Oliver Twisted (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 3) (23 page)

CHAPTER 61

Make Haste!

I couldn’t untie my hands. I tried. I gave up and struggled to my feet. I nearly lost my balance (damn Dramamine), but made it across the wavery floor to my next obstacle: the library door. The heavy door opened inward. How in the world was I supposed to pull it open?

My mushy brain went to work. The door had a lever handle—easier than a knob.

I tried using my mouth (I did say my brain was still mushy) but realized pretty quickly that wouldn’t work. I turned around, placed my tied-up hands on top of the handle, squatted so that my hands pushed down the lever handle, then used my free fingers to grasp the door and pull it toward me. Not that hard once I figured it out.

Now I had to get to the theater. It should’ve been simple, but my mental state and tied-up hands made it slow going. I even took a wrong turn and ended up in the casino. “Hi,” I said to the few folks who were still up gambling. “Could someone untie me?”

An older man with silver hair leapt to his feet. “Of course,” he said as he loosened my hands. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Oh, just playing a little game.” I winked at him. “And my boyfriend fell asleep. Too much vodka.”

“Ah.” The gent reddened, cast a glance at a white-haired woman playing Nickleby’s Nickel Slots, and fingered the neckerchief he’d just untied. “Would you mind if I borrowed it for the evening?”

“Keep it. And thanks,” I said as I scooted out of the room. On to the theater. I pulled my cell phone out of my skirt pocket as I race-walked down the hall (running was still not an option). I punched in Uncle Bob’s number on speed dial. As soon as he picked up, I said, “Valery’s one of the thieves, but he didn’t kill Theo. He ran off to meet the real killer onstage. Meet me there ASAP.”

“Ivy?” said a familiar voice. Not my uncle’s.

“Timothy?” Shit, I dialed wrong. “I was trying to call Uncle Bob. Call him and tell him what I said, okay?”

“I don’t have his number.”

“Figure it out.” I hung up. The theater doors were right in front of me. How should I do this? Enter backstage, to begin with. Much more discreet.

I went as quickly as I could to the backstage door and was just about to open it when a thought struck me. Val kept saying, “one of the thieves.” Oliver had said Timothy taught him to steal. Had I just called the killer and told him my plans?

My seawater-and-spider-web-filled brain wasted precious seconds trying to figure out what to do, until raised voices from inside the theater prompted me to move. I quietly pushed open the stage door and slipped behind one of the black velvet curtains.

“I know how you feel.” Val’s voice. “I am orphan too.”

Too?

“I do not think you know,” said Madalina.

Shit, I was right. I just had the wrong orphan.

“I do not feel,” she said. “That is why I can kill.”

Even my web-filled brain knew that was a threat. What could I do? I looked around for a weapon. Everything backstage was locked up tight. I looked above me. I had it. I padded silently to the ladder that led to the catwalk and climbed up.

“Maybe I teach you to feel,” said Val.

I stole onto the catwalk. The two of them faced off below me onstage. Something glittered in Madalina’s hand. A knife?

“You teach me?” Madalina tried to sound cynical, but I heard the plea underneath. Then she laughed, a hard bitter sound. “No. We are not the same. Maybe it was the time I spent in dark rooms. Or the cigarette burns. Or…” Even I heard her swallow. “Or the men.”

I crept to the place where my silk was looped up out of sight.

“Where there is life there is hope,” said Val.

“Ha. You sound like Theo: ‘Think positive and all will be good.’ Do you know what he said when I told him I knew about the children? He believed he was giving them better life. And because he believed, it must be so. His power of positivity would keep them safe.” She snorted. “Even as he handed little girls over to bad men.”

I tugged on the knot in my silk and tried to remember how many carabiners to check.

“So you killed him?” Val said.

“I did. I did not feel bad. I hoped I would. When I heard what he did with children, my heart cracked. It hurt, but it was feeling. I thought my heart was healed, that I feel again when I kill Theo. But I did not. And I do not want to go to jail, so I must kill you. And Ivy.”

I unlooped my silk.

“You are going to kill me with that knife? I am too strong for you.”

“I thought you would be Ivy and I would surprise her. But do not worry. I have seen much in my life. I know other ways to kill. You and she, you are dead by morning.”

“No.” Valery started toward her, his hand held out. “It is over. Give me the—”

“Ivy!” Timothy flew in the backstage door. Val turned to see, Madalina lunged at his back with the knife, and I jumped off the catwalk and into the air.

CHAPTER 62

A Brief Reputation for Undaunted Courage

“Did so,” Timothy said.

“Did not,” I said.

“Did so.”

