Sweet Tea and Sass Read online

  Anna Mae and April had gone with me to talk to Kevin, but the rest of the girls had stayed poolside.

  "I'm gonna go back to my cabin and try to take a nap," April said. "This whole thing has exhausted me, and I didn't sleep well." She huffed a breath out her nose and shook her head. "Gerard was on the phone half the night closing some big deal. I swear, I'd love to throw that phone overboard."

  "I can’t say I blame you," I said, imagining how irritating it must be. "Good luck. Let us know if you find it."

  She nodded and split off from us.

  Anna Mae looped her arm through mine.

  "You know," she said, "I brought you on vacation so you could actually relax. I know you want to help her, but really, what can you do that the captain and ship authorities can't?"

  I sighed. "I know. I just feel bad for her. We don't have many heirlooms in our family, but I can't imagine how I'd feel if I lost the only part of Addy or my mother I had left. At least we tried."

  "It's not necessarily over," she said. "Maybe Katie and her friends will find them stashed somewhere, or the captain will figure out who really did it."

  "Regardless," I said, "It's a beautiful day and we have cool drinks and sunshine calling our names."

  "We do," she said.

  I'd just settled back on my pool lounger with another fruity drink to replace the one that had melted to nothing when Cheri Lynn popped in.

  "Hey, y'all," she said, and I took the towel off my eyes and looked up at her. She was still wearing her yellow bikini ensemble.

  "Hey yourself," I replied. "Where've you been all morning? We were starting to get worried about you."

  Her face flushed a little and she broke eye contact. "Just floating around checkin' things out," she said. "You know, people watchin' and stuff."

  Addy narrowed her eyes at her. "And stuff? What kinda stuff?"

  Still avoiding eye contact, Cheri Lynn muttered, "Just ... stuff." She looked up and smiled. "So, what did y'all do this morning? Anything good? Did you get massages?"

  Now I was suspicious. Cheri Lynn was always an open book, and she was like me—a bad liar who generally opted to evade the questions rather try to fib her way out of them.

  "We did get massages, which you would have known if you hadn't been MIA all morning," Raeann said, propping herself up on her elbows and pushing her sunglasses up. "Now tell us what kinda stuff you're talkin' about. You're hiding something, so spill."

  The pretty ghost pulled in a deep breath and huffed it out. "Fine. It's no big deal. I just found out me and Addy aren't the only living-impaired folks on board."

  "Really?" my aunt said, floating closer to her. "How many others are there? I haven’t seen any of them, though that would explain the breathing Noelle thought she heard this morning. I wondered at the time if that was it."

  Cheri Lynn lifted a shoulder. "I don't know. I've met four but didn't ask if there were more of them."

  There was no reason for her to hide that. It's not like we didn't know ghosts existed, so I didn't understand why she'd been shady about it. Then it dawned on me. "Is one of them perhaps an attractive gentleman? About your age, maybe?"

  "No," she scoffed. "He's a few years older than I am."

  I grinned at her, and when she realized her mistake, she scowled at me, then gave us all the hairy eyeball. "Fine. I met a guy, and he seems nice. But I've known him all of four hours. Don't go gettin' all weird and scarin' him off."

  Addy puffed up, her smile a mile wide. "When do we get to meet him?"

  Cheri Lynn turned to her, brows raised in protest. "See? You're gettin' weird already, and he isn't even here. I swear, I wish I'da kept my mouth shut."

  Coralee kept a straight face, but her blue eyes were twinkling. "Now sweetie, you know we only want what's best for you. We promise we'll be on our best behavior if you bring him around."

  "That's the problem," Cheri Lynn muttered as she faded out. "Even your best behavior is scary."

  I laughed, calling out to her, "It's only scary if he can't hack it!"

  She replied, but what she said wasn't exactly ladylike. Or unearned, either, if I was being fair.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WE LAZED AROUND FOR another hour until we got hungry again, then hit the buffet near the pool. I tried to keep it light, but just like with all buffets, even a little of this and a little of that added up.

