Negotiation: Daddy P.I. 0.5, E Frost [best thriller novels of all time txt] 📗

“Did you? Are you wearing them now?”

“No.” I turn the phone so he can see below my neck.

He grunts. “You’re killing me. Where are your pajamas?”

“In my luggage. I don’t want to be packing at the last minute. I might forget something.”

“Uh-huh. Likely story. You can sleep nude if you want, baby, but pull the covers up over you now.”

I pout into the phone. “Boo.”

“No arguing. Pull the covers up. You’re too tempting, all naked and needy, and I promised myself not to play with you until you’re back in my bed.”

My pout deepens.

“Stop pouting. It doesn’t work on me. I want you back in my bed as soon as possible. This way you have lots of incentive, don’t you, baby doll?”

“Yes, sir,” I say resentfully, but I pull up the covers and angle the phone at my face again. “I wasn’t going to miss the train. Not for anything.”

“Good.” He yawns and stretches, tucking his arm behind his head. “Have you picked out a story for tonight?”

I nod. “The Three Apples.” The second story I read to my mother today. I want to read it to Logan to overwrite that sad memory. “Before I read it, would you tell me about your day? We have time before bed, don’t we?”

Logan lifts a dark eyebrow. “Sure. Why?”

“Um.” I work my lower lip between my teeth. “Communication?”

“Communication, baby doll. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m just a little worried that you’re not getting anything out of this. It’s been all about me. A little’s supposed to take care of her Daddy, too.”

“Mmm, good communication, sweetheart. For the record, I’m getting everything I want out of this so far, and I promise to tell you if that changes. But since one of the many things to come out of my five hours of phone calls with the Pink Pearl people today was a complete waiver for you, we can talk about my day. It’s not very nice, though. You sure you want to hear about it before bed?”

I read horror novels before bed. Although this is real life and that’s fiction, if Joe Hill and Nancy Collins don’t keep me awake, whatever he’s been doing shouldn’t, either. “I’m okay with dark and ugly, sir.”

Logan’s mouth twitches. “You’d have to be, to be with me.”

He’s anything but dark and ugly. I’m still not sure whether Logan’s handsome, but he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever met. “If I was there, I’d ask to kiss your jaw.” I look straight into the phone so he knows I’m serious, and stroke the edge of the phone case, wishing it were his skin. “You’re so beautiful, Daddy.”

“Thank you, baby doll, but I think we need to get you some glasses before we get on the boat. Really thick ones.”

I have twenty-twenty vision, but I can play along. “Yes, sir, I’ll get right on that.”

“Mmm.” He scratches his jaw, which is as heavily stubbled as the day we met. “The calls today were mostly with the cruise line’s in-house security and HR people, as well as their staff doctor. They’ve hired me to investigate a death on their Mexican Sunset cruise. A poor bastard named Bill Black.”

“Oh, no,” I say softly. “He died while he was on the cruise?”

“The night he got back.” Logan rubs his chin before he continues. “The coroner’s verdict on Black was heart failure, but the widow didn’t buy it and she had a private lab run tests. First tests showed a bacteria that can cause food poisoning, and Mrs. Black filed suit against the cruise line for negligence. Her lawyer’s demanding the company disclose any other food poisoning victims. The cruise people contacted everyone who has complained about food poisoning in the past six months, and had private blood tests done. The staff doctor explained the tests for an hour, and I barely followed any of it, but the really bad news is that it looks like Black and four others took a sex enhancement drug while they were on the ship.”

“Like Viagra?”

“More like ecstasy, only this stuff causes serious organ damage. Bill Black had a dodgy ticker. The huprin-methylenedioxypyrovalerone pushed him right over the edge into heart failure.”

“Wha-what’s it called?”

Logan grunts. “Don’t make me say it again, baby doll. The doctor says the street name is ‘brick,’ because it makes you hard as one.”

“Is it illegal?”

“It’s being criminalized. It’s very new. The doctor says he’s just seeing warnings about it. But the tests confirmed that all the victims took the drug while they were on the cruise. Three separate cruises. That’s really bad news. One cruise, it could be a passenger that snuck the drugs on board. Three cruises, that smells like an inside job.”

“You mean, it’s being sold on the ship?”

“Mmm-hmm. That’s why they’ve brought me in. The company Veep who hired me is afraid their own security people are in on it. Their ships go into Mexico all the time, which is a big source of cocaine and heroin, so they have serious security on these ships. All passenger bags are scanned and screened coming and going. But according to the staff doctor, there’s no question the passengers took the drug during the cruise. Evidently this stuff can be detected in your hair even months later. Hair grows at a certain rate, so they can figure out when the drug was taken. The cruise line is facing massive exposure if the drugs have been supplied on the boat. They’re freaking out. In a very laid-back, West Coast way, but still.”

“Wow, they must be. How many people are on each cruise?”

“Two hundred and fifty.”

“That’s a lot of potential victims, sir.”

“A lot of potential lawsuits. So, you can see the source of the freak-out.”

“I can. Do you really think it’s being sold to the passengers by the crew?”

Logan shrugs. “I do. Without wanting to sound jaded, baby doll, about two-thirds of my cases turn out to be inside jobs.”

That’s depressing, but it doesn’t surprise me, human nature being what it