Bodies on the Beach

by Stacey Alabaster

  He shook his head. “ You lied to me first! Don’t think I didn’t remember you from school, Claire Elizabeth Richardson.”

  I wasn’t going to let myself be shaken. “Well, then you knew I was a local.”

  He shook his head. “Were a local, you mean. These days, you think you are too good for this place. It’s written all over your face.”

  I shoved the sign-up form back at him and stomped out. At least I had my sign-up complete. And that meant that I could, now, officially enter the surf comp. The question was, did I want to?

  I looked at the time on my phone. The day was almost over.

  “It’s okay,” Alyson said as I met her back on the edge of the beach. “It was very unlikely that we were going to solve the case in one day.”

  We wandered down the road to Captain Eightball’s for something to eat. Alyson picked her skateboard up and offered it to me. I shook my head. The courtyard overlooked the beach and was half-empty. I shook my head in disbelief as we took our seats. In Sydney, you’d have to book months in advance for a place with a view like this. And you’d be paying three hundred dollars plus per head.

  There was a table of very serious-looking people sitting beside us. They looked like reporters to me. Who wore a blazer to the beach? They looked out of place. They kind of looked like me.

  “So, I hear that you now have custody of J?” I asked as my steak arrived at the table. It was fat and juicy and dripping in juice with a side of cream sauce. It smelled delicious “Or close to it, anyway.”

  “Who told you that?” Alyson asked curiously. She had surprised me by ordering a caprese salad. I always forgot that she was a kind of secret health freak. Sure, she’d tuck into the occasional ice cream and milkshakes, but she was in training for the competition and she always took these things seriously.

  I almost blurted out the truth. “M—Maria or someone. Hmm. Someone mentioned it at the book club,” I said, not wanting to reveal that I had been hanging out with Matt.

  “Right.”

  “You never mentioned that,” I said.

  “Well, you never asked me anything about my life,” Alyson pointed out.

  I was about to get defensive. Offer her a dozen excuses. I was busy now, I had a life of my own, a career that took up all of my time, then I realized she was right. “That’s fair.”

  Alyson dug into her salad. “Matt’s been acting really strange lately.”

  “He has?”

  I felt a funny stirring in my stomach. Maybe me coming back to town had something to do with that. No. That was a silly thought. There was nothing between Matt and I, right? Right.

  Alyson shrugged. “I don’t know. Just staying out late, not picking up J when he was meant to. Just distracted or something.”

  Hmm.

  I looked at the time. I still had a few hours before I had to get to bed, so that I could leave for Sydney bright and early.

  I stood up and put enough money down on the table to cover both meals. “I’m sorry, Alyson…”

  “You’re going?” she asked me in shock. “But this is your last night here. I thought we were going to hang out?”

  “I need to get a few hours’ sleep,” I said to her. “It was good to catch up again, Alyson. Really, it was.”

  10

  Claire

  As I drove around town, it sunk in that this might be the very last time that I would ever see Alyson Faulks. With the bookshop officially up for sale and in the hands of the realtor, there would be no reason for me to ever be back in Eden Bay.

  My Porsche wasn’t exactly a car that went unnoticed. But at least it was dark, and so the gold wouldn’t stand out too much, except for when it reflected in the moonlight.

  I heard a squawking noise. And then a little splatter. Oh, don’t tell me that was… I assured myself that it couldn’t possibly have been bird poop and kept on driving. I had to see where Matt was going. It was very late, far too late to be out for a swim. And yet, he was driving around town, headed in the direction of the beach.

  Alyson had said he’d been acting funny lately. I wondered if the reason was guilt. After all, Matt was a good surfer. Decent, skilled, however, he was not the best. And he was signed up to enter the surf comp in a few days’ time.

  If Matt was the one who killed Adrian and attacked Aaron, then I needed to find out before I left town.

  I stopped my car and watched as he stepped out of his and locked the doors.

  Whose house was this? I leaned forward. It looked familiarish but I had no idea who lived there—until I saw Dawn Petts-Jones through the window.

