Curried Lobster Murder: Book 14 in The Darling Deli Series Page 7

  “This is just like the first evening,” Nadine said, taking a sip of her piña colada. “We’re all sitting together again. It’s nice.”

  “Except for Bobby and Linda,” Moira said. “I still feel terrible about what happened to him, but things have just been so busy that I haven’t really had time to process it.”

  “To the Babcocks,” Sofia said, raising her drink. The rest of them toasted to that. Moira was about to add Daphne’s name to another toast, but was interrupted by a familiar stranger.

  “You guys have room for one more?” Antonio Cross asked gruffly. It hadn’t been much more than a day since he lost the previous challenge, but he looked much the worse for wear to the deli owner. He hadn’t shaved, and his eyes were bloodshot. She wasn’t sure that she wanted him to join them, but it took her too long to think of a polite way to decline him. Sofia spoke up before she could.

  “Sure, I’ll scooch over, you pull up a chair,” the young woman said, tugging her own chair over.

  The man joined them, and an awkward silence settled over the group. Will it be weird if we talk about the competition and the next challenge with him here? she wondered. Just how upset is he about being the first one to be disqualified?

  The silence was broken at last by Candice, who cleared her throat and asked what everyone had spent the day doing. Moira relaxed as the small group began talking about poolside bars, the ship’s theater, and the pod of dolphins Nadine and Doug had seen just after the competition. There was more to talk about than food, it seemed. Maybe the evening wouldn’t be quite so awkward after all.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The evening wore on slowly. The food was delicious, but somehow it didn’t seem quite as good as the Redwood Grill back home. Moira missed her friend’s restaurant and missed her own deli. She was glad that the cruise was only ten days long. How did some people stand going on two- or three-month cruises? She was enjoying the experience, but ached for something familiar. Even the stars looked different when they came out. The sky seemed endless, and the calm ocean below reflected it, eerily making it seem like they were floating in the heavens instead of on water.

  “You know,” Antonio said suddenly, surprising them all; he had been quiet for most of the meal. “I’m glad I got disqualified. I don’t have to deal with people judging everything I do for the next five days. I get to enjoy this.” He gestured broadly to the sky and the sea. “I didn’t need to win anyway. My restaurant is doing just fine. I only entered because my wife wanted a free cruise, then she ended up not coming anyway.”

  “I don’t care about the cruise,” said Sofia softly. Moira turned to look at her. The young woman had been quiet as well, even though Candice had tried a few times to draw her into the conversation. “This isn’t a vacation for me. I need the money. My mom spent the last year battling cancer, and it’s wiped out pretty much all of our savings. I need the ten grand to keep the restaurant and pay her hospital bills. We’re in some pretty serious debt and… well, if I don’t win this, I really don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  “I need the money too,” Nadine said with a sigh as she put down her drink. “I said my husband was at home watching the kids… the truth is, he’s leaving me. I’ve got to try to make it on my own as a single mom, while running a restaurant. Do you know how hard that’s going to be?”

  “I do, actually,” the deli owner said with a glance at Candice. “I was a single mom too, though I didn’t open the deli until Candice left for college. You’ll get through it; just keep your chin up and don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. I think you’ll do just fine.” She gave the other woman a reassuring smile that turned into a grimace as her stomach cramped.

  “Are you okay, Mom?” Candice asked.

  “I don’t feel good,” Moira told her. “Oh no, I hope I don’t have what Daphne has. Maybe we shouldn’t have visited her, after all.”

  “You should go to the doctor. Maybe you just ate something bad. Do you want me to come with you?”

  She shook her head. “No, you stay here and enjoy the rest of the evening. I’m going to go lay down for a bit. Don’t worry about me though, okay?” She forced a smile, which her daughter hesitantly returned.

  “Okay, I guess,” the young woman said.

  “I hope you feel better,” Nadine called after her as she left the table. “It would be terrible if you had to miss the next challenge.”

  “I’ll do my best to be there,” Moira managed to say through the cramps. “I’m sure a good night’s rest is all I need to feel better.”

  Despite her brave words, her pain only got worse as she walked down to her room. What is this? she wondered. Food poisoning? Or… could it be actual poisoning? She frowned and tried to shake the thought away as pain-induced paranoia, but couldn’t quite manage it. Now that she was thinking about it, it seemed like too great of a coincidence that both she and Daphne had gotten sick the evening after they won one of the challenges in the Chef War. Plus, there was poor Bobby, who had been killed before the competition had even started. Was it possible that someone was targeting the contestants?

  “But who?” Moira muttered, shutting the door firmly behind herself before letting herself collapse into bed with a groan. Who would want to stop the competition? Who could possibly benefit from that? It wouldn’t make sense if it was Damien or one of the judges—they had nothing to gain by wrecking the contest that they had created. It must be one of the competitors. Which meant that if this was poison, it must have been someone she was sitting with at dinner.

  “What about Daphne, though?” she said, talking out loud in an effort to distract herself from the roiling in her belly. “Whoever poisoned me must have poisoned her, too. It’s too much of a leap to guess that there are two people doing the poisoning. But none of the people I had dinner with tonight were there when I had dinner with her, except for Candice, and obviously she didn’t do it.”

