Hula Done It - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,36

spat a mouthful of local flora and fauna at him. "I'm fine, just...give me some room." I boosted myself to my knees and swiped a gob of mud from my chin. "I suppose I should look at the bright side. A mud treatment like this would cost me big bucks aboard ship." I pondered the gunk on my hand. "You suppose it's the right kind of mud?"

"I'm sorry, Emily," he apologized again, helping me to my feet. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to --"

I held up my hand for silence. "I'll warn you next time I decide to stop. Okay? Now, can we just keep walking?"

I set a pace traipsing through the leaves and mud at double time, keeping my eyes peeled for hidden tree roots and my ears pricked for the roar of a waterfall.

"You're a nice person, Emily," Jonathan's voice echoed out behind me. "If I'd fallen on Beth like that, there would have been hell to pay. Did I tell you I thought I saw her last night? Outside the infirmary. Wouldn't that have been an awful coincidence? Beth showing up on the cruise with her new boyfriend? I'm sure glad I was wrong, but no kidding, her tattoo was exactly like Beth's."

A cluster of ferns tickled my mud-caked shins as I ducked beneath the branch of an unfamiliar broad-leafed tree. "A lot of women are into permanent disfigurement these days," I conceded, "as long as it's done tastefully."

"Beth called it durable body art. She said using one's anatomy as a living canvas was very cutting edge."

I could remember when having two holes pierced into the same ear was considered cutting edge. Oh, God. I was a ma'am. I was getting old.

"Did you know that the shoulder has replaced the chest as the venue of choice for body art these days? Unless you want something more panoramic, like the Pacific fleet. That's where Beth's tattoo was. On her shoulder. A pink rosebud with a trail of leaves twining after it. It was awesome."

I slapped an insect dead on my arm and kept walking. "What were you doing in the infirmary last night? Were you sick?"

"Captain's orders. He recommended I ask the doctor for something to calm me down. But the person who really needed the tranquilizer was the blonde who looked like Beth. Man, she was chewing out that girl in the yellow vest something fierce. What a temper."

I arched my brows at that. Bailey had been wearing a yellow vest yesterday. And she'd left the infirmary last night before the second seating. "Do you remember anything else about the woman in the yellow vest? Age? Hair color?"

"She was probably your age. Midtwenties or something."

Aw, bless his myopic little eyes.

"And her hair was all pulled back into a long curly ponytail. You couldn't miss her hair. It looked like she'd backed into a cat. That's about all I can remem -- No, wait. She was wearing really stylish glasses. The kind I might be able to afford after I find a new job."

Bailey. It had to be. But why would anyone be picking on her? Especially after what she'd been through yesterday. Then again, if she was number two on someone's hit list, being yelled at was the least of her problems. Which reminded me.

"Hey, Jonathan, would you do me a favor and save Percy Woodruffe-Peacock's business card? The captain might want to take a look at the writing on the back. It could be important. Okay?"

"I won't let it out of my sight," he said, sounding thrilled to be asked.

As we forged ahead through a little mushroom field, I became aware of a noise in the background that I hadn't heard before. A far-off sound that was neither bug nor bird. A deep, continuous rumble that echoed through the forest and sent shock waves up my legs.

"Do you hear that?" asked Jonathan, impressing me that he could hear anything through those ear flaps of his.

I nodded. "Sounds like a freight train, which means it's either a tornado...or our waterfall!"

We bounded over rocks and gullies and hurtled decaying tree trunks. When the rumbling grew so loud that it vibrated the bones in my chest, I spied an unexpected plateau through an opening in the trees, and a river of angry white water cascading downward into a circular pool that was rimmed by spurs of fractured rock.

I stepped into the opening and stared in awe, my mouth hanging open. The Secret Falls. Wow. I hadn't expected