there’s something wistful in his expression as he surveys the romantic battlefield.
“What’s pulling me away from charming Ms. Butterworth?” he growls because clearly, his celestial feathers have been ruffled. That’s high praise for Nettie, as it should be. “Ah, yes, charming Claudette.” He gives a melancholy sigh in her direction. “She does look rather forlorn, doesn’t she?”
“She looks like someone who’s having serious thoughts about either jumping overboard or eating her weight in pastry,” I observe, already calculating my approach to Mrs. Traditional Values. “Time for a little reconnaissance mission.”
I navigate through the crowd of relationship warriors and champagne philosophers, dodging couples engaged in activities that would require awkward explanations to my mother.
“Mind if I join you?” I ask as I approach Claudette’s window-side isolation station. “The view out here is incredible.”
Claudette startles like I’ve just suggested she strip naked and tango with the ice sculptures.
“Oh! Trixie, of course. Please, help yourself to these naughty treats.” She gestures to her cream puff tower with the guilt of a woman who’s been caught engaging in emotional eating at a formal event. “I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“I never refuse excellent pastry,” I say, selecting a cream puff that’s brimming with whipped cream goodness. “Especially when it’s this beautifully constructed.”
The cream puff explodes on my tongue like edible heaven designed by a chef with advanced degrees in temptation. Light, airy pastry filled with vanilla bean custard that tastes like liquid clouds infused with French sophistication. True and perfect bliss.
“These are incredible,” I manage around my food-induced religious experience.
“It’s incredible comfort food,” Claudette sighs, staring out at the dark ocean like she’s searching for answers in the endless expanse of water. “Though I suppose at my age, I should be more concerned about my figure than my feelings.”
“Your feelings seem more pressing at the moment,” I say gently. “Valentine’s Day can be complicated when your relationship status is... well, in transition.”
She laughs, but it doesn’t have an ounce of humor in it. “In transition. That’s a tactful way to describe a marriage held together with permanent ink.” She leaves out professional necessity.
Richard moves closer, crackling at attention as Claudette continues.
“Do you know how exhausting it is to counsel couples about trust and communication when your own husband had to tattoo his marital status on his forehead?” She takes a sip of her untouched champagne with the bitter precision of a woman washing down disappointment. “The irony isn’t lost on me.”
“It must be incredibly difficult,” I say, meaning it. “Teaching traditional values while living with the aftermath of betrayal.” Lord knows I couldn’t do it.
“The pressure is suffocating,” she admits, and I see her professional facade starting to crumble like expensive veneer over rotting wood. “Every couple I counsel is watching to see if my methods actually work. If my own marriage fails, my entire career will fall apart with it.”
She pauses and pops another cream puff into her mouth, and I follow suit. Although for me it’s less of an emotional anesthesia and more of an addiction.
“Lavender used to understand that pressure,” she continues, her voice taking on the weight of old wounds. “Before she decided traditional marriage was outdated and decided to revolutionize everyone else’s relationships along with her own.”
“You two were close,” I say, afraid to venture any deeper without chasing her away.
“That we were. Business partners. Close friends. I trusted her completely.” Claudette’s grip on her champagne flute tightens enough to make the crystal strain.
A little more pressure and there will be blood.
“We had a joint counseling practice, shared clients, shared philosophies. Before she embraced that lifestyle and decided everything we’d built together was repressive and outdated.
Trust me, she did extensive research on the titillating topic, too.
She was about to publish and make a windfall out of it. ”
Richard’s expression darkens like storm clouds over the ocean.
She nods at the black sea. “When my marriage started falling apart, it was Richard who comforted me,” Claudette continues, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper.
“Everything I felt for that man was real. When I found out about Mark’s infidelity, Richard was there.
After months of emotional support, we took things a little too far. ”
She gives a bitter laugh, and now I’m fearing for both her champagne flute and her sanity. “Ironically, Lavender found out about our affair and nearly destroyed us both. Funny how her progressive values suddenly shifted when they didn’t fit her personal agenda.”
“She accused me of threatening to expose her,” Claudette adds with a weak laugh that sounds hollow. “Over what, I have no idea. But I suppose that’s typical Lavender—always convinced everyone was plotting against her.”
Richard’s ghostly form goes rigid beside me, his expression shifting from melancholy to something akin to anger.
“Is that why you killed her?” I ask with the direct approach that’s served me well in both marriage and murder investigations. “Is that why you booked this cruise to coincide with the Crimson Key Society?”
“What?” Claudette blinks with genuine surprise and takes me in with a look that seems too spontaneous to fake.
