Slay Bells Ringing

  Slay Bells Ringing

  A Murder Mystery Duet

  Emily James

  Stronghold Books

  Copyright © 2019 by Emily James

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. It’s okay to quote a small section for a review or in a school paper. To put this in plain language, this means you can’t copy my work and profit from it as if it were your own. When you copy someone’s work, it’s stealing. No one likes a thief, so don’t do it. Pirates are not nearly as cool in real life as they are in fiction.

  For permission requests, write to the author at the address below.

  Emily James

  [email protected]

  www.authoremilyjames.com

  This is a work of fiction. I made it up. You are not in my book. I probably don’t even know you. If you’re confused about the difference between real life and fiction, you might want to call a counselor rather than a lawyer because names, characters, places, and incidents in this book are a product of my twisted imagination. Real locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, and institutions is completely coincidental.

  Editor: Christopher Saylor at www.saylorediting.wordpress.com/services/

  Cover Design: Steven Novak at www.novakillustration.com

  Published January 2019 by Stronghold Books

  Contents

  Also by Emily James

  Unsilent Nights

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Ginger Dead Man

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Letter from the Author

  About the Author

  Also by Emily James

  Maple Syrup Mysteries

  Sapped: A Maple Syrup Mysteries Prequel

  A Sticky Inheritance

  Bushwhacked

  Almost Sleighed

  Murder on Tap

  Deadly Arms

  Capital Obsession

  Tapped Out

  Bucket List

  End of the Line

  Cupcake Truck Mysteries

  Sugar and Vice

  Unsilent Nights

  A Maple Syrup Mystery Novella

  Chapter 1

  When I promised to stick by Mark in sickness and in health, I hadn’t thought the sickness part would come so soon. We hadn’t even been married a week.

  The thermometer I’d bought in the cruise ship’s pharmacy beeped.

  I retrieved it from Mark’s mouth. “You don’t have a fever, so it’s not the flu.”

  “Maybe food poisoning.” Mark’s voice had a rough quality to it. Neither of us had slept much last night.

  Food poisoning didn’t seem likely to me. The cruise line we’d selected for our honeymoon had excellent ratings and reviews. None had mentioned food poisoning.

  There was always a first time. We’d already crossed seasickness off the list. Mark had no problem when we’d been out on my parents’ boat over the summer.

  He closed his eyes.

  I brushed his hair back off his forehead. This wasn’t how we’d wanted our honeymoon to go, but we had our whole lives together. This wouldn’t be the last time one of us got sick. Ten years from now, it might even make for a good story to tell. “Would you like me to order room service instead of going down to the dining room?”

  Mark’s face took on a pinched expression. “No food.”

  I eased off the bed, trying not to jostle him. “I’ll be as quick as I can, and I’ll bring back some ginger ale. You shouldn’t have any anti-nausea meds if it’s food poisoning.”

  Mark gave a single nod.

  I felt like a horrible wife leaving him, but the thought of food clearly made him feel worse. I wouldn’t be any better of a wife for eating around him.

  At least I didn’t think so. I didn’t have much in the way of role models to work from. While my parents had a happy marriage, my dad considered getting sick to be a moral failing. As a child, he sent me to school even if I was running a fever of a hundred and was throwing up. Nurturing wasn’t exactly something my parents did.

  When it came to being a supportive spouse, I’d have to figure out a lot of it on my own. I hurried as fast as I could in flip flops down to the dining room. I’d be just in time for our assigned dinner time.

  I stepped from the corridor into the dining room, and my brain struggled with the switch even though I’d been here multiple times. We’d picked a cruise to South America for the warm weather and Mayan temples, but with Christmas fast approaching, the dining room had been decked out in a winter wonderland theme.

  Two tall Christmas trees, filled with tinsel, multi-colored lights, and glittering gold, green, and red balls, flanked the stage. Giant snowflakes hung from the ceiling in lines leading to the central chandelier, and Christmas music played softly in the background.

  While I knew that many parts of the world did have warm weather for Christmas, growing up in Washington, DC, and now living in Michigan, meant I automatically associated Christmas with cold and snow. As contrary as it seemed since I’d been the one to insist on a warm honeymoon, I was secretly glad we’d be back home a few days before Christmas. The cruise line tried, but Christmas here wouldn’t have cut it.

  Of the three other couples we shared our table with, only one pair was there as I took my seat.

  The dining room wasn’t the only place to eat on the ship, but so far everyone had attended all the meals. Since we were having our first at-sea day, I knew none of them were off ship.

