Oliver Twisted (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 3) (10 page)

CHAPTER 23

This Train of Reflection

I shouldn’t have brought up Cody. The storm that threatened to capsize me earlier circled back and the first teardrops gathered. I strode onto the deck outside the dining room, trying to shake off the tempest brewing in my heart. A salty wind lashed my face, whipped at my skirt, and tugged at my wig, but still my mind was full of Cody. It was night, and he was out there somewhere. Where? On a park bench? Huddled on a doorstep?

Through the big window I saw the brightly lit dining room. A few heads from the captain’s table were turned my way. I faced the sea and pantomimed smoking/vaping a cigarette, one hand on top of my head to keep my wig from blowing away.

A few moments later, Madalina joined me at the railing. “It is nice night for a smoke. Too bad we do not have one.” She stood beside me, looking out to sea. Her dress rippled in the wind, a beautiful silver wave.

“Thanks,” I said to Madalina. “For coming out here.”

“I like you. You talk back to Theo.”

“I couldn’t help it. How can he believe that my brother…that people are in bad places because they’re not thinking positively enough? It’s like saying they’re to blame for their situation. It’s, it’s…”

“Arrogant. He is arrogant man, but not bad one. His message helps many people.”

“You’re his assistant, right? His literary assistant?”

“I write for him. I am spook.”

She didn’t look like CIA to me. Ah, she meant ghost. A ghostwriter. A gorgeous ghostwriter who didn’t speak English well. Huh.

“He likes you, you know,” she said. “You have fire.”

I shook my head.

She looked over her shoulder. “See? Is true.”

I followed her glance. Oh, she must have been talking about Jonas, who had just come out on deck and was walking toward us.

“I see you later,” Madalina said to me. She nodded at Jonas as she passed him on her way back into the dining room. I turned back to the ocean. The wind had calmed. My worries about Cody too, though I didn’t know why. I hoped we had some sort of psychic connection and he was telling me he was all right.

“Ivy.” Jonas placed a hand on my back. “I’m sorry I didn’t come out sooner. I wanted to make sure…well, to keep the family peace.”

“At what cost? Does Theo always talk to you like that?”

“Not always, but…often.” He shook his head. “Theo’s like a lot of very successful men. He’s convinced he’s right about everything. His success is the proof. And my lack of success—at least as far as he sees it—is proof that I’m in the wrong.”

“And he never is?”

Jonas shook his head. “That’s another attribute of men like him. Regular rules don’t apply to them.”

“Like those politicians who get caught with their hands in the candy jars but insist it was part of a grand plan for humanity?”

“Yeah. But in some ways Theo can be worse, because he feels like his positive thinking validates everything he does. If he believes what he does is good, it is. He’s not an easy man.” Jonas scooted closer to me so that our shoulders touched. “But he likes you.”

I was really confused. When Madalina said, “he likes you,” did she mean Theo? If so, why did she say “is true” when she saw Jonas? And why did everyone care what Theo thought anyway?

“I appreciate you standing up for me,” Jonas said. “More than you know.”

When I turned to look at him, our faces were just inches apart. Maybe that’s why he kissed me. It felt like a misplaced peck on the cheek. At first. Then he glanced toward the dining room, pulled me closer, and kissed me again.

Nope. Nothing there for me. I was just about to pull away when…

“A kiss for the boofer lady!” Oliver and a gang of orphans appeared at the same time as a gust of wind tore off my wig. We all watched as the blonde curls sailed out to sea.

“What are you, a black wizard or something?” I said to Oliver, who was doubled over laughing. “And boofer lady? What the heck is—”

“It’s Dickens!” Oliver shouted as he turned and led his pack of boys back down the deck.

“From
Our Mutual Friend
,” said Jonas. “That kid is too smart by half. Which reminds me, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

CHAPTER 24

Good Training Is Always Invaluable

“No, really?” I didn’t mean to whine, but there it was.

“Only when you’re in costume,” Jonas said. “It’s just that your character is the most likely one to watch over Oliver.”

