Curse of the Arctic Star Read online

  I could hear George grumbling under her breath, but I ignored it. Soon enough we’d all know whether my new theory was right.

  “Will you at least tell us where we’re going?” Bess asked.

  “The gym.” We rounded another corner. “And here we are.”

  I skidded to a stop at the glass doors leading into the ship’s state-of-the-art workout facility. Pushing through, I was greeted by the mingled scents of sweat and talcum powder. The lobby was all glass, steel, and dark wood. A bored-looking young man in a silver-piped tank top was perched behind a counter, reading a muscle magazine.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, glancing up as we entered.

  “Yes, I have a question for you.” I did my best to sound normal, like an ordinary passenger with an ordinary question. “Some friends of ours were here working out today, and I just need to know—did they stay here the whole time, or did they leave for a while and then come back?”

  “Friends of yours?” The attendant wrinkled his brow. “Who do you mean? The only person who’s been in here all day is that guy.” He jerked a thumb toward the large, open gym area off to the left.

  Glancing over, I was surprised to see Mr. Hawaiian Shirt plodding along on one of the treadmills. That was kind of weird—he didn’t exactly seem like the gym rat type.

  But I wasn’t too interested in that just then. My heart was pounding as I leaned forward. This was even better than I’d thought!

  “Are you positive about that?” I asked the attendant. “Our friends Vince and Lacey weren’t here a little earlier?”

  “Nope.” He shrugged. “Trust me, I’ve been sitting here all day.”

  I glanced at Bess and George, who both looked confused. “Vince and Lacey?” Bess murmured.

  “Thanks,” I told the attendant. Then I hustled my friends toward the exit. “Come on,” I told them. “We’ve got to get over to the spa. And let me borrow a phone—I need to text Becca again.”

  George handed hers over as we rushed out of the gym and back down the hall. “What’s going on, Nancy?” she asked. “Do you really think Vince and Lacey are the ones we’re after?”

  I sent the text, then grinned at her as I returned her phone. “Yeah. And you guys were the ones who made me realize it,” I said. “When Bess talked about how we should get a massage and then you mentioned the ABCs, it made me remember a couple of things I’d forgotten about until then. Like that one of the ladies thought she recognized Lacey from a Jubilee cruise they took once.”

  “I remember that,” Bess said. “She said Lacey must have a sister who worked there.”

  “Only what if it wasn’t Lacey’s sister, or just her doppelgänger or whatever?” I said, jogging around a corner with my friends right behind me. “What if it was Lacey herself? The ABCs said the woman on the Jubilee cruise was her spitting image except for hair and eye color. And both those things are easily changed.”

  George gasped. “You mean you think Lacey worked for Jubilee?”

  “That’s my guess,” I said. “And there’s our motive. Lacey—and probably Vince, too—could be working undercover for Jubilee. What better way to sabotage their greatest competition? Especially since everything on the Arctic Star is totally state-of-the-art.”

  Bess and George still looked kind of confused, but there wasn’t any more time to discuss it. We’d just rounded another corner into the hall where the spa was located. Becca was already there waiting for us, along with Captain Peterson and a pair of beefy uniformed security guards.

  “Nancy!” Becca rushed forward to meet me. “What’s this all about?”

  Captain Peterson strode forward as well. “Yes, I don’t understand what’s going on here.” His voice was stern, but his eyes looked anxious. I guessed all the trouble on his ship must be weighing on him even more than it was on Becca.

  “I’ll explain everything in a minute,” I promised them both. “First we need to get in there.”

  I led the way into the spa. The front doors opened into a large, luxurious waiting room. There was a table at one end where I guessed the receptionist normally sat, though it was deserted at the moment. One side wall featured a large mural of a peaceful ocean scene. The other wall was lined with shelves full of various spa-type products for sale.

  When we entered, Lacey was kneeling in front of the shelves, holding one of those product bottles. The cap was off, and she was watching as Vince carefully poured something into the bottle from an unmarked flask.

  “Hey!” one of the security guards blurted out. “What are you two doing?”

