empty bench.
"You, too," ordered Darth Number Two, cuffing Bailey to an upright pole.
He had handcuffs? I looked on curiously. Was that part of Vader's official equipment, or were cuffs only included in the superdeluxe version of the costume?
"Emily!" Jonathan beckoned from atop Smoker, his florets fluttering wildly. "I could use a little help over here!"
The dwarfs and crayons rallied, coaxing him to his feet and standing him upright, while two little pigs replaced him on top of Smoker, paralyzing the professor beneath six hundred pounds of pork on the hoof. "Would somebody get a picture of this?" yelled one of the pigs. "Emily might be able to use it in her newsletter."
I brushed off Jonathan's stalk, embarrassed that I could have ever thought him capable of murder.
"Did I do good?" he asked shyly.
"You did great." I flashed him a face-cracking smile, my mouth dropping open as I looked beyond him to the two Darths who stood before me, minus their breathing masks. EH! "Duncan?" I rasped, touched by the desire playing on his handsome face. "Etienne?" I whispered, warmed by the passion smoldering in his electric blue eyes. "You're both here." I forced the smile to remain on my lips. "Imagine that." And one of them had asked me to marry him.
Euw, boy. This was a little awkward. "About my cabin upgrade." I darted a desperate look between them. "That was so generous and...and romantic of you!"
"It was nothing," said Jonathan.
I swiveled my head, drilling his little green face with a horrified look. "Excuse me?"
"Your upgrade. I wanted to thank you for saving my life."
"You?" I stabbed my finger at his stalk. "You paid for the upgrade?"
"I was happy to pay for it."
"But you have no money, Jonathan. You don't even have a job!"
"So? I have an American Express card. That's just as good as money."
Oh, hell! "Was it you who sent the flowers?"
"That was me," said Duncan.
"And me," said Etienne.
I exchanged frustrated looks with both of them before turning to Duncan. "You knew about my new cabin the day it happened. How?"
He shrugged. "The clerk in the florist shop pulled up all that information on the computer when I placed my order. She mentioned you'd been upgraded to a suite with a great balcony."
I threw my hands into the air. "WHO SENT THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL?"
"That would be me," Etienne whispered, in a voice that vibrated down my breastbone. "I love you, Emily."
"I love her, too," objected Duncan. "And the only thing that kept me from proposing earlier was that I was heaving into a barf bag!"
"Don't listen to them," Jonathan cried, dropping to his knees in front of me. "You're the only girl in the world for me, Emily. Will you marry me?"
Oh, yeah. This was going well.
Chapter 16
At ten o'clock the following morning, while other passengers were bicycling down Mount Haleakala, snorkeling, or touring a tropical plantation to learn of Hawaii's rich agricultural heritage, I sat at the dining table in my stateroom, staring at the puzzle box that security had removed from Bailey's backpack the night before and returned to Tilly, along with her missing journal.
"How much longer are we gonna gawk at this thing before we get down to business?" Bernice sniped. "I say we set the dang thing on a chair and let one of the Dicks sit on it. That should be enough to bust it into smithereens."
All the Halloween costumes had been returned to the rental shop, so everyone was pretty much back to normal again.
"How come you're singling the Dicks out?" Lucille objected. "I'm just as big as they are. Why should they have all the fun?"
"You can't sit on it," Tilly reprimanded. "It's not a whoopie cushion. It's an historic artifact."
"I think Bernice has a point," Margi spoke up. "What good has come of that box? It played a part in getting the little Norwegian killed. It nearly got Emily killed. I think it's bad luck. We should get rid of it before anything else happens."
Knock knock knock. We all swiveled our heads toward the door before I gave Alice the okay to pop up and answer it. Nana and Helen Teig straggled into the room, their faces long with disappointment.
"I was so sure I was gonna win," Nana lamented, as she and Helen dragged chairs to the table to join the rest of us. "I come up with everythin'. The business card. The map with no advertisin'. The blue M&M." She shot a glance at Helen. "A real M&M, too.