  There were twenty-five new messages from Jessica when I woke up at 7am. Yes, you read that right. Twenty-five.

  Where was I? Was I on my way? I was going to be there for the start of production, right? I hadn’t taken ill, or died or anything had I?

  “Yes, I will be there within two hours,” I texted back, rubbing my eyes.

  It would take me one and a half hours to drive back to Sydney. I had half an hour before I needed to leave, if I was going to make the words I had said in the text message true.

  I stepped outside my door and saw the bowl of cornflakes at my feet.

  No time for them today.

  I swung through the doors of Captain Eightball’s. There was the smell of bacon and eggs in the air and freshly ground coffee beans. But I wasn’t there to eat, even though everything looked delicious. Gosh—was that a stack of pancakes with peanut butter brittle on the side? Yum. Amazing.

  Focus, Claire.

  Matt threw a towel over his shoulder and grinned at me. There was steam coming from the coffee machine behind him and for a moment, he kinda looked like a 90s heartthrob in his white t-shirt and blue jeans. Focus, Claire. “What can I get for you? We’ve got these amazing freshly baked blueberry muffins with vanilla bean frosting,” he said, opening the lid on the display. “Half-price for friends.”

  I almost replied with, “I’ll take four.” Instead, I just pulled my eyes away from the tantalizing muffins and looked at him sternly. I had one thing I needed to do before I left town, and this was it.

  “I saw you last night, Matt.”

  He was still smiling at me but he shifted from one foot to the other and placed the lid back on the muffins a little clumsily. “I don’t understand what you mean. You saw me last night?” He laughed a little. Kinda nervously. “I don’t remember seeing you. Haha, you weren’t stalking me, were you?”

  Haha. He joked. But— Hmm. That was pretty much what I had been doing, wasn’t it?

  “At Dawn Petts-Jones’s house.”

  “Wow.” Matt shook his head and took a step back. That wide grin he always wore slowly faded from his face and he didn’t know what to say. He completely ignored me for a few minutes while customers came in, turning his charm on them instead. He sat a table and took their orders. As slowly as possible of course.

  I looked at the clock. Ten minutes. I didn’t have time for this. I’m not the sort of person who likes to be ignored at the best of times.

  I called out in my best demanding-but-cheery voice. “Excuse me? Can I get some service around here?”

  The manager looked over—whoops—and gave Matt a stern nod, forcing Matt to come back to me. He looked thoroughly unimpressed.

  “You are starting to sound as paranoid as Alyson, you realize that?” he asked me, grabbing a notepad and pretending to write down my order. “I am getting you a chamomile tea, by the way,” he said, scribbling something down. “Because right now, you need to chill.”

  I didn’t have time for tea. I leaned forward so that I was almost on the other side of the counter with him.

  “What were you doing at her house at that time of night, Matt?”

  This question seemed to change things. A curious look appeared on his face. Grinning from ear to ear all of a sudden.

  “Ohh… I see what’s going on here, Claire Elizabeth Richardson. You’re jealous.” He looked like the cat who got the cream. H
e placed the notepad on the counter and placed his forearms down on it, leaning in toward me.

  I leaned backward. “Um, no. I am worried about the safety of my friend. Of everyone in this town.”

  Matt shrugged a little. “If you say so.” He was still grinning from ear to ear.

  Right. So. It had been a romantic meetup then. That was what Alyson had meant when she’d said that Matt had been staying out late and had been distracted. Of course. He had a girlfriend. His strange behavior had nothing to do with me at all.

  I was just going to drop it and walk out. But I couldn’t help adding my two cents in about the situation.

  Five minutes to go.

  “She’s a little old for you, isn’t she?”

  “Jealously is a curse, Claire.”

  I stood up and grabbed my purse, and he saw that I was serious about leaving.

  “I was only teasing,” he said, using that stupid charming smile on me. “Come on. Stay. Milkshake’s on me. I promise. I’ll throw in a muffin.”

