Page 62 of The Situation Ship
“We tried to follow her movements, but just watch,” Captain Hamill said, motioning for Davide to continue the playback.
Silently, the group watched Joshua frantically pacing by the grainy figure. Isaiah wished there was audio. He felt Poppy clutch his hand tighter as Joshua turned to walk away. The grainy figure followed, clouding the image, and seconds later, Joshua was down by the jacuzzi.
Isaiah glanced at the other monitor as Poppy arrived on the observation deck. The grainy figure rolled the injured and bleeding Joshua into the jacuzzi and, as expected, tried to hold his head under the water before Poppy came running. Isaiah held his breath, watching the killer waiting under the short stairs as Poppy tried to help Joshua. If Poppy had turned around, she would have come face-to-face with the murderer. Instead, she’d struggled to keep Joshua’s head above water and hadn’t noticed the killer sneak out of their hiding spot and back inside the door.
“Can’t we follow her into the hall?” Poppy asked, watching security arrive on the scene and get the now unmoving Joshua out of the jacuzzi. “I want my shoes back, by the way,” she added, side-eyeing Davide.
“They’ll be returned to your suite.” Davide nodded, not putting up a fight. “I wish following the killer into the hall was as easy.” He swiped to another viewpoint, but no one was in the hall.
“She can’t have disappeared,” Isaiah said, wanting to look at the corridor in person to see if there were any blind spots.
“I’ve scanned every second of footage from every angle, and there’s no blurry figure anywhere to be found – nor is there any other woman with dark hair even in the area,” Davide explained, as though the culprit was a ghost.
“Did you check the area in person?” Isaiah asked. “Last night, they might have been so busy trying to cover up the scene that they missed something important.”
“Why do you think we had the area marked off? We checked anywhere and everywhere a guest could get to.”
“Okay, if we can’t track her, we focus on Joshua. Have you figured out when Joshua boarded the ship? If he was with anyone? Can we go back that far into the footage?” Poppy interrupted. “Joshua isn’t—” She hesitated. “Wasn’tsome ninja with a special set of skills. How did he get past the security you’re so proud of?”
The Captain exchanged a nervous look with her first mate.
“I get the feeling we aren’t going to like the answer,” Isaiah muttered as the tension in the air thickened.
“We discovered Joshua boarded the ship with the help of one of our crew members. Joshua told the crew member that he wanted his presence kept quiet, since he had a surprise for Ms Roe. Since he did have a ticket, we had no reason to suspect that he was a danger to Ms Roe, so we made an exception. An exception that we deeply regret,” Captain Hamill explained. “However, Davide traced Joshua’s movements from the theatre to his room. Security found nothing suspicious.”
“Who was the member of staff? Can we talk to them? They might be the fucking killer!” Isaiah exclaimed, hoping they had this person locked up for interrogation.
“We know they aren’t the killer,” Davide said, rubbing his brow.
“How? Who is it?” Poppy barked.
“Patrice,” Captain Hamill said quickly, like ripping off a bandage.
It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
“We found out when we went through Patrice’s log. She left you at the Empress Suite and subsequently scanned Joshua’s ticket at the general entrance, not the VIP one you came in, before we left port. Since it was filed under our private guest list, it took us a while to find it.”
Isaiah glanced at Poppy, afraid she was about to lunge at them for not telling them sooner. At least he was close enough to hold her back before she pounced on their new allies – not that he would blame her. This was all a lot to absorb.
Poppy let go of his hand as she started to pace. “Let me get this straight: Patrice, the first victim, was blackmailing Calliope, the second victim, who was mad at Joshua for not going through with the plan to kill me and let Joshua, the third victim, on board secretly.” To Isaiah’s surprise, she began to laugh. They gave her a moment to compose herself.
“Patrice was blackmailing guests?” Captain Hamill said when she was calmer.
Isaiah took the lead while Poppy took a seat. “Poppy discovered Patrice was recording guests and keeping the tapes for blackmail. We found a tape with Calliope talking about a plot to kill Poppy, but we didn’t know who she was talking to. Patrice was blackmailing her, and we think Calliope killed her.”
“Have you got the tape?” Captain Hamill asked.
“I’ll hand it over once we’re done here,” Isaiah said, worried about Poppy as she rested her head in her hands.
“There are about half a dozen other tapes in her cabin you’ll want to destroy before your other guests find out about them,” she interjected.
“You were in her cabin?” Captain Hamill fumed.
“I think we should focus on the fact that our three suspects are dead,” Isaiah said. “Now you know about Patrice’s connection to Calliope, and we know their connection to Joshua; we’re even.”
“I don’t think Calliope killed Patrice,” Davide said suddenly.
“Why not?” Poppy asked.
