Page 88 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

We make small talk for a moment—the party, the decorations, the absurdity of the oiled-up cover models—and then I seize the opening.

“Hey, Poppy, I’m so curious about something. What could have happened to Sienna’s daughter? Is there anything you can think of that might offer up a clue?”

Poppy gives a few startled blinks before taking a sip of her champagne. The party rages around us with its laughter, music, and clinking glasses, but she’s focused entirely on my question.

“I really don’t know the specifics,” she says slowly. “Sienna’s very private about it. But I do remember once, months ago, she mentioned something about visiting hours and how difficult it was to coordinate with the kids’ school schedule. At the time I thought maybe her daughter was in a hospital or a rehab facility, but…” She trails off.

“But?” I press.

“Well, she also said something about good behavior affecting when they could see each other. That’s not really hospital language, is it?”

My brain connects the dots with a satisfying click.

Prison. Sienna’s daughter is in prison.

I reach for the buffet table to steady myself and come away with a chocolate ball I don’t remember taking. My subconscious knows how to self-soothe. I’ll give her that.

A scream erupts near one of the cover models, a happy scream, followed by laughter as a woman poses dramatically in his arms while her friends take photos.

Poppy laughs. “I’d better get in on this action! I can’t believe this trip is just about over. It’s been such a whirlwind.”

A whirlwind. One murder, two interrogations, and a partridge in a pear tree. The woman has a gift for understatement.

She drifts away into the crowd, and I turn to Marina, my pulse breaking into a jog.

“I think I know exactly what Sienna was trying to hide,” I say quietly. “The dark place her daughter is in—Poppy just handed me a huge clue. Visiting hours. Good behavior requirements. I need to talk to Sienna.”

“About her daughter?” Marina asks.

“About what Astrid was going to expose at the costume gala.” I scan the room and spot Sienna at the dessert station, looking small and nervous in a frumpy brown wench dress that hangs off her in defeated folds, the only rental in the room that comes with an apron, her frizzy auburn hair barely contained by a velvet headband. Even her costume looks apologetic. “Let’s go talk to the grieving teacher.”

Because tonight’s the last night of this cruise, and I’m done letting a killer hide behind secrets and champagne.

I snag one more chocolate ball on my way. A woman needs a plan, and a woman needs fuel.

Time to get some answers.

CHAPTER 21

If the Valhalla Lounge pulses any harder tonight, this ship is going to skip the Baltic entirely and time-travel straight back to the year 900, where the original Vikings would take one look at this party and demand to know why nobody ever told them about buttercream.

Champagne flows, the music thumps, and women in elaborate Viking costumes laugh and pose with oiled-up cover models who look fresh off the front of a paperback. Which, to be fair, most of them are.

The lighting runs low and moody, all amber and shadow, with candles flickering on every surface. The air is thick with expensive perfume and the sweetness drifting off the dessert table, where princess cake, chocolate balls, and saffron buns sit arranged like edible art.

I’d stop to admire the artistry, but the buffet already has a customer nobody else can see.

Magnus Darkwater materializes in a shower of silver stars near the dessert spread and proceeds to hobnob with the guests as though they invited him. He laughs at jokes he wasn’t told. He drinks champagne that floats mysteriously in midair. He noshes his way through a plate of Swedish donuts that levitate toward his mouth one by one, and I marvel at the fact that death has done absolutely nothing to slow this man’s appetite. If anything, it’s cleared his schedule.

Oddly, nobody seems to care about the floating flutes or the fried treats drifting through the air on their own. The lighting is dim enough that people assume they’re seeing things, or the champagne has done the assuming for them.

“Is your ghost here?” Marina whispers beside me as we weave through the crowd toward Sienna.

“Oh, he’s here. Currently making his third pass at the dessert table and floating champagne past unsuspecting guests. The man is about as subtle as fireworks at midnight.”

“Should we be concerned?”

“Probably. But we have bigger Viking fish to fry right now.”