The actress who formerly played Nancy was Oliver’s de facto keeper. Now I was. Great. Not only did I find the little bugger
really
annoying, I was crap at watching over people. The Cody storm rumbled on the far edge of my mind, but I concentrated on the calm feeling I’d had just a few minutes earlier. Cody was okay. He was.

“Okay.” What else could I say?

“We’d better get back.”

Back inside the dining room, Theo was holding forth, the faces at the table turned toward him like plants toward a grow light—a fake sun that came with a price. I decided to act the part of a genteel Victorian lady and so kept my mouth shut and ate daintily (the corset did help). The rest of the meal was uneventful.

After dinner, I went quickly back to my room. As I got out of the gown and its accouterments, I wondered briefly if a hoop skirt might soften a fall onto a hard stage floor. I knew there was no way to perform in it, but I did like the image of me floating down to earth like Glinda the Good Witch. I got into leggings and a tank top instead and tried to stuff my dinner costume in the closet. No way. I gave up and tried to contain it on my twin bunk. It fit well enough. I threw my phone and some Gatorade and lip balm into my duffle, then swung the bag to work the soreness out of my arms as I made my way to the theater.

Jonas wasn’t at rehearsal. Val was. “Are we still rehearsing the magic show?” I asked Timothy as I dumped my duffle bag in the seat between him and Val.

“Jonas sent a message.” Timothy watched Ada drag a mat under a silk onstage. “He’s with his stepfather, and thought we could do this without him since we’re just working the silk choreography.”

“Money before art.” Ada kicked the mat and it unrolled with a
whoomph
.

“What’s she mean?” I asked Timothy quietly. But not quietly enough.

“You think Jonas asked Theo on this cruise because he likes him?” Ada gave a mean laugh. “Ivy, check your rigging.”

“Jonas is Theo’s only family,” Timothy said. “So it pays for Jonas to be nice to him. Literally. Jonas could inherit millions if he plays his cards right.”

“So we are all nice to Jonas.” Val watched me scoot up the ladder to the catwalk, obviously admiring the view.

“Why are you here tonight?” I said to Val as I stepped onto the metal walkway. “They haven’t added you to the magic show, have they?” I checked the carabiners that held my silk. All locked.

“I am here because you want me.”

“I do?” I headed back down the ladder.

“Sure. You leave note. On my bed. Last night I sleep with it under my pajamas.”

“You mean under your pillow.”

“No, I don’t.” He grinned at me as I stepped onto the stage.

“Let’s go,” Ada said. “Ivy, tie into your silk.”

I did. Ada tied herself into hers too. “We’re going to practice with the techs raising us with the pulleys. Watch me as much as you can without throwing yourself off balance. To start off, your outside arm starts in preparatory position.” Like most choreographers, Ada used ballet terminology. I curved my arm in front of me. “The arm slowly rises into second position, as if it’s helping to lift you,” she continued. “It ends up over your head in third position by the time the pulley stops, when you reach the top of the proscenium. Ready to try it?” I nodded. “Okay, go!” she yelled to an unseen techie.

The fabric tightened in my hands as the silk started rising. I concentrated on timing the movement of my incredibly sore arms with the rise of the silk and so didn’t really feel the height until my ascent stopped. Then I noticed Val and Timothy sitting in the audience. They looked much too small.

“Now we’re going to do the moves you learned last rehearsal. Start with the Ship’s Lady.”

We went through a sequence of poses that had names like the Crucifix and the Wing Surfer and the Upside Down Splits. Yeah, I did say
Upside Down
Splits. And I was actually having fun. Though my heart beat fast and my arms burned and I couldn’t look directly at the stage floor far below me, I was beginning to understand the lure of aerial work. I was even getting the hang of it (pun intended). I’d just tipped myself into a Half Buddha position—like the lotus position but with your head pointed toward the floor—when my cell pinged loudly from its spot in my bag in the theater. “Grab it,” I yelled.

“She’s in the middle of a family emergency,” Timothy explained to Ada. He looked at my phone’s screen. “It’s a text from a guy named Matt. Says, ‘Still looking. Try not to worry. O O.’”

“O O?” Val said. “What is that?”

Timothy looked at my phone. “I think it’s hugs. Or is it kisses?”

“Should I be jealous?” said Val.

