Heavenly Honeymoon (Zoe Donovan Mysteries Book 15) by Kathi Daley

plates filled with fabulous-looking food that the kitchen staff had assembled with admirable efficiency. I knew the chitchat portion of the conversation was necessary, but I really hoped Ellie would get around to asking about the yacht. Rosa, Jerrell, Kai, and Sebastian all had attended the dinner cruise as part of the culinary staff. Other than Captain Jack, they really did make the best suspects.
    “By the way, the dinner you prepared the other night was to die for,” I interrupted. “I do hope you had a chance to have some?”
    “The kitchen staff and I ate in the lounge on the bottom deck while the guests were all on the upper deck after dinner,” Sebastian confirmed. “I must say I really did outdo myself with the stuffed lobster.”
    “That must be why no one was in the kitchen when I went in there to look for a knife,” I commented.
    “Jerrell remained on the upper deck in the event that anyone needed something. You should have asked him to fetch a knife if you needed one,” Sebastian scolded.
    “Yes, in retrospect that’s what I should have done. I just figured I’d find Rosa or Kai in the kitchen because they’d done such a fantastic job of taking care of our needs up to that point.”
    Sebastian looked at me oddly. I suppose my statement could have come off sounding like a complaint, although I was actually just fishing for additional information on the movement of the kitchen staff.
    “Yes, the pair do a good job,” Sebastian eventually replied.
    “It must be quite a challenge to cook for a large group on the yacht when you’re used to the spaciousness of this facility,” Ellie commented.
    “Not really. The number of guests I must feed during a dinner cruise does not even compare to the number I serve in the restaurant each evening.”
    “I’m sorry I missed the cruise.” Ellie sighed. “I would love to have seen the kitchen on the vessel. There’s something very romantic about the notion of cooking at sea.”
    Was Ellie flirting?
    “I’d be happy to show you the kitchen any time you’d like,” Sebastian offered. “We wouldn’t be able to actually take the boat out without Captain Jack in attendance, but I’m sure Mr. Ewing won’t mind if I gave you a tour. I’d need to clear it with him first of course, but I don’t anticipate a problem.”
    I nodded at Ellie to accept. This might provide me with the opportunity I needed to sneak around and figure out how the man I know I saw did what he did.
    “Would tomorrow work?” Ellie asked.
    “Say eleven thirty?” Sebastian confirmed.
    “I’ll meet you there.”
    Ellie and Sebastian chatted for a few more minutes before he waved the waiter over to take us back to our table.
    “Way to go, Ellie,” I complimented once we’d returned to our table.
    “How’d it go?” Zak asked.
    “Ellie flirted her way into an invitation to take a tour of the yacht,” I answered.
    “I wasn’t flirting. I really am interested.”
    “You were flirting,” I insisted. “And it worked. I really think I can figure this out if I can take a look around. I especially want to get a look at the lower level of the yacht. If there was a dark-skinned man on board, and there was, he must have been hiding below the main deck where we spent the majority of the evening.”
    “Sebastian didn’t exactly invite you to come along,” Ellie reminded me.
    “So I’ll just show up. What is he going to do? I’ll excuse myself to use the ladies’ room while he shows you the kitchen. I won’t need long. All I need to figure out at this point is how the man I saw could have gotten into the hallway without going through either the kitchen or the lounge, and where he might have gone after he killed Ricardo Jimenez.”

Chapter 7
Friday, July 31
     
     
    I decided it would be in my best interest to feed Toad a small amount of information so it wouldn’t look like I was keeping things from him. It would be easy for him to find out that Zak and I had dined with Charles