Midnight Shimmer: A Toni Diamond Mystery (Toni Diamond Mysteries Book 3)

Midnight Shimmer Copyright © 2014 by Nancy Weatherley Warren.

Toni Diamond zipped up her lilac colored travel case and wheeled it to the front door. For about the tenth time she confirmed that she had her passport, the boarding passes for the cruise ship, and the boarding passes for the flight that she’d printed from her home computer.

Since she was a few minutes early, she checked her appearance in the hall mirror, then dug out her mini makeup bag and freshened her lipstick.

“I hope I brought enough shoes,” her mother said, dragging the largest suitcase on wheels that Toni had ever seen.

“Mama, we’re only going to be on the cruise for seven days. How many pairs of shoes do you think you’re going to need?”

“You’d be surprised,” Linda Plotnik said. “Between the formal dinners and lunches and the cocktail parties and the shore excursions, a girl can never have too many pairs of shoes.”

Toni was never one to argue with the obvious. Instead, she raised her voice. “Tiffany? Honey? Are you ready?”

Sounds that could have been mistaken for the wail of the newly raised dead reached her ears, faint but plaintive.

“Yep, I guess she’s ready.”

“He’d better be on time,” Linda said, peering out the front window.

“Luke is always on time,” Toni said, and barely had she finished speaking when Luke Marciano pulled into her drive. His tough-guy cop’s eyes were hidden behind dark shades. He was driving the latest of the vintage cars and trucks that he bought and fixed up in his spare time. This one was a navy-blue Chevrolet Nova, 1968, and she only knew this because it had been all he could talk about the last few weeks. She supposed it was better than hearing about his day job, which, since he was a Dallas detective, could be pretty gory at times.

“Tiffany? Luke’s here,” she yelled upstairs.

Her daughter, who would turn seventeen aboard the
Duchess of the
Caribbean
in less than a week, walked toward them with all the youthful vigor of a 90-year-old breathing her last. “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”

“One day, honey, you can write about me in your memoirs—about how cruel I was, forcing you to go on a Caribbean cruise—but for now we need to get going.”

Tiffany’s only answer was a dramatic eye roll. At least her daughter had abandoned the Goth look. Toni was naturally biased, but she thought Tiffany was on her way to being a beauty, with long dark hair, blue eyes and the most engaging smile, when she bothered to smile. Dwayne Diamond, her father, had been useless for most things, but the man had passed on some fine DNA in the looks department. Fortunately, Tiffany had not inherited his intelligence, or his morals.

Toni opened the door before Luke reached it. He walked in, giving her a quick kiss. “You girls all ready?”

“Please don’t make me go,” Tiff appealed to the cop.

He looked as sympathetic as Toni had ever seen him. “I feel for you, believe me, I do, but somebody’s got to look after your mom.”

Toni turned on him. “Are you saying I can’t look after myself?” Really, after bringing up a daughter single-handedly and building a successful business in the cosmetics industry, she found his chauvinism a little hard to handle.

He pulled off his sunglasses and leveled his steely cop stare at her. “The last time I let you out of my sight, you got shot.”

It wasn’t as though she’d
intended
to be attacked by a crazed killer. She stuck her nose in the air, and it was a large nose, so the gesture meant something. “I doubt anyone will try to shoot me on board a cruise ship.”

“And that’s the only reason I’m driving you to the airport.” He came closer, took hold of her shoulders. “But you keep your nose out of places where it doesn’t belong,” he said. “You hear me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay, then. Let’s go.” He turned to grab the bags and nearly stumbled when he saw her suitcase. “Are you kidding me?” he asked.

“What?”

He stared at her bag. The lilac hard-sided case was decorated in fake diamonds that spelled her website address, www.ToniDiamond.com. “You buy that at luggage-is-us?”

“Of course not. I had the case custom made,” she said, not without pride. “My name is my brand and every time someone sees my name, I want them to click on my website, where they will discover the wide range of beauty products available from Lady Bianca Cosmetics.”

He gazed from her case to Linda’s, which made up in sheer size for not having a diamond-encrusted Web address. Also, the bag was bright purple.

