“There are sharks in the water,” I said and wrapped my arms around my torso.
“Yeah, it’s the ocean, duh. But there are barriers around this beach. Sharks almost never get past it.”
“Almost never?” That didn’t comfort me much.
“Take it off,” she demanded playfully.
“Fine.” I wasn’t sure why I was being such a baby. There were all kinds of people having fun in their bathing suits on the beach. Bodies of all sizes and types peppered the area, and nobody seemed to care.
I took off the sundress and immediately felt the sun searing parts of my body that had probably never been exposed to the outside world. “Good grief, you are paler than I thought possible,” Blossom said and scrambled to get the spray-on sunscreen out of my bag. “Let’s get you thoroughly basted in this before you catch fire.”
I’d like to say that no one noticed me, but I was so white that I think I blinded a couple of kids that walked by when the sun caught my skin. “I think I’m hurting people’s eyes,” I said self-consciously.
“Don’t worry about it, Starla. In a few days, we’ll have you looking like you’re actually alive.”
“Think I’ll ever have a tan?”
“I was just going for not a vampire,” Blossom said as she sprayed a second layer of 75+ Sun Off on my pasty butt.
Once my spackled-on layer of sunscreen set, Blossom said it was time to go in the water. I dragged my feet through the sand the entire way. I was from the Midwest. I’d never been to the ocean, but I’d watched Shark Week plenty of times. In my opinion, human beings, witches included, didn’t belong in the ocean. That’s how you got eaten by giant sea monsters with rows or razor-sharp teeth. Or, you know, stung by a jellyfish.
After much hemming and hawing, I waded out into the water. It was warm, and every time the waves crashed in on my legs, I got stinging salt spray in my eyes, but it was glorious. I felt connected to the earth in a way I’d never had before.
A short while later, Blossom had coaxed me out to the waist-deep water, and when the waves rolled in, they lifted me off my feet and I had to swim against them to keep from being swept back into the shallower water. It was so much fun that I forgot how much I hated the sun and the heat. The homesickness that I hadn’t even realized was weighing on my heart lifted, too. For the first time in years, I relaxed.
And that’s when I felt it.
“Something brushed against my leg!” I practically screamed.
“Honey, calm down. It was probably just a fish or some sea weed,” Blossom said.
“It was too big to be a fish,” I said as I began backing up toward the shore.
“Maybe it was a sea turtle then. Some pretty big ones get past the safety barriers from time to time.”
I was about to ask her how the barriers kept sharks out and let giant turtles and fish in when the lifeguard blew his whistle. “Get out of the water!” He called and blew his whistle again repeatedly. “Shark!”
“Let’s go,” Blossom said and grabbed my hand when it became apparent that I’d become frozen with fear.
She yanked me so hard that when the next wave hit, I lost my footing. In a split second, I was completely underwater. I could feel the surf tossing me around as I tried to figure out how to get my feet back under me.
I felt something brush up against me again. Instinctively, my eyes opened. The burn of the salt water was instantaneous, but before I could squeeze my eyes shut again, I saw something.
Chapter Six
I just wanted to go home, and Blossom said she understood. She didn’t. Blossom thought I’d meant the beach house, but I wanted to go back to Stone Church. The island felt dangerous and like a trap.
Being a witch, I’d seen some things in my day, but what I’d seen in the water made me doubt my own sanity. It also had me questioning why the Grand Coven had sent me to the island. It had me wondering what information Presto had withheld. Suddenly, I’d felt adrift.
It also could have just been a shark, but I could have sworn that I saw a face. I’d also felt hands helping me get myself upright again. But that was crazy. Wasn’t it?
Before I could ponder it further, there was a loud pounding on the door. I’d thought that perhaps Blossom had come back over. She’d been reluctant to leave me alone, and I kinda wished I hadn’t sent her away. I needed to stop trying to be alone when I was upset.
I stood up from my kitchen table and moved toward the front door, but the pounding came again before I could make it. The knocking was louder and even more insistent the second time. It sounded like when the cops knock on the door on TV.
Was that it?
Had Sheriff Kane come to arrest me for Becky’s murder? My stomach jumped into my throat. I wasn’t ready to be arrested. I hadn’t even packed a going away bag, and who would take care of Presto?
“Starla,” I heard a man call through the door. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”
I recognized the voice. It wasn’t Kane. The man pounding on my door angrily sounded like Holden. I stopped before I unlatched the deadbolt. Why would he be pummeling my door?
I thought we’d hit it off well the other night. Was he some sort of violent weirdo? I hadn’t given him my address, but I guess that wasn’t a big deal. The island wasn’t huge, and a lot of people probably knew this was where the new weirdo lived.
After a deep breath, I opened the door. I didn’t figure it could hurt much. There were people all around on the street and to the back of the house on the beach.
Holden was bright red, and there was a little vein in his forehead poking out. I almost slammed the door in his face.
“I need to talk to you,” Holden said.
“I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to let you in my house. You look a little dangerous,” I responded.
“I’m just here to talk,” Holden said as he took another deep breath. “Please.”
“Okay, but I think we should talk out back on the patio,” I said and took a step back so he could enter.
