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  Adam

  “So. Tell me something. How long have you been working on this whole ‘murder mystery boat ride’ racket? And what’s the end goal here?” I said, looking at Cupcake from across a coffee table. He was hot, in a bro-y kind of way that I didn’t usually go for, but he wore it well, especially inside that tux.

  “Long enough to know you’re not actually part of it, jackass,” Cupcake sneered, arms folded and legs in a full-on man-spread.

  “Interesting theory,” I said. “And how long have you been working in private security?”

  Cupcake flinched. Heh. Good. I loved watching guys like him squirm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

  “Sure you don’t.”

  “I’m serious. I don’t work in private security.”

  “So you wouldn’t know anything about an antiques distributor, based out of Minneapolis?” I said.

  He flinched again, eyes darting off to the side.

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Buddy, you are way out of line here,” Cupcake said. “You have no right to be asking me these questions-”

  “Maybe I was hired by the cruise company,” I said. “Did you think of that? I could be here to keep the party fresh.”

  “Then why didn’t I hear about it?” Cupcake said, leaning forward, locking eyes with me.

  “That’s a great question,” I said. “Why didn’t you? It’s almost like you… Don’t really work here.”

  He rolled his eyes. “And where do I work, then?”

  “For an antiques dealer in Minneapolis. As private security. Along with your little buddy, the victim in this whole charade,” I said, pronouncing ‘charade’ the British way for extra effect. God, I’d missed this.

  “This again- yeah, there is no way you work here either. This is way too meta for a mystery cruise line like this,” Cupcake huffed.

  “‘Either,’” I said, leaning forward. “Intersting choice of words.”

  “Hey, I’m just pying along with your premise,” Cupcake said, leaning forward himself. “Maybe I was hired to keep you on your toes.”

  “Then why don’t you know who I am?”

  “Method acting,” Cupcake said. “Logically, the suspense works better if we’re both in the dark. That way, we both think we’re interrogating each other.”

  “Is that what you think? That you’re interrogating me?”

  “I mean hey, thus far I’ve gotten more information out of you than vice versa,” Cupcake said. “So far, you’ve told me that you think I work in private security for an antiquer in Minneapolis, and that you were hired to spice things up on this cruise.”

  “Making a lotta assumptions here, Cupcake,” I said.

  “Again with the Cupcake thing- are you coming onto me? Is that what all this is?”

  “Could be,” I said.

  “Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree, so-”

  “Ouch.”

  “Hey, if I wanted a guy, I could do better than you,” he fired back.

  “The fuck you say?” I gred.

  “You’re not my type,” Cupcake said.

  “Piss off, I’m everyone’s type,” I said, folding my arms against my chest.

  “See this, is how I know you weren’t hired by the cruise- you’re bad at acting.”

  “You bitch,” I said.

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then maybe you can tell me something, smart guy,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Does the name ‘Johannson’ mean anything to you?”

  He flinched again. Gotcha. “No,” he replied.

  “You’re not a very good actor either, you know. So you definitely weren’t hired by-”

  He looked ready to pop a vein. “Oh screw you, I’m a great actor, I do this for a living.”

  “You do mystery cruises for a living?” I said.

  “No, I-”

  “You what?”

  He trailed off. Then he wagged his finger at me and chuckled. “Almost had me. Not bad.”

  I opened my phone and pulled up the st tab I had open. It was for Johannson’s Antique Dealership, based out of Minneapolis. I’d looked it up earlier. I was ninety-nine percent sure Daisy was who I thought she was, but if this guy was working for her dad, then that would bring it to 99.9 percent. The final .1 percent would come when I asked her. But first we needed to get through this boat ride, and away from Cupcake and his little buddy.

  “So this means nothing to you?” I said, showing him the image on my phone.

  “No,” he flinched.

  “You know your eye twitches when your bluff gets called. Hell of a tell for an actor.”

  “That is not my tell, my tell is that I flinch!” he groaned.

  Then he paused and blinked.

  “You were saying?” I replied.

  “Nothing,” he said, flinching again.

  “So, Aleksander Johannson,” I said. “Who is he to you?”

  “Who is he to you?”

  “I asked first.”

  “And you don’t actually have a legal right to hold me here and interrogate me, so we’re at an impasse.”

  “So it would seem,” I said.

  We stared at each other in ways I couldn’t decide the exact meaning of for about thirty seconds before the door swung open and Captain Hepburn loomed in the entryway.

  “Um, hello, Captain,” I said.

  “Boy,” she said neutrally.

  I grimaced. I was gonna be twenty-four in a week, for fuck’s sake. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I’m here for the interrogation.”

  “I think I’ve got it covered here,” I said.

