Chapter 20
For the first time in several years, Sheila didn’t start her morning with a run. She felt like crap. Her head still ached and she was sore everywhere from her fall. She hated to miss a run, but even Eric had mentioned to her the night before that she should not run with a head injury—as mild as it was.
She picked up her cell phone from the bedside table, wanting to call her husband. He might be able to pick up a call from her by now; he was leading a group of Boy Scouts through a part of the Appalachian Trail. She smiled at the thought.
She saw a text message from Annie.
Looking into murder vic’s background. Bad divorce.
Her soon-to-be ex on board? His name is John.
Sheila placed her glasses on her face and read the text again. That Annie. She couldn’t resist sleuthing, even if she wasn’t even on board. But a chill traveled up through Sheila as she remembered the dead man last night. Allie’s boyfriend was offed, too. It would seem that Allie’s soon-to-be ex would be at the top of everybody’s suspect list. It would be good to know if he was on board and exactly who he was so she could make certain to stay the hell away from him. Still, if she could put this together sitting in bed with a cell phone in her hand, surely Matthew Kirtley and Ahoy Security had already done so. It seemed so clear cut.
But later, showered and ready for breakfast, she grabbed her passenger list from the table. Not everybody was privy to this list, but as the Creative Spirit winner, she was. She couldn’t read through all two thousand names, but she and her friends could together.
She grabbed her purse and phone and pressed in Steve’s number again. She still couldn’t get through to him. No signal again. Yet, Annie’s message had gotten through sometime in the middle of the night. Off and on again; it was maddening.
She had her meeting with David’s Designs and then she was teaching a class. She planned to meet her friends at the pool later. All of this scrapbooking was intense, even for her. She needed a break, especially after last night. Evidently, her designs weren’t as good as she thought. She swallowed, willing away tears of embarrassment. Everything she had worked toward had seemed to crash around her at the meeting with Theresa.
When Sheila walked into the dining room, her eyes went immediately to the large decorated Christmas tree, brightly lit and trimmed in red and gold. Christmas music was being piped through the intercom. She was overwhelmed by a longing for home, to be sitting next to Steve and their own tree with all of their kids around them. She felt no Christmas spirit here. After last night, it had gotten worse.
As she glanced around the room for her crew, she observed the man who had been watching her so intently yesterday. She scowled. Then she spotted her group and walked toward them.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Paige said, looking up at her as she approached the table.
Sheila grunted and sat down, immediately reaching for the coffee.
“Are you feeling okay?” Vera said. She looked up at Sheila from a stack of fruit and crepes.
“I feel about the same as yesterday,” Sheila said.
“It’s going to take a few days,” Eric said, then took a huge bite of sausage. “Try to eat something. The buffet is fantastic.”
“Coffee and toast for me this morning,” Sheila said. Her stomach was still queasy.
Randy was standing up to get his second or third helping from the buffet. “I’ll bring you some toast,” he said. “Maybe it will settle your stomach and then you can eat more.”
“Thank you, Randy,” Sheila said. What a nice young man. Too bad his relationship hadn’t worked out. “Have you heard about last night?” Sheila turned to her friends, who were all happily mooning over their food.
“What? Your meeting?” Paige said.
“No,” Sheila said. She took a drink of coffee. She didn’t want to talk about that right now. And she was sure that the meeting with David’s Designs would be the same kind of thing. Who did she think she was? A real designer? “There was another death.”
“What?” Vera exclaimed. A man who was seated at the table behind them turned and glared at her.
“Keep your voice down,” Sheila said.
“Really!” Vera said, her face reddening. ‘You can’t lay something like that on me and not expect me to get a little excited.”
Sheila took a breath. “Okay. The man was Allie Monroe’s boyfriend.” She mouthed the word “boyfriend.”
“I thought she was married,” Paige said.
“She was going through a divorce. A bad one.” Sheila said.
“Ahh, so now Annie’s text makes sense,” Paige said.
“You got that, too? I wondered what that was about,” Vera said.
Sheila pulled out her passenger list and divided it among the group at the table.
Randy came up with a plate of food for himself in one hand and a plate of toast for Sheila in the other. He set it down in front of her. She smelled the toast and wasn’t sure if she could manage to eat.
“What’s this?” Randy said.
“This is the passenger list. We’re looking for a John Monroe on the list. Allie Monroe’s husband,” she said.
“Oh, he’s not here,” Randy said. “I mean, you can look to double check, but I saw Matthew last night and they had already searched through the passenger list looking for him, probably thinking what you’re thinking. The other murder . . .”
“Murder?” Sheila said. “Then he was killed?”
He nodded. “In exactly the same way as Allie Monroe.”
“How do you know all of this?” Sheila asked.
“I told you,” he said, and sat down next to his mother. “I saw Matthew last night. We met for drinks.”
Everybody stopped eating and looked up at him.
“What?” he said. “It was just drinks. It wasn’t a real date or anything, and he kept getting pulled away to deal with everything.”
“Well, Randy, is there anything else you found out last night that you’d like to tell us?” Paige said.
His mouth full, he shook his head, then finally said, “Nothing I can think of. But Matthew is very cute, don’t you think?”
Paige’s neck, then face, reddened. Vera looked away and Sheila took a deep breath and bit into her toast.
“Not to scare anybody,” Eric said, “but I doubt the guy would be using his own name. If you were planning to kill someone on a cruise, would you?”
It was no use. Sheila swallowed her bite of the dry toast, but then set it down on her plate with a thud.
Merry effing Christmas.