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“Such a tragedy on the ship the other night,” she says to Nadine. “How is your group handling it all?”
I offer Bess a contended nod for her effort.
Nadine moans, “It’s just been terrible. Everyone is so down they hardly want to leave their cabins. I’ve been texting the group chat nonstop, telling them that Julia would want them to go out and live this life to the fullest—especially seeing that she can’t. I let them know it’s the highest way they can honor her. I’m hoping they’ll take it to heart before the cruise comes to an end.”
“I hope so, too.” And this is the perfect segue to what comes next. “I bumped into Jane a few days ago. She did mention something about Julia having a secret or two.”
“Julia?” Nadine averts her eyes. “I think it’s Jane who has the secrets. Oh, I’m sure Julia knew about them, but they weren’t hers per se.” She takes a breath. “I think it had something to do with Jane’s new—and quite secretive employment.”
“Which is?” I lean my ear her way to hear over the screams of the person just shoved off the landing and into the jungle with nothing but a string restraining them from certain death.
She shrugs. “Something to do with shoes.” Her lips twist with frustration. “Believe me, I’ve tried to figure that one out myself. Of course, her biggest secret, the one that cost her everything—” She glances around before leaning in. “You know, the one where she was caught red-handed for buying those luxury brands and returning them while trying to pass herself off as someone that those companies actually wanted to work with?”
I give a quick nod. “I heard.”
Tinsley had told me that much.
Nadine leans in farther as do Bess and Nettie.
“Turns out, Jane wasn’t outed as a fraud by those companies. They couldn’t care less about her. There was a whistleblower.”
Sparky lunges forward. “A whistleblower?” He gasps. And believe me, it was pretty convincing, too. “Who was it? Who? Who?”
Nadine nods his way. “It was—”
“Next,” one of the guides shouts as they pull Nadine forward.
“Just my luck,” I hiss as I watch Nadine Dixon fly off into the abyss like a dove without wings.
“Don’t worry,” Bess says. “We’ll get it out of her on the other side.”
I watch as Nadine sails across a vast expanse filled with tropical trees and flowers alike and my heart demands to stop beating spontaneously.
“It depends which other side you’re referencing,” I tell her. “I’d better go next so I can spend as much time with her as poss—” Before I can finish my sentence, a spray of blue stars appears in our midst as a handsome-as-Ransom apparition materializes before us.
Just when I didn’t think things could get more interesting.
CHAPTER 13
I suck in a quick breath. “It’s you again,” I hiss at the handsome denim suit wearing specter before me as a breeze picks up and does its best to blow me right off the perch I’m standing on.
“Is it really him?” Bess asks, looking to the exact spot I’m glaring in. A blue hard hat sits crooked on her head as she awaits her turn to jump off a proverbial cliff.
And to think we shelled out the big bucks for this. Or at least I did. This entire dizzying fiasco is on me.
“Is it the Ransom Baxter look-alike? The ghost?” Bess squawks just a touch too loud.
But with all the screaming coming from the rest of our troop as they’re launched like bottle rockets into the nether sphere, I doubt anyone heard. At this point, we’re all just a heartbeat away from becoming ghosts ourselves.
“That’s the ghost in question,” I say, shaking my head while the glowing scepter sheds a beguiling grin.
“My plan!” Nettie bucks before shoving Sparky in my face. “You go get ’em, girl. Bess and Nettie will handle the suspect at hand.” They cut in front of me while I do my best to nab that wily ghost, but he’s proving elusive.
Bess gets shoved off the platform next, screaming her head off as one does.
Nettie is getting hooked up next and Sparky is getting strapped to her back like a bomb.
I charge at the ghost who has the nerve to look like the man I have more than a certain affection for.