  “No, boy. No. I meant your interrogation,” Captain Hepburn said, locking the door behind her and sitting down next to Cupcake.

  Cupcake who, for his part, looked every ounce as confused as I felt.

  What the hell was going on here?

  “Now then, Adam Kurosawa,” Captain Hepburn said, adjusting her hat. “Perhaps you could tell me how you, a corporate fixer for Van Der Ahe Consolidated, got yourself mixed up with a runaway like Oliver Johannson.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” I lied. But also, holy shit, I was right.

  “Don’t try to bluff me, boy, I’ve pyed poker with Canadian admirals!” she said, smming her fast onto the table between us.

  “What?” Cupcake said. “How is that relevant to-”

  “Shut up, Logan,” Captain Hepburn said. Ugh, of course he was a Logan. He looked like a ‘Logan.’

  I stood up.

  “Sit back down, boy,” Captain Hepburn warned.

  “I’m a grown man,” I said ftly.

  “Pfftt. No, you’re like twelve.”

  “Oh, fuck off. I’m leaving.”

  “And going where, exactly? We’re in the middle of the ke. Landfall isn’t for another hour,” the Captain continued.

  I stared at her, unblinking as I tried to figure some way out of this. Shit, this was bad. Logan might genuinely have been in the dark about some of this, but the Captain was in on it. And who knew about Logan’s companion? Not to mention anyone else on this ship could be working for Daisy’s father as well…

  I needed to get to her. I needed to find her. I needed to fight for her.

  “Sit. Down. Mr. Kurosawa,” Captain Hepburn said, her voice steel and her eyes daggers.

  “What are you gonna do with her?” I asked.

  “With who?”

  “With Daisy,” I said, keeping my tone even.

  “Who is… Oh, you mean the Johannson boy, don’t you,” Hepburn rolled her eyes.

  “Her name is Daisy,” I said, fists gathering.

  “We’re going to take him home and see if we can’t fix him. Hopefully nothing irreversible has happened to him yet, nothing that can’t be cured with a haircut and some testosterone supplements. Maybe a surgery to get rid of those tumors on his chest,” Hepburn said. “And if we’re very lucky, this can all be done quietly, before word gets out about one of Mr. Johannson’s sons being a deviant, and maybe before the other two boys find out either. Now sit the fuck down, kid, before you force my hand.”

  I drew in a deep breath, and let the oxygen ignite on my burning rage and amplify the inferno in my chest a thousand fold. These fuckers wanted to hurt her. Hell, they wanted to kill her; Lily always said ‘detransition was death’, so as far as I was concerned, they wanted to kill Daisy. I would never let that happen. She was…

  She was precious to me. And I just got her back. And she deserved a life where she didn’t have to fear the entire world. “Yeah,” I said. “I have a better idea.”

  Logan’s eyes darted back and forth and his leg twitched in his seat. Captain Hepburn stood and balled her fists as she looked ready to throw down.

  “And what’s your better idea, pretty boy?” she asked.

  “How about instead, you go fuck yourself?” I said, then made a dash for the door.

  Hepburn lunged at me, and I felt her hand grip my shoulder as I grabbed the doorknob, but a loud thud grabbed hold of my focus. When I looked behind me, I saw Logan had broken a chair over Hepburn’s head and now she was id out on the floor unconscious.

  “Holy shit, Cupcake,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he replied, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “Not that I’m compining, but why-”

  “I didn’t sign up for this shit. It ain’t worth it. Hell, my partner wanted out once the whole ‘kidnap my daughter to make her detransition’ thing became clear, but I made him stick with it because the money was too good to pass up,” Logan said, now drawing out his OU’s in a somewhat Canadian way- British Columbia, if I had to guess. “Honestly, though, he was right. Whole thing is fucked up. This was supposed to be a long-con, sure, but-”

  “A long-con? You’re-”

  “A thief, yes,” Logan said. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “I mean… I’m not exactly in a position to do anything right now.”

  “Keep it that way. Cupcake,” Logan said. “Look, my partner and I, we took these jobs to get closer to Aleks Johannson. He’s loaded. And he didn’t make all of his money legally- this boat is part of how he does it. He smuggles antiques and other valuables across state and even national lines by running them through commercial vessels across the Great Lakes. There’s a shit fuck ton of Thai artifacts in the hold of this boat. It’s the whole reason we took this job.”

  “To rob him blind,” I said, the gears in my head turning as Logan took a buoy roped onto the wall and stripped the rope from it.

  I helped him hog-tie Captain Hepburn and left her on the floor. “Technically to burgle him,” Logan expined as we finished knotting her wrists together. “Robbery requires the threat or act of violence.”

