Slaying at Sea (Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Stacey Alabaster

  “I’m coming with you, Claire!”

  But it was too late. By the time we got to the beach, Simon had disappeared.

  16

  Alyson

  “I’m here to see Kieran Douglas, please,” I said, feeling self-conscious as I entered the police station. I had to speak to the cop through a grate at reception. I supposed that was for their protection. People could come in here with knives or anything.

  He nodded and left the desk, coming around to undo the deadbolt on the door to my left and let me through. I had to pass underneath a metal detector. All clear.

  “Why are you in here, Kieran?” I asked him through the bars.

  He was looking very sorry for himself that morning as he stared at his hands. His usually shiny hair had lost some of its luster and was lying limp against his forehead. “I told you, I can’t remember what happened on that boat,” he said, gritting his teeth. “There is no reason I should be locked up.”

  But the cops had to suspect that Kieran was guilty if they weren’t letting him go. “I want to help you, but you have to tell me the truth.”

  I glanced around. There was a camera in the corner of the cell, but I didn’t know if it had a microphone to pick up sound. There were no cops around us right at that moment. “This is the best time,” I whispered to him. “Hurry.”

  Kieran stood up and came over to the bars. “I can’t tell you, Alyson… All I can say is that something bad happened on that boat. But it wasn’t me who killed Warren.”

  “So you never lost your memory, then, is that what you are saying?”

  “Please don’t be angry at me, Alyson…”

  “Of course I am angry! I have been kissing a murderer!” I clutched at the bars. Then I calmed down in case we started to draw attention.

  It seemed to take years for Kieran to finally tell me the truth. “It was all Jarryd’s idea. We flew to Australia because Jarryd wanted to make it as a celebrity. He had this idea of filming a YouTube series of him fishing. Sort of like a rockumentary. He likes to be on camera. It was meant to be funny, a comedy, as well as informative. Kayla wrote some of the material, and I was there to just basically steer the boat. Warren was the other co-host.”

  I frowned. “What happened to that plan then?”

  Kieran sighed. “No one was watching the show. We were running out of money, and so we thought that we could make money with another idea.” He looked very sheepish. “We decided that we could film footage of us getting lost at sea. Sort of like a horror movie. But no one could know we weren’t really lost.”

  My mouth dropped open. “So this was all fake? All of this? The shipwreck? Warren’s death?”

  Kieran shook his head. “No.” There was fear in his eyes. “There really was a terrible accident out there on the seas. We didn’t fake one little part of that, Alyson.”

  I was starting to wonder. If Warren had been Jarryd’s co-host, and Jarryd was hungry for fame, then maybe Jarryd had motive to kill Warren.

  I glanced around the cell before I left. “They can’t hold you here forever, Kieran. Not if they don’t have any proof.”

  The only thing I could do then was surf. It was the only way to clear the cobwebs out of my mind. The only way to make sense of the world.

  But just when I was starting to find some inner peace, I saw it—a dark object in the water.

  My heart started to race. Still on the board, trying to keep my balance so that I didn’t fall off into the empty depths below, I tried to look around for a lifeguard. But I was on ‘the dark side of the beach’ where people weren’t supposed to swim. Outside the flags. So there was no lifeguard support there.

  I gulped and looked around at the next set of waves, tried to judge it. Could I catch the next wave back to shore safely without losing my footing? Or would I fall off and be devoured by the shark?

  “Good luck, Alyson,” I said, and closed my eyes.

  I woke up, startled, wondering where I was. There was someone standing over me. A man with slightly greying hair, wearing a suit.

  “And I thought you were supposed to be the expert surfer.”

  Troy.

  “What happened?” I asked desperately. I rolled over and realized that my head was thumping. I checked all my limbs—all my arms and legs were still attached and accounted for. But what had happened to the shark?

  No shark. But there was a strange piece of wood nearby, washed up onto the sand. I closed my eyes and groaned. “Not again.”

  At least Simon hadn’t been around to witness it this time.

  Troy tried to help me to my feet. At first, I pushed him away, but then I realized I actually needed the help.

  “Must be another piece from the boat,” Troy said, turning it over and frowning. “I suppose we should call the police.”

  I didn’t even want to look at it. I just wanted to get off the beach and into my pajamas and into bed. But then I noticed something unusual about it.

  I frowned and crouched down on the sand. Troy crouched down beside me as well, got too close, our knees were touching. I moved away and shot him a look.

  “Kieran’s boat was black. Troy, this wood is dark blue.”

  17

  Claire

  Babysitting was not my specialty. Especially when the kid was making up the rules and I had no idea what was going on.

  I glanced around Alyson’s apartment. “When is your auntie getting back?”

  J had made up a game that seemed to make no logical sense to me. It was sort of a game of hide and seek where we had to take fruit from the basket and hide it somewhere in the apartment to find again. “But we already know where we put the fruit,” I said to her. “Because we just hid it.”

  She just laughed and threw her head back. “Yeah, that’s the whole point!”

  It was?

  After twenty minutes of running around, I was exhausted, but Alyson was even more red-faced and flustered than I was when she exploded through the door

  “I can’t find him anywhere. Claire, he has skipped town.”

