Chapter 13

Suddenly Single—What a Trip!

Hi, Trixie, it's me, Ned. You won't believe how things turned out. Shelby agreed to talk, so we met on the lido deck. I brought up her engagement, and she just laughed it off, saying it was none of my business. Then, out of nowhere, she accused me of wanting to borrow money from her! I was so taken aback by her bizarre assumption that I just walked away. I'm really not sure where to go from here.

Beaten down,

Ned

Dear Down,

Oh wow, it sounds as if there's a lot of misunderstanding between you two. Walking away was probably wise to avoid any escalation. Maybe you can have a calm conversation once cooler heads prevail. In the meantime, focus on having some fun.

XOXO Trixie

The cool Barbadossand squishes between my toes as I hurry to catch up with Connie Parker, who's still dripping from our snorkel adventure here in Carlisle Bay.

The ocean may have been swirling with a rainbow of colors and sea life, but right now I'm about to dive into something potentially more treacherous, far less colorful, and devoid of any life—the topic of death.

"Connie," I call out, trying to keep my tone light and friendly as I come upon her.

She's just settled into a bright blue lounge chair and I plop down into the one next to her that happens to be vacant.

Her hair is still plastered to her skull but is starting to frizz up at the ends, her sundress and shoes are wadded up on the sand, and she's wearing a cherry red bikini that matches her tresses. She lifts her sunglasses a notch to better inspect me.

"Hi," she says weakly. "I'm sorry, but my head is all over the place. Are you here with the Jolly Roger Crew?" Her lips are stained a bright red color and her cheeks are so sharply cut you could slice hard cheese with them.

"Oh, no," I say. "I'm Trixie Troublefield. I'm here with the actual crew, as in the staff of the Emerald Queen. The captain introduced us when you boarded with—" I stop shy of saying his name.

"With Roger," she says it for me and frowns as she relaxes back into her seat. "It's okay. I'm getting used to the unfinished sentences." Her chest bucks. "They took his body from the ship this morning. And ironically, I'm going to have him shipped back to South Carolina."

"Oh, is that where your group is from?"

She nods my way. "That's home."

"Well, I hope you can find a little closure somehow before you get back. I'm actually the one who found him."

She inches back. "Do you mean you found his phone? I was so worried when the ship's security said it wasn't on him."

"No, I found his body. I found Roger himself once he, you know, passed away. I'm so sorry for your loss."

"No, I'm sorry you had to find him like that." She presses a hand to her chest. "And I'm sorry that I'm getting all my wires mixed up. I'm such a mess. I just can't believe he's gone. This all just feels so surreal." She shudders at the thought.

"I bet the rest of your crew is just as stunned."

"They are." She gives a dry laugh. "But let's just say they're all coping by way of Jolly Roger Spirits. I haven't lost myself in a bottle just yet, but you can bet I'll be doing that as soon as we hit the ship." She nods to the sea. "I wanted to be sober for this adventure. It's something Roger was really looking forward to." She makes a face. "Me, not so much. I'm not really into all this. Heck, I'm not even that into the whole LARPing thing. My ex brought me along to one of the outings several years back. That's where I met Roger." She tips her head my way. "And as you can guess, the ex and I didn't exactly work out. Roger liked to say I threw my ex overboard for him. And he wasn't exactly wrong."

We share a soft chuckle.

"It sounds like Roger was a pretty nice guy."

"Nice?" She lifts her sunglasses to get a better look at me once again. "Roger was a lot of things, but nice wasn't one of them. He could be a bad boy through and through, and he was one heck of a businessman. Those are the attributes that attracted me to him to begin with." She glowers at the water as if those were the things she hated as well.

"He certainly was a successful businessman," I say, and that's what little I do know about him. The ever-mysterious Mr. X and that elusive ghost of Hank Silverman come to mind. "So did he build that brand all by himself, or are you the real brains behind the brawn?"

"Oh, heavens no to both." She laughs. "Roger had a partner who passed away about a year back. That was Hank. He was a good guy, but he died in a car crash. It was so sad. He didn't come to the office for a few days. I wouldn't have even noticed his absence if our event planner didn't keep asking about him. We were just about to do a convention and Hank wanted his hand in every aspect of it. Well, I couldn't reach him either, so we called the police and when they ran his name they found him at the morgue. Poor guy."