  “You mean like you just did right now?” I said, tying her ankles together next.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “So I guess it’s robbery now, but also who gives a fuck anyway? Let’s find your friend and my partner and hide out until ndfall. Then, we all go our separate ways, and if we ever face each other in a court of w, we pretend we’ve never met. Does that sound good to you?”

  “Sounds fucking phenomonal to me, Cupcake.”

  “Stop calling me that,” Logan rolled his eyes as we finished up the knots. “Now let’s go.”

  “Right,” I nodded.

  As we left, I took the remaining chair and positioned it under the doorknob from the inside, so it would block the door if anyone tried to get in. Then, we made haste down to the bottom deck in search of our friends.

  Upon arrival at the changing area, we found Daisy talking to a woman. A short, southeast Asian woman who looked… Familiar…

  Huh, I thought as the tumblers inside my mind clicked into pce. Small world.

  “Dude,” Logan said, taking in the sight of his partner wearing a silver party dress and a white faux-fur stol across her shoulders. A long bck wig flowed down her scalp, heavy bangs resting over her forehead, while red lipstick and heavy eyeshadow accented her face.

  The short girl (presumably, though I suppose anything was possible) flinched. “Yeah?”

  “You’re going Iris? Now? Of all times?”

  I crooked an eyebrow. Daisy did the same as I walked over and stood next to her, and we took in the sight before us. The two thieves stood before each other, the evident Iris shuffling her feet band forth across the floor. “I needed a disguise.”

  “So you decided to-”

  “It’s a convincing disguise! Or don’t you think so?”

  “Of course it… Of course it’s convincing, I just-”

  “Just what?”

  “Just wondering why you take all these excuses to dress like a dy on the job.”

  “Sometimes we need a girl for the con,” Iris said. “You know that.”

  “Okay, but do we need one now?”

  “No, I need a disguise, like I said,” Iris said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Ig-”

  She gred at him.

  “Iris,” he corrected himself. “I just worry, given this whole situation has escated a lot and, uh, the guy we’re trying to rip off might not be super happy if he sees you like this.”

  “Like what?” she said, tilting her head to the side.

  “What is it with trans girls and flower names?” I asked Daisy softly.

  “Wish I knew,” she said, barely stifling that mesmerizing banshee-cackle of hers.

  “What?” Iris clutching a lock of raven wig-hair like she was holding onto it for dear life. “What are you talking about? I’m not trans.”

  This time, I tilted my head to the side. “You’re not?”

  “Of course not! Why would you think that!?” she said, a nervous look overtaking her face as she stared at the floor and bunched her fingers together.

  “Are you gender fluid?” Daisy asked.

  “No,” Iris replied.

  “A femboy?”

  “God, no!” she said.

  “A crossdresser?”

  “I just… I don’t wanna talk about this right now,” Iris said. “We need to focus. Logan, how are we doing?”

  “Captain is hog-tied upstairs,” Logan said, looking incredibly relieved to be out of the previous conversation.

  “Have we secured the payload in the cargo hold?” Iris said.

  “Not yet. I figured we could hide out there until we reached nd.”

  “Good idea,” Iris said. “What about these two? I mean, I know we were supposed to hand them off to Johannson as part of our cover, but-”

  “Yeah, I ain’t doing that. Seems evil. Like ‘Capital E’ Evil. You were right, by the way, her dad is a fucking psycho,” Logan said.

  “Well I do love being right,” Iris said.

  “Yeah, and I love avoiding my dad, so what should Adam and I do?” Daisy asked.

  A thought popped into my head like a lightbulb appearing above me. “I have an idea. Do you two know who on this ship is working for Daisy’s dad?”

  “Just us and the crew,” Iris said. “With Hepburn out of the way, that just leaves the first and second mates. Why? What’s your idea?”

  I turned to Logan and said, “You still maintain you’re a good actor?”

  “I mean… He’s okay,” Iris said.

  “Dude,” Logan groaned.

  “I told you not to call me that when I’m in Iris-mode,” she said, swatting him on the arm. “It feels like a snowball filled with rocks right to the stomach!”

  “Yeah, you’re definitely not trans,” Daisy said in the most monotone voice I’d ever heard.

  Iris gave an embarrassed groan. Jesus, this girl was a mess. “Do either of you know if there are portholes down in the cargo hold?”

  “Yeah, on the left side of the boat,” Logan said. “What’s your pn?”

  I smirked. “The pn, Cupcake, is to give the people what they want.”

  ***

  “You ready for this?” I asked Daisy as we stood in the doorway leading to the top deck.

  “As I’ll ever be,” she said. “You sure have a thing for teral thinking, huh?”

