Dooley kept quiet as I paced the deck, going over the facts as they pertained to the case, trying to make sense of it all. And so it was that we found ourselves on the top deck, with its pool and jacuzzi area. Most of the guests on board had flocked there, and the mood was a little weird, I had to say. Which wasn’t surprising considering the circumstances. A murder had been committed in their midst last night, and I guess everyone was thinking it could have been them lying dead on that bed, a knife planted in their chest.

  The only one who seemed unaffected was Heather Johnson. In fact the woman was over the moon, and her recent decision to divorce her husband probably had something to do with that.

  “Congratulations on your divorce,” Sarah was saying. “Or is that a strange thing to say?”

  “Oh, no, you can say it,” said Heather, who was sipping from a glass of champagne, which seemed a little inappropriate to me. The woman was celebrating, while Emily was languishing in a French prison cell. But then Heather had probably never been Emily’s biggest fan. Almost none of these people were.

  Also present, apart from Heather and Sarah, were Harry and Eric, and also Steven and Amanda. Like Heather, Harry’s parents were drinking champagne. Harry, understandably, was not.

  “So you pulled the trigger, huh?” said Steven.

  “Oh, please don’t use that kind of language,” said Amanda with a shiver. “Not after what happened last night.”

  “But Steven is right,” said Heather. “I did pull the trigger. After hemming and hawing for years, I’m finally divorcing that man. And it’s all thanks to you, Amanda. If you hadn’t given me that final push, I probably wouldn’t have done it.”

  “I saw how you were suffering, honey,” said Amanda. “And frankly I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Where is Brian?” asked Steven.

  “Moping in his cabin, probably,” said Heather with a wave of the hand. “Who cares?”

  “I better go and see how he’s doing,” said Steven, getting up.

  We watched Steven take the stairs to the lower decks, and Heather said, “This is going to be awkward for Steven, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, he’ll manage,” said Amanda.

  “You look happy, Auntie Heather,” said Harry. “Radiant, in fact.”

  “Why, thank you, Harry,” said Heather. “I feel radiant. As if I’ve just been released from prison.” She realized how that must have sounded, especially for Harry, and quickly apologized.

  “No, it’s fine,” said Harry. “I know you had nothing to do with what happened last night.”

  “How is Emily holding up?” asked Sarah.

  “As well as can be expected, I guess,” said Harry. “They won’t let me see her, though.”

  “That must be galling,” said Sarah, touching a hand to the young man’s arm.

  “It is. I just keep hoping for some miracle. Something that will make this nightmare end.” When he saw Sarah’s look of concern, he smiled. “But let’s not talk about that. How are you feeling? Still nauseous?”

  “Oh, no. I’m feeling much better this morning. I think I’m finally getting used to being on a boat.”

  “I knew you’d get your sea legs sooner or later,” said Harry.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” said Sarah with a laugh.

  And as she and Harry chatted amiably, I could see that Amanda was eyeing the two of them narrowly, a sly little smile on her face. Clearly she was still hoping that her son would end up with someone like Sarah.

  “It’s almost as if Emily has been forgotten already,” said Dooley, who had observed the same thing.

  “Life goes on, Dooley,” I said. “And people move on. But Emily hasn’t been forgotten. Not by Harry. And definitely not by us.”

  “Yeah, but look at Heather and Amanda. They’re drinking champagne and celebrating. Having a party. It’s as if they have completely erased Emily from their lives. As if the poor girl never even existed.”

  I stared at my friend as his words registered. “Say that again, Dooley,” I urged him.

  “Emily has never existed?”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “You know? I think you may be on to something there, Dooley.”

  A crazy idea had just popped into my head, prompted by my friend’s remark. And as I studied the small gathering, I thought it just might be worth looking into this silly idea of mine a little deeper.