“This is a private matter.”
“No one will be able to hear you from the beach if you keep your voice down. It’s that or nothing. I don’t make a habit of spending time alone with strange, angry men.”
He nodded and then followed me through the house to the back patio door. Once we were outside, I sat down one of the chairs that was a part of my outdoor furniture collection. It looked a great deal like indoor furniture to me, but it was nice to have a comfortable place to watch the people and the sea.
Holden did not sit down.
“You’re making me nervous,” I said and motioned to the outdoor sofa.
“I can’t sit. I need to move.”
“Fine,” I said and stood up. I was not going to have someone standing over me talking at me. “What is all of this about?”
“I think you killed my sister,” he said flatly.
My mouth gaped, and it wasn’t the first time in the presence of Holden Grey. At first, I thought he’d lost his mind, and then I put the pieces together. I hadn’t seen it that night in the bar, but now I could. There was a familial similarity between Holden and Becky.
“She was your sister?”
“Yes, Becky was my sister, and the word I’m hearing around the island is that you and she got into a fight the night she died. At first, I didn’t think it was possible that you’d done anything to her, but then I remembered that I don’t know you. Nobody around here really knows you. You’re an outsider, and as soon as you showed up on this island, my sister dies. Do you know how long it’s been since there was a murder on Clownfish Cay?”
“How long?” I asked as gently as possible.
“I don’t even know. That’s how long it’s been.”
“I didn’t kill Becky, and Holden, just because I’m new on the island, that doesn’t make me a murderer.”
Small-town thinking had followed me to the island. It hadn’t hit me until that moment that Clownfish Cay was basically a small town in
the middle of the ocean. It was sunnier and there was more sand there, but the island wasn’t much different from Stone Church in many regards. Oddly enough, that made me feel a little bit better.
“She wasn’t a loser,” Holden said as he sunk into the sofa. “I know she was one of the island’s biggest drunks, but she wasn’t a loser.”
“I didn’t think she was. I didn’t know her, though. I tried to cut her off, Holden. That’s why she was angry with me. I wanted her to go home and sleep it off.”
He signed heavily, like someone resigned to a Herculean task. The anger was holding him up, and when he let that go, I watched the weight of his sister’s death sink him.
“She came to the island because I was here. Our parents were cold people, and they put her out when her depression became too much. After the incident, she couldn’t keep herself together. She’d lost her job, house, and car. Becky was living in a room over my parents’ garage, but even that was too much for them. I’d come to Clownfish Cay because it was warm and sunny here. It was an escape from the chill of my old home, but I can’t help feeling like I abandoned her. If her big brother hadn’t been off running some resort in the Caribbean, then maybe the incident never would have happened. She would have still been a kindergarten teacher. She loved teaching so much.”
I wasn’t going to ask what the incident was. I figured if he’d wanted me to know, Holden wouldn’t have kept calling it the incident. What I did want to know was what happened when she got to Clownfish Cay. Maybe that held some clue as to who killed her.
“Was she a teacher here?”
“That was the plan, but it never happened. When my parents kicked her out, I told her she needed to come here. I gave her a job working at the front desk of the resort. That lasted a month until she blew up at a guest while she was intoxicated. I was able to keep the owner from firing her by moving her to housekeeping. It was the only way I could get her a second chance. At first, she tried really hard. Becky even quit drinking for a while. She needed a good reference from the resort to get a job at the school, but it didn’t last. Eventually her work got so sloppy that I had to fire her. That was gut-wrenching, but I would have lost my job if I didn’t. Guests were complaining about the rooms she cleaned. Some of them were so bad that they demanded to be moved. The resort was losing money because of her.”
“What happened to her after that?”
“Word travels fast around here. Even as a favor to me, I couldn’t expect anyone to give her a job after what happened. She lost her apartment, and I let her move in with me. But she couldn’t handle living in my house. I had rules, you know? I have a job and I couldn’t have her drunk and partying all of the time while I was sleeping. She eventually moved out.”
“Where did she go?”
“Nowhere and everywhere,” Holden said. “It’s warm enough here that someone could sleep on the beach if they needed to, and that’s what she did most of the time. I heard that sometimes she crashed on the couches of people she partied with.”
“If she wasn’t working, how did she afford the drinking?”
“I paid her bar tabs.” Holden put his head in his hands for a moment. “I shouldn’t have. I know that, but if I didn’t, then she panhandled on the beach. Becky got herself arrested a few times harassing tourists while she was drunk. I didn’t know what to do. I got her into rehab twice. I was going to pay for it and everything, but she didn’t get on the plane,” he said after he’d lifted his head again.
“I don’t know what I would have done in that situation either, Holden. It sounds like you did the best you could.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry, Starla. I show up at your house making horrible accusations, and here you are comforting me.”
“It’s okay. I’m a good listener sometimes. I think people can just sense it,” I said and stood up. “I’m going to go to the kitchen and get us some ice tea. Would you like some mango, too?”
“That sounds good. Thank you, Starla.”