  “Well to be fair, this little pn was inspired by you.”

  “It was?”

  “Something about jumping off of boats,” I said.

  She smiled, then her eyes went away. “Hey, so…?”

  “So…?”

  “Once we’re back onshore, there’s something I wanna talk to you about.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. About me and my dad. And… And who I was before.”

  I blinked. “Oh!”

  “Yeah. It’s a long story, but… But you deserve to know, since you’re all mixed up in this now,” Daisy said. “I just don’t want it to change… To change how you feel about me. Or how you look at me.”

  “It won’t,” I said, firmly but gently.

  “I really just worry, that… That…”

  I held up my hand to signal that I was going to touch her, and when she nodded, I cupped her chin. “It won’t. No matter who you were before, you’re Daisy to me. Now and then and always, you’re Daisy. That’s all that I care about.”

  She looked at me with the kind of adoration a guy dreams about. Then she nodded and smiled. “Let’s do this.”

  “Feel ready?”

  “Fuck yeah,” she said, and her smile turned manic, and God DAMN that was about the hottest thing I’d ever seen. This girl had a wild side, and I was desperate to see more of it.

  “Let’s do this,” I said, then opened the door and led us onto the deck.

  Logan was already there, mingling with the other guests. The first mate was nearby, looking for something, or more likely someone, intently.

  We walked with purpose over to him, and I pointed my finger towards his face. “Ladies and gentlemen, I told you the killer was right here amongst us, and now I know who it is. It’s this man here! He murdered his own friend!”

  “Now wait just a minute,” Logan said. The first mate started towards, clearly trying to bring us in. Fortunately for us…

  I grabbed Logan by the pel, and Daisy grabbed him by the arm. “You poisoned your friend!”

  “I did no such thing! It was you! You killed my friend, not me!” Logan screeched. God, what a ham.

  The first mate was almost upon us, and Daisy and I both winked at Logan.

  “Just confess!” Daisy said. “You killed your companion for the money! Confess!”

  “Nevaahhhhhh!” Logan bellowed, pulling out of our grip and tumbling over the railing towards the waters below. The audience gasped, and Daisy and I both smiled as Iris reached out of the porthole and pulled Logan into the cargohold below us.

  The first mate was only a few feet away.

  “After him!” I cried, jumping off the boat myself and tumbling through the air. For a second, my heart nearly stopped, afraid I would meet the frigid water below and be left stranded, but a pair of arms grabbed me and pulled me.

  “Nooo! Beloved husband, I won’t abandon youuuuu!” Daisy cried, jumping presumably right before the first mate caught her.

  Instead, once again, I caught her as she fell.

  I always would.

  I pulled her into the cargo hold and she nded on top of me, cackling like a lunatic. It was the cutest shit ever, and with her ying atop my body on the floor, God, I just wanted to kiss her, to shove my tongue down her throat and take her right there-

  “Great job, you two!” Iris said.

  “Yeah, seriously!” Logan said, surveying the vehicles and crates loaded up in the hold.

  “You guys looking for something specific?” Daisy asked.

  “A portrait that a Thai nobleman painted for his transgender wife,” Iris (who definitely, absolutely, most assuredly, was clearly and emphatically not trans (lol)) said. “You two get in your car. Logan and I will look. Thank you for the help.”

  “Thanks to you, as well,” Daisy smiled that gorgeous smile of hers. “My dad’s bank account will take a sizable hit today, and I have never been happier about that. Thank you.”

  “No problem,” Logan said, reaching into his pocket. “And if you ever need anything stolen, reach out to this number. Guy on the other end can put you in touch with us.”

  I pocketed the card and said, “Will do.”

  Daisy unlocked her car, and I climbed into the back.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  I pulled her inside, onto me, so she could y on top of me again. “Staying out of sight. We need to keep this up until we can get out of here,” I said, our foreheads and nose-tips touching, our breaths comingling, her skin hot on mine I worked my fingers through hers. “We’ll gun it out of here once that door opens. Until then…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I thought we could stay like this. I dunno about you, but I think this feels pretty good.”

  “It does feel good,” she said, resting her cheek against my chest. I stroked her hair, drank in her clean, soapy scent, and let our heartbeats sync up. “You feel good.”

  “Gd to hear it,” I whispered. “And good work out there, Mrs. Charles.”

  “Same to you, Mr. Charles,” she smiled.

  I wanted to kiss her. God Almighty, I wanted to kiss her. But we needed to talk first. Once we did, though…

  Once we did, I wanted to make it clear I wasn’t gonna leave her side once we got back to Boston. If possible, I’d like to stay how we were now for a long, long time. As long as we had. I just got her back, so I sure as shit wasn’t letting her go.