Burned

by Carol Higgins Clark

  But it wasn’t the same high as stealing.

  He was laughing when the ride ended, and he and Artie together carried their boards to the shore.

  “That was great!” Francie cried. “I should try it again one of these days!”

  “I have to admit it was fun,” Artie said as he caught his breath.

  “I’m getting hungry. Why don’t we go back and grab a late lunch?” Ned suggested.

  “Then we can hit the beach,” Francie suggested.

  “Sure,” Ned agreed, but he had no intention of going to the beach again this afternoon. He had business to take care of at the Seashell Museum.

  29

  O n a black sand beach north of the Kona airport, Jason and Carla walked hand in hand, only letting go of each other to pick up coral shells. They had already filled two shopping bags.

  “Will we always be this happy?” Carla asked Jason as they put their shopping bags down, walked to the water’s edge, and let the ocean swirl around their feet.

  “Hope so.” He paused. “But the odds are against us.”

  Jason laughed as Carla poked him in the ribs. “You’re not very romantic.”

  “I was just kidding! And I am romantic. I was waiting for a moonlit night to propose. I should have checked the Farmer’s Almanac, and then I would have known it wasn’t a good idea. My best intentions just got me in trouble.”

  Carla kissed him on the cheek. “I still can’t believe I was walking on that beach at the same time Dorinda Dawes was floating around in the water.”

  “You gave me a good scare. I wake up at three in the morning, and you’re gone.”

  “It was scary on the beach at that hour. Something out there struck me as weird, but I was a little tipsy so I don’t remember what it was. I really want to think of it so I can help that girl Regan.”

  “What do you mean weird?” Jason asked.

  “Like I saw something strange. Not a murder weapon or anything, but something was out of place.”

  “You usually forget nothing, especially what I do wrong.”

  Carla laughed. “I know, but we’d been drinking piña coladas by the pool all afternoon and had wine at dinner. And then I grabbed a couple of beers from the mini bar before I went on the beach. I’m surprised you didn’t smell it on my breath.”

  “What did you do with the bottles?”

  “I threw them into the ocean when I was finished.”

  “Litterbug.”

  “I made a wish on each one.”

  “What did you wish?”

  “Well, one wish came true. You finally proposed.”

  “What was your second wish?”

  “That it doesn’t rain on the big day. Or else my hair will frizz, and I’ll go nuts.”

  “Some people say rain brings good luck.”

  Carla smiled at him sweetly. “With you I don’t need any more luck. I’m not greedy.”

  Jason hugged her. He wouldn’t let himself think too much about the fact that this girl he loved was walking around on the beach when, quite possibly, a murder was being committed-all because it was cloudy and he hadn’t proposed. There’s no question, he thought, that Regan Reilly is asking questions because they don’t think it was a simple drowning. “I think we have enough of these shells to write out the Gettysburg Address,” he finally said. “Let’s get in the car and find a good spot to declare our love for each other to anyone who bothers to read Hawaiian graffiti.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s a tourist attraction. Everyone on the highway to and from the airport will read it. And people flying above can look down and see it.”

  “Only if you’re flying in a plane six feet off the ground or you happen to own a pair of supersonic spy glasses.” He picked up the shopping bags off the sand. “Let’s go.”

  They ambled up to their rental car that was parked on a cliff overlooking the turquoise water and marveled that there was no one else on the beach. The setting was gorgeous, complete with a waterfall and coconut palm trees. Everything was postcard perfect except the dent on the left back door of the car. Tiny traces of yellow paint lingered. The rental agent had presented the damaged vehicle to them without batting an eye. Jason immediately called on his bargaining skills and received a ten percent discount.

  “More money to spend on our honeymoon,” Carla had trilled. “You are such a smart businessman.”

  The sun was blazing, and inside the car it was hot. Jason turned on the air conditioning which promptly blew even hotter air in their faces. “Come on, baby,” he urged. “Let’s cool down.”

  Carla pulled down the visor and inspected herself in the mirror. She was starting to sweat, and her mascara was running. “After we do the shells, let’s go swimming to cool off and then find a place for lunch. My stomach is grumbling.”

  “You want to eat now? It’ll take energy to arrange the shells.”

  “Good idea.”

  They pulled out onto the highway and drove north. On their left the Pacific Ocean stretched out endlessly. On their right were coffee-covered mountain slopes.

  “This is awesome,” Carla said. “I read somewhere that the Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated island chain in the world.”

  “I read the same magazine. It’s back in the room. It also said that the Big Island is the size of the state of Connecticut. Too bad we don’t have time to drive down to the big volcano.”

  “The most active volcano in the world.”

  “I know. Like I told you, I read that magazine.”

  “When did you read it?”

  “When you took two hours to get ready last night.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe we should come back to the Big Island on our honeymoon. It’s rural and romantic. There are rain forests to explore, and we can horseback ride, kayak, hike, snorkel, swim…”

  “Maybe.”