  "There are starvin' kids in Africa," Addy said, scowling at me when I set my half-full plate down and leaned back in my chair. "You dished it up, now you eat it."

  "I can't," I said. "My eyes were bigger than my belly."

  "At least wrap it up and take it back to the room. You can snack on it later."

  I sighed, knowing it was useless to argue with her. Besides, she was right; the partial ham sub, potato salad, and chocolate cake would make a fantabulous midnight snack.

  "I can't believe you went for a ham sandwich when there’s all that seafood available," Rae said, popping a cocktail shrimp into her mouth.

  "I didn't skip the seafood," I replied, reaching over and snatching a shrimp off her plate. "I just ate it first, and the ham sandwich is what was left."

  Bobbie Sue pushed her empty plate away and leaned back with a deep, contented breath. "I do have to say, it's nice to have somebody cookin' for me for a change."

  She was a hard worker and rarely took a day off from the restaurant. Her husband Earl was the pit master and worked right alongside her, and I'd never seen two people put so much of themselves into a place.

  Bobbie'd protested coming on the trip just because she didn't want to leave him stuck with the whole kit and kaboodle, but he'd insisted. Shelby, my little sister, had assured her that she'd help keep things running while we were away. Though she was only sixteen and could be a real pain, she was a good kid at heart and knew that restaurant inside out. I had faith she was pullin' her weight so Earl wasn't doing it all himself. Plus, Sarah was there, and she knew the place like the back of her hand.

  "I'm glad you decided to come," Anna Mae said. "It wouldn't have been the same without you."

  "I'm glad too," she said, adjusting her bathing suit top. "I never imagined coming on one of these, but I sure am having a good time so far."

  Anna Mae laughed. "I don't think any of us ever planned on doing something like this, but here we are."

  Coralee hmphed. "I don't know about you all, but I've planned on doing exactly this. It just wasn't in the cards for another few years."

  "You're not the least bit worried about your shop?" Raeann asked. I'd had to pry her away from her coffeeshop, though that was a little different. Her business was new, and she didn't really have the cash to hire somebody. We'd twisted Shelby's arm into working there one day so that Angel, Rae's lone employee, could have a day off. Rae's mom, my Aunt Beth, was covering the admin side and, I imagined, happily working her butt off doing everything else, too.

  "Nope," Coralee said, pulling the scrunchie from her wrist and twisting her bottle-blonde hair into a messy bun. "Alysse is perfectly capable. The only thing I have to worry about is Belle"—the previous owner and resident ghost—"bossing her into giving everybody a beehive. Belle kept the place runnin' for forty years before she kicked the bucket. I reckon between the two of them, they can keep it afloat for a week."

  "I guess I'm gonna run back to the room to put this in the fridge," I said, cutting my eyes at Addy.

  "We may as well all load up," Anna Mae said. "That way, we'll have somethin' to munch on when we get back. I wanna go see that comedy show tonight, then maybe hit the casino afterwards. What do you all think?"

  We all agreed that was a plan, so we gathered our stuff and made another pass at the buffet, adding a bit more to our plates.

  "They do have free room service round the clock, too," Rae said, shaking her head when I added another sandwich wedge to my pile. "So it's not like we're gonna starve."

  "I know," I said. "But it's here. And besides, if I wake up hungry, I don't wanna have to w
ait."

  We'd made it almost back to our rooms when the sunshine reflected off something shiny caught on the bottom rung of the railing that ran along the outer perimeter of the ship.

  "Hold up," I said, squatting down to see what it was. It was a delicate gold chain, and when I unwrapped it and held it up to get a better look, my stomach sank to the floor. It had a gold nameplate that had a fancy, swirling monogram that said AK, and there were enough diamonds in it to choke a horse. Not little chips, but actual stones.

  "AK. That's gotta be April's," Bobbie Sue said, stepping closer to peer at the chain. "The thief must have dropped it when he—or she—was escaping the scene."

  Had the situation not been so serious, I would have smiled at her cop talk. She kept shows like Criminal Minds and NCIS running almost non-stop in the kitchen while she was working.