  CHAPTER 44

  Tex had suffered through another terrible night. For some reason a bunch of cats had wandered into their apartment late last night, and had started caterwauling in the middle of the room. Harriet and Brutus had joined in, which led him to assume they were to blame for this terrible ordeal. Coming on top of the mosquitoes attacking him with a ferociousness bordering on the maniacal, his back that was still hurting terribly, and the sunburn that seemed to have turned his whole body into a furnace, it was the last straw.

  He had jumped out of bed before he realized that a back patient shouldn’t make abrupt movements. And so his rash attempt to clear the room from any and all felines had ended with him on the floor, joining in the caterwauling, only his screams were from acute distress.

  Marge had raised her head, removed her earplugs and asked, “What are you doing on the floor, honey?”

  “Please get rid of those cats!” he had said.

  Marge had directed her attention to Harriet and Brutus, who seemed to be in charge of the contingent of nocturnal invaders, and after some back and forth had determined that these cats were the vanguard of the new local chapter of cat choir, and had joined them for their first rehearsal, under Harriet’s conductorship.

  Marge transmitted Harriet’s request to offer his constructive criticism of their performance, always considering this was their maiden voyage, so to speak, and to be both forgiving and brutally honest.

  So he had given them two thumbs down, at which point the cats had all started hissing at him, and one had even approached and tried to bite him on the leg!

  All in all, not a pleasant experience, and when he woke up that morning, his back stiff as a board, and his body feeling as if it had been in a close encounter with a cement truck and flattened by said vehicle, both Harriet and Brutus had given him the cold shoulder treatment.

  According to Marge they blamed him for ruining their chances to launch a global franchise and turning Harriet into an international star. Apparently the French cat choir had taken his insult badly, and had decided to abandon the choir altogether. Some mention was made of rudeness and cultural barbarism.

  He didn’t mind. In fact he was happy if it meant he wouldn’t have to endure that terrible racket anymore. He could tolerate the presence of a couple of cats in his life because they meant so much to his wife, mother-in-law and daughter, but too much was too much.

  And he was eating a piece of toast and wondering how he had ever thought that this trip to France was a good idea, when the news came that Odelia was mixed up in yet another murder investigation.

  “Of course,” he said. “That’s the only thing that was still missing. A murder investigation! I mean, who cares that these French murder each other? It’s none of our business!” He pointed to his wife’s phone. “You can tell her to let the French bury their dead and not to get involved.” Though if Odelia waited just another couple of days, she might have to bury her dear old dad!

  “Don’t worry,” said Marge. “Looks like Max figured it out already.”

  “Of course he did,” Tex grumbled. Maybe he should ask Max to figure out how to enjoy a trip to the French Riviera without being massacred. He glanced down at Harriet and Brutus, who were eyeing him as if they meant him harm, and said, “Inside voices. Has nobody ever told you about using inside voices? No? Why am I not surprised?”

  In the meantime Grace was chewing on something that turned out to be his phone, and as he saved the device from her valiant attempts to devour it whole, he suddenly realized with a pang of emotion that he was feeling homesick. He even missed Vesta, for crying out loud.

  “Dada?” said Grace as she tried to grab his phone back.

  “Never do as I did, Grace,” he said, even though the toddler couldn’t understand a word he said. “Never let yourself be seduced by slick sales copy and bogus five-star reviews. You see before you a man brought down by a cheap mattress, a lack of mosquito nets, terrifying tentacled monsters from the sinister depths of the Mediterranean, and a relentless French sun. Not to mention a gang of ferocious French cats.”

  “Dada!” said Grace excitedly, slapping his painfully burned arm and causing him to wince.

  Marge, who had been talking to Odelia, now hung up with a look of concern. “Ma just arrived. Her boat almost sprung a leak.”

  “Almost?” he asked. For a moment he wrestled with conflicting emotions. On the one side he wished Vesta nothing but good fortune. On the other hand he couldn’t suppress that little voice that said, ‘Almost isn’t good enough!’