I was still upside down, Cody was still missing, and the blood was rushing to my head. “Let’s just go on.” I threw myself into the rest of rehearsal, hoping that by concentrating on the incredibly difficult task in front of me, I could stop worrying about where Cody was sleeping.

But I couldn’t.

CHAPTER 25

No Very Great Consolation

Val followed me out of the theater. “Ivy, baby, I could not read your writing. On the note.”

“I was wondering if you could help me out with my Cockney accent.” I did have horrendous handwriting.

“Sure. We go to my cabin?”

“I don’t think—”

“Maybe the bar?”

We walked toward the stairs. “It’s sweet of you to offer, but not tonight. It’s been a long day.”

“I could rub your neck.”

“I bet you could.” My cell buzzed. I said a quick silent prayer before looking at it, but it was just a text from Uncle Bob responding to an earlier message.

“Try not to be sad, okey-dokey?” Val somehow made “okey-dokey” sound compassionate. I stared at him for a moment. Could he really be a thief, a murderer? “You change your mind?” he asked.

Maybe I was changing it. About some things. “No. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I made an attempt at a smile. “Okey-dokey?”

Val kissed me on the cheek and headed into the stairwell. I made my way to the library.

After a few texts back and forth, Uncle Bob and I had decided that the cigar bar might not be the best place to meet anymore, since Bette had seen us there.

The library welcomed me with the musty but wonderful smell of books.

My uncle sat reading in one of the leather chairs facing the fireplace, another book on his lap. I sank into the other one gratefully, thankful also for the bottle and two glasses on the small table between the chairs.

Uncle Bob put down his book when he saw me. “Thought you might need a drink.” He poured golden liquor into a small-stemmed glass and handed it to me.

“Boy, do I,” I said, taking a big swig. “It’s been the day from—aaah!” I nearly dropped my glass. “What
is
this?”

“Harvey’s Bristol Cream. It’s sherry.”

“
Sherry
?” My uncle was a beer man. Tequila if he was feeling rowdy.

“Yeah.” He looked a little hurt. “I thought you might like it. It’s kinda Dickens-ish.” He sipped from his glass, which looked tiny in his big hand. “They have some rule about buying bottles of liquor onboard, but you can get wine for some reason. Sherry’s a fortified wine. They add brandy to give it a higher alcohol content.”

“I’ll drink to that.” I poured a bit more into my glass and sipped it carefully this time. Sweet, and heavier on the tongue than the beer or margaritas I usually drank.

“Bette introduced me to it.”

Bette again. I’d get around to her later, but first: “Any word about Cody?”

“That media alert helped.”

“They found him?”

He shook his head. “He’s not back home yet, but he’s okay. A few people called in to say they’d seen him. The last person who saw him said Cody was showing a picture of Stu around a bar.”

“A bar?”

“I know. You got me. And just in case, I asked Pink to check the hospitals and…” Uncle Bob trailed off. He wouldn’t look at me.

“And the morgues.” I knew what he almost said.

“But he’s not there,” he said firmly.

We both stared at the fire for a moment. It perfumed the air with a spicy, slightly masculine scent…No, it was a gas fire. There shouldn’t be a smell. I inhaled, trying to identify the aroma.

“What were you checking out this morning?” asked Uncle Bob.

“Oh.” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t told him about Val. Then again, it had been an awfully full day. I filled him in: Timothy seeing Valery pick the man’s pocket, Val’s meeting with the big guy in the cantina, finding Harley’s knitting in Val’s room. “But I didn’t actually see him do anything,” I said. “And I just can’t see him as a murderer. I’ve got pretty good intuition about people.”

Uncle Bob nearly choked on his sherry. “You what?”

“I think I’m pretty good at—”

“Remember the guy who nearly killed you, oh, just a few months ago? The guy you thought was your mentor?”

“So I was wrong once.”

“And then there was that boyfriend of yours who turned out to be gay.”

“Bi. He was bisexual.”

“And that actress in your show who poisoned me.”

“Okay, okay. Uncle,” I surrendered. “You find anything?”

