Chapter 2

That comment wasn’t getting nearly as much attention as the people writing their reincarnation stories.

But it sounded disturbingly plausible. Harris always said that even the smallest, wildest theory could turn out to be the truth.

I pulled up my pants and hurried back.

“Captain Harris! I have a theory!”

I told them what I’d just read. Harris’s frown slowly gave way to excitement.

“Not bad, rookie. Even slacking off, you managed to dig up a lead.”

Come on. Did he have to put it like that?

I scratched my head. A second later, Harris ordered us to review the security footage again.

“But the camera facing Ethan Whitmore’s seat broke three days before the ship sailed.”

“And none of the other angles showed anyone suspicious.”

“We watched that footage assuming this was an accident. That means we could have missed things. If there really was a killer, they must have known the ship’s layout well enough to avoid the cameras.”

“But whatever they did, they’ll have left a trace.”

Whatever they did, they’d have left a trace.

On our third viewing, I finally spotted a figure in footage from a distant corner, reflected in the glass.

It was a woman, her back to the camera, bending over to tuck something underneath an object.

“Start with Ethan Whitmore’s romantic relationships.”

“The bastard had twenty or thirty rumored girlfriends alone. This won’t be a small job.”

After an entire night of nonstop work, we narrowed those twenty or thirty women down to seven who had been in frequent contact with Ethan lately. Three of those seven had been aboard the ship that day.

Ethan had arranged for all three to attend. Classy.

Now we had something to work with. Next came questioning our three suspects.

Chloe Price, twenty-five. A full-time kept woman.

“He asked me to come, so I went.”

“The other two women? Sure, I knew about them. Look, this is what I do. Of course I didn’t care.”

Megan Foster, twenty-two. A film student.

“What does any of this have to do with me? Killing him would mean cutting off my own income.”

“He could have as many women as he wanted. I wanted his money, not him.”

No murderer was going to volunteer a confession.

At least, that was why I thought those two were especially suspicious.

We had one woman left: Lily Bennett, twenty-four, an ordinary office worker.

Unlike the first two, Lily seemed almost painfully wholesome.

She sat down and gave me a polite nod.

“Ms. Bennett, could you—”

“I killed him.”

“All right… You what?”