  “She’s all right, though, and so is Scarlett.” She shook her head. “I should never have allowed her to go off on that trip of hers. Two single women on a boat with two single men. I should have known they’d get into trouble.”

  He swung his head around so fast his neck cricked. “In trouble? Is Vesta… pregnant?”

  Marge gave him a strange look. “Honey, I think you hit your head when you fell out of bed last night.”

  “Medical miracles happen,” he said, though secretly he was relieved. Imagine Vesta having a baby. The house wasn’t big enough as it was.

  “Okay, I’m calling it,” said Marge, suddenly turning decisive.

  “Calling what?”

  “Odelia needs us, and so does my mother. Let’s get out of here and go to Saint-Tropez.”

  “Saint-Tropez? You mean for the day?”

  “Not for the day. Odelia says we can sleep on the boat. People are leaving, and there’s plenty of cabins available.”

  He gave his wife a hopeful look. “Do they have… mosquito nets?”

  “Even better. There are no mosquitoes as far as Odelia can tell. And also…” She smiled. “They’ve got excellent mattresses. The very best that money can buy.”

  “Oh, hallelujah!”

  CHAPTER 45

  As the cab sped on to the hospital, Sarah read the message on her phone once more.

  I can’t wait to see you. I still love you.

  She looked out of the window with unseeing eyes. How was this even possible? But the message was clear enough, and could only have come from her ex-husband, the one who had ambushed her like that two days ago. Out of the blue, he had turned up in Saint-Tropez, imploring her to meet. It was like something from a nightmare.

  The cab finally dropped her off at the hospital, and she quickly paid the driver, then hurried inside. The message said that her ex-husband was in room 214, and so instead of passing by reception, she went right on up. On the way she popped into a nurse’s station that was deserted and put on the typical nurse’s outfit: a blue top and blue pants. She also grabbed an electronic badge that was lying around.

  Moments later she was zooming up to the second floor, breathing a little quicker as the prospect of what she was about to do caused her heart to palpitate and her palms to sweat. But it had to be done—there were no two ways about it. She had come too far now to turn back.

  She stepped out of the elevator and saw to her relief that the corridor was empty. She passed a nurse’s trolley and pushed it out ahead of her to avoid looking conspicuous. Then she felt her pocket for the syringe, and found that it was still there. Good.

  Arriving at room 214, she saw the sign that read, ‘Daniel Taylor,’ glanced left and right, then gently pushed open the door and took a peek inside. Daniel was in bed, his back turned to her. He seemed to be asleep. So she quietly snuck up to him, taking the syringe from her pocket and removing the plastic safety cap. And as she got ready to plunge the needle into the sleeping form of her ex-husband, suddenly he turned to face her, and much to her surprise, she found herself looking into the green eyes of… Odelia Kingsley!

  As she staggered back from the shock, suddenly powerful hands grabbed her from behind, and forced the syringe from her hand. It fell to the floor, and before she had time to recover from the surprise, a pair of handcuffs was snapped around her wrists, and someone started jabbering something into her ear.

  It took her a while to realize that she had just been placed under arrest.

  “Where… where is Daniel?” she asked when the two police officers who had arrested her forced her to take a seat on a nearby chair. “I got a message from him telling me he was alive and well.”

  “I’m afraid I sent you that message, Sarah,” said Odelia. “Or should I call you Kim?”

  The sound of the name dealt her another blow. “Kim?”

  “Kim Jones? That is your real name, isn’t it?”

  She glanced down, and saw that those horrible cats belonging to Odelia were also present, staring at her intently as only cats can. “How-how did you know?” she asked, her voice sounding strange to her ears.

  “A little research,” said Odelia, getting out of the bed. “It wasn’t hard once I knew where to look. I tried to get in touch with your father, the Duke of Alderley, but he proved a difficult man to track down. I don’t know how you thought you were going to keep up the pretense, Kim. Or were you going to bring in an accomplice to play this so-called Duke of Alderley when you needed him?”