“Trixie, you’re badly mistaken. I didn’t kill Lavender.
I couldn’t get far enough away from her.
If I’d known she was coming, with or without her group, I wouldn’t have booked this cruise.
” She shakes her head with a sense of bewilderment.
“You know what’s odd, though. I booked this cruise a year in advance, and I know for a fact that Lavender never thinks that far ahead.
She’s always been impulsive about travel—among other impulses she was prone to having. ”
Richard nods as if confirming the fact. “Lavender could barely plan a week ahead, let alone a year. She was far too scattered, too focused on immediate gratification to pull something like that off.”
“But I guess there are stranger coincidences,” Claudette continues with a touch of resignation as if her luck has consistently been terrible. “But this one really takes the cake.”
I’m about to probe deeper when Mark Sterling appears like a nervous husband with excellent timing and questionable motives.
His forehead tattoo gleams under the ballroom’s crystal chandeliers as he walks out with a look on his face that suggests he knows he’s interrupting a potentially dangerous conversation.
“Ladies.” He nods my way. “Claudette, would you care to dance?” he asks, far too polite as if he’s trying to mask the fact he wants to extract his wife from a civilian interrogation.
“Of course,” she sighs, looking more resigned than romanced. “I couldn’t deny him a single thing at this point.” She pins her stare on me once again. “Are we through here?”
I nod, watching as they disappear into the crowd of swaying couples, and judging by Mark’s protective posture, I bet he has been monitoring our conversation from a strategic distance.
“What are we going to do now?” Richard asks, frustrated as our murder investigation hits another dead end.
“Look for Nettie,” I say, even though my brain is still processing Claudette’s revelations and calculating their implications. “You seemed pretty smitten with her earlier.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Richard zooms ahead, and I follow along toward the buffet where I last saw my octogenarian friend conducting supernatural romance, but instead of Nettie Butterworth, I collide into Rob Stone like a philosophical freight train carrying hemp jewelry and cosmic justifications for less than traditional life choices.
“I’m so sorry!” he apologizes with that Zen smile of his. Something tells me he apologizes to furniture when he bumps into it. “I guess the universe must have wanted us to connect.”
“I guess it did,” I say with a laugh. “Actually, Rob, do you mind if I ask when this cruise was booked by your group?”
His easy grin widens as if I had asked about his favorite spiritual practice. “Less than six weeks ago.”
“Are you sure?” I press, as my brain does victory laps around the dance floor.
“I’m positive. My wife Jazz booked it herself.
She said it was perfect timing for some kind of cosmic alignment she’d been planning.
” He floats away toward another group of passengers who probably have no idea they’re about to be psychoanalyzed by someone with convenient access to dangerous medications.
Jazz.
Claudette booked a year in advance. Jazz booked six weeks ago. Someone orchestrated this collision of traditional marriage counselors and progressive relationship revolutionaries, and it wasn’t the traditional marriage counselor.
Another thought strikes me with the force of an iceberg cutting through a ship’s hull, and I take off into the crowd to catch Rob before he disappears into the cosmic consciousness, but instead, I barrel directly into Bess and Rex, making out behind a giant red glitter heart like a couple of teenagers at a school dance with excellent taste in hiding places.
“Ooh, sorry!” I say, immediately closing my eyes because some things can never be unseen, no matter how much you wish they could.
“But while I have you here, Rex, can I ask what Lavender might have been afraid someone would expose her for? That conversation we had about Claudette is still fresh in my mind.”
Rex pulls back from Bess with a reluctant expression. It’s safe to say he’s not thrilled to have his romantic activities interrupted by amateur detective work.
“Let’s see,” he sighs hard. “I did hear a lot of chatter from Lavender about some brilliant research she was assisting with. Said the work was so groundbreaking she was going to cut to the chase and publish it herself.”
I gasp as I look at Richard, the pieces of this murder puzzle finally arranging themselves into a pattern that makes terrible sense. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Before Richard can answer, Rex turns to Bess with renewed romantic intensity. “Yes, I think we need to find somewhere a little more private to continue with our business.”
“Oh honey, I agree.” Bess swoons as if all of her romantic fantasies are finally coming true.
Richard and I look out at the ballroom full of potential killers, relationship evangelists, and champagne-fueled confessions, while my brain processes the devastating realization that we’ve been investigating the wrong suspect for all the wrong reasons.
Because sometimes the most dangerous murderers aren’t the ones driven by passion or revenge—they’re the ones driven by the desperate need to reclaim what was stolen from them.