  If there was one person on the boat that she trusted, it was her daughter. Maybe it isn’t poison after all, she thought as a particularly bad cramp ripped through her. Maybe this really is just some terrible, terrible type of food poisoning.

  She dragged herself into the bathroom in hopes that a long, hot shower in the dark would help her feel better, or at least clear her brain for long enough for her to think. If she went to the doctor now, chances were she would be quarantined to the infirmary just like Daphne was, and she didn’t want to risk that. Don’t be stupid, she argued with herself as she turned on the water. If you’ve really been poisoned, you need to see a doctor. There’s no point in staying in the competition if you die.

  She reminded herself that Daphne seemed to be recovering well, and she hadn’t been treated with anything except for anti-nausea medication. If this was poison it probably wasn’t that strong a poison, or else the woman who had won the first challenge wouldn’t be alive. Unless she just got a smaller dose than I did.

  “Stop it,” she muttered angrily to herself, hugging her knees to her chest as the hot water cascaded around her. “I need to think before I do something I might regret. If someone really is targeting the contestants and I go to the infirmary, dropping out of the competition, I’m just opening the door for another contestant to be hurt. On the other hand, if I’m wrong about all of this, and I just have a bad case of food poisoning, I would be throwing away the chance of winning ten thousand dollars and a spot on a cooking show with a celebrity chef because I have a few cramps. Either way, freaking out the ship’s doctor is not going to help anyone.”

  Reluctantly, she decided to do her best to sit through the pain. The warm water seemed to be helping, and she let her mind wander back over her conversation with Daphne at dinner the other night. Had she said anything that might have indicated that someone had been acting weird around her? The deli owner didn’t think so. The other woman had simply been happy after her win, and had been glad that everyone had been so nice during the competition. Everyone, that was, but Antonio Cross…r />
  Moira gasped, opening her eyes wide in the dark shower. Daphne had said that she had run into Antonio last night before dinner, which meant that both of them had had contact with the man shortly before their stomach pain had started. Was it possible that Antonio was the one trying to hurt the contestants? And if so, did that mean that he had also murdered Bobby Babcock?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “You’re sure you’re feeling better?” David asked.

  “Yeah,” Moira said, averting her gaze from the tablet’s camera. “I’m fine this morning.”

  That was almost true. She had ordered enough painkillers and anti-nausea medication through room service to dull the cramps, but she still felt miserable after a fitful night’s sleep. She was reluctant to tell David her true concerns about what she had described as food poisoning, but he seemed to have connected the lines himself.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to drop out of the competition?” he asked.

  “Of course I don’t. I want to win this thing. At the very least, I won’t be scared away by some cheater.”

  He sighed and shook his head in exasperation. “I don’t like this. Not when you’re too far away for me to do anything to help you if things go south.”

  “I’ll be careful,” she promised him. “I always am.”

  “I’m not sure I believe that,” he said, with the hint of a smile ghosting on his lips. “For someone who claims ‘always to be careful,’ you sure find yourself in a lot of trouble.”

  “Look, I’m on a ship with a lot of other people, and I promise not to go anywhere alone. I’ll be fine. But I’ve got to get going—it’s time for the third challenge.”

  “Okay. I know that nothing I can say will stop you anyway. Good luck, Moira. You may not need it for cooking, but you definitely need it if someone’s trying to get you out of the competition.”

  She closed the laptop and let the cheerful expression melt off her face. Her stomach hurt. She had no idea how she was going to get through the day. It was one thing to pretend to be fine while she was sitting at her desk; it would be another thing altogether to fake it while she was in the kitchen throwing together yet another haphazard recipe.

  The five contestants met in the kitchen again. Moira scrutinized each of the others, wondering if anyone else was hiding symptoms of being poisoned. If they were, then they were better at faking it than she was; no one else seemed to be in pain, or to be suffering beyond the usual nervousness.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Charlie said in her usual cheerful tone when she strode through the kitchen’s swinging doors. “I hope you’re all excited and ready for the third challenge. I know the other guests have been enjoying watching the Chef War unfold each night, and I hope you have been having just as much fun competing with each other. I know it’s early, but the sooner we get started, the sooner you’ll find out who makes it to the next round… and who gets disqualified.”

  The five remaining contestants shared a wary look between themselves. The sure knowledge that one of them wouldn’t be there tomorrow set them all on edge. Moira, thanks to her victory in the last round, was the only one safe from the possibility of being disqualified, but the pain she was suffering took away any relief that knowledge might have brought her.

  “Today will be similar to yesterday’s challenge in that you will have a specific list of ingredients to use, but with a twist. You will each be responsible for choosing one ingredient, and you must do so without knowing what ingredients the others are choosing. This will give us a list of five randomly chosen ingredients that you each must use to create a unique dish. And you will only have half an hour to finish cooking it.”

  A few groans rose from the gathered group. Thirty minutes would be hard to achieve at the best of times. This challenge seemed like a disaster in the making to Moira. She resolved to choose the simplest ingredient that she could think of, and could only hope that the others would do the same.

