Grave Seas: A Maddie Graves and Rowan Gray Mystery Read online

  “She could.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I hate to be a nag, but I don’t suppose you’ve checked the photos again, have you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. No omen.”

  He blew out a sigh and wrapped his arms around her, swaying back and forth as he considered the conundrum. “Just so I’m clear, as far as you know, there’s never been an instance of the omen not showing up on an old photo you’ve taken if the individual died, right?”

  He was expecting her to instantly say yes. Instead, she hesitated.

  “What, Ro?”

  “Well, I don’t know how to answer that question,” she admitted after a beat. “I told you already, I always see the omen and then act accordingly. I try to save the person who is going to die. I’ve never had a situation where I was looking for the omen and it didn’t appear.”

  Quinn decided to take a rational approach. “What about people you’ve saved? I mean ... when you see the omen and manage to thwart death, the omen disappears. Does it ever reappear? Those people aren’t going to live forever, after all.”

  Rowan pulled back so she could study his face and worked her jaw. “I haven’t even looked. That’s an interesting thing to wonder about, though.”

  “Is there a way to check?”

  Rowan nodded without hesitation. “Yes, but I need to get into my old computer files. We’ll have to go back to the room ... or, well, the new room. I moved the rest of our stuff, by the way. We’re officially cohabitating.” She let loose a rueful smile. “That’s kind of exciting, huh?”

  The cohabitation part didn’t bother Quinn. They’d spent practically every night together from the start. They often shared three meals a day together and checked in multiple times during work shifts. The look on her face told him she was a bit worked up about it, though. “Are you having second thoughts about moving in with me?”

  “Of course not!” Rowan’s eyes went wide. “I just ... what if you get annoyed living with me? What if you decide you don’t like spending that much time with me after all? Don’t look at me that way. I’m not being insecure ... well, mostly. I’ve just never lived with someone before.”

  “I haven’t either.” Quinn’s fingers were steady as he combed them through her hair and debated what he should say to soothe her frayed nerves. “Ro, we spend at least fifteen hours a day together already,” he noted, choosing his words carefully. “I’ve been infatuated with you from the moment I saw you. I don’t foresee that changing.”

  “You weren’t infatuated with me that first day,” she protested, chuckling. “You thought I was annoying and weird.”

  “Not true. I thought you were beautiful, mouthy, and weird. It was an intoxicating combination.”

  Rowan laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “It’s been a fun adventure so far. I can’t help being a little nervous. It’s a big step for us.”

  “Not really. I basically made your room my room every night. The only reason I even went back to my room is because there wasn’t enough room in your closet for all my clothes. Now we have more space and the same love we always had. It’s going to be good.”

  “It is.” She gripped his hand and squeezed. “We’re going to have the best life together.”

  “Of course we are. I never doubted that for a moment. Are you saying you did?”

  “I worried when we didn’t know why the Phoenix Society was after me,” she admitted. “I was afraid that your life was going to be ruined because of me.”

  “As long as I have you, life is perfect. Don’t think things like that. We were going to be happy regardless.”

  Honestly, Rowan knew that was true. The declaration swamped her, though, and she threw her arms around his neck. “I want to get married relatively soon,” she admitted. “I don’t know if that’s a problem given the fact that we work together, but I don’t want to wait.”

  He moved his hands up and down her back and smiled against her cheek. “I think that’s a fabulous idea. We’ll pick a date as soon as this is over with. I don’t want to wait either. I just need to get through this first.”

  “That sounds like a plan.” She blew out a sigh and tilted her head back. “I’m starving. We need to eat. Then we can head back to the room and go through my old photos.”

  “So, let’s head out. I’m hungry, too, and didn’t even realize it.”

  THE DINING ROOM WAS PACKED by the time they arrived. Rowan’s eyebrows hopped at the activity. They usually ate early, which meant they could hit the tiki bar as dusk settled and avoid the busiest times with the guests. That wasn’t really an option today.

