Page 68 of The Situation Ship
“Smarter than you look. I had to get you out of there before they made you get up on the table and dance,” Poppy replied, kissing his cheek. “You handled their nonsense like a champ, and I definitely owe you one. Add one slice of cheesecake to my debt.” It felt like a weight lifted from her shoulders as they escaped the party.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got my dessert right here.” He ran his hand over her waist, sending shivers up her spine as they walked past a few other half-empty dining rooms and restaurants.
“You’re insatiable.” Poppy rolled her eyes – not that she minded being his dessert. In fact, she was looking forward to an after-dinner treat.
“Only when it comes to you,” he said, kissing her hair.
“Stop that. We need to focus.”
“You’re right! I’m all business.” Isaiah removed his hands from her and stepped to the side for emphasis. “Since we didn’t discover anything new from our fellow dinner guests, I have an idea,” he said, directing them toward the rainforest bar, the only one that seemed to be crowded.
“It had better not involve food. I think those twelve courses will keep me stuffed for the rest of the trip,” Poppy said, placing a hand on her food baby.
“Don’t worry, this doesn’t involve food. Did you notice the mirrored walls in the glass room? The waiters were usingthose secret passages, and I was thinking that if we can follow the passages to the lounge deck where we last saw the killer disappear, we might be able to find something and salvage this night.” He offered her his hand.
“It couldn’t hurt to try,” she said, happily taking his hand as he led her inside.
The sounds of monkeys chattering and chirping birds, combined with the heavy foliage and rocking of the ship, overwhelmed her senses. The storm was ramping up as the night wore on, and the décor made it feel like they were trapped inside a swaying rainforest. She struggled not to laugh as Isaiah tried to walk in a straight line. The place was packed, so they went unnoticed. That was precisely what they wanted to get into the staff area, but they had to linger a little so they wouldn’t get caught.
“Forgive me for my lack of grace,” he said, gripping her hand tighter and looking as adorable as Bambi on ice. “How are you doing this in heels?”
“Years of dancing. I think you just want to hold me closer,” she teased.
“That’s a bonus.” He winked, bracing himself against a table filled with guests downing their umbrella-filled cocktails. He apologised for interrupting them, but they were too drunk to care.
“Just focus on one of the trees. Any fixed point will help you with your balance,” Poppy said,putting her arm around him before he ended up on the floor.
“Right, fixed point.”
Poppy watched as Isaiah spotted and followed a waiter carrying a tray.
“Hopefully, he’ll lead us to a passage opening,” he murmured as they walked towards the bar. Unfortunately, the waiter started taking drink orders behind the bar instead of leadingthem to the hidden entrance. “Keep your eyes on the other waiters. Those clearing tables will have to discard the glasses, so it shouldn’t take too long.”
They didn’t have to order drinks; the bartender placed two fruity cocktails in front of them as they stood at the bar waiting.
“We might as well enjoy ourselves while we wait,” Poppy mused, smelling the strong scent of banana from her cocktail.
“Oh God,” Isaiah said, taking a long draw from a sparkly straw. She wished she had a camera to get a shot of his face. His lips puckered, and he shivered. “That’s deceptively strong.”
“Since we’ve some time to kill, was that story you told at dinner true?” Poppy asked, taking a sip of her own drink. He wasn’t lying about the strong taste of liquor; from the bright yellow colour she had been expecting something sweet, not bitter.
“No.” He smiled to himself.
“Are you kidding?” Poppy shoved him playfully, tipping him off balance again. She grabbed his jacket to stop him from falling over.
“I’d never talk about official cases over dinner. I just wanted that guy across from us to shut up,” he admitted.
“How did you come up with it so quickly?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, as they watched the waiters around the room.
“Some old crime show episode. Not a bad episode, but licking all those envelopes? Could you imagine the paper cuts?”
He grimaced, but Poppy was distracted by a waiter disappearing through the side of a tree between the lagoon and the stage. A secret passage, just like the one the killer must have slipped into. Poppy wished security had thought to put some cameras in the passages. Clearly hers wasn’t the only situation they wanted to hide.
Asudden crash from the fake lagoon drew the staff’s attention away from the bar. Drunk guests and a storm weren’t a good combination. Poppy grabbed Isaiah’s arm and headed for the tree. Sure enough, the thick trunk was an illusion; staff could walk straight through it into a long, narrow corridor. They tiptoed past the kitchen. Once clear of any staff, the sound of the faux Amazon disappeared behind them.
“How are we supposed to know which door to check or what to look for?” Poppy asked, making a note of all the different access doors. It was a maze of short and long staircases and long straight stretches followed by quick twists and turns.
“We’ll know it when we find it. We already wasted the evening at dinner, so we might get lucky searching the corridors until we reach the lounge deck. The captain only ordered Davide to search the immediate area, so widening the search can onlyplay in our favour,” Isaiah said, following her. Thankfully, the corridor was so narrow they could use the walls for balance.
