Heavenly Honeymoon (Zoe Donovan Mysteries Book 15) by Kathi Daley Read Free Book Online

imagine it would be a good thing for the resort guests to know they were trapped on the island with a killer. We really should talk to the kids when they get home from their ride.”
    Zak got up and began gathering our supplies. “Yeah, I agree. I think they’ll take it okay as long as we keep a casual attitude about the whole thing. It seems like it should be fairly easy to figure this out. We were on a boat in the middle of the ocean with seventeen people on board. It’s safe to assume Ricardo didn’t stab himself in the back, and I’m also assuming neither you nor I did it, which leaves us with fourteen suspects. I bet we can narrow that down quite a bit if we put our minds to it.”
    “What about the man I saw? The one no one else did? He took the knife and said he would exchange it. It has to have been him who killed Ricardo.”
    Zak looked at me with a furrowed brow. “I’m not doubting that you saw a dark-skinned man dressed in black, but there doesn’t currently seem to be any evidence to support it.”
    “I know what I saw.”
    “I believe you. I really do. It’s just that after you were taken away they interviewed everyone, one person at a time. They left me until last, so I was able to watch each person as he or she was escorted into the office where the interviews took place. There really wasn’t anyone who fit your description.”
    “Maybe he was hiding in one of the bedrooms.”
    “They searched the entire yacht. Thoroughly. The only people on board were the seventeen they’ve accounted for. If you did see a dark-skinned man dressed in black he somehow disappeared before the yacht docked.”
    “Maybe he dove overboard and swam to shore,” I suggested.
    Zak looked doubtful. Then he smiled and squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry; we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Chapter 4
     
     
    After we returned to the house, showered, changed into clean clothes, and made a pitcher of sangria—who says you can’t work and vacation at the same time?—Zak brought his computer out on to our private patio and set up a work station in the shade. We still had three hours until we needed to pick up the kids and we were determined to narrow the suspect field during that time.
    Zak had managed to get the official list of passengers on board the yacht from Talin, so we decided that was as good a place as any to start. We’d been miles out to sea, so it only made sense that someone on the yacht had committed the deed.
    “In addition to the twelve us of who dined that evening,” Zak began, “there were five people on board.”
    I opened my mouth to speak.
    “Six, if we include your mystery man.”
    I knew all that. I’d gone over it time and time again with Talin, but Zak hadn’t been in the room at the time, so I sat quietly while he caught up. The first thing he did was pull up a blank document on his computer and begin listing the names, which included Zak and me; Jensen and Della; Ricardo and his date, Stefana; Dezi and Lucinda; Charles and Piper Belmont; and the businessman from Korea, Park Lee, and his wife, Kim.
    Also on board were Captain Jack, Sebastian the chef, and his two waitstaff, Kai and Rosa. The bartender, Jerrell, and my mystery man rounded out the list. If you eliminated the victim, Zak, and myself, that gave us fourteen suspects. If you added in my mystery man that brought the total to fifteen.
    “So where do we start?” I asked, once he’d keyboarded the list to his Word document.
    “I think we have to begin with the victim. If we can learn why he was there and who he might have come into contact with before dinner, maybe we can uncover a motive.”
    Made sense to me.
    “We know the guy was a lowlife jerk,” I began.
    Zak looked at me. “Should I add you back to the list?” he teased.
    “No. I just don’t like that he kicked Charlie, and I don’t like that he bet on dog fights. The guy had no morals. Chandella,” I shouted.
    Zak looked confused. “I’m not following your