  Carla settled back in her seat. She looked out the window as Jason turned on the radio. A song was ending, and the DJ started to speak: “Well, that was a song for lovers. And for all you lovers out there, have you tried eating at the Shanty Shanty Shack? It’s right on the beach in Kona, and it’s a great place to gaze in each other’s eyes at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Turn off the highway at-.”

  “Look!” Carla exclaimed. “It’s a sign for the Shanty Shanty Shack! Make a left two hundred feet ahead. Let’s try it! It was meant to be.”

  Jason shrugged. “Why not?” He put on the blinker, and they turned off the highway at the next sign for the restaurant, which had a big arrow pointing toward the beach. They went down a poorly paved narrow road that curved around a grove of banana trees and ended in a little cove with a small parking lot. The restaurant was perched on stilts overlooking the water. It was connected to a sweet, quaint hotel.

  “What a discovery! Now this is Hawaii!” Carla exclaimed. “I’d love to stay here. You feel so close to nature!”

  “Let’s go inside and check out the food,” Jason said practically.

  They got out of the car and stepped onto the restaurant’s rickety wooden deck. The water lapped below. “Smell that salty air!” Carla urged. “It smells not only like salt but flowers, too!”

  “I smell it, I smell it. Let’s keep moving. I’m hungry.”

  “Oh, look, Jason!” Carla pointed to a treehouse in the distance. In front of it was a big sign with large yellow lettering that read PRIVATE PROPERTY-KEEP OUT! AND I MEAN IT!

  “Jason, can you stand it!” Carla laughed. “I’d love to meet whoever lives there.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t think they want to meet you.” Jason held open the restaurant door for his fiancée. They stepped inside. The dark wood walls, large vases of tropical plants obviously cut from the lush gardens outside, and sweet cool air immediately soothed customers-not that many people in Hawaii needed soothing, but plenty of tourists who hadn’t yet unwound did. It was already late for lunch, and the restaurant was quiet. There were three people sitting at a corner table.

  Carla’s happy-go-lucky moo
d quickly evaporated. “I knew it!” Carla whispered to Jason. “Look over there! They’re not eating at a friend’s house! Those two rotten ladies lied to us!”

  Gert and Ev looked up from their seafood salads. Ev inhaled sharply when she saw the couple they had ditched at the airport. Gert turned to her and calmly put her hand on her sister’s. “I love this hotel. It’s charming, but there aren’t enough activities for our group.”

  Ev looked blank, then smiled. They couldn’t have heard what we were talking about, she realized. They just walked in a second ago. “You’re absolutely right, Gert. We’ll never book any rooms here for our group. But they do make a mean seafood salad,” she exclaimed in a loud voice.

  For a moment the young man at their table looked at them quizzically, but he had learned not to ask any questions. Boy oh boy would he be glad when this project was over.

  30

  W hen Regan hung up the phone with Jack, she once again looked quickly through the newsletters. There were ten of them, the last one with all the unflattering pictures and questionable captions published just two weeks ago. Regan couldn’t find anything that would make someone want to murder Dorinda Dawes. Of course some would argue that merely publishing bad pictures could be grounds for murder, especially lousy pictures of Hollywood stars. But there weren’t any stars in the newsletters. If they were staying at the hotel, they would have avoided the camera.

  Regan looked again at the picture of Will and his wife, Kim. She was very pretty and had a dark tan, long, straight black hair that almost reached her waist, and large brown eyes. Regan wondered if she was Hawaiian. She also wondered if she had seen this photo yet. Probably not if she’s been away for several weeks. So Kim is coming back to her mother-in-law, an embarrassing photo in the newsletter from her husband’s place of employment, and a husband who’s afraid he may lose his job. Swell. Welcome home, honey.

  Regan was anxious to talk to Will, but not while Jazzy was around. She picked up the Spirits in Paradise magazine, which she had only gotten a chance to glance at before lunch. Dorinda had profiled a guy named Boone Kettle, a cowboy from Montana who had moved to Hawaii a year ago. Regan turned to the article. A picture of fifty-two-year-old Boone, handsome and rugged and perched atop a horse, filled the page. He had a job leading horseback riding tours on a cattle ranch on the Big Island.

  The piece was several pages long. It talked about how the winters in Montana had gotten on Boone’s nerves. He came to Hawaii on vacation and decided that this was where he wanted to live. It was tough, but he managed to get a job at a cattle ranch and was now celebrating his first anniversary in Hawaii. The worst thing about moving, he said, was leaving his horse. But his nephew brought the animal to live on his farm, and Boone planned to visit Misty at least once a year.

  Regan dug out the interisland directory from the drawer of the night table and looked up the number of the ranch where Boone worked. She pulled out her cell phone and made the call, hoping she might catch him in. The girl who answered told Regan to hold on, that he had just gotten back from a ride. “Boooooone!” she screamed. “Booooooone! Phooooooonnnne!”

  For a moment Regan held the phone away from her ear, afraid that if Boone didn’t hurry, the girl would scream again. Then she could hear the girl saying, “I have no idea who it is.”

