Curse of the Arctic Star Read Online Free

stepped to the edge of the pool and leaned down for a closer look “Hmm. Smells like raspberry?”
    George stepped back and glanced around. Spotting a shiny silver trash receptacle nearby, she hurried over and peered inside.
    “Aha!” she said, reaching in and pulling something out. “You were close. It’s cherry, actually.”
    I looked at what she’d found. It was a large plastic tub of powdered drink mix. Cherry flavor. Empty.
    “Fake blood to go with a fake body,” I mused. “Why would someone do that? And then leave the evidence nearby?”
    “Who knows?” George said. “Maybe . . .”
    She let her voice trail off. Someone was hurrying toward us. It was a short, pointy-chinned woman in her twenties. She was wearing a man’s fedora and a thrift-store floral granny dress, along with bright purple plastic earrings and thick, square-framed blackglasses. A snazzy-looking laptop was tucked under one thin, pasty-pale arm.
    “Isn’t this crazy?” she exclaimed, shoving her glasses up her nose and grinning at us as if we were her best friends. “It’s like one of those murder-mystery cruises or something, except nobody knew it was going to happen! Bonus, right?”
    “Um, yeah, okay,” George said.
    “By the way, I’m Wendy. Wendy Webster.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m a travel blogger. Wendy’s Wanderings—maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s like the coolest new travel blog, according to the coolest bloggers.”
    “I’m Nancy, and this is George.” I shook her hand. “Sorry, I don’t really follow blogs too much.”
    That seemed to take her by surprise. She stared at me over the tops of her glasses for a second, studying me as if I were an alien species.
    Finally she shrugged. “Oh. You’re retro, huh? That’s cool,” she said. “Anyway, I thought this was going to be just another boring cruise, you know? Did you guys, like, see what happened?”
    “Nope,” George said. “We’re clueless.”
    I shot her a look, and she smiled back innocently. I was already trying to come up with an excuse to get away from Blogger Wendy. We weren’t going to be able to do much investigating with her hanging around.
    Just then a pair of young men in Superstar uniforms hurried over. “Excuse us, ladies,” one of them said. “Could we ask you to please vacate the pool area? We just need time to clean up, and will reopen the pool as soon as we can.”
    The second young man nodded. “They’re serving complimentary smoothies in the atrium lounge,” he added, gesturing.
    Wendy’s eyes lit up. “Free smoothies?” she said. “I’m so there! Come on, girls!”
    I grabbed George’s arm to stop her from following. “Let her go,” I hissed. “You already had your free smoothie, remember?”
    We drifted toward the lounge slowly, staying behind the rest of the crowd so we could talk. “So that was weird,” George said.
    “What? Wendy?”
    She laughed. “Yeah, her too. But I meant the pool thing. Think they’ll call the cops?”
    “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “If they do, it could delay our departure. Based on what Becca told me, I don’t think the CEO would like that. Bad publicity, remember?”
    “Yeah. Plus, nobody actually got hurt or anything.” George grimaced. “Uh-oh—incoming.”
    Following her gaze, I saw Alan striding toward us, with Bess at his heels. “There you are!” Alan exclaimed. “Did you hear about the fake dead body in the pool?”
    “Yeah.” I traded a look with Bess, who raised one eyebrow curiously. “We heard.”
    Luckily, Alan didn’t seem interested in discussing it. “Anyway, we’ve been looking all over for you two,” he said. “Bess wants to check out our suite, but I thought we should wait until we’re all together. Should we go find it now?”
    “Sure, let’s go,” I replied. “Anyone know how to get there?”
    “I think it’s this way.” Alan hurried off toward the nearest set of elevators.
    As it turned out, he had no idea how to find