  I gulped, then looked over at J to see that she was mid banana-hunting but had stopped to listen in on our conversation. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Why don’t you play the fruit game with Buster?” I asked, pointing at the dog. I pulled Alyson over to a corner so I could talk to her without J overhearing us.

  “The police let Kieran go yesterday, and no one has seen him since…” She sounded panicked.

  “So he never came back here? Are you sure?” I asked. He could have easily turned up while Alyson was working or at her tutoring session.

  She shook her head. “He hasn’t been here,” she said firmly. “And neither Kayla nor Jarryd have seen him since he left the police station. No one has.”

  I had to admit, it didn’t look good. It wasn’t exactly the actions of an innocent man, was it? Leaving town as soon as he was set free.

  Alyson collapsed into a chair and put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe that I kissed a murderer!”

  Um, what? First, I’d heard of that.

  J, behind me, echoed my sentiment. “What?”

  Alyson looked up and tried to backtrack. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Just keep playing the fruit game, J.”

  “I think it would be better if I took J to Matt’s,” I said, grabbing my coat and heading toward the door. I still wanted to explain things to Matt, and this would give me a chance to do it privately without Alyson overhearing.

  “He’s already on his way over,” Alyson said dismissively.

  He was? I froze when I heard the knock on the door.

  “Oh,” he said when I opened the door. “You’re still here.” He said it in a loaded tone though, to make sure I knew he didn’t just mean Alyson’s apartment. He was talking about me still being here in Eden Bay.

  I just looked into his eyes, pleading. Don’t tell Alyson.

  “Come on, J,” Matt said, picking up J’s overnight bag.

  “
Aww, but I want to hear more about Auntie Alyson kissing a killer!” she said, pouting as Matt tried to guide her out the door. He froze.

  “What was that?”

  Alyson stood up and sighed. “I kissed a killer, all right!” She threw her hands up and explained the whole thing while Matt just stared at her calmly, without surprise. I got the feeling that nothing she was saying really shocked him. But he knew Alyson better than anyone.

  “I think you and J better go,” I said, trying to hustle Matt and J out the door before this got even worse.

  Alyson wanted to go and hunt for Kieran. “At least I have you to help me,” Alyson said to me while Matt was still in the doorway.

  “Not for much longer,” Matt said. I glared at him, but thankfully, Alyson was so preoccupied that she didn’t really hear him.

  “Thanks for nothing,” I said to Matt, waving him away.

  Close call. But I was going to have to tell her eventually.

  “Do you really think we’re going to find him here?” The beach was finally full of people again. The shark scare had faded to the backs of people’s minds and some of the new tourists didn’t even know about it in the first place. There had been a whole fresh cycle in the week and a half since it had happened.

  She shielded her eyes and glanced out over the ocean. There was plenty to see that afternoon. It was hard to make out anything specific, though. It was a sea of multicolored surfboards and swimsuits and Lycra.

  “He might be trying to sail away,” Alyson said.

  “All the way back to New Zealand?” I asked skeptically.

  She sighed in frustration. “Well, it was worth a try.”

  I walked a little and kicked a shell. Oh, yikes, there was a crab inside it. It scurried away back into the sand while a child nearby laughed and giggled at my shock. “Look, if he really is guilty and has skipped town, then he is miles away by now.”

  Alyson shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “I guess I just don’t want to admit it.” She pouted a little. “Oh well. I don’t care about him anyway.”

  I didn’t quite buy that.

  She also kicked a shell in the sand. I braced myself and grimaced, but this one was empty. “I guess this case is solved, then. It’s just that the killer is probably on the other side of the world by now. No longer our problem.” She looked up at the cloudless sky. “He didn’t even have the decency to leave a note.”

  Shooting in Eden Bay had officially wrapped, but there were green screen shots to shoot that weekend in Sydney at the studio. I’d already planned to tell Alyson that I was just going up for the weekend to visit some old friends. That would give me a chance to finish up the shoot, and buy me a bit of time before I signed the contract for the next movie.

  “I need to get going,” I said. “I have some important business at the bookshop.” Really, I was going to meet Danielle in her hotel room to go over the shooting schedule, but I couldn’t tell Alyson that. She looked a little disappointed. I just shrugged. “It’s like you said, right? Case closed.”

  18

  Alyson

  I jumped when I felt the hand on my shoulder.

  “Simon,” I said. I glanced around. He seemed to come out of nowhere. I mean, I guess he did work at the beach. But he was wearing causal clothes, not his lifeguard uniform.

  “Where is that friend of yours?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I knew, logically, what Kieran had done. He’d been set free, stupidly, by the cops, and taken the chance to run. That was what my head told me. And my gut. But I had this stupid, embarrassing part of myself that wanted to believe he was innocent. And that part of me was worried. That was why I was still scouring the beach. But I didn’t want to give any of that away to Simon. “Umm, I’m not sure,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. “He is probably just surfing or something. I gave him a lesson the other day and he took to it like a duck to water.”

  Simon frowned in confusion. “He? Nah, I’m talking about Claire.”