Last, he turned to Tiffany’s case. It was half the size of her mother’s, and black. Following Luke’s gaze, Toni said, “Honey, you should make your suitcase stand out in some way. Ninety percent of the bags on the carousel at the airport will be black.”

“I can recognize mine,” Tiffany said. “It’s scuffed at the corner. See?” And she pointed to the slight discoloration on one edge of her bag.

“Okay, then,” Luke said, ending an argument before it began. He hefted Toni’s bag in one hand, hauled Linda’s behind him on its wheels, and the three women followed him, Linda and Toni rolling their on-board luggage, Tiffany dragging her single wheeled bag behind her. Her school backpack, slung over her shoulders, contained her computer.

When they got in the car, Linda pulled out a blister package of pills and punched one out. She retrieved a bottle of water from her carry-on bag and glugged down a pill.

“What’s that, Grandma?” Tiffany asked.

“My airsick pills.”

“You get airsick?”

Linda smiled at her. “Not if I take my pills.”

She swallowed a second pill. They drove for a couple of miles, then Linda said, “How many passengers did you say are on this ship?”

“Around three thousand.”

Linda jerked upright. “I don’t think I brought enough sample packs.”

Luke stared at Toni, settled beside him on the bench seat of the old car. “I thought this cruise was supposed to be a holiday?”

“Honey, I won the cruise for having the best sales in the country. You don’t seriously think two top saleswomen are going to sit on their butts suntanning while thousands of potential customers surround them every hour of every day?”

Instead of answering her, Luke glanced in the rearview mirror and his gaze connected with Tiffany’s. His eyes crinkled in an almost smile. “You know how to swim, kid?”

They bade Luke goodbye at the Dallas airport and waited for their flight. Linda, always a nervous flier, popped another couple of her pills. Two hours later, they arrived safely in Fort Lauderdale, ready to embark on their ship, the
Duchess
of the Caribbean
. Toni had never been on a cruise before and she was wildly excited.

The prize had been two tickets and, knowing she couldn’t pick her daughter or her mother without somebody’s feelings getting hurt (whatever Tiffany said to the contrary), she’d paid extra to bring both of them.

They took a taxi to the terminal and drove what seemed like miles to get to their ship. When the cab let them off, an efficient team took charge of their luggage and directed them to the boarding area.

The ship was moored directly ahead of them and it was enormous, rising like a great skyscraper from the ocean. Linda took one look at the ship, pulled out her packet of pills, and punched another one out of the blister pack.

“I thought those were airsick pills,” Tiffany said.

“They also work as seasick pills. I think they’re good for any motion sickness.” She paused to think. “Well, maybe not rollercoaster sickness. You know, a pill can only do so much.”

“Do you get seasick?”

“How should I know? I’ve never been on a cruise before, but my motto is better safe than sorry.”

There was a line to get on board. It was a long line, but Toni enjoyed every minute of it, chatting to the women near her, gazing up and down and mentally cataloguing every weakness she and Lady Bianca could fix, from dry skin to outdated eye shadow colors. Once they were close enough to glimpse inside the terminal, they saw ropes cordoning the mass of passengers into another long, snaking line.

“This reminds me of auction day at the stockyards,” Linda said, glancing around. “And there are some fattened porkers here that’d bring a pretty price.”

“Inside voice, Mama.” It was true, though, that pound for pound, cruisers seemed to be a heavier demographic.

“Oh, barf,” Tiffany said. Toni followed her gaze to a boisterous group of twenty-somethings piling out of two cabs. The women all wore tight white shorts that barely covered their butts and skipper’s caps, as well as identical bright pink T-shirts that said,
Last Stop Before Married
.

“Which one do you think is the bride?”

Tiffany glanced at her. “I’m guessing it’s the mean-looking one with the wedding veil underneath her skipper’s cap.”

“What fun! I bet they’re getting married on board.”

“You know what’s sad? They paid money to get T-shirts printed and the best they could come up with was
Last Stop Before Married?
”

“Not everyone’s as smart as you, honey.”

“The guys are worse. Check them out.”

A matching half dozen young men wore white Bermuda shorts and black T-shirts that said,
Groom Support
. And a beefy guy in the middle had a white shirt that said,
Groom
.

