Read Online Laura Marlin Mysteries 2: Kidnap in the Caribbean by Lauren St John - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lauren St John
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asked when they were out in the corridor.
‘A challenge.’
‘A challenge?’
‘Sort of a dare. Yes, I know, this morning I wanted to have as little as possible to do with him, but he suggested this game and, well, it sounded like fun. I said I’d talk it over with you. His idea is that we spend a day practicing being detectives.’
‘How would that work?’
Laura’s face lit up. She always leapt at any chance to talk about her detective hero. She immediately became so caught up in her story that she temporarily forgot about Jimmy’s near death experience in the adventure centre.
‘As you know, Detective Inspector Walker has had to spend a lot of time being someone he’s not in order to crack a case. Once, he posed as a doddery old gardener at a castle; another time, he worked as a chef in a restaurant. He’s brilliant at it and he’s very convincing. The villains rarely suspect a thing. Sometimes he’ll pretend to be a random passerby at a murder scene, for example. He picks up all sorts of clues because people don’t realise he’s a policeman.’
Tariq grinned. ‘And Jimmy thinks we should try the same thing on the ship where nobody knows us and we can be anyone we want?’
Laura looked at him. ‘Yes. Do you think it’s silly? I was worried that people might get upset if they find out we’ve lied to them, but Jimmy said that we could explain to them afterwards that we were only playing. On our last morning at sea or something. He dared us to do it for a day and whoever convinces the most people gets a free piece of chocolate cake.’
Tariq laughed. ‘We’d get a free piece of chocolate cake anyway.’
‘That’s not the point. It’s about the challenge – about seeing whether we could really convince people.’
They’d reached the door of their cabin.
‘I’m game if you are,’ Tariq said.
‘Cool. Then let’s do it.’
Laura opened the door and was relieved to see that Jimmy had not let himself in again. The cabin was peaceful. Through the French doors pillowy waves heaved and surged. A seabird swooped on an unseen fish. She hopped onto the bed and Skye snuggled up beside her.
‘About what happened,’ Tariq said. ‘You were supposed to be the first climber, right? If Jimmy hadn’t insisted on going up, it would have been you on the wall. You would have been the one to fall. The carpenter who left his Stanley knife in the joint, he could have put you in the hospital.’
Goosebumps rose on Laura’s arms and she tugged the sleeves of her sweatshirt down. She’d talked animatedly about Jimmy’s challenge on the way back from the adventure centre in the hope of distracting Tariq – and herself – from precisely that thought. There was a ninety-nine per cent likelihood that the knife had indeed been left behind by some inept, dangerously forgetful carpenter, as Ernesto had suggested. But there was no escaping the fact that it might also have been put there on purpose, perhaps even with the aim of hurting a specific person. After all, the rope was only severed because the knife was in the precise spot where it became taut. And Laura had been down in Russ’s appointment book as the first climber of the day.
‘You don’t think …?’ Tariq picked at a thread on his jeans. He was reluctant to say the words out loud for fear of lending them power. ‘You don’t think it was …?’
‘Intended for me? No, of course not,’ said Laura with a lot more confidence then she felt. ‘Apart from Russ and Ernesto, how could anyone have known that I was due to climb first? It was coincidence.’ She didn’t want to say that, for days now, coincidences had been piling up to the point where it was starting to feel as if there was a lot more to them than chance. The last thing she wanted was to worry her best friend and spoil his special holiday.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s take Skye to cheer up my uncle.’
ON THEIR LAST morning at sea, they took Calvin Redfern a cup of coffee
‘A challenge.’
‘A challenge?’
‘Sort of a dare. Yes, I know, this morning I wanted to have as little as possible to do with him, but he suggested this game and, well, it sounded like fun. I said I’d talk it over with you. His idea is that we spend a day practicing being detectives.’
‘How would that work?’
Laura’s face lit up. She always leapt at any chance to talk about her detective hero. She immediately became so caught up in her story that she temporarily forgot about Jimmy’s near death experience in the adventure centre.
‘As you know, Detective Inspector Walker has had to spend a lot of time being someone he’s not in order to crack a case. Once, he posed as a doddery old gardener at a castle; another time, he worked as a chef in a restaurant. He’s brilliant at it and he’s very convincing. The villains rarely suspect a thing. Sometimes he’ll pretend to be a random passerby at a murder scene, for example. He picks up all sorts of clues because people don’t realise he’s a policeman.’
Tariq grinned. ‘And Jimmy thinks we should try the same thing on the ship where nobody knows us and we can be anyone we want?’
Laura looked at him. ‘Yes. Do you think it’s silly? I was worried that people might get upset if they find out we’ve lied to them, but Jimmy said that we could explain to them afterwards that we were only playing. On our last morning at sea or something. He dared us to do it for a day and whoever convinces the most people gets a free piece of chocolate cake.’
Tariq laughed. ‘We’d get a free piece of chocolate cake anyway.’
‘That’s not the point. It’s about the challenge – about seeing whether we could really convince people.’
They’d reached the door of their cabin.
‘I’m game if you are,’ Tariq said.
‘Cool. Then let’s do it.’
Laura opened the door and was relieved to see that Jimmy had not let himself in again. The cabin was peaceful. Through the French doors pillowy waves heaved and surged. A seabird swooped on an unseen fish. She hopped onto the bed and Skye snuggled up beside her.
‘About what happened,’ Tariq said. ‘You were supposed to be the first climber, right? If Jimmy hadn’t insisted on going up, it would have been you on the wall. You would have been the one to fall. The carpenter who left his Stanley knife in the joint, he could have put you in the hospital.’
Goosebumps rose on Laura’s arms and she tugged the sleeves of her sweatshirt down. She’d talked animatedly about Jimmy’s challenge on the way back from the adventure centre in the hope of distracting Tariq – and herself – from precisely that thought. There was a ninety-nine per cent likelihood that the knife had indeed been left behind by some inept, dangerously forgetful carpenter, as Ernesto had suggested. But there was no escaping the fact that it might also have been put there on purpose, perhaps even with the aim of hurting a specific person. After all, the rope was only severed because the knife was in the precise spot where it became taut. And Laura had been down in Russ’s appointment book as the first climber of the day.
‘You don’t think …?’ Tariq picked at a thread on his jeans. He was reluctant to say the words out loud for fear of lending them power. ‘You don’t think it was …?’
‘Intended for me? No, of course not,’ said Laura with a lot more confidence then she felt. ‘Apart from Russ and Ernesto, how could anyone have known that I was due to climb first? It was coincidence.’ She didn’t want to say that, for days now, coincidences had been piling up to the point where it was starting to feel as if there was a lot more to them than chance. The last thing she wanted was to worry her best friend and spoil his special holiday.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s take Skye to cheer up my uncle.’
ON THEIR LAST morning at sea, they took Calvin Redfern a cup of coffee
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