Page 91 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

She walks away and disappears into the crowd of women in velvet and leather, and I make a mental note to send a slice of seven-layer chocolate to her cabin later. Make that two slices. Princess cake can’t carry that woman’s load alone.

Marina turns to me. “Do you believe her?”

“I think so. The grandmother argument is compelling. Nobody in their right mind poisons a cocktail with three grandbabies on the line. Although right mind is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting on this cruise.” I scan the room while my thoughts sprint through everything Sienna told us. “But if she didn’t do it, someone else did. Someone with just as much to lose.”

“Someone whose husband is a doctor,” Marina says quietly. “Someone on charity boards. Someone addicted to painkillers.”

“Someone who’s been very helpful pointing me toward other suspects,” I add.

We stand there while the party rages on around us. Magnus floats past with another champagne flute, blissfully unaware that we may have cracked his case wide open.

Some ghosts rattle chains. Mine rattles the dessert table.

And then I see her across the room.

A woman in cream and gold laughs with a cover model, her hand drifting up to touch her own shoulder. She rolls it slightly, and her face does this tight little flinch she smothers with a flawless smile before it can testify against her.

The shoulder roll. The careful way she moves. The composure of chronic pain managed through sheer force of will and, if Sienna is right, a pilfered pharmacy.

The prescription medications. The perfect exterior hiding the crumbling interior. The concerned friend who has been ever so helpful, steering me toward everyone else in the room while wearing her innocence right next to her pearls.

And it all clicks into place with an almost audible snap.

“Oh my word,” I breathe.

Marina looks at me. “What?”

“Marina,” I say slowly, my stomach doing a swan dive, “I think I know who the killer is.”

And to think, I let that woman feed me cookies.

CHAPTER 22

Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about cornering a killer at a party.

The killer is the easy part. The party is the problem.

The Valhalla Lounge hasn’t gotten the memo that justice is about to be served. Women are laughing, champagne is flowing, and the music thumps hard enough to rattle the chandeliers loose from their moorings.

The oiled-up cover models are still flexing for photos, and the whole scene feels surreal the way parties do when you’re standing on the edge of solving a murder while everyone else is simply trying to have a good time. Somewhere between me and a confession stands a wall of velvet capes and a shirtless man named Sven whose bicep has its own fan club.

Magnus floats over, grinning. He knows exactly what I’m thinking. He usually does. It’s one of his less charming qualities.

“The devoted queen stands alone,” he observes as he drifts alongside me. “How very poetic. How very convenient. Shall I loosen her tongue for you? In my prime, I could make a woman confess to any number of things. Most of them enjoyable.”

“Don’t start,” I mutter under my breath.

“I haven’t said anything incriminating yet.”

“Yet being the key word.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

I grab Marina’s arm and start weaving through the crowd, dodging women in elaborate gowns and men whose entire job description boils down to two words: be shirtless. The party is reaching that point where everyone’s had enough champagne to be loud and uninhibited, and I have to navigate around several enthusiastic conversations about Viking book boyfriends and historical accuracy.

Spoiler alert, ladies. The real Vikings smelled like herring and wet wool, and the closest any of them came to a skincare routine was sea spray to the face.

We pass the dessert table, and I spare one longing glance for the saffron buns. Justice now. Carbs later.