Stalked in Paradise

by Charley Marsh

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, I didn’t see his face, but you already knew that because we didn’t turn his body around.”

  “We’ve identified the body. He flew here from Portland, Maine yesterday. You and Solomon are both from the Portland area, aren’t you?”

  Harriet nodded. “Yep. Maybe we know him. What’s his name?”

  “His name was Bradley Higgins.”

  Harriet’s hand jerked and wine slopped over the rim of her glass and splashed onto her lap. She hastily set the glass down.

  Alex watched her for a minute. Her eyes were wide with shock and even her lips had paled.

  “Did-did you just say that Bradley Higgins is dead?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?” Obviously she did, but he wanted to hear her say it.

  Harriet jumped to her feet. “I’ll be right back. I need to change out of these wet pants.” She ran out of the room.

  She stood in the bedroom and stared unseeing out the door to the beach. Bradley was dead? How? And why? And what on earth was he doing at the Island Resort? Had he followed her?

  She shook her head. No, Bradley couldn’t have followed her. Solly had told her that the body was cold. And hadn’t Alex just told her that he had arrived on the island yesterday? But how had he known that she was coming here?

  Harriet took several deep breaths, trying to clear the confusion from her thoughts. Change. She needed to get out of her wet capris. She dug a pair of soft sweatpants from her suitcase and quickly pulled them on.

  Bradley was dead. How? Had he committed suicide because she had left him?

  What a horrible thought.

  No, it was impossible. Alex Hayes must have made a mistake. She headed to the bathroom to splash water on her face and give herself a few extra minutes to pull herself together.

  Alex slowly sipped his lemonade and mulled over Harriet’s reaction as he waited for her to return. The new PR Director certainly hadn’t expected to hear the name Bradley Higgins.

  She had obviously known the man. And if Harriet had known him there was a good chance that Solomon Ayers had as well.

  Several minutes passed before Harriet reappeared wearing a pair of faded blue sweatpants that hung low on her curvy hips. She had washed off any makeup and tied her hair up into a high ponytail that made her look ten years younger.

  Alex blinked. Had he ever met a more attractive woman? The thought startled him.

  It wasn’t her face–her nose kept her from being beautiful, but paired with those eyes it also made her face interesting. He usually liked his women petite and voluptuous. Harriet stood just under six foot, and while she definitely had breasts they weren’t very large, although she did have a nice ass and very shapely legs.

  It was the whole package, he decided. There was an air about Harriet–an innocent honesty that appealed to his jaded ex-cop soul.

  He reminded himself that he was interrogating her in a murder investigation.

  Ignoring her wine, Harriet perched on the edge of her chair and clasped her hands on her knees to hide their trembling.

  Alex waited.

  Harriet couldn’t stand not knowing. She cleared her throat. “Did he . . . did he commit suicide?” she whispered.

  “No. Bradley Higgins was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Harriet blinked. “I don’t understand. Why would anyone want to murder Bradley?”

  “I don’t know–yet, but I will find out. Could you answer my question, please?”

  Harriet shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten it. What did you ask me?”

  “I asked if you knew the dead man, Bradley Higgins.”

  Alex watched her carefully as she picked up her wine and took a small sip. Her hand shook only slightly.

  Tough cookie, Alex thought. She’s pulled herself together. Tough enough to murder a man? The timing didn’t work, but she could have hired someone to do the deed. Someone like her friend Solomon Ayers.

  “Yes.” Harriet took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes I knew him,” she answered, setting down her wine glass. “Quite well, in fact.”

  Alex waited for more. When Harriet remained silent he prompted her. “How did you know Mr. Higgins and do you know why he came to the island?”

  Harriet took another deep breath to steady herself. She could see no point in hiding the truth from Alex.

  “Bradley and I lived together for the last two years. I left him two days ago. As for why he’s on the island, I can only assume he came to find me, which is a surprise because I never told him I was coming here. The truth is, I did everything I could to hide that fact from him.”