“Not really. Didn’t realize how tough this job would be. Never worked undercover around the clock like this. Any other time, I had at least a few hours I could go home or back to the office and look stuff up. Maybe in the dead of night, but still, it was an option. This time, even doing a simple background check is a pain in the ass. It’s gonna have to be faxed to the ship instead of emailed, and it’s gonna have to be encoded, in case any crew member takes a gander. I got my work cut out for me tomorrow. Got to look over hundreds of names.”

“Hundreds?”

“The whole crew.”

“Doesn’t the cruise line do background checks?”

Uncle Bob tilted his hand back and forth: the universal “maybe so, maybe not” gesture. “Anyway, now they do. As part of our expenses. The encoding we’re using is something pretty simple I’ve used before. I make it look like I’m checking a shipment of produce. The individual names get buried in the lists of farms, distributors, even varieties of produce. I also get dates, locations, everything. And the guy doing it for me flags anything big.” He grinned. “I just gotta look for the bad apples.” His smiled faded. “Speaking of something rotten, that coroner in Ensenada didn’t find anything. The toxicology report will take a while yet, but no sign of anything.” Uncle Bob grimaced, the way he did when something didn’t seem right. “Weird.” He stared at the fire again.

I sniffed the air. Maybe the spicy smell was coming from the books? I glanced at the ones facedown in Uncle Bob’s lap. “What are you reading?”

“Oh.” He grinned. “This is great.” He showed me the cover of one of the books:
Hunted Down: The Detective Stories of Charles Dickens
. “Did you know Dickens was the first to write about a police detective? He made up some guy named Inspector Bucket in
Bleak House
. I haven’t read that one yet. Thought I’d start with this one. Shorter.”

“And the other book?”

Uncle Bob reddened. “
The Lost Art of Towel Origami
.”

“Really? Can I see?” I mostly wanted to figure out why Uncle Bob was blushing. Maybe they were dirty towels.

He handed me the book. Inside were instructions on how to make elephants, palm trees, and monkeys out of towels. No erotic towel-ry. But nothing to do with Dickens either. “You found this in the library?”

“No. Um…Bette bought it for me.”

“Did she buy you the aftershave too?” Uncle Bob had never smelled of anything except Mexican food and beer, which is why it took me so long to finger him as the source of the scent.

“No. They were doing some Victorian Life talk at the Leather Bottle Bar today, and one of the bartenders made this for us to try. It’s bay rum.” Uncle Bob lost his shy embarrassed look and grinned at me. “Did you know you could actually drink it too? It’s basically rum infused with bay leaves, spices, a little orange peel, and vodka.”

“It does smell tasty. Does Bette like it?” This was my way in, but I had to tread carefully.

“Uh, yeah.” Uncle Bob flushed pink again.

I swallowed a big gulp of sherry for the liquid courage. “So tell me about her.”

“She’s a nice gal.”

Oh no. It was worse than I suspected. This was what Uncle Bob said about all his girlfriends.

“She’s from Golden, Colorado, outside of Denver. Her husband died about a year ago. He was in oil, I guess.”

“She a big Dickens fan?”

“Not really.
Get Lit!
Cruises just sounded fun to her. She could travel and learn something at the same time.”

And meet her next rich husband. “I thought maybe she was onboard to see Theo.” I remembered Bette asking a question at Theo’s book signing. Timothy had thought Theo recognized her.

“No. She doesn’t believe in that New Age crap.”

Another bad sign. Uncle Bob’s last girlfriend, Echo, had been a big New Ager and it sat just fine with him. Now he was okay with whatever Bette believed.

“Hey.” Uncle Bob looked at me over his glass of sherry. “Why so interested?”

I wanted to say, “Because I wonder why she’s after a fifty-ish overweight rancher if it’s not about his fake money,” but that would be insulting. After all, I thought Uncle Bob was quite a catch. It’s just that it usually took people a while to see beyond his not-so-suave exterior. The bigger reason, though, was that I knew Bette’s type. They were the ones who showed up at theater galas in too much makeup and too many jewels and treated the actors like waiters. Who snapped at the servers. And who played footsie under the table with their friends’ husbands. But I couldn’t say any of that, because I loved my uncle. So instead I said, “Just keeping an eye on you.”

And Bette. I was definitely keeping an eye on her too.