Page 93 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

“Does it matter?” Marina asks. “Your husband is a surgeon. You had access to the drugs. Astrid was going to expose you at the costume gala.”

“Those are lies,” Poppy says, but her voice has gone thin. “Rumors. Mean-spirited gossip.”

The lady doth protest with suspiciously excellent posture.

“You mentioned your recent shoulder replacement,” I say, nodding toward the shoulder she’s been favoring all cruise. “You’ve been taking painkillers for a while now, haven’t you?”

“They’re well known to be addictive,” Marina adds. “Especially when you’re dealing with chronic pain.”

Poppy’s façade is crumbling now, her eyes filling with tears. “I... my shoulder... the pain was unbearable. The pills helped. That’s all. It’s not what you think.”

“Astrid threatened you, didn’t she?” I press. “She knew about the affair your husband was having. She knew you couldn’t leave the marriage because your design firm barely pays for its own fabric samples. You needed the financial security. I understand that on some level. Astrid didn’t. She wanted to publicly humiliate you. That’s why you killed her.”

She gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. “No. No, you don’t understand...”

“Then help us understand,” I say.

The tears spill over, ruining her makeup. “She was going to destroy me. Stand up at the gala in front of everyone and announce that my perfect marriage is a sham. That I’ve known about the affair for three years and stayed anyway because I’m financially dependent on him. That I’m stealing pills from my husband’s practice like a common criminal.” Her voice breaks. “My kids go to Yale and Stanford. I serve on charity boards. I have a reputation in my community. Astrid was going to take all of that away just to prove she had power over everyone.”

Yale. Charity boards. A pharmacy in her evening bag.

For half a second, my heart aches for her. She’s spent years smiling through a marriage that hollowed her out, managing the pain with pilfered pills and a flawless blowout. Then I remember Astrid gasping for air on the floor of this very lounge, and the ache packs its bags and books the first flight home.

“So you poisoned her,” Marina says.

“I had to!” Poppy’s voice rises, and a few women nearby glance over. She lowers it to an urgent whisper. “Don’t you see? She was relishing the humiliation my husband had already put me through. We’re friends, Trixie. Please. I have children. I didn’t think the drugs would actually kill her. I was just going to teach her a lesson. Make her a little sick. Make her stop the madness she was wielding over each and every one of us. Do you know what her favorite Viking trait was? Humiliation.”

“But her heart was weak,” I say. “And the oxycodone triggered a heart attack.”

“I didn’t know!” Tears sprout from her eyes with sprinkler force. “How was I to know that? I didn’t know about her heart condition. I just wanted her to feel what it was like to be vulnerable. To be powerless. To⁠—”

She stops as Magnus suddenly materializes directly in front of her, his face inches from hers even though she can’t see him.

“Murderess,” he says quietly. “You killed my Astrid.”

Poppy shivers and wraps her arms around herself. “Why is it so cold suddenly?”

Funny how the temperature always answers to the dead. If only the dead answered to a heat wave. Now that would be a happy haunting.

“I think we need to have a chat with security,” Marina says, pulling out her phone.

“No!” Poppy lunges forward and grabs Marina’s arm. “Please, you can’t—my children⁠—”

“Let go of her,” I say firmly.

Her manicured nails dig into Marina’s wrist. “You don’t understand what this will do to my family. My reputation. Everything I’ve built...”

“Please let go,” I tell her. “We don’t need to say anything to anyone right now.”

Marina tries to pull away, but Poppy’s grip tightens.

“It was an accident!” the woman cries.

“And we will back you up on that,” I say as I do my best to pull Marina in my direction, and just like that, a tug-of-war breaks out with Marina playing the part of the rope. Poppy yanks her in one herculean move, and both women stumble in an effort not to fall. I grab for Poppy’s arm just as Magnus roars and somehow, impossibly, shoves Poppy backward.

She slams into a high-top table, sending champagne flutes flying and landing with a crash loud enough to wake the dead. Present company excluded. He’s already up and thrilled about it.

Women scream and gasp. A smattering of applause breaks out, along with one well-meaning cheer from a woman who clearly believes this is part of the entertainment.