  Alex studied her for a moment. That was not the answer he had been expecting. He had guessed that Mr. Higgins was Solomon’s lover and that was why the body was displayed in the greenhouse.

  Don’t assume anything, Alex, he reminded himself ruefully. It always makes an ass out of you.

  “Care to explain that further, Miss Monroe? Why would he come looking for you if you had split up?”

  Harriet looked at the security director, her eyes steady. “Bradley was–” she hesitated and groped for the right words. “. . . he was possessive and a control freak,” she finished. “He controlled everything in his life with a firm hand, including me.”

  She shrugged one shoulder and picked up her glass again. “I finally got fed up and left him.”

  “Why did you travel to the resort under a false name today?” He watched Harriet’s knuckles whiten on the wine glass stem.

  “I knew Bradley wouldn’t let me go without an ugly scene, and that he would follow me if he knew where I was going. I didn’t tell him about this job. I wanted to make a clean break and just disappear.”

  She sighed and set the wine glass back on the table. Her next words came rushing out.

  “You have to understand, I couldn’t live with him any longer. I wasn’t me anymore. Bradley went to his office and I packed two small bags and I left. I took a transport and flew to three different cities and then this morning I took the shuttle flight here under an assumed name so he wouldn’t be able to track me.”

  Alex gave her a considering look. “You can’t buy a ticket, even with cash, without identification.”

  “Right.” Harriet fidgeted and looked away.

  “Where did you get the fake i.d?”

  “I-I can’t tell you that. I don’t want to get anyone else into trouble. They were only trying to help me. Are you going to have me arrested?”

  “Did you have anything to do with Bradley Higgins’s murder?”

  “What? No! Of course not.”

  “Do you do drugs of any type? Bear in mind that I’m authorized by Mr. Wade to administer a drug test on any resort employee whenever I feel it necessary.”

  “No! No. I’ve never done drugs. Not even–well, never mind. I’ve never been tempted to touch drugs.”

  Alex frowned at her. What had she been about to say? It was obvious the woman was hiding something from him. He drummed his fingers on his thigh for a minute, watching her carefully.

  “Are you in the habit of skirting or breaking the law?”

  “No!”

  Harriet saw no reason to tell the resort’s security director of her time living on the streets. In the early days she had shoplifted and broken into vehicles and stolen petty change and small things to sell so she could buy food to stay alive. Only Solly knew how low she had sunk during those desperate times.

  “Didn’t you do a background check on me for Mr. Wade before I was hired?”

  “No. Mr. Wade employed an agency to do the background checks for the resort’s key personnel, including me, before I was hired.”

  And that was something Alex planned to redo as soon as possible. He mentally moved background checks to the top of his to-do list.

  Alex stood. “That’s all I have for the moment, Ms. Monroe. As the old cop shows used to say, ‘Don’t leave the country.’ In this case, don’t leave the island. I will definitely have m
ore questions for you about your boyfriend.”

  He looked at the tired woman with the long blonde ponytail and fascinating eyes. He found her face arresting. She had a mouth that made him want to taste it and a strong chin that he somehow knew could be stubbornly set when the mood suited her.

  “I’ll be back,” he said.

  “Great. I can hardly wait,” Harriet replied sourly.

  He grinned suddenly, absurdly pleased to find that she possessed some backbone. To his disgust he found himself hoping she wasn’t involved in Bradley Higgins’s death.

  He gave himself a mental shake. Never in his career as a murder detective had he let himself become involved with a witness or a suspect–and he damn sure wasn’t about to start now.

  “Don’t get up. I’ll let myself out,” he said gruffly, and left.

  Chapter Six

  Harriet barely registered the sound of the cottage’s front door shutting. She stayed seated, too shocked by the news that Bradley Higgins had been murdered to move.