  Vince and Lacey looked up, somewhat shocked. Vince recovered quickly.

  “Oh!” he said with his usual easy smile. “Sorry, you startled us. Uh, we spilled some of this lotion here and were just trying to fix it. Sorry! We’ll pay for it, of course.”

  “Yes you will.” I stepped toward them, gesturing for the security guards to come forward as well. “Better grab that from him. The police will need it as evidence.”

  “Police?” Lacey exclaimed, jumping to her feet as the guard stepped toward her and plucked the bottle out of her hand. She grabbed for it, but it was too late. “We just said we’d pay—we didn’t do anything wrong!”

  Captain Peterson cleared his throat, looking confused. “Exactly what is going on here?” he asked me. “I can’t have my passengers harassing one another, or—”

  “These particular passengers are onboard under false pretenses,” I broke in. “I’m pretty sure they’re the ones who planted that fake body on the first day, and they were also responsible for the crashing chandelier earlier today. Among other things. Like tampering with the products in here—what’d you put in that lotion bottle, guys? Itching powder, permanent dye, or maybe something more deadly?”

  The captain shot the pair a glance, a relieved expression flitting over his face. “Well, innocent until proven guilty and all that, but perhaps we’d better examine the bottle and its contents and see what we can find.”

  Vince and Lacey traded a glance. Their expressions had gone hard and wary—they clearly realized they were busted and there was no way they were going to talk their way out of it.

  “We’re not saying another word until we speak to a lawyer,” Lacey said, her voice steely. So much for her sweet-and-sensitive act.

  “We’ll sue for wrongful arrest!” Vince sounded slightly hysterical. “Our lawyers will put you and the entire company out of business!”

  “Yeah, that was your motive all along, wasn’t it?” I turned toward Becca and the captain. “We’re pretty sure they’re working for Jubilee Cruises,” I explained. “They came on this cruise to sabotage it—to do everything they could to cause negative publicity and press for Superstar. One cursed voyage is all it takes, right?”

  “What?” the captain exclaimed.

  “So how did you figure it out?” Becca asked me. “I didn’t even realize that Lacey and Vince were suspects.”

  “They weren’t until just now,” I admitted. “But once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t help but be suspicious that they were the ones who just happened to ‘discover’ that fake body in the pool, remember? Lacey’s scream was what attracted the attention of everyone within earshot, so lots of people would be sure to see it.”

  “That’s right!” Bess exclaimed. “Then she stuck around to cry and shudder and tell everyone who’d listen how terrible it was.”

  Lacey glared at her, then at me. “You can’t prove anything,” she snapped.

  I ignored her and explained to the captain and the others about the ABCs’ comment at dinner the first night. “And there was one other clue that helped me put things together,” I went on. “Something Bess said reminded me of it. See, when we ran into Vince and Lacey a little while ago, they said something about Iris scheduling a massage for them. That made me realize that Iris must be the maid assigned to their cabin.”

  “Iris?” George frowned. “You mean the same Iris we keep seeing in the hall outside our suit
e? I thought she was the maid for Tobias’s cabin.”

  “No—Tobias’s parents said she wasn’t, remember?” Bess’s eyes went wide. “Oh, now I get it!”

  I smiled at her. “Yeah. That bugged me when they said it, but I forgot about it until the massage thing came up. Iris didn’t have any reason to spend so much time in our hall—unless she was just snooping around the ship looking for trouble. When I found out she was Vince and Lacey’s maid, I started to consider that maybe, just maybe, she was working undercover with them.”

  Captain Peterson turned to one of the guards. “Go find Iris and bring her to me,” he ordered.

  As the guard hurried off, I continued explaining. “I’m guessing Iris spotted that tarantula by chance the first time.”

  “Well, probably not chance exactly,” George put in with a grimace. “I bet Tobias scared her with it on purpose.”