  Oh. I thought he had barely even remembered Claire the other day. Now he seemed super interested in her. Weird. “Um, she had to go to work at the bookshop,” I said, not really able to hide the bitterness in my voice. I mean, I knew she had a job and everything. Well, two jobs actually, at least that week. But did she always have to go on about how busy-busy-busy she was all the time?

  Simon nodded. “I’ve been thinking about picking up a new book to read, actually.”

  Okay. I tried to stifle a laugh. It just ended up with me in a slight coughing fit. “Oh, have you?” I tried to ask with a straight face. I mean, no offense to Simon, but I was pretty sure he hadn’t read a book since school. To be honest, I wasn’t sure he had even read a book at school. I was pretty sure he’d been the kind of kid who just read the blurb on the back and tried to write an essay and then ended up with a D-.

  But I tried to stay polite. “Sounds good,” I said. “Why don’t I walk you up the hill then? Show you the way…”

  “I know the way,” he said, without any confidence whatsoever.

  “Oh, I’m sure you do,” I said, playing along. “But why don’t I come along just in case?”

  Claire would be thrilled to see me taking an interest in the books. I walked in through the doors and petted the two cats who had made their home in the window. The older of the two, Mr. Ferdinand, gave me a grumpy look when I petted his head like he would much rather just be left alone, and then went straight back to sleep.

  “Good evening!” a jolly, familiar voice greeted us. Maria was wearing a long multicolored smock in marbled shades of purple and violet. “We are closing in about fifteen minutes, just to let you know. Can I help you find anything?” She beamed at me. “So good to see you in here, taking an interest in reading, Alyson.” I wished people would stop being so proud of me for reading. It was a bit basic, wasn’t it? Why couldn’t they be proud of me for my amazing surfboard designs, or the fact that I could down an entire milkshake in ten seconds without taking a breath?

  “You can, actually,” I said, glancing around the shop. “I’m looking for Claire. She told me she had to come in here to take care of some important business?”

  Maria just made a bit of a confused pout and shook her head. “No, Claire has taken the full week off, hasn’t been in once. And she is taking the whole weekend off as well.”

  “So she’s not here?” I spun around to find Simon’s face full of disappointment. Strange. I thought he was just there for the pure joy of reading.

  Maria shook her head. “Sorry, dear.”

  “Do you know where she is?” I asked Maria. She told me that as far as she knew, Claire was meeting Danielle Williamson at her hotel.

  But why would Claire lie to me?

  I told Simon I had to go find Claire. “I am coming with you,” Simon said as we headed out the door.

  “Alyson, what are you doing here?” We were on the first floor of the Flower of Life Hotel. I’d knocked on room thirteen. Unlucky for Claire, who was now sprung.

  She stopped when she saw Simon. “So this is where you hang out, is it?” he asked, glancing around the room.

  “No,” she said. “I’m staying at the Dolphin (F)Inn. This is where my boss Danielle is staying.”

  Simon just seemed to take that information in and nodded. Claire was shuffling around some paperwork and looked agitated like she wanted the two of us to leave.

  “I don’t get it,” I said, looking down at the schedule she had in her hands. “Why did you tell me you were working at the bookshop tonight?”

  “What’s going on?” a loud voice called from the kitchen area. Then a tall woman walked out, holding a glass of red wine.

  Oh, it was Danielle! I grinned at her and greeted her warmly with a bright hello.

  She screwed her face up and looked me up and down. “So, Claire was telling the truth the other day. You really do wake up looking like that, hey? And I can see that you are a stranger to the hair and makeup chair
when you are not on a movie set…”

  I could see Claire’s face sort of freeze up with embarrassment, then she looked away from me, unable to meet my eyes as she buried herself in paperwork.

  Well, well, well. Wasn’t so nice to me now that she had gotten what she wanted from me and no longer needed me, was she? And this was the kind of person that Claire used to work for?

  “Well, I think you are the rudest woman I have ever met in my life and I can’t wait for you to leave our town!” The words had already escaped my lips before I could think any better of it, but I had no regrets. This Danielle person looked like she was the kind of person who never had anyone speak back to her. Well, I was going to be that person who did.

  She shrugged and looked over at Claire smugly. Kind of like she was a possession that Danielle owned. “Your friend clearly doesn’t agree with you, seeing as she’s just agreed to come back and work for me full-time.”

  All I could do was laugh at that, it was so absurd. “Yeah, right, I’m sure. Come on, Claire, let’s get out of here,” I said, certain that my best friend would follow me out the door after I had just been spoken to so rudely.

  But Claire remained firmly rooted in place. She still wasn’t meeting my eyes. In fact, she looked like she just wanted to disappear.

  I started to get this lurch in my stomach the same way you do when you miss the bottom step on a staircase.

  “Please tell me this woman was only joking, Claire…”

  She finally looked up at me. Pale as a bedsheet. “I was going to tell you, Alyson. I just needed to find the right time.” She looked hopelessly over at Danielle, who couldn’t have cared less that Claire was in distress. She certainly had no interest in helping Claire out. In fact, she looked amused by the whole thing. “I just made my final decision anyway.”