  “We might have to take our food someplace else,” she noted as she glanced around. “Wow. This place is buzzing.”

  He put his hand to the small of her back and scanned the crowd, his gaze ultimately falling on Maddie and Nick. They looked to have just sat down at a four-top and they each had two plates heaping with food in front of them. “Actually, I see where we can sit. Get your food and then meet me by the dessert table.”

  Rowan didn’t put up a fight. She was too hungry. “No problem.”

  By the time they regrouped, Rowan had two huge plates full of food — one was completely full of crab legs — and Quinn was practically drowning in prime rib and pasta.

  “Ready?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

  She nodded without hesitation. “I am. Where are we going?”

  “This way.” He led her straight to Maddie and Nick, pausing at the end of the table to catch the detective’s eye. “Do you mind if we join you?”

  Nick immediately started shaking his head and moved his napkin to his mouth, his manners demanding he wait to respond until he’d swallowed his food. “Please. This place is really busy tonight. I guess I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “My guess is a lot of the guests are attending the magic show in about an hour,” Quinn explained as he organized his food and got comfortable next to the tall Michigan man. “The magician is a big draw and some people come on the cruise simply to see him.”

  “A magician?” Maddie furrowed her brow. “Really?”

  Quinn chuckled at her response. “Really. I’m flabbergasted, too. I’ve always found magicians a little creepy.”

  “I don’t think they’re creepy,” Maddie hedged. “I just don’t think they’re very entertaining.”

  “Maddie likes her magic doled out in the form of tarot cards and psychic readings,” Nick teased.

  “Oh, you’re a fan of that stuff?” Rowan queried. She wasn’t quite as comfortable around the couple as Quinn, but she liked them a great deal. She’d only interacted with them briefly the previous day and found them to be delightful. “Psychics and tarot readers, I mean.”

  “Oh, well ... .” Maddie looked hesitant and Rowan couldn’t help but worry that she’d touched a nerve.

  “That’s none of my business. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  “No, it’s not a big deal,” Maddie replied hurriedly. “It’s just ... I work as a psychic.”

  Whatever Rowan was expecting, that wasn’t it. She lifted her eyes, surprise evident. “Really?”

  Maddie bobbed her head. “Really. My mother owned a magic shop in a small Michigan town called Blackstone Bay. She cultivated quite a name for herself. When she died last year, I came home and kind of took over the gig.”

  “Oh.” Rowan didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry about your mother. I lost my mom when I was in high school. It’s difficult. You still have your father, though, right?”

  “I do have my father.” Maddie’s eyes remained trained on her scallops. She didn’t want to be one of those people who shared family secrets that nobody cared about, but she couldn’t seem to contain herself. “My father is a relatively recent addition, though. He left when I was a child and only came back last Christmas.”

  “Oh.” Rowan felt like an idiot for prying. “That is ... terrible. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, well ... it is what it i
s. We’re getting along very well and he gave me away at my wedding so it’s not all bad. My grandmother also lives with us.”

  “That can’t be comfortable,” Quinn noted. “I mean ... I’m sure you love her. Living with an elderly relative can be taxing, though.”

  “Oh, Maude doesn’t act old,” Nick countered. “In fact, it’s more like we have a teenager than a grandmother. She’s a bit of a ... pain in the behind.”

  Maddie shot him a look. “She’s not all that bad.”

  “Oh, please.” Nick rolled his eyes. “You know I love her, Mad, but she’s a lot of work. Right now, for example, she’s throwing nonstop parties at our house while we’re on our honeymoon. We converted the garage into a private apartment for her. The house is a Victorian and she can’t go up and down the stairs anymore. Basically, since we’re not there to police her, she’s been buying a keg every night and annoying the neighbors. Since Maddie’s father is one of our new neighbors, and Maude hates him, I think she’s having a grand time with her Pink Ladies.”