  “No, I can’t stay,” I said. “I need to be getting back to Sydney. And I need to leave in…” I looked at my watch. “Right this second.”

  “Ohhh, no,” I groaned, seeing that my worst fears were confirmed. In the dark, I’d been able to tell myself otherwise. In the light, I could see the squishy white and brown splatters all over the roof of my Porsche.

  And no time to go through a car wash. I was going to look great arriving on set with this, wasn’t I?

  Only five minutes into my drive back and I was already being blasted by the boss lady. I used my blue tooth and tried to focus on the road. Jessica was yelling so loudly the entire Porsche was filled with the sound of her screaming. I turned the volume down. Caught one last glance at the beach in the rearview mirror. Well, good-bye, paradise.

  “I am going to make it,” I said. Breezily. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Claire. There are a hundred other young women just waiting to take your job.”

  I ended the call and put my foot on the gas. I had to hurry.

  The “You are leaving Eden Bay. Thanks for visiting!” sign was long in my rearview mirror. Even though I hadn’t found a buyer for the bookshop yet, I could sort it out via distance from Sydney. As for Adrian Bailey… Well, it wasn’t my responsibility to find out who had killed him, was it? How could that possibly fall to me? There were four thousand other people in that town. People who actually lived there.

  My phone started ringing again. I assumed it was going to be another call from Jessica and braced myself. “Yes! I am on my way. I’ll break the speed limit if I go any faster—” But I was cut off by a voice that I quickly realized was not Jessica.

  Alyson.

  “What is it?” I asked as I saw a sign, and took the turnoff that would take me back to Sydney and back to my real life.

  “It’s Aaron. He’s awake. And he’s got something to say.”

  11

  Alyson

  I had no idea if Princess was going to turn her car around and come back. Probably not. I didn’t care either way. It had been an hour since I’d phoned her—and been hung up on! I was sure that movie set and the glamorous actors on it were far more important than who lived and who died in Eden Bay. Anyway, like I said, I didn’t care.

  Aaron was laying in the hospital bed. Like Adrian, he had been drowned. Well, in Aaron’s case, it was only an attempted drowning.

  I was sitting right beside him, waiting. He’d been drifting in and out of sleep for the past few hours. I’d only been allowed in because I’d lied and told the nurse that I was his sister, then showed him a pic of myself with Matt to ‘prove’ it. This guy looked enough like Matt that she bought my story. I mean, they didn’t look identical or anything, but they both had longish hair and bronzed skin. The same surfer vibe. Except that this guy had darker features and tattoos up his arm, whereas Matt was blonder and no ink. Still, they did look similar enough that my lie was believed.

  He was stirring.

  “Aaron, is it?”

  He looked over at me skeptically. “You the nurse?”

  I was wearing cut-off jeans and a t-shirt that said “Surf or die,” so I didn’t know how he confused me for a nurse.

  “No. I’m a friend of a friend.” I wasn’t sure just how well Claire knew this guy, but from the way she had reacted to his attack, maybe they were even more than friends?

  “I don’t know anyone in this town,” he said, trying to roll his body so that his face didn’t have to look at me, but he was unsuccessful due to the pain.

  “Can you tell me who did this to you?”

  “It was someone who wanted me out of the way.” His words were little more than a mumble.

  “Out of the way of what?” I asked.

  But he refused to answer any more of my questions. Told me that he wanted the ‘real nurse.’

  I sighed. “Can you just tell me, was it a man or a woman?”

  He just shook his head a little and looked at me blearily, his bloodshot eyes flickering.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m out of here. I won’t be competing in the surf comp. So you can tell your friend that.”

  The nurse on duty walked in and saw that Aaron looked distressed. “Are you family?” she asked me, taking a stern tone.

  Aaron scoffed with the amount of energy he had left. “Hardly! I’ve never met her before in my life.”

  The nurse gave me that ‘you’re about to be in trouble’ look. “Didn’t you tell reception that you were his sister?”

  Oops. I grabbed my backpack and headed for the door. “Gotta go!”