  Kim merely stared at Odelia, still stunned by this denouement.

  “I think the real trouble began when your ex-husband contacted you. Daniel Taylor was your high school sweetheart. Sadly enough he was still in love with you, and when he happened to see you in Saint-Tropez a couple of days ago, you knew you had to do something or he would blow your cover.”

  “It was a terrible coincidence,” said Kim reluctantly. “He was vacationing here, and when I ran into him he was so happy to see me. I wasn’t happy, but as luck would have it, I was alone when we bumped into each other. But you’re right. It would have ruined everything.”

  “But then you saw an opportunity. The messages you had sent Emily weren’t enough to drive her away from Harry, so something more drastic needed to be done. And that’s where Daniel came in. You invited him aboard the Audrey, but instead of taking him into your cabin, you took him into Emily’s. How did you manage to make her sleep so soundly, I wonder? Did you also inject her with something, the way you tried to inject me just now? You are a registered nurse, after all, aren’t you?”

  “Just a little Midazolam,” said Kim. “Nothing harmful.”

  “The knife you stabbed your ex-husband with was less innocent, though, wasn’t it?”

  “I wondered how he could have survived that,” said Kim. “The message he sent—or that you sent—said that the knife had bounced off his breastbone and missed his heart. It had cut through a major artery and caused a lot of bleeding and a collapsed lung, but he would live. So none of that was true?”

  “No, I’m afraid Daniel is very much dead,” said Odelia.

  “Stupid of me,” said Kim softly. “I was convinced I’d stuck that knife into him deep enough, but it all had to happen so fast I was starting to doubt my own memory of what happened.”

  One of the French police officers who had arrested her now stepped forward. “Why did you do it, Miss Jones? Why did you kill Daniel Taylor?”

  “Because he was going to blow my cover,” said Kim. “Just as Odelia has already indicated. And it was important that I continued to be Sarah Dawson in the eyes of the Griffiths family.”

  “But why?” asked the cop, who looked like the rugged type, with stubbled cheeks and tousled hair. “Why pretend to be Sarah Dawson?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” she said. “Harry Griffiths is going to be one of the richest men on the planet one day. Once he takes control of the family business, he and his wife will become the number-one power couple in the world. And I fully intended that wife to be me.”

  “You want to marry Harry Griffiths?” the cop asked.

  “Yes, I do,” she said, her voice a little tremulous. She probably shouldn’t be saying all this, she briefly thought, but it was clear that the jig was up, and that they had her dead to rights. So at least she could start building the story of how she had pulled it off. A book, maybe even a movie based on her life now loomed large on the horizon. She might not become a billionaire’s wife, but she could still become a millionaire. “Harry was going to marry Emily King, some silly dance instructor from nowhere. So when I read about their upcoming nuptials on Page Six I figured why not me instead? And we all know that rich Americans love a British royal. And I was right. Amanda Griffiths loved me from the moment she laid eyes on me. I didn’t even have to plant the idea in her mind that her son might marry an actual royal. She got that all by herself. Couldn’t wait to introduce me to Harry, in fact. Now all I had to do was get rid of the Zumba girl. Which was harder than I thought, I have to admit. She was pretty persistent, and so was Harry.”

  “And so you resorted to more drastic measures,” said Odelia.

  “Kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of my no-good ex-husband once and for all, and get Emily out of the picture. Even though Steven and Amanda were prepared to be a little creative with the famous clause of Grandpa Griffiths, they couldn’t allow their son to marry a convict. And so the coast was clear for me to step in and console the grieving Harry, who was already starting to develop feelings for me, I could tell.”

  “How did you get a hold of Emily’s picture?”

  “Paid a hacker,” said Kim simply.

  “And killed him,” Odelia added.

  Kim shrugged. “Prove it.”

  “Oh, but I will,” Odelia assured her.