  Rowan sat there for a moment, a crab leg in her hand, and tried to wrap her head around the information Nick had just unloaded on them. Finally, she snagged onto the portion of the conversation that had stood out to her most. “What are the Pink Ladies?”

  “Granny’s social group,” Maddie replied. “They basically play cards and drink bourbon most days. Occasionally they get it in their heads to torture my grandmother’s arch nemesis.”

  Quinn couldn’t stop himself from asking the obvious question. “Your grandmother has an arch nemesis?”

  Maddie nodded without hesitation. “Oh, yeah. She hates Harriet. The things she’s done to her over the years, they’re ridiculous. She gets a kick out of it, though, and it keeps her young. I don’t discourage her.”

  “We don’t discourage her because it keeps her busy,” Nick explained. “Plus, well, Harriet is a terrible person. It’s always funny when she and Maude go at each other.”

  Quinn leaned back in his chair, amused despite himself. “You guys have been together for a long time, huh? You obviously know each other well.” It wasn’t that he didn’t know Rowan well, he told himself. It was simply a different sort of familiarity.

  “We do,” Maddie confirmed. “We met the first day of kindergarten and spent all our time with each other after that.”

  Nick sent her a fond smile. “I fell in love with her when I was five.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes. “You did not. Don’t listen to him. We were best friends all throughout elementary, middle, and high school. Then I left for college and we fell out of touch, not reconnecting until I returned to Blackstone Bay after the death of my mother more than a year ago. That’s when things got romantic.”

  “Um ... I happen to remember a certain time when we were in a funhouse and I knew things were going to turn romantic between us,” Nick argued, his eyes lit with amusement. “That was when we were in high school.”

  The eye roll Maddie offered up was so exaggerated Rowan was surprised she didn’t fall out of her chair. “Don’t tell that funhouse story,” she warned, extending a finger. “You know I don’t like it.”

  “I think it’s a romantic story,” Nick countered. “It doesn’t need to be told on our honeymoon since it agitates you, though.” He shifted his eyes to the couple sitting across from them. “What about you guys? How long have you been together?”

  “Only a few months,” Rowan replied. “They’ve been great months, though.” She smiled at Quinn. “Actually, they’ve been the best months.”

  “You’re engaged, though.” Maddie indicated the ring on Rowan’s finger. “Was it love at first sight?”

  “Yes,” Quinn answered automatically before Rowan could shut down the answer she knew he would offer.

  “It wasn’t love at first sight,” Rowan said. “It was lust at first sight, though.”

  “I know how that goes.” Nick’s smile was indulgent as he poked Maddie’s side. “The second I saw she was back — even though I was really mad at her at the time — I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stay away from her.”

  “You gave it a good shot,” Maddie argued.

  “Yes, that token five minutes of protest felt like five years,” he teased.

  “It kind of felt that way to me.”

  Nick slid his arm around Maddie’s neck and leaned close. “Destiny always finds a way, Mad. Even then, I knew that. We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.”

  She beamed at him. “We are.” After a moment, she remembered they weren’t alone at the table and turned her attention back to Rowan and Quinn. “So ... are you guys Florida natives?”

  “Actually, I’m from Michigan,” Rowan volunteered, taking Maddie by surprise. “I grew up in southeastern Michigan, though. Kind of by Lake St. Clair.”

  “Really?” Maddie was officially intrigued. “I’ve been in that area. After I left Blackstone Bay, I went to nursing school. I worked at one of the Detroit hospitals for a few years and we used to go to the lake all the time because they had good restaurants. The Nautical Mile in St. Clair Shores.”

  Rowan bobbed her head excitedly. “That’s pretty much exactly where I grew up. After I graduated from high school and my father died — although he’s really not dead and he’s now back in my life, which is a completely weird story to tell people I’ve just met — but, anyway, I went to college to be a photographer and worked at both the big Detroit dailies for a bit before I got laid off. That’s how I ended up here. I answered an ad in the newspaper after losing my job.”