  I leaned over the railing hoping to see a triple strand of pearls stuck somewhere else, but all I could see was a row of lifeboats.

  Rae looked at me. "Are you thinking what I am?"

  I nodded.

  "Try it," she said. "You're better at summoning spells than I am, and I didn't pay particular attention to the pearls, so I can't picture them as well as you can."

  I drew in a deep breath and looked around to make sure we were still alone. We were. Closing my eyes, I pictured the pearls around April's neck. The dull gleam, the way each one was shaped, the teardrop pendant, then I muttered a few words and held out my hand. The other girls had gathered at the railing and were looking over, waiting for something to happen. Nothing shot into my hand, but something was clanking several feet below us, near the lifeboats.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "THERE!" ANNA MAE SAID, pointing.

  Sure enough, several feet below us, a strand of pearls was struggling to fly upward just as I'd coaxed it to do. Only it was tangled with something about halfway between us and the boats and couldn't break free.

  "Stop," Addy said, then slipped overboard to go have a look.

  She swooped up close to the necklace, then shook her head. "Call off the spell. They're gonna break if it keeps up."

  I whispered a few words and the pearls stopped struggling; instead, they dangled from the piece of rope they were tangled in.

  "So how do we get them?" Anna Mae asked.

  Cheri Lynn had popped in while I was working the spell. "And how do we explain how we found them?" she added.

  Lifting a shoulder, Bobbie Sue said, "Simple. Just tell the truth. Sort of. The best fibs are all rooted in truth anyway. Noelle saw the gold necklace, and we did the logical thing and looked overboard. We saw the pearls, end of story."

  "Well we can't just leave 'em hanging there," Coralee said. One of us needs to stay here and keep an eye out in case they fall."

  "We can do better than that," Raeann said, smiling. She muttered a few words and the pearls jumped to cling to the rope. "At least now they'll stay put," she said, glancing at me. "But one of us needs to be here to release the spell when somebody goes after them."

  "All right then,” I said. “I've been to April’s room, but don't know the number. I'll go get her, since I'm the only one who knows where it's at."

  "Wait," Bobbie Sue said, sticking out her arm to stop me. "Doesn't it seem odd that a robber dropped two extremely valuable pieces of his loot?"

  "Well, I guess when you put it that way, yeah," said Anna Mae.

  "I think somebody got rid of them on purpose," Bobbie told us.

  "Gotta be," Addy said from over my shoulder. "There's no such thing as coincidence, and one necklace dropped on the deck and another falling overboard at the exact same place is too hinky."

  Rae took her turn peering over the railing, then looked at me. "Wait, you think somebody chucked it all overboard? Why?" As soon as the words had left her mouth, I saw realization dawn.

  "Because," Coralee said, "it's a lot harder to convert jewelry to full cash value than it is to file an insurance claim if it's stolen. I know, because when I lost my grandmother's diamond-and-ruby brooch, they cut a check without even checking anything other than the police report. And the appraisal was much higher than I’d have got if I’d pawned them or sold them."

  I chewed on that, but it didn't seem reasonable that any insurance company would just hand over their money without so much as a second glance. "Not to say the brooch was anything less than priceless," I said, "but we're talking about a lump sum here that amounts to more than all of us make in ten years combined."

  She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. It seems like a lot to us, but to the kind of insurance company we're talking about, losing that much money is barely a blip. A rounding error."

  Addy had zipped back up and was hovering next to us. "Are you gonna stand there yappin' all day, or are you gonna go get the captain?"

  "I was gonna go get April, but I guess you're right—we should get him instead." As bad as I hated to think it, April may have been the one to toss them. After all, I really didn't know her. My only problem was that I had no idea where to find the captain, and it was a massive ship.

  "C'mon, ladies," Bobbie Sue said, apparently thinking the same thing I was. "We'll find somebody who works here, and they can help us track him down."

  We lucked into running straight into Katie as soon as we made it back to the pool area. She'd just seen him and pointed us in the right direction. Thankfully, he wasn't far, because at that point, we'd practically run from where we'd found the necklaces all the way back to the pool, all of us still carrying plates of food covered with another plate turned upside down over it. I could only imagine how we must have looked to everybody else.