  I swiveled in my seat. Except for our table, the dining room looked as full as usual.

  Maybe Mark’s food poisoning guess wasn’t as far off as it originally sounded. We would have all been served at the same time. If the others had whatever Mark had last night, they might be sick, too. If I remembered correctly, I’d had the chicken, while most of the others had fish. I’d never been a fan of salmon, and no one made fish as delicious as A Salt and Battery back home.

  I could almost hear my mother’s voice in my head. Don’t go looking for trouble, Nicole. Enough will find you on its own.

  My subconscious mom-voice might be right. I’d been going a little stir-crazy spending all day in our room. Mark had either been throwing up or sleeping, so I’d stayed in the room with him to keep an eye on him rather than partaking of any of the ship’s amenities. I’d finished the book I’d been reading a few hours ago, and I was tired of playing Sudoku on my phone. My brain might be looking for another puzzle to solve.

  But if many members of our table had gotten food poisoning, didn’t I have a responsibility to report it? Surely the kitchen would want to investigate so that it wouldn’t happen again.

  Besides, if Mark had food poisoning, I could stop worrying that he’d contracted some sort of plague before we even set fo
ot on South American soil.

  It wouldn’t hurt for me to stop by the cabin of the couple who usually sat next to me. They were on their honeymoon as well, but the wife, Carrie, had said she was more interested in excursions than her husband was. That wasn’t surprising in itself. They looked like they were close to twenty years different in age, and her husband was heavyset. Carrie had given me their cabin number in case we came across something I wanted to do that Mark didn’t. She’d said she’d be game for anything.

  I almost left before dessert until I saw they were serving a maple syrup mousse. Then my curiosity wouldn’t let me leave. If it was good, I’d try to weasel a recipe out of the chef before we left the ship. These days, I was always on the lookout for more maple syrup recipes. Living on a maple syrup farm tended to have that effect.

  The mousse was silky and maple-ly and everything I’d been hoping for. It also stuck in my throat. It didn’t seem fair for Mark to have to miss out.

  I left my goblet without finishing it. The sooner I figured out whether or not he had food poisoning, the better. If it was food poisoning, it’d pass on its own within a day or two, and we could look forward to enjoying the rest of the trip together.

  Carrie and her husband didn’t have an ocean-view cabin, either, based on the cabin number she’d given me. Mark and I had wanted one, but they’d all been booked by the time we reserved our tickets—one of the drawbacks of having a short engagement. It was something else Carrie and I had bonded over. She and Garth had married even quicker than Mark and I had. They’d only known each other six weeks.

  I was glad to leave “Jingle Bells” behind and exit into the relative quiet of the corridors. Mark being sick must be making me extra grumpy because I normally loved Christmas carols.

  I was thankful the corridors weren’t completely empty, though. I had to stop three separate people for directions. It was too bad they didn’t make GPS maps of cruise ships. Not being able to find my way around on my own was getting a little embarrassing.

  At least I’d had my exercise for the day by the time I reached their cabin.

  I knocked on the door. A small sound came from inside, but I couldn’t be sure what it was or if I’d even really heard anything. Cruise ships had a whole set of noises to themselves. There was the almost imperceptible drone of the engines and the water rushing by, but there was also the faint groaning sound as the water pressed against the hull and the murmur that seemed to accompany any situation where hundreds of people packed into a space together.

  A family passed me, and the little girl stared at me on her way by. Heat crept up my neck. Maybe this was a silly idea after all. For all I knew, they’d been too busy doing other things and had lost track of time. They were on their honeymoon, after all.

  The memory of Mark leaning over a trash can filled my mind. I’d knock one more time, awkwardness notwithstanding. If I could get to the bottom of why he was sick, I should, especially if it would prevent it happening to someone else in the future. Besides, if they were both sick, they might want me to bring them something.

  I knocked louder this time. “Carrie, it’s Nicole. From your dinner table. You said I should stop by.”

  That was only a minor warping of the truth, right? I wasn’t exactly here to invite her to anything.

  This time I was sure I heard someone moving inside.

  The door slid open a crack, the safety chain still in place.

  Carrie’s face peeked out. “I’m not feeling up to doing anything, but thanks for checking.”

  Her answer made it sound like she wasn’t feeling well. Her hair was the beautiful sun-kissed blonde that no one was actually born with. Prior to today, she’d always had it carefully curled. Now she wore it straight and back in a ponytail. It was what I imagined she’d do if she planned to stay in all day rather than coming out. If she wasn’t feeling well, she wouldn’t have bothered styling her hair.

  But then why the safety chain?

