I nodded. “Right?”
“Did he fall off the ship?” Dane asked.
Now he was asking the important questions. I’d trained him well. “No one knows. William was on the USS Yorktown for an overnight paranormal investigation the night of his death.”
“What did he do for a living?” Dane asked. “Billionaire, CEO, real estate tycoon?”
“No.” My lips pursed. You didn’t have to be rich to be an interesting dead person. “He was born and raised in Charleston. Will worked as a local tour guide and ran a successful history of Charleston blog. He was on the boat as part of the paranormal investigation, but none of the other participants saw him fall into the water.”
“That’s… suspicious.”
“Yeah, I thought so too. Hence why we’re here.” And a few other reasons, but we didn’t need to get into them right then. I intended to keep my ultimate plans as far away from Dane’s notice as possible. Then he couldn’t stop me.
Considering he noticed everything—that damn SEAL training—I’d have my work cut out for me.
Dane chewed on another piece of pizza, rescuing a wayward piece of sausage this time. “And this is podcast worthy because?”
See, he always asked more questions than I wanted.
I leaned in at the edge of the table to whisper. “What if the ship’s ghosts killed him?”
Dane’s forehead furrowed, creating deep lines across its middle. “I was under the impression you were smart.”
“Excuse me?” I asked as I pulled back from the table. That’s rude.
Someone pushed away from their chair loudly, causing a scraping sound to echo in the slightly noisy restaurant.
He took a sip of water. “Ghosts? Really?”
“No, but it would be a good story, and who knows,” I said with a small shrug. “Maybe we’ll end up solving it.”
“Oh, no.” His furrowed expression returned. “Is this because of Elenore and Savannah? Her solving that case was a fluke.”
“No, calm down, killer. It’s just a fresh case, unlike our last two. The police ruled William’s death a suicide, even though he had no water in his lungs.”
That was freaking just wrong. How did someone drown without water in their lungs? It made no sense, and no one else was looking into it. Suspicious.
I jerked my head around Dane as someone behind him swore hard enough to cut through the regular sound of chatter.
“That means,” Dane thought for a second, “he was dead before going into the drink.”
“Exactly. That means murder, Dane.”
Murder with a capital M.
“You’re a fucking asshole. I can’t believe you’d cheat on me,” a woman yelled from the same table that had the commotion earlier. I immediately moved my attention from Dane to the argument.
A man stood up. “Diane, don’t be this way.”
Splash! Water sprayed over the table, the man, the chair, and the floor as Diane threw a full glass of it at him.
“What the fuck was that for?” the man at the table behind them, who got hit with the offshoots, yelled. He stood up too.
Dane counted out a stack of money from his wallet and threw it on the table. “Why are you always causing trouble everywhere we go?”
“Me?” How was he blaming this on me?
2