  “Where have you been?” Matt asked when I checked in with him at the cafe after my visit.

  He seemed a little low. No idea why. I didn’t tell him I had been skulking around the hospital all day. And that I was also down. But I knew why I was—my best friend had left town and was probably never coming back. What was Matt’s excuse?

  “Just down at the beach.”

  “You’re dry.”

  “Yeah.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “I was selling surfboards, wasn’t I? Not catching waves.”

  Matt’s voice was still flat. “J needs to be picked up from school.”

  I grabbed my skateboard. “I’m on it.”

  The grade school was only a block from the café, so it only took me five minutes to skate around the corner. J was coming down past the gate in her blue dress, which she hated wearing as part of her uniform. She threw her heavy backpack onto the ground—how much homework were they giving kids these days?—and I picked it up and put it on my own back. Looked like it had been a long day for the little one as well. I thought we could all do with a pick-me-up.

  “Milkshakes?” she asked tiredly.

  “Milkshakes,” I agreed with a firm nod as I put my arm around her little shoulders.

  It was already 3pm. No sign of the white Porsche with the gold wheels. And believe me, you could see that thing coming from a mile away.

  I sucked up the last of my milkshake, a syrupy mouthful from all the syrup that had fallen to the bottom of the glass. I guessed she wasn’t coming back.

  Like I always say, the sun always rises again and there is always another wave to catch. So the following morning, I decided to get back to my original plan. The books that J and I had stolen—well, borrowed… well, been given out of pity in the end—were growing stale, so I picked up the one with the ice fields on the cover and headed down to Captain Eightball's, taking a seat in the sun outside. If I couldn’t read there, I couldn’t read anywhere. Well, that was my original positive thought. In reality, I was struggling to concentrate. I kept reading the same five words over and over again, something something blood red rose, and the smell of fish and chips was in the air, and was that Calamari? Gosh, I’m hungry. Maybe I could just order some food, eat, and then get back to reading.

  Great. Just when I wanted to take a break from my studies, I got sprung by the teacher.

  �
�Good morning, Mister Carbonetti.”

  He still hadn’t told me I could call him Nello, unlike teacher’s pet Claire.

  His poodle sat down and then cutely scooched her butt toward me, putting her head up like she wanted a pat. I reached out my hand gently so she could get used to me and my scent, then patted her head. “She’s such a good girl,” I said. “So sweet.”

  “Great to see you looking so healthy and focused, Alyson,” he said, nodding toward the book I was still holding, my thumb holding my place. I suppose I had managed to get a quarter of the way through. More than I had realized.

  He seemed impressed that I was reading. I wasn’t sure if I liked that or not. Impressing teachers? Not really my thing.

  “I was never really the smart one,” I said. “That was always Claire.”

  Mr. Carbonetti didn’t seem so sure about that. “Well, in English class, sure,” he said philosophically, while the waitress bought him his cappuccino. “But what about in art class?” he asked. “Surely you were the star pupil there?”

  I shrugged a little, feeling kinda embarrassed.

  The poodle took a few steps toward me and sat down, looking for another pat while Mr. Carbonetti laughed. “From the looks of it, you are more than capable of applying yourself. You could always return to study. University perhaps? You wouldn’t be too much older than most of the students there.”

  “I never even finished high school, remember?” I said, turning my back to him a little.

  “Well, there’s always the opportunity to take night classes and get your high school certificate,” he said. “And then you could study anything you want.”

  Hmm. That was silly, right? “I’m not even sure what I would study.”

  “Art?” he suggested with a laugh. “Business? Both things that could help you make even more money.”

  I thought about it for a second. “Nah, it’s not for me.” Claire had gone to university in Sydney. That was when she had left Eden Bay, and me, behind. She’d always promised that she would just go for the three years, and that once her degree was finished, she would move right back to Eden Bay, and that she would be back down here every chance she got in the meantime. But the visits during holidays became less and less, and finally, she just stopped visiting at all.