  “Whatever.” I shrugged. “The point is, she must have told Vince and Lacey about it, and the three of them cooked up the idea to freak everyone out by planting it on the buffet. I’m guessing Iris sneaked into the cabin and stole the spider, and then one of the other two slipped it onto the buffet and just waited for the fireworks to start.”

  “Poor Hazel.” Bess shook her head. “She could’ve been hurt or killed!”

  George shot her a disbelieving look. “Are you seriously feeling sorry for a spider?”

  “What can I say?” Bess shrugged. “I’m an animal lover.”

  I ignored them. “Once I figured out the first two big pranks—the spider one and the body in the pool—it wasn’t hard to guess how they might have pulled off some of the other stuff. Iris could probably get access to the temperature controls, so that explains all the hot and cold cabins last night. Any of them could have started the rumors about the crew not getting paid, or sent Brock Walker that e-mail threat. And of course the happy honeymooners stayed onboard while almost everyone else was gone, so it would have been relatively easy for them to mess with the chandelier. Especially since we just confirmed that they weren’t anywhere near the gym, where they claimed to be all day.”

  “Bad cover story, guys.” George smirked at Vince and Lacey. “You should’ve just said you were in your cabin all day, or smooching on some deserted deck somewhere. You’re supposed to be honeymooners—we would’ve believed it.”

  “Anyway,” I continued, “we didn’t see them near the mini-golf course, but it wasn’t that crowded up there. Any of the three of them could’ve easily sneaked in there at some point and rigged that moose’s antler to fall on someone.”

  “Yeah. Good thing Nancy has quick reflexes.” Bess shuddered. “She could’ve been killed!”

  “Wait a minute!” Vince blurted out, sounding panicky. “What moose? We didn’t do that! And we weren’t trying to kill anyone!”

  “Shut up!” Lacey glared daggers at him.

  But Vince didn’t even seem to hear her. He shoved forward past the security guards. “No, seriously!” he told the captain. “I mean, okay, you caught us. I confess and all that—we’re working for the vice president of Jubilee.” He turned to look at Becca. “He hates your friend Verity, by the way. Says she’s a traitor to the company. But he still likes your grandfather. That’s why we sent you that message.”

  “Yeah,” Lacey spat out. “Too bad you didn’t listen.”

  “Wait, back up,” I broke in. “What message? You mean that threatening e-mail Becca got before the cruise started?”

  “What threatening e-mail?” Captain Peterson put in, sounding confused.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be a threat,” Vince protested. “It was supposed to be a warning! We didn’t want Becca to get mixed up in all this.”

  “More like you didn’t want her to work for the competition at all,” I said.

  “Whatever.” Vince shrugged. “My point is, yeah, we did most of that stuff, okay? But we never tried to actually hurt anyone, so whatever this moose thing is you’re talking about, we had nothing to do with that! I swear!”

  “Would you shut your big fat mouth?” Lacey snapped. “Or I’ll shut it for you!”

  “All right, I think I’ve heard enough.” The captain gestured to the guards. “Take them into custody, and let’s contact the local police.”

  A few minutes of chaos followed. Vince pleaded for mercy, while Lacey called him every bad name in the book. My friends and I stepped back and watched as the security guards hustled them both out of the spa. The captain followed, his cell phone pressed to his ear and Becca at his side.

  “Think Vince was lying about the moose thing?” George wondered.

  “Probably,” Bess said. “I bet he panicked when he realized that could be seen as, like, attempted murder or something.”

  I shrugged, feeling troubled. “Maybe. On the other hand, those loose bolts might have been an oversight like we originally speculated.” I bit my lip. “Anyway, I just realized something else. There’s no way those two could’ve planted that note in my suitcase.”

  “But Iris probably could have,” Bess pointed out.

  “I guess. But why? She had no way of knowing I was there to investigate, and otherwise it’s just too random.”

  “Whatever,” George said. “You solved the case, right? I mean, Vince just confessed right in front of us. So yay us—now we can relax and enjoy the rest of the cruise.”

  Just then Becca stuck her head back in through the spa door. “Are you three coming?” she asked. “The captain just called the Ketchikan police to let them know we’re on our way. He wants you to come along and give your statements at the station.”