“Kids, could you stop arguing about whether Ivy yelled like Tarzan and tell me exactly what happened?” Uncle Bob had arrived with Bette just seconds after Timothy’s entrance. We were all still onstage waiting for security to take Madalina and Val to the brig.

“I swung down on my silk,” I said.

“And she gave a Tarzan yell.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.”

“Are you guys like five years old?” said Uncle Bob. “Cut it out.”

Mr. Brick Bungalow from security walked in. His eyes got big when he saw me.

I said to Uncle Bob, “So I swung down and hit Madalina.”

“It hurt.” Madalina rubbed her neck.

“Hello? You were going to kill me and Val.”

“Yes. Okay.” She shrugged.

“And when Madalina fell, the knife flew out of her hands,” I continued.

“Nice work,” said Val.

“Thank you.”

Uncle Bob sighed.

“And then Timothy charged onstage—”

“Charged. Has a nice manly sound to it,” said Timothy.

“And wrapped up Madalina in duck tape.”

He’d done a pretty decent job of it, too. She sat on the stage like a duck tape-trussed goose.

“I keep a roll of it handy now,” said Timothy. “Just like Ivy.”

“You keep a roll of duck tape handy?” Brick asked me. I remembered his dog collar and declined to answer.

“Timothy tried to duck tape Val,” I said. “But I stopped him.”

“It was smart,” said Val. “I would punch him.”

“I thought I should subdue him since Ivy said he was the thief,” Timothy said to Uncle Bob.

“One of the thieves,” Val said.

“About that,” I said.

“Later,” said Uncle Bob. “So you stopped Timothy from subduing Val because…”

“Because Val was trying to protect me,” I said. “And because except for maybe wanting to punch Timothy, Val isn’t dangerous.”

“What about Harley?”

“Pretty sure she died because of her epilepsy.”

“Sudden unexplained death in epilepsy.” Val sounded as if he’d committed the words to memory.

Bette, who had been silent up to now, said, “And Valery didn’t kill Theo.” It didn’t sound like a question.

“No. I am not killer. I am thief. Also lover.” Val slid closer to me.

“I am killer,” said Madalina. “But I do not care. Theo deserved to die.”

“You used the vaping liquid, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yes. I put some in his drink and pour some on his mask.”

“Were you one of Theo’s orphans?” Bette asked gently.

“I do not think so.”

“But you killed him because of the children?” said Bette.

“I kill him
for
the children. Now maybe more can feel.”

I nodded. Bob and Brick looked at me.

“I’ll explain later,” I said.

“Me too,” Bette said.

“I will explain now,” Val said. He told everyone about how he’d been duped by his fake cousin. “I thought I steal to help my family. But I have no family.” He shook his head sadly.

“You kept saying you were ‘one of the thieves.’ What did you mean?” I glanced at Timothy, who was twirling his roll of duck tape around his finger and looking as unlike a thief as you could get.

“There are ten, maybe more, on this ship,” said Val.

“You know who they are?” asked Uncle Bob. Timothy still looked innocent. Pretty sure I had that one wrong.

Val shrugged. “Sure.”

“You willing to give them up?” said Uncle Bob.

Val’s eyes traveled the darkness above the stage. “I think they know Nikolay is not my cousin. Some even tell him about my eyes. They let me think I steal for family, when I do not have any.” He brought his gaze down to meet mine. “I give them up. “

“Time to go then,” said Brick, hauling Madalina to her feet.

“One more question,” I said. “Val, the rest of the booty is hidden in the library, right?”

“Booty. Ha.” Val slapped my ass.

“I’m serious.”

“Yes. Look for the ugliest books.”

Ah. The books where I found the stash were dog-eared with scarred covers. “Is that why you thought no one would find the stuff? Because people only check out the best-looking books?”

“No one likes ugly books. Also,” he said as he followed Brick out the backstage door, “most guests don’t check out Dickens’s books. They like BBC DVDs.”

CHAPTER 63

The Foulest and Most Cruel

I was quiet as I followed Uncle Bob and Bette down the hall, partly because I was distracted by the way my feet sank underneath the surface of the carpet (was this Dramamine stuff ever going to wear off?), but mostly because life felt particularly unfair. Madalina and Val had nightmare childhoods and now they were going to prison.

My companions were quiet too, but right before we came to Bette’s cabin, Uncle Bob stopped and turned to her. “I guess you’ve figured out that Olive isn’t my niece’s third cousin.” Bette nodded. “She’s my niece.” Another nod. “And my employee.” Bette didn’t nod this time, but raised her chin in a question. Uncle Bob sighed. “I’m not Bob Stalwart and I’m not a rancher. I’m Bob Duda, private investigator. Olive and I were hired to find out the story behind all the thefts onboard this line.” He looked at Bette, whose eyes were downcast. “I’m really sorry I lied to you. Please. Say something.”