  “Newspapers are struggling,” Nick noted. “It’s sad, really. People don’t want to pay for their news. They want constant access on the internet but don’t believe they should have to fork over a dime for it. How do they think these newspapers are going to pay the people who gather the news?”

  “It’s really sad,” Rowan agreed. “I think there will be a bounce back eventually, but people are prone to believing anything they read on the internet and assuming it’s fact ... which it’s not. True journalism is an art form. People have lost sight of that given what’s going on with the cable news channels.”

  “It’s definitely sad,” Nick agreed.

  Maddie made an incredulous face. “Seriously? You’re going to discuss the state of newspapers in the world today? I admit that’s a terrible thing, but she just said her father came back from the dead. I don’t want to talk about newspapers. I want to talk about that.”

  Rowan turned sheepish. “Oh, well ... .”

  Quinn chuckled at her reaction. “Go ahead and tell them. They’ve been helping me all day. They watched Ben while my men searched for Lindsey and I dealt with Violet. They’re friends ... and trustworthy.”

  “Speaking of that ... .” Maddie shifted on her seat. She was decidedly uncomfortable but felt she needed to share the information Lana had so graciously plopped in her lap. “I want to hear about your father coming back from the dead but there’s something I need to tell you. I heard it from one of Violet’s friends.”

  “Was she drunk at the time?” Quinn asked dryly.

  Maddie bobbed her head. “Yes. She was awful. Still, I figured I should tell you.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “Lana said Violet was a pathological liar who would do or say anything to get attention. I’m not sure what you were dealing with today but ... I know it was with Violet. I don’t like talking about people behind their backs, but I figured it might be important.”

  “I appreciate that,” Quinn said gravely, exchanging a quick look with Rowan. “Violet hasn’t been easy to deal with. I’ll take the information under advisement.”

  “Great.” Maddie turned a genuine smile to Rowan. “Now tell me about your father coming back from the dead. That has to be the story to end all stories.”

  Rowan giggled and relaxed. She honestly liked Maddie. The night wasn’t going to be too tense after all.

  Eleven

  They talked over dinner and then took
their conversation to the tiki bar. Once there, Nick teased Maddie about overindulging and then ordered a piña colada for her himself because she was feeling reticent after her antics the first day.

  “Trust me. You have nothing to worry about,” Quinn reassured her as they settled into a booth. He found he enjoyed Nick’s company as much as Rowan enjoyed chatting with Maddie. It wasn’t that he didn’t have friends on the ship — because he did — but Nick was different. He was a calm soul, never raised his voice, and he was so devoted to his wife he made Quinn feel normal ... mostly because he got a lot of guff from Demarcus and Michael, the captain of the ship, for fawning all over Rowan. Nick did the same with Maddie so he didn’t even notice when Quinn turned soft at mention of his girlfriend.

  “It’s so neat that you read fortunes,” Rowan enthused as she sipped from a Mai Tai. “Are you psychic?”

  Maddie shrugged. “Oh, well ... .”

  “She’s magic,” Nick answered for her, lightly rubbing the base of her neck. “She’s always been magic.”

  Rowan smiled. “I think it’s cool that you guys have essentially been together since you were kids. I mean ... that’s magical.”

  “Not the entire time,” Maddie countered. “We were ... estranged, I guess that’s the best word ... for ten years. We didn’t speak to each other at all during that period.”

  “Which I can’t imagine.” Rowan turned wistful. “You guys seem so in tune with each other.”

  “It wasn’t my choice,” Nick volunteered. “She took off for the big city and left me in the dust.”

  Maddie slid him a sidelong look. “Something I regret.” Her voice was soft. “I really am sorry.”

  “Oh, geez.” Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. “I really wish I hadn’t brought this up. You have no idea. I was just teasing you, Mad. We’re long past this.”

  “I know but ... .” She sipped from her drink. “It makes me feel bad.”

  “You just can’t handle your liquor,” he countered. “That doesn’t mean I want you to stop drinking. I would simply prefer if you thought about happy things.”