I went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of tea. There was a container of pre-cut mango slices in the fridge, so I grabbed that and put some on a plate. I thought I was doing a good job carrying the glasses and balancing the plate on my arm, but halfway back to the patio, one of the glasses slipped out of my hand and shattered on the tile area just inside the door.
To make matters worse, I flinched when the glass broke and the plate slipped off my arm. In an effort to grab it, I lunged forward without thinking and put my foot down right on a piece of broken glass. I howled like a wounded dog at the pain and both Presto and Holden came running.
“Stay back,” I said as I tried to squeeze back tears. “There’s broken glass.”
“You’ve cut yourself,” Holden said as the blood started to spread on the tile beneath my foot.
“It hurts,” was all I could say.
He stepped inside but avoided the glass. In a moment, Holden was behind me and somehow managed to sweep me up into his arms and out of the glass. Holden carried me into the kitchen and sat me down on the counter.
“I’m going to check your bathroom for a first aid kit,” he said and disappeared down the hall.
Moments later, he was back with a large, white plastic case that had a red cross on the front. He opened it up and set to work cleaning and bandaging my foot.
“Thanks,” I said as he finished wrapping it in gauze.
“You’re welcome, but I’m afraid this is only temporary. You need to get that cut looked at right away. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Before I could answer or protest, he had me back in his arms again. “Stay out of the glass,” I said to Presto, and if a cat could roll their eyes, I’d say that’s what he did.
Holden carried me out the front door, but once we were outside, I noticed there was a woman standing on my front sidewalk with her hands on her hips. She looked furious.
“So, this is who you are cheating on me with?” the woman spit as she tried to bore holes in my head with her eyes.
Chapter Seven
“Ashlyn, what are you doing here?” Holden asked.
“I saw you with this woman the other night. I thought you might be coming here today, so I followed you. Now look at you. You’re not even trying to hide it.”
“I don’t have anything to hide, Ashlyn. Especially not from you. I came here to talk to Starla about Becky. She cut her foot. I’m taking her to the hospital.”
“I don’t believe you. Not for one second, Holden Grey. Is this Starla person the reason you won’t call me back or come talk to me? Have you already moved on?”
“I’m going to set you down on the steps. Keep that foot up,” Holden said before depositing me on my front porch.
“Ashlyn, this is not the time nor the place for this. I need to get Starla to the hospital so a doctor can look at her foot.”
“I don’t care about Starla!” Ashlyn shrieked loud enough that a couple of the neighbors’ dogs began barking.
I saw one of the old ladies that lived across the street poke her head through the curtains while her tea cup poodle barked bloody murder at the scene unfolding on my front yard. She shook her head in distaste at me while I gave her a friendly wave. Then, she held up her white cordless phone, and I knew she was about to call the police.
Great.
That was just what I needed to improve Sheriff Kane’s impression of me. I knew I would be the pariah of Clownfish Cay by the end of the next weekend.
“Ashlyn, please calm down,” Holden said in a measured voice that betrayed the fact that he’d done this before. “There’s no reason to scream.”
“There’s no reason to scream? You’re at some other woman’s house, taking her to the doctor, and you expect me to care? What about me? Huh? You didn’t worry about my doctor’s appointment. Did you?”
“Ashlyn, what are you talking about?”
It was like a bad soap opera. All I wanted to do was crawl back into my house and hide. I briefly wondered if Holden and
Ashlyn would notice if I did.
“I’m pregnant, Holden. We’re having a baby,” Ashlyn said.
I’d been looking at my front door, but my head whipped around at that. This Holden guy had a girlfriend, a pregnant girlfriend, and he’d been flirting with me at the restaurant the other night.
Gross.
“I’m going to give you two some privacy,” I said and started to push myself up on one foot using the handrail for the steps. I’d have rather hopped back into the house and called a taxi than watch any more of what was unfolding in front of my house.
“Starla, wait,” Holden said, but he took my arm and made sure I didn’t fall when I hopped up two steps on one foot. “This isn’t what you think. This can’t be true,” he said, but I could hear the doubt in his voice. Or was it fear? Either way, it wasn’t my circus.
I’d almost made it back into the house when Sheriff Kane pulled up. “Great, now it’s party.” I mumbled under my breath.
“What seems to be the problem here?” Kane asked as he stepped out of his car. “Are you bleeding?”
“I’ve had a bit of an accident,” I said sheepishly. “And Holden and Ashlyn are having a bit of a heated discussion. I don’t think my neighbors approve.”
“You two are standing here arguing while she’s bleeding?” Kane asked incredulously.
“I’m fine,” I said and hopped down the steps.
Kane rushed to my side to help me down the last few. Holden took my arm on the other side, and both of them assisted me. Ashlyn took a step forward, but it was just so I could see her roll her eyes better.
“Holden, you and Ashlyn need to take this somewhere else. I don’t want to have to cite you two for disturbing the peace.”
“We’ll continue this discussion later,” Holden said to Ashlyn. “I’m taking Starla to the emergency room.”
“I’m taking Starla. You two need to finish whatever this is, but please do it somewhere else. You both have houses. Go find one, and keep it down.”
Mojitos & Murder Page 4
