Read Cruel Capers on the Caribbean: A Kate on Vacation Mystery (The Kate on Vacation mysteries) for Free Online

then shook his head.
    “I get doctor,” Jorge said from the doorway and took off running.
    Skip shook his head again as he moved back out into the living room area. “It’s too late for a doctor.” He picked up the receiver of the phone on the desk.
    Kate choked back a sob. Rob put his arm around her shoulders. She turned her face into his chest.
    “Please send the captain and ship’s doctor to cabin 1030,” Skip said into the phone. “There’s been a death.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    K ate and Skip stood to one side of the room with the captain, as the ship’s doctor confirmed Skip’s assessment that the lady was indeed dead. Rob was standing by the open doorway. Jorge was once again wringing his hands in the corridor.
    “Stand aside please. I’m a doctor,” a male voice said from behind Rob.
    He stepped further into the room and the man with the silver hair maneuvered past him.
    Dr. Hudson moved quickly to the opposite side of the bed from the ship’s doctor. He leaned down and raised one of Cora’s eyelids, then grabbed her wrist to feel for a nonexistent pulse.
    “Please don’t disturb the body, sir,” the ship’s doctor said.
    “How do you know she’s dead if you don’t examine her?” Hudson replied curtly.
    “I already have examined her, sir. Now please step back.”
    Hudson had turned Cora’s arm over as he’d attempted to find a pulse. He pointed to a puncture mark on the inside of her elbow. “Her pupils are dilated. I’m guessing an overdose.”
    Kate’s chest ached. Tears sprang to her eyes.
    “You friends of hers?” Hudson asked. “Has she been depressed lately?”
    Kate nodded mutely, unable to trust her voice.
    Skip cleared his throat. “She’s been having relationship problems.”
    “Where is that young man of hers? I saw them arguing earlier.” Hudson looked around the suite.
    The ship’s doctor had a pained expression on his face.
    The captain stepped forward. “Thank you, sir, for your willingness to help out, but I believe we have the situation under control.” He escorted the man from the cabin.
    The ship’s doctor gently turned Cora’s arm back over to the position it was in before Hudson arrived. “Anybody have a camera handy?”
    “I’ll get mine,” Rob said.
    The doctor walked over to Skip and Kate, his hand extended. “Ted Madigan.” He was the first crew member they’d met who sounded like he was from the U.S.
    Skip shook the man’s hand. “Skip Canfield. This is my wife, Kate.”
    The doctor glanced back at the bed. “How long have you known Ms. Beall?”
    “We just met her, the first day of the cruise,” Kate answered him. “Doctor, she didn’t use drugs. That’s what she fought with her boyfriend about. Not that he uses them either, but his friends do. She’d told him he had to chose between them or her.”
    Doctor Madigan nodded.
    “What happens now?” Skip asked.
    The doctor shrugged. “We’re out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, so the captain is king at the moment. It’s up to him.”
    “We dock in New Orleans in the morning.” Kate said. “Won’t he tell the police there what happened?”
    The doctor shrugged again. “Why don’t you folks go back to your cabin? The captain will come find you if he needs more information tonight.”
    ~~~~~~~~
    K ate awoke with a start. Morning light filtered through the curtains that fluttered lazily over the half-open balcony door. Skip snored softly beside her.
    She’d been dreaming–an odd dream, a jumble of images and sounds. Cora and Clem arguing at the bon voyage party, Cora’s pale face above her burgundy robe, a teenaged girl crying. Kate realized the latter was her mind imagining the daughter’s reaction to the news of her mother’s death. Her heart ached for the poor child she had never met. The girl had endured multiple parental divorces, and now she was essentially an orphan.
    Kate glanced at the bedside clock. Six-ten. They were due to get up in another fifty minutes for