"Oh, that's awful."

She nods. "He really was one of the good ones. Roger was the loose cannon between the two. Roger would concoct horrible ideas and then Hank would try his hardest to steer him in the right direction. But Roger and his stubborn will would win out each and every time. That is, until Hank passed and then Roger ran with those bad ideas, too."

"Like what?" I try to sound casual and not at all like I want to squeeze the answer out of her.

"Like Blackbeard's Brew." She shakes her head as she says it.

"Oh? I don't recall that being on the menu at the bar," I say. I should know, I've studied that thing as if it were the key to buried treasure itself.

What can I say? I'm desperate for a clue.

"It wouldn't be," she says. "In fact, it's not on any menu. The stuff is illegal—something akin to moonshine. It was an off-market label that Roger and Mr. X dreamed up to get a little more revenue moving. Only, as it turned out, the revenue wasn't so little."

"It sounds like some good stuff."

"It's bad stuff and it's highly addictive. Not only is it addictive, but it holds hallucinogenic properties as well. For all I know, it's probably killed people."

My mouth falls open at the thought.

"Do you think it could have killed Roger?" I ask, holding my breath so I don't miss a word of what she has to say.

"What?" She sits up a notch. "No way. Roger died of a heart attack or something. That man could hold his liquor—legal or not. That's why he got into the liquor business to begin with. That and the fact his name and his little role-playing habit leaned into it."

"It would seem." I pause a moment. "So who is this Mr. X?"

"The mixologist Roger hired to help craft his brews," she says. "Roger and Mr. X spent endless hours together whipping up new potions and poisons—his words, not mine." She sighs. "And, of course, I later found out that Mr. X wasn't the only one he was spending time away from home with." Her shoulders rise a notch. "Let's just say there was an endless supply of wenches who were looking to dig their mitts into Roger's treasure chest—and he let more than a few succeed."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear it."

"So am I." She sighs once again. "It had happened about nine months ago, and then recently I found out it was happening again. I didn't get confirmation until just a few nights ago."

"The night we sailed?"

That would explain the fact she was spitting nails in his direction that evening and it took a set of muscles to pull her off the guy.

She nods. "Can you believe it? I thought this was going to be a dream vacation and it's been nothing but a nightmare." She collapses her face into her hands. "You know what? I'm going to make the best of it." She tosses her legs over the side of the lounger. "In fact, I think I'm going to start by taking a quick dip and cooling off. It was nice talking to you, Trixie. I think I needed to get a few things off my chest."

"Anytime," I tell her. "Oh, wait," I call out as she jumps to her feet. "So who is Mr. X? I mean, what's his identity?"

"Nobody knows," she says as she begins to drift toward the water. "You can ask our event planner, Elsie. She's been with the crew far longer than I have. I'm pretty sure she knows all of Jolly Roger's secrets." She cocks her head to the side and a dark smile glides up her face. "I'd like to know who it is, too. After Hank died, I think they became a partner with Roger, too. I guess he gets the company."

Another business partner?

With Roger and Hank dead, that means Mr. X is one lucky guy who just inherited a liquor empire.

She trots off and I trot my way back to Bess and Nettie where I find one gray-headed granny sans a protrusion growing off the top of her head.

"You removed the crown," I say, followed by a victorious whoop.

"You mean I got dethroned." Nettie mopes at the thought.

"Dethroned?" Bess laughs. "From what? The Queen of the Shipwreck?" She turns my way. "Turns out, she had a piece of driftwood stuck to her. But don't blame the driftwood. It was just doing its job drifting from one sunken relic to another."

"Very funny," Nettie says the words like a threat. "You just keep laughing."

"Let's laugh all the way back to the ship," Bess says just as they round us up and shuttle us back to the Emerald Queen.

I might have Mr. X on my mind as I make my way back to my cabin, but it's Mr. Hex I see standing on my balcony taking in the view once I arrive.

"Hank Silverman," I practically shout as I make my way to the ghostly ghoul, and he turns my way as if I just called him by name. "Thought so. You have a lot of explaining to do."