  "Sir," Raeann called, but he didn't turn away from the tanned, chic people he was speaking to.

  "Try Captain," Addy said, floating ahead of us. "That's likely as good as a first name to him. He's used to listening for it."

  "Yeah," Cheri Lynn added. "He's pretty high and mighty about titles, from what I've heard."

  I was in a rush, but my brain picked up that she hadn't been around for that conversation when we’d talked to Katie, so she must have heard it elsewhere.

  "Who told you that?" I asked, and grinned despite the situation when her shimmery face went pink.

  "His name is Rupert, if that's what you're diggin' for," she said, shooting me the stink eye.

  "It was, thank you," Raeann said before I could respond. "I didn't ask, but only because Noelle beat me to it."

  "Don't you have a robbery, or whatever, to solve?" she asked, scowling at us.

  She was right. "Yes," I replied. "We'll revisit this when we have a minute."

  "Of course we will," she said, brow raised. "Besides, I was gonna introduce y'all tonight anyway. He loves the casino and wants to play with somebody."

  "Play with somebody?" I asked, confused. I held up my hand. "Nevermind. We'll talk later."

  We'd almost reached the distinguished man responsible for running the ship. "Captain?" I called.

  Addy was right. He turned around as soon as he heard it.

  "Yes?" He looked back and forth between us and raised a brow at the droopy plates. He was tactful enough not to say anything, thankfully. "Is everything okay, ladies?"

  I wobbled my head back and forth. "With us, yes, but look what I found on the way back to our room." I held up the necklace and he leaned closer to get a better look, his brow furrowed.

  "AK?" His gaze darted back up to mine. "Where did you find that?"

  "On the passageway deck, stuck on a railing post and dangling over the side," I said. "Maybe halfway between here and our cabin."

  He raised his brows. "And that cabin is ..."

  "Oh," I said, feeling a little silly. Of course he didn't know which room we were in; there were only a thousand or so on the ship. "Of course, I'm sorry. 8320—a suite stateroom."

  "Also," Anna Mae said, "when we looked overboard, we thought we could see more stuck on the lifeboats below."

  "Thank you," he said, holding out his hand for th
e necklace. "I'll take care of it."

  Call me cynical, but just because he was the captain didn't mean I was going to hand over a necklace worth a kazillion dollars when I already knew whom it belonged to.

  "That's okay," I said. "We were going to April's room anyway. I'm Noelle Flynn. If you'll recall, I was with her yesterday when you were speaking with the Kings in their room."

  He gave me the side eye for a second. I figured he was weighing the benefits of causing a fuss to get the necklace from me. Diplomacy ruled the day. "Why don't we go together?"

  That worked for me, so I nodded, then turned to the girls. "Do y'all wanna go back to the pool and wait on me, or are you coming with us?"

  "Oh, we're coming with you," Cheri Lynn said. I couldn't exactly acknowledge her answer in front of the captain because he'd think I was a donut or two shy of a dozen for talking to thin air. Coralee saved me from that when she repeated what Cheri Lynn said. The other girls nodded in agreement.

  "Lead on, Captain," I said. "We have a necklace to deliver."

  On our way to April’s cabin, we showed him where we'd found it.

  Bobbie Sue leaned over the railing and pointed toward where we knew the pearls were snagged. "And we think we saw something else hanging down there, but we're not positive."

  His gaze tracked to where she was pointing and he squinted.

  I couldn't see anything, but hoped he'd gloss over the fact that he couldn't either and investigate just in case. I got my wish.

  "The boats are accessible, but I want to be there when they pull them in," he said.

  I was glad at that point that I'd done the sticking spell because it would have sucked to find the pearls just to have them knocked into the ocean when crew members were trying to save it. Rae or I would have to be there when they pulled it in so we could release the spell, though.

  "Since we found it, I'd love to be there when you do that," I said. "I'm dying to see if her grandma's pearls are there."