Read Laura Marlin Mysteries 2: Kidnap in the Caribbean for Free Online Page B

chips with all the trimmings.’
    The waiter opened his mouth as if to protest that the whole point of a buffet restaurant was that customers served themselves, thought better of it, and grunted assent.
    Jimmy returned with a towering platter. Rita introduced him to Laura and Tariq, but his cheeks were stuffed with lobster and although he nodded and mumbled a greeting he avoided their eyes.
    ‘Where are your parents, kids?’ asked Rita, squeezing ketchup onto her chips. ‘At the theatre? In the casino?’
    Laura opened her mouth to say that they were with her uncle who was lying injured in his cabin, but he was such an intensely private man and so loathed being an invalid that it felt almost as if she’d be betraying him. ‘We’re travelling alone,’ she said.
    Tariq looked at her in surprise. So did the Gannets.
    ‘What, without a guardian?’ Rita wanted to know.
    ‘Not exactly.’ Laura admitted. ‘We’re with my uncle but not with him, if you see what I mean.’
    Bob chuckled and waggled a chip at her. ‘I get it. He’s wearing an invisibility cloak!’
    Laura had to make an effort not to roll her eyes. ‘No, that’s not it at all. He’s real and he is on the ship, it’s just that he’s under deep cover.’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Tariq, not quite sure where she was going with this, but willing to support her all the same. And so far everything was true. Calvin Redern was deep under cover – the bed cover.
    Jimmy gave up trying to pretend he wasn’t remotely interested in them and sat up in his chair. His lobster was forgotten.
    Rita smiled indulgently. ‘You mean, like a spy?’
    ‘No, I mean he’s a detective,’ Laura told her. ‘He used to be – ‘she corrected herself – ‘still is, one of the best in the world. As good as Matt Walker. Matt’s a fictional detective, but he’s so brilliant he might as well be real. He’s real to me.’
    ‘So lemme get this shhtraight,’ said Bob, his words muffled by a mouthful of fish. ‘Your uncle who is not here really is here, and Matt Walker, whoever he is, is not real but you think he is, and both of them are detectives?’
    ‘Umm … I suppose so, yes.’
    ‘Who is he hunting?’ Jimmy said, pushing his plate away. ‘Your uncle, I mean. Who’s he after? Is it something to do with the sinister man with the binoculars?’
    ‘ What sinister man?’ Bob wanted to know.
    ‘Jimmy, sweetheart, if there’s a scary stranger on the ship, I want to know about it,’ Rita said anxiously. Her voice rose. ‘How many times have I warned you about stranger danger?’
    ‘There is no sinister man, Mrs Gannet,’ Laura said. ‘He’s making it up.’
    ‘He often does that,’ Rita told her. ‘Jimmy, are you telling stories again?’
    Jimmy scowled. ‘Am not.’
    Laura scowled back. ‘Okay, what did he look like?’
    ‘Weird. I only noticed him because everyone on the dock was smiling or excited or busy and he was like a stiff black insect, staring.’
    Beneath the table, Laura’s skin suddenly crawled as if a hundred beetles were marching across it. Tariq went still in his chair. The image was too specific to be invented.
    Laura thought of her uncle, laid up in his cabin. It was bad enough that he had two sprained ankles, but his fall could have been so much worse. What if it hadn’t been an accident? But, no, that was impossible. He’d tripped going down the steps because he was in a hurry. Not even the Straight A gang could have organised that.
    ‘Even if there was a weird man – and I’m not saying there was – he would hardly have been looking at me and Tariq,’ she told Jimmy. ‘We’re two ordinary kids enjoying a holiday with our uncle.’
    ‘Your detective uncle,’ he pointed out. ‘Detectives have lots of enemies. Anyway, you still haven’t told us why he’s under cover.’
    And I’m not going to, you annoying little brat, Laura wanted to say, but she stabbed a roll with her butter knife instead.
    ‘Are there criminals