Page 99 of Without a Clue

Pogache looks uneasily around the group.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine. I’m going to inspect the room just to make sure we’re all clear”—he gives me a pointed look—“again.”

He walks inside Crystal’s room.

Shuts the door.

I feel a tingle of adrenaline prick up my neck and just barely let my pinky finger graze against Nash’s.

This is it.

He’s left us alone with Crystal in the hallway, and any moment Pogache is going to find the knife and the whole thing will be given up.

I eye Crystal.

Now’s the time to plan next steps.

What is she going to do?

Make a run for it?

But where could she go?

Hide inside a crate of lemons for the next week until we get off this ship?

She’d be stupid to give herself up like that.

Better to pretend it isn’t hers.

Better to have some fighting chance by feigning ignorance.

And yet . . . my hand grips Nash’s and squeezes tightly before releasing. Sending a little signal. Prepare yourself.

We have no idea what’s about to happen next.

I inch closer to Crystal, Nash beside me, and Crystal catches my eye.

Her smooth forehead creases into tiny furrows.

She gives me a queer look.

Almost a . . . a loathing look.

“Funny how the fire just started out of nowhere, isn’t it, Pip?” she says.

My heart pounds in my chest. “I heard you left your iron on.”

“And yet . . . if I’m not mistaken”—she takes a strand of her long brown hair and winds it round her finger, inspecting—“I didn’t curl my hair today.”

She flashes a smile I’ve never seen before, and my blood runs cold.

It’s absolutely shocking seeing her like this.

I mean, we haven’t been the best of friends, sure.

I might have thought her a bit too flighty, sure.

A little too reckless.