Page 94 of Without a Clue

Oh, I’m definitely going to hear about this.

I tread lightly around stacks of her books. A few Sharpies (one notably open) sit inside and around the books. What is she even doing with all of these in here?

I purse my lips, trying not to be really ticked now.

I told everyone to sign five hundred copies in the conference room, at the book table.

If I wanted them to drag five hundred copies of their books to their rooms to be stained by gummy worms, I would’ve said that, now, wouldn’t I?

I bend down and shut the open Sharpie.

Fine.

So I’m going to leave a trace.

I can’t help myself.

The thought of the slowly drying out Sharpie staining her sheets will be running through my mind all night if I don’t. (And honestly, does Crystal ever notice anything?)

“Find anything yet?” Nash whispers.

“No,” I say.

“How much longer?” he says, looking through the peephole.

“Not much.” I tiptoe around beside tables and look through piles of clutter. “You’d think for a two-hundred-square-foot room, we’d see anything in a second, but there’s a lot of stuff here. Honestly, how can she live this way? How did she fit this much stuff in that backpack suitcase?”

“You think she went out for ice or something?”

“Do people go out for ice at two in the morning?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s Crystal. You never can tell what she’s off to do.”

“She probably went skinny-dipping. You know she told me just before we got on this ship that she was going to go skinny-dipping.”

“She wouldn’t get away with it.”

“She taunted me with the plan.” I look over my shoulder. “How much do you think all this is going to cost me?”

“In fines? Nothing for you. But she’s going to be handing over her next check to the ship . . .”

I quicken my step, sensing the urgency to hurry up.

“What is even open right now? Nothing on the deck,” I say.

“All the entertainment on the lower floor. We could . . .”—he hesitates, then says with less certainty—“go down again.”

“I’m not going down there. You can go down there.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Then who is going to find out what she’s doing?” I say, squatting down, opening the bottom drawer of a dresser. “Better to find out she’s partying and is a total narcissist in the face of murder”—Note: I hear it. I hear how hypocritical that sounds given my romantic patio dinner just now—“than the alternative.” I pause, looking at a wound-up cloth covered in red.

Gingerly, I pick up the long, heavy, stained bulk of fabric.

My hands are already starting to tremble.

I unwind the fabric slowly.