  Who would want to kill Bradley? she wondered. She couldn’t think of anyone. Oh, there were plenty of people who disliked him, some intensely, but enough to follow Bradley to the island and kill him? She didn’t think so.

  She picked up the wineglass and carried it to the lanai, plopping into a low-slung deck chair. She sipped her wine and watched the setting sun turn the aqua water gold, then a deep blood-red before it slipped suddenly below the horizon and the ink black sky overhead filled with a billion stars.

  What a day.

  Just when she was sure that Alex Hayes was an unfeeling, officious prick, he had smiled at her.

  He had a dimple in his right cheek.

  That smile had changed the dour security director’s whole face and character.

  In truth, that brief smile had lifted Alex from Harriet’s one and a half reluctant hubbas to a HUBBA-HUBBA. All capital letters.

  Wait until she told Solly.

  She felt a stab of guilt. What kind of woman lusted after a man she had just met when her recent fiancé had been found murdered only hours before?

  That brought her back to wondering who had murdered Bradley. What had brought her ex to the island? He had to have come here for her. She’d place a bet on it and she never gambled.

  Bradley Higgins was dead. Murdered, no less.

  She set the wine glass down on the lanai deck and waited for the tears to flow but only a few came. Her love for Bradley had burned out months earlier.

  The following morning Harriet woke to birdsong. She stretched luxuriously in the king-sized bed and sighed happily. The filmy insect curtains, light as spider silk, floated gently around her, wafted by the lightly perfumed breeze coming through the doors she had left open last night so she could hear the waves lapping the beach and the night insects doing their thing.

  She lazed for several more minutes before she crawled from the bed and padded to the lanai doors. The sun, rising behind her on the opposite side of the island, sent shafts of light dancing across the crests of the waves.

  A pod of dolphins or porpoises–she’d have to ask someone what they were–surfaced near the shore, their sleek blue-gray bodies glistening in the sun. They curved back into the water as one and were gone.

  While dinner with Solly last night had almost been like old times–relaxed, with lots of talk and some laughter–they had both been subdued by the shock of Bradley’s murder.

  They had figured out that since moving in with Bradley Harriet had only dined with Solly twice in the previous two years, and both meals had been rushed and stressed because Harriet knew that Bradley was waiting impatiently for her to return to his house.

  They had finally agreed to chalk those two years of her life up to temporary insanity and drank a toast of margaritas to their renewed friendship.

  The toast didn’t mean that Harriet was glad that Bradley was dead. No, that wasn’t it at all. She would never wish murder on anyone. She was simply happy to be free of Bradley’s emotional shackles and to have her best friend back in her life again.

  Her love for Bradley had died long before a few months ago, she realized, looking back. The few tears she had produced the previous evening had not been shed over the death of a man she once loved. They had been shed for the death of a dream. The dream that one day a man would love her above all other women. That she would be special to one person who was special to her.

  She wondered then if Bradley had somehow suspected that her feelings for him had changed. Was that why he had become even more possessive and controlling over the past year?

  Harriet pushed the thoughts away. She didn’t want to spend any more time dwelling on the wreck that had been her relationship with Bradley. There was no point now that he was dead. He had possessed good points too. True, they were few and all work related, but he hadn’t been all bad.

  She hoped Alex would find the murderer quickly so she could finally put Bradley Higgins behind her.

  Coming to the island yesterday, she had felt lighter and more carefree than she had since Bradley had come into her life. She felt ready for the challenges of her new job and had made a silent promise to herself that she would show Mr. Wade that he had made the right choice in hiring her as the resort’s PR Director.

  She couldn’t let Bradley’s murder interfere with that. Her entire future was riding on her new job.

  She turned away from the beautiful view and decided it was time to get ready for the day. Stripping off the cotton boxers and tank top she wore as pajamas, she stepped into the shower and programmed the jets at ninety-nine degrees.