  I wanted to give myself a swift kick in the shins. I needed to learn how to shut my lawyer’s brain off or I was never going to be able to relax enough to enjoy this trip once Mark recovered. She’d probably put the chain on before she knew it was me.

  Though, she could have looked out the peephole. And I had told her who was outside the door.

  “I’ll see you another day,” Carrie said while sliding the door shut.

  “Wait.” I held up a hand but didn’t put it into the door in case she continued to close it. I wasn’t about to lose any fingers over what could still be a wild goose chase. “Are you feeling okay? I think Mark might have gotten food poisoning, and I was checking to see if anyone else from our table was feeling sick after last night’s meal.”

  The door wobbled like Carrie couldn’t decide whether to open it farther or continue to close it.

  She didn’t look sick the way Mark did, but she didn’t look entirely well, either. Dark circles showed through her makeup, and I could have sworn that her eyes were red like she’d either been crying or struggling not to.

  She swallowed hard enough that I could see it bob in her throat. “What kind of lawyer did you say you were again?”

  A tingle ran up my arms, like all the hairs wanted to stand at attention. “Criminal defense attorney.” I didn’t want to ask, but I couldn’t help myself. “Why?”

  Carrie slid the safety chain off her door. “I think I might need one.”

  Chapter 2

  The words I think I need a lawyer ranked very close to the top of the list of things I didn’t want to hear on my honeymoon. In fact, the only thing I could think of that would be above it was I’m sorry, brand-new Mrs. Cavanaugh, but your husband has the bubonic plague, and he’s going to die.

  Carrie had whispered the words, and now her eyes were growing larger, like she had a fear of spiders and one was crawling ever closer to her.

  Great. Just great. It wasn’t like I could walk away and leave her in her room, freaking out. Especially if she had her husband’s dead body in there.

  If she did, he’d probably died of natural causes. She was probably panicking and didn’t know what to do. My only hope was that he’d died with his clothes on rather than in the shower or in some other embarrassing situation. I did not want to go in if that was the case.

  But if she had killed someone… “Before you tell me anything, I need to let you know that I only defend clients who are innocent.”

  I would have sworn she looked excited at that announcement.

  “Like Matlock? My dad and I used to watch Matlock together all the time. I need a Matlock.”

  This woman didn’t strike me as a killer, but I could say that about a lot of murderers I’d met in the past year. The smartest ones were often the ones who knew how to deflect suspicion.

  I also didn’t know if her answer meant she was innocent or guilty.

  If she really had killed her husband—or someone else—I’d stay long enough to convince her to call security and then refer her to someone who represented guilty clients…and wasn’t on their honeymoon. If she had the money to pay their fees, my parents were the best in the business at setting guilty people free.

  When I told my children one day what their grandparents did for a living, I probably didn’t want to phrase it that way.

  What kind of a mom would I be if I couldn’t even manage to stay with my husband on our honeymoon? The sooner I got this managed, the sooner I could buy Mark’s ginger ale and head back to our cabin. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  She slid the safety chain off the door and opened it wide enough for me to slide in sideways, like she was afraid someone would haul her away based on the mere sight of whatever was inside.

  For the rest of this trip, if someone asked me what I did for a living, I was going to tell them I was a preschool teacher.

  Carrie shut the door behind me and put the chain back in place.

  Their cabin looked like it was hit by a tropical storm. Everything from the top of the
desk had been swiped onto the floor, and the chair lay on its side. The bedding lay scattered across the room.

  It looked more like the room of someone who’d been robbed than someone who’d been murdered.

  What I didn’t see was a body. Or any blood.

  Carrie had a fragile look to her, like someone who exercised too much and didn’t eat enough. Her chin formed a sharp triangle point in her narrow face. She definitely didn’t look strong enough to haul a body down the hallway and toss it into the ocean—assuming she could have done that without being spotted.

  I turned back to face her. “I’m confused. Why do you think you need a lawyer?”

  “This is what the room looked like when I came back from my workout this morning. Garth wasn’t here, and he isn’t answering my texts or anything.”

  She moved toward the bed like she needed to sit, but stopped again before touching it. She seemed to have a sense that if this were a crime scene, she shouldn’t compromise the evidence.

  How long had she been standing, afraid to touch anything by sitting? Had she been sitting on the toilet lid or the side of the tub all day?

  Not reporting the tossed room right away would be hard for her to explain, but it didn’t mean she needed a lawyer. From the look of it, she had reason to be concerned for her husband, but not reason to be concerned that someone would want to blame her for whatever had happened to him. “We need to contact security.”