Curried Lobster Murder: Book 14 in The Darling Deli Series (9 page)

“Thanks,” the other woman said. “I really think that’s all I have myself, I guess the doctor is just being overly cautious. I told him it started right around dinner time, but he still thinks that the symptoms are too severe for regular food poisoning. I don’t have much of a fever, though.” She shrugged. “Either way, it was really nice of you to come visit me. You didn’t have to; you should be out celebrating. I heard that you won today’s challenge. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Thanks.” The deli owner couldn’t hold back her smile. “I hope you feel better, Daphne. It would be nice if all of us contestants could get together for one last dinner after the competition is over. I think all of us are good cooks, and we could really learn a lot from each other. We all share a passion for food, and would probably have a lot to talk about once we aren’t so focused on winning this thing.”

“Well, as long as I can keep the food down, I’d be happy to join you and whoever else for one last meal once this is all done,” Daphne said. She smiled. “Now, go celebrate your win. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

Moira and Candice took her advice and went to go find a dining room serving an early dinner. The deli owner had once again skipped lunch, and she had been so anxious about the challenge that she hadn’t eaten much for breakfast either.

They were debating whether to try one of the buffets or a nice steak place overlooking the main deck when Nadine and her father, Doug, ran into them. The woman looked much better than she had at the end of the competition, and Moira was glad that she wasn’t on the verge of tears anymore. The woman seemed nice enough, and it was obvious that the pressure of the competition had been getting to her.

“I’m glad we ran into each other,” she told the two of them. “We were just looking for somewhere to eat. Do you want to join us?”

“Sure.” Nadine gave her a hesitant smile.
“Where were you thinking?”

“How about the steakhouse right over there?” she asked. “The food looks good, and they’ve got outdoor seating. Plus, it’s early enough that they shouldn’t be too crowded.”

“Sure,” the other woman said. “I’m hungry enough that I’d agree to pretty much anything.”

“Hold on,” Candice said. “I told Sofia I’d let her know where we’re eating. I just have to send her a message really quick.”

Twenty minutes later, Moira, Candice, Nadine, Doug, and Sofia were seated at one of the steakhouse’s outdoor tables with a waiter taking their drink orders. A crisp breeze blew in from starboard, and they could hear strains of music from the deck above. It was a beautiful night.

“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.

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…

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?

“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.”