  She groaned with pleasure as streams of hot water hit her from two sides and overhead. Harriet fumbled with the marble tiles until she found the one hiding the soap and shampoo and soon the scent of sandalwood filled the shower stall. She felt as pampered as any guest.

  Thirty minutes later she was back in the blue golf cart with Albion, who had shown up at her door unexpectedly. “Time for tour,” was all he said.

  While she would have preferred to explore the resort without Albion at her side, Harriet decided she wasn’t going to let his lack of friendliness get to her and spoil the day.

  She felt excited to finally get to see the resort in person. The pictures Mr. Wade and the designer had sent could only tell her so much. She needed to feel the place to really do it justice in her ad campaigns.

  Albion headed off in the opposite direction from the one he’d taken the previous day, driving past the complex which held Harriet’s office.

  “Kitchens,” he pointed out, as they passed a long, single story stone building with several smoke stacks.

  “I’d like to see the kitchens and meet the staff,” Harriet said when she realized Albion intended to drive by.

  “Later.”

  “Albion, I want to see the kitchens. Turn around.”

  Albion scowled, but to her relief he made a big u-turn and stopped in front of the kitchen’s central entrance. “I’ll wait.” He pulled out his battered straw hat and placed it over his face.

  Harriet thought briefly of insisting that he accompany her into the kitchens and introduce her to the staff but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Again she wondered why Mr. Wade would hire such an obviously lazy and unfriendly worker.

  She climbed out of the golf cart and pulled open the wide wooden door. Instead of the foyer or entryway she expected to find, she found herself in a small courtyard open to the sky.

  A round dark stone fountain with three bronze dolphins cast to mimic the very action she had witnessed earlier that morning dominated the center of the courtyard. Water spouted from the creatures’ mouths, cascading down several tiered catch-basins.

  Large, perfumed tropical flowers in brilliant reds, pinks, and yellows grew around the courtyard’s edges and three palm trees grew far above the roof edge. There were several seating areas with cane chairs and small round tables.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Lana approached from the left of the
fountain. She had lost the pink curls from the previous day and fashioned her hair into an emerald green ponytail on top of her head. Her eyes matched.

  Harriet experienced a quick stab of jealousy over Lana’s petite, curvaceous body. Experience had taught her that men preferred short, curvy women to tall Amazons like herself. At five-eleven, Harriet towered over most men. She bet the petite Lana never had a problem getting dates.

  “I see you found us,” Lana said, joining Harriet with a smile. “Is Albion treating you right?”

  Harriet hesitated, then decided to say nothing. She didn’t want to appear to be critical of the staff, especially as it was only her second day here.

  “We really didn’t get to see much yesterday,” she said instead. “This is my first stop today. I was hoping to see the kitchens and meet some of the staff if that’s possible.”

  “Absolutely. Follow me.” Lana headed to a door opposite the one she had appeared from. She turned to Harriet with a sympathetic expression on her face.

  “It must have been awful finding that dead man in the greenhouse. I heard that you and Solomon knew him.”

  Harriet didn’t want to talk about Bradley Higgins, and for all she knew, Alex wouldn’t want her to say anything, so she gave a noncommittal answer. To her relief, Lana dropped the subject.

  The door opened onto a short, functional corridor painted white that ended in an expansive, brightly lit kitchen.

  Harriet looked around the space with admiration. The white tiled floor and walls were bright and spotless. She counted a dozen workers, all dressed in resort blue double-breasted chef coats and toques, working at one of the three long rows of stainless tables that dominated the center of the kitchen.

  Six of the chefs chopped fresh vegetables on large wooden cutting boards, two were butchering chickens, two were kneading dough, and one was running dough through a pasta machine. The remaining chef was ferrying large trays and platters of prepped ingredients to the head chefs.

  “I thought there were no guests yet,” Harriet said. “Why are they so busy?”

  “They’re testing recipes and training. Plus we have a couple of early bird guests that Mr. Wade allowed on the island before the official opening.”