He’d just given Bette the perfect opportunity to come clean about her real identity. But she kept her eyes averted as she swiped her keycard in the cabin door lock. “Come in.” She opened the door.

Bette guided us to the cabin’s loveseat and sat in an armchair across from us. No one said anything for a minute. We needed to talk, but how to start the conversation without putting any of us on the spot? I began by telling them about Madalina, what she meant when she said she wanted to help the children feel, about how she shut down her emotions in order to survive.

“It’s not just her,” said Bette. “Many children raised in orphanages grow up without the ability to form emotional bonds.” Bette had dropped her accent. Uncle Bob didn’t seem to notice. All his attention was focused on her face. “Those who grew up in the really awful places in Romania and Eastern Europe had it especially bad,” she continued. “A lot of them have severe reactive attachment disorder. Some never learned to function outside an institution.” This vocabulary didn’t belong to the Bette we knew, but my uncle seemed unfazed. “Many grew up without a sense of right and wrong. They were often beaten, and whoever was strongest was the ‘winner.’ I should have thought more carefully about all that before I talked to Madalina, but I was so angry with Theo.”

“What exactly did you tell her?” I asked.

“That Theo was selling children. He had been for years. Called himself an adoption broker. Pretended he was giving children better lives. Or maybe he convinced himself, I don’t know. He started with the Rumanian orphanages. Moved on to a wider area. Then he started buying children from their parents.”

“You found this out when you were on that trip with Theo? When you thought he was selling drugs?”

She nodded. “Remember when I said I found out about a meeting? I followed Theo to the poorest section of town. His contact met him in a tavern, then took him to an apartment building, a horrible bleak place, concrete blocks held together by mold. I watched from a hiding place below. The building’s doors all opened onto outside walkways, so I saw Theo and his contact go into several apartments. Each time they came out, they emerged with a child, who was handed off to another person who led her—they were mostly girls—to a white van. Six children in all. And that was just that one apartment building.”

Bette stood up and paced. “It took years before I had enough evidence to expose Theo. I came on this cruise to give him one more chance to repent before I exposed him. After all, he was rich. He could start to fix some of the damage he’d done, maybe fund a foundation or give the money to legit adoption agencies. But when I told him I was going to tell the world about his dirty secret, he just laughed at me. ‘Who’s going to believe you?’ he said.

“He was wrong about that, but I couldn’t wait. So I started poisoning the well close to home. I told Madalina first.” She shook her head angrily. “I’m not sorry Theo’s dead, but I am sorry it was her who killed him.”

She sat down. I waited. Nothing. What was up with this woman? She sounded like some sort of avenging angel, but how could we trust anything she said if she was pretending to be someone else? I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Don’t you have something else to tell us? About your name?”

She looked at her lap. “Yeah. Um. I’m not really Bette Foxberry.”

The color went out of Uncle Bob’s face.

“I’m Bernadette Woodward, but you might know me better under another name.”

“Wait,” I said. “You have
three
names?”

“Sometimes I need to go undercover.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a PI too,” said Uncle Bob.

“When Theo fired me, I finally knew what I really wanted to do, to make sure that creeps like him didn’t get away with murder. I’m not the cop type, and I didn’t want to study law, so I went back to school and became an investigative journalist. Then I started my own online news site, ‘All Bets Are Off.’”

I was speechless. “All Bets Are Off” was huge—the biggest investigative news website in the country, if not the world. They broke big stories about corruption in government and corporate misdeeds and hushed-up environmental disasters.

“I write under the name Bernie Woodard. Sort of a nod to the real guy.” Bette turned to me. “You know, from Watergate? Woodward and—”

I gave her an “I’m young but I’m not stupid” look. She shut her mouth.

“So you’re not really an oil widow,” said my uncle, shaking his head in wonder. “Had me fooled.”

She shook her head. “Bob, I’m really sorry.”

Suddenly Uncle Bob laughed. “Bette.
Bette
. From ‘All Bets Are Off.’”

“Gotta love a little pun.” She smiled hesitantly.

“This is great!” Uncle Bob jumped up and grabbed both of us. “See, Olive was right. You
were
suspicious. I mean, this whole time you were pretending to be somebody else. Sort of like an actor.” He slid a look at me. “And I was right, because you are a good person. A good woman.” The top of his cheeks flushed light pink as he looked at Bette.

“And a member of the media.” I wasn’t willing to give up the fight just yet.

“An investigative journalist,” said Bette. “Note the adjective. It’s not unlike—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I said. “You’re like an actor and a PI.” Now I gave up the fight. I had to. I had a grudging respect for the woman. And Uncle Bob was looking at her like she was his favorite sandwich
and
a beer.