“What crimes?”
He almost backtracks but pushes on. “You know my gramps—”
“Dr. Marsh, yes.”
“I think he followed someone onto this ship.”
“What do you mean?”
“A criminal.”
“What?”
Her sudden sharp focus unnerves him. Nerves nip at Carter. He treads carefully, not wanting to admit he snooped in Gramps’s files.
“My grandfather’s writing a book—”
“I know. About Vincent Kapoor—the Bikini Killer. He told us at the talk. He said he’s made a stunning breakthrough.”
Carter blinks. “Hesaidthat? To an actual audience?”
“Yes, he said he had new and compelling evidence.”
Carter frowns.
“Is it Sanjay Lohar?” Poppy presses. “Is that what you mean by Dr. Marsh following a criminal onto the ship? Is he still alive? Or ... is it Vincent himself? Hedidsay Vincent had been released.” Poppy Poirot is getting excited. It almost scares Carter.
“Well, I—ah—I’m not sure his book is exactly about Vincent.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s got a funny title. It seems it could be about something else.”
“His accomplice?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It has ‘thrall’ in the title.” He hesitates a moment. “I took pictures of some images that my gramps has in a file.”
She studies him. “Carter, why are you even telling me this stuff?”
He glances down. “Because I can’t talk to my gramps, and I can’t tell my mom because she’ll be mad. And sad. And I think someone needs to tell the police or something.”
“Tell the police what, exactly?”
He gets his phone out of his backpack and shows Poppy the first picture he took—of the newspaper image showing Vincent and Aline-Claire looking like movie stars with their monkey and a bunch of money.
She peers at it. Suddenly she makes a little gasp and leans sharply closer, then snatches his phone from his hand. She brings it near her face, enlarges the image with her fingers. She peers more closely through her thick glasses. Her gaze shoots back to his. Her eyes behind the round frames are huge.
“What is it?” he asks.
She swallows. “Can I see the other one?”
Carter takes his phone back, finds it, and shows her the image of the man in a suit on a bridge over a canal.
“On the back of the photo it saysVincent. Amsterdam, Dec. 2018,” Carter explains.
The color drains completely from her face. She continues to stare at the photo, mouth open, breathing rather heavily.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