  “Coming,” I said, doing my best to shake off the loose ends tickling my mind. George was right—we’d solved the case.

  Yay us.

  Later that afternoon I took back my ship ID as the check-in woman smiled and waved me through. “Welcome back aboard, Miss Drew,” she said. “Just in the nick of time!”

  I thanked her, though my words were lost in the blare of the ship’s air horn announcing our imminent departure from Ketchikan. Bess and George had stopped to wait for me just past the check-in, though Becca and the captain had hurried on ahead.

  “Well, that was fun,” George said when I joined her and Bess. “When I heard we’d be going ashore at Ketchikan, I never thought I’d be spending so much time in the local police station.”

  “You and me both.” I smiled. We’d spent the past two hours at the precinct, giving our statements and answering questions from the captain and the cops. Vince and Lacey had been arrested, along with Iris—it turned out my guess was right and she was a Jubilee plant too.

  Bess stretched her arms over her head, looking happy. “So now that we’re officially on vacation, what do you want to do first?” she asked. “Should we go get our nails done? Or maybe check out some of the shops?”

  “Ugh.” George made a face. “With all the activities they’ve got on this ship, that’s what you want to do? Shopping and primping? You can do that stuff at home!”

  “Before we do anything else, can we please get a snack?” I suggested. “Suddenly, I’m starving.”

  My friends agreed, and we headed for the stairwell. Halfway to the next floor, we heard the sound of voices somewhere just above us.

  “Is that Becca I hear?” George commented. “She didn’t get far.”

  When we reached the landing, Becca and the captain were standing there with Marcelo, Becca’s boss. All three of them looked grim and anxious.

  “What’s wrong?” Bess asked.

  Becca spun to face us. “I thought the trouble was over!” she cried. “But something else just happened—the ship’s jewelry store just got robbed!”

  “What?” George exclaimed.

  “Are you sure that wasn’t Vince and Lacey too?” I put in.

  “Definitely not.” Captain Peterson shook his head. “Marcelo says it happened within the past half hour or so—someone must have taken advantage of the usual pandemonium of the passengers reboard
ing.”

  By the way he was talking to me, I guessed that Becca must have filled him in on who I was and why I was onboard, though Marcelo looked confused. “We’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone until we’ve had a chance to look into it,” he said, obviously still taking us for ordinary passengers.

  “Of course,” Bess told him.

  “I’d better go look into this,” the captain said, rubbing a hand over his face and looking weary. He glanced at Becca and Marcelo. “As you just said, we don’t want this to get out to the passengers. So you two had better go do your thing and keep everyone happy—and distracted.”

  Becca and Marcelo nodded and dashed up the stairs to the lido deck, with the captain right behind them. My friends and I followed more slowly.

  “Wow,” Bess said. “What do you think of that?”

  George shrugged. “It might not mean anything much,” she pointed out. “I mean, jewelry stores get robbed all the time, right? Maybe someone sneaked onboard from the town or something.”

  I bit my lip as those nagging loose ends crowded back into my mind—that note in my suitcase. The moose incident. The heated argument I’d overheard in the kitchen. And even some of the pre-cruise mischief, which none of the culprits had fessed up to at the police station. Were those things just random red herrings?

  “Maybe,” I said slowly. “Or . . .”

  I didn’t finish. We’d just reached the deck, and I spotted Alan rushing toward us.

  “There you are!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid you’d missed the departure.” He shook his head mock sternly at me. “I still don’t know why you all decided to come ashore to try to catch up with me. I told you I’d get your postcards, didn’t I?”

  Bess linked an arm through his. “We know,” she told him sweetly. “But we remembered some other shopping we wanted to do. That’s why I texted you to say we were coming back to town. It’s just too bad we never found each other.”

  It was a pretty lame cover story for where we’d really been, but Alan didn’t question it. As he started chattering eagerly about trying the ship’s climbing wall or something, I traded a look with Bess and George, wishing we were free to continue our conversation.