“Well, what they lack in literary talent, they make up in enthusiasm.” Or possibly alcohol consumption.

“Are they seriously getting married on board?”

“I guess so. There’s a wedding chapel.”

“That is so pathetic.”

Then the woman in the veil shrieked. “No! Don’t let them touch it. Matt? You have to carry the dress.”

And the beefy guy obligingly lifted a heavy-looking vinyl garment bag from the arms of one of the porters. The bag was printed with gold lettering from a bridal boutique. “Is she going to make him carry the wedding dress through this whole line? I bet it weighs a ton,” Linda said.

“Those shirts should read,
Doom Support
.”

Even as she giggled, Toni said, “I think it would be romantic to get married at sea. Do you think the captain performs the ceremony? In his uniform? I hope he has a British accent. I bet he does.”

“If she’s already treating him like crap, why is he marrying her?” Tiffany was clearly more interested in the wedding couple than in the mechanics of cruise ship weddings.

“It’s probably stress. Brings out the worst in people.”

“Maybe they’re getting married at sea so he can drop-kick her overboard after the knot is tied and collect the life insurance.”

“Tiff! That is an awful thing to say.”

“Made you laugh, though,” her daughter said with a
gotcha!
grin.

Checking out their fellow passengers helped pass the time and even if Tiffany’s comments were mostly sarcastic, at least she was enjoying herself. And making her mother and grandmother laugh.

There were cheerful attendants at various stages along the line, and soon they were herded to a woman who passed them all a health questionnaire. They were asked whether they felt sick, were running a fever, had been ill recently. Had they been exposed to Ebola?

“Reading these questions is making me feel queasy,” Linda said.

“Just tick No to everything, Grandma.”

“People come on cruise ships with Ebola?”

“I’m sure they don’t do it on purpose, Mama.”

After about an hour of various lines for different security and boarding procedures, they headed up the gangplank.

Once on board, they were directed to their suite. Naturally, Tiffany had argued that she needed her own stateroom. Naturally, Toni had disagreed. Instead, she’d booked them all into a suite that consisted of two single beds and a seating area with a pull-out couch.

The room was larger than she’d imagined it would be and resembled a hotel room more than her vaguely romantic notion of bunk beds and portholes. There was a bathroom, a TV, and hotel-room art on the walls, but the showstopper was the double doors out onto the balcony, where the sparkling blue water beckoned. She could see five other cruise ships docked and a spit of land sprouting houses and apartment buildings.

Even Tiffany began to look cheerful. “Let’s go up on deck and see what’s going on,” she suggested. They didn’t have their luggage yet, so there wasn’t much to do but go out as they were.

They walked a couple of flights up to the Lido deck and found some of their cruising companions had already donned swimwear and were lounging in the pool and hot tubs, or reclining on the deck chairs that were lined up, row upon row. Between the sparkle of sun off waves and sun off suntan oil, she was glad she was wearing her dark glasses.

A live band played rock and roll in one corner and four young people in white shirts and Bermuda shorts led a group of happy looking passengers in the twist.

She contemplated joining them but thought she’d get oriented first.

“Oh, I see the buffet is open,” she said, as a man walked by with a tray loaded with a hamburger, a plate heaped with French fries, a slab of lasagna, a pile of taco chips snow-capped with sour cream and dripping with salsa and guacamole, a quarter of a pizza, and a watermelon slice.

“So’s the bar,” Linda said, heading for the curving outdoor bar. A cheerful guy was serving drinks to half a dozen passengers sitting on stools. “Well, isn’t this nice?” she said, bellying up to the bar.

The bartender gave her a huge smile. He seemed like he really loved his work. “What’ll you have, pretty lady?”

Linda twinkled at him. “I’ll have a martini.”

“Mama, you never drink martinis.”

“I know, but to prepare for the cruise I watched
An Affair to Remember
with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant.” She sighed heavily. “And when they were on board they drank cocktails. It looked so sophisticated, I was determined to have a martini as soon as I got aboard.” She pulled out her cruise card, which was connected to her credit card. “Drinks are on me, girls. What’ll y’all have?”