  “Please separate to your stations,” Charlie said. “Each of you will find a pen and a piece of paper waiting for you. In a moment, I will ask you to write your chosen ingredient down, and I will come around and collect the papers. No talking, please. Nadine, you’re responsible for choosing the meat. Hector, choose a spice. Moira, choose a fruit, Sofia and Michelle, you both choose vegetables. Are you ready? Go.”

  The deli owner stared at the blank sheet of paper in front of her. She had to choose a fruit that they would all have to include in their dishes? She could hardly even think straight past the pain and nausea. Why hadn’t she taken more of the pain pills before leaving her room?

  Come on, what fruit goes well with a lot of different things? she thought. Hmm… a tomato is technically a fruit, isn’t it? Wondering if she would be able to get away with it, she scribbled tomato on her piece of paper and folded it up. When Charlie came by, she handed it to her without a word.

  “All right, you’ve all chosen,” she said a moment later once she had made her circuit to each station. “This is the list of ingredients that must be included in your dishes. Trout, rosemary, tomatoes, okra, and zucchini. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Now remember, points for creativity. And… begin.”

  Moira breathed a sigh of relief as the buzzer rang. The ingredient list really wasn’t too bad. If she could actually think straight, she was sure she could come up with a unique and tasty dish utilizing those ingredients. As it was, since she couldn’t be disqualified this round anyway, she decided to go the simple route and just make baked trout with a mixed vegetable side. While she was cooking, she would keep an eye on her fellow contestants and see if any of them were acting suspicious.

  She got the trout in the oven first, then turned her attention to the vegetables, shooting surreptitious glances over at Sofia, who was to her immediate right. Last night, when the food poisoning or regular poisoning had been at its worst, she had been convinced that Antonio was the one responsible for all of this. He could easily have slipped something into her food or drink while they were eating, and he could have done the same to Daphne when they ran into each other the evening that the other woman had gotten sick. In the morning, however, when things were clearer, she realized that it could have been anyone. Just because Antonio was the most obvious suspect didn’t mean he was the only one with a motive. Just last night, Sofia had told them how desperate she was for the money. She didn’t want to believe that the friendly young woman who seemed to get along so well with Candice could be trying to get rid of the other competitors, but she knew that ignoring a potential suspect would be more than just foolish… it could be dangerous.

  She spent so much time focusing on signs of suspicious activity from Sofia that she was shocked to hear Charlie give the five-minute warning. She opened the oven to take the trout out, and bit back a curse. It had been left in too long, and while it wasn’t quite burnt to a crisp, she knew that there was no way the overcooked piece of fish would win any prizes that evening. Happy that she had her immunity to lean on, she did her best to make the plates of food look nice, then followed the other contestants out onto the ballroom floor.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Considering how things had been going for her so far during the challenge, Moira shouldn’t have been surprised to hear her name called first. She knew she couldn’t be disqualified, but she still felt a hot rush of shame as the judges tore apart her dry, flavorless dish. She hadn’t tried, and she knew it. She was too distracted by the fact that someone had tried to take three of the contestants out of the game, and had already succeeded with two of them. She was desperate to find out who was responsible before someone else got hurt, and she didn’t know who she could go to on this ship. Who could she trust, other than Candice? There was no way she wanted to involve her daughter in this. As far as she knew, the ship didn’t have any sort of police or law enforcement beyond a few security officers, and she didn’t even know if she could trust them.

  What if all of this is for the contest? she thought suddenly. B
efore Daphne got sick, we were talking about how everyone was so much nicer than we were expecting. What if people were too nice? Competitions like this thrive on drama. Even though this is just a small time cooking competition that’s only shown on this cruise ship, I bet Damien still makes a lot of money off of it. Passengers pay to be entertained while they’re here, and people getting along and supporting each other doesn’t make for good entertainment… but people getting poisoned and killed definitely does.

  She realized that everyone was staring at her. She must have been standing there silently for half a minute while she had her epiphany. Maybe I took a few too many pain pills, she thought.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, addressing the judges. “I’m not feeling good. I think maybe I have what Daphne has.”

  She watched the three judges carefully, hoping for a sign, some flash of guilt, anything that would tell her that she was on the right track. Nothing.

  “Maybe you should go back to your room and lie down,” Damien suggested gently. “You do look rather pale. You won the last challenge, so you don’t have to worry about being disqualified from this one.”

  “Okay… I think I will do that,” she said. “Thank you, and sorry about the trout.”

  She walked out of the banquet hall, upset with herself for getting so distracted while she was cooking. She had every intention of doing something to continue her investigation, but when she reached her room she made the mistake of lying down on her bed. Just a quick rest, she told herself. Then she closed her eyes, and let exhaustion sweep her away.

  When she woke up, the light coming through her room’s one window was dim and gray. I must have slept most of the day away, she thought, horrified. At least I feel better. It was true. Whatever she had been suffering through for the last day seemed to have passed, and her mind was clear now that the pain and anti-nausea drugs had gotten out of her system. She still didn’t know what was going on with her and Daphne’s mysterious illness or Bobby’s death, but she was determined to find out.