  “Aloha, Boone Kettle here,” he said, his voice sounding gruff.

  Regan considered how incongruous it sounded for this Montana cowboy to say “aloha.” She brushed that thought aside. “Hello, Boone. My name is Regan Reilly, and I’m doing some work for the Waikiki Waters Resort where Dorinda Dawes worked writing their newsletter-”

  “It’s such a dang shame about her,” Boone interrupted. “I couldn’t believe it when I read the story in the paper. But I do think she had a thirst for danger. She was a bronco that needed to be broken.”

  “What do you mean?” Regan asked.

  “Who did you say you are?” Boone inquired.

  “Regan Reilly. I’m a private investigator working for the manager of the Waikiki Waters Resort. I wanted to know if maybe she talked to you about what was going on in her life-”

  “I get it. You mean if there was anything she said that would indicate someone might want to off her.”

  “Something like that. What makes you think she had a thirst for danger?”

  “She told me she felt a little frustrated. When she was hired by the manager, she thought it was to liven things up at the Waikiki Waters. But as it turned out, if you’re writing a newsletter about a hotel and their guests, everything in it has to be hunky-dory. The hotel doesn’t want gossipy things written about it, and the guests don’t want ‘spicy’ tidbits written about them. So Dorinda’s hands were tied, and she was a little bored. She was even a little worried that they might not want to continue the newsletter when her contract was up. I know she was worried about making enough money to live in Oahu. She said she was going to be writing one profile a month for the magazine but was intent on starting her own gossip sheet-something with the word ‘Oahu’ in the title. Truth be told, she hinted that she wanted to get into something a little juicier.”

  “Juicier?” Regan prodded.

  “Something with a little more bite. She wanted to find out what’s going on behind all the fancy hotels and the private homes. She felt the newsletters were puff pieces. The profile she did of me was good. Did you read it?”

  “Yes. It was great.”

  “Yup. Good picture, huh?”

  “Very good picture, yes. Boone, did you spend much time with Dorinda?”

  “She came up here three times. I took her out on a horseback ride. She was a pistol. Whew-ee! She wanted me to take her on the most difficult trails. I obliged. We had fun and then went to dinner.”

  “What did she talk about at dinner?”

  “You know, I think she was lonely because she never stopped talking about herself. Maybe that’s because we’d been talking about me all day. She told me a little bit about her life back in New York. Oh, I remember one thing she talked about that might be of interest. She said that she was trying to decide who would be the subject of her next profile, and there was a guy who kept bugging her to write about him but she didn’t want to.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Something with Hawaiian clothing.”

  “What about Hawaiian clothing?” Regan asked quickly.

  “He was designing them or something. But Dorinda felt he was too much of a capitalist. He had a lot of money, so it wasn’t like he had to succeed at a second career in Hawaii. He never has to work again if he doesn’t want to. So she didn’t think he was a good candidate for the Spirits in Paradise. Neither did the editor of the magazine. But they liked old Boone!”

  Regan couldn’t believe it. Could Boone be talking about Jazzy’s boss?

  “It sounds like Dorinda opened up to you,” Regan commented.

  “I’m a good listener. I guess it’s from all those years sitting around the campfire.”

  “Uh-huh.” Regan quickly wound up the conversation. She promised to get up to the ranch for a little “giddyap” when she visited the Big Island, secured Boone’s home and cell numbers, and hung up. She immediately dialed Will’s direct line.

  “Is Jazzy there?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I’m coming over. I really need to talk to you.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” Will said wearily. “I really need to talk to you.”

  31

  J oy had rented a beach chair, slathered on suntan lotion, and parked herself on the sand close to the lifeguard stand, but not too close. Zeke was up there keeping an eye on the masses, and she enjoyed stealing a glance at him every few minutes. She knew that he was checking her out, too, but she pretended to be engrossed in her magazine.

  I can’t wait until tonight, she thought. Maybe we’ll really click, and he’ll ask me to move in with him. Then I can get out of Hudville. Now that I’ve won this vacation, there’s nothing left w
orth staying for in that puddle-ridden boondocks. Since you can’t win this junket twice, I’m never going back to any of those stupid Praise the Rain meetings. Joy couldn’t believe that her parents didn’t mind living there. Her mother believed Hudville was the perfect place to live if you wanted to avoid wrinkled skin. Better than Botox, she always told Joy. Joy had other ideas.

  Bob and Betsy, wearing slacks and camouflage hats, walked past Joy down to the water’s edge. Those two are so weird, she thought. Didn’t they say they had to stay in today and write about their exciting relationship?

  What a tour group. Joy shook her head. It’s unbelievable. We have almost nothing in common. Gert and Ev leading Artie, Francie, Bob, Betsy, and me. The twins are the only ones who get to go to Hawaii every three months. What a waste. They never take advantage of what Hawaii has to offer. All they do is prance around the hotel in their muumuus and chaperone our meals. Tonight I’ll have dinner with them and then take off. That’s the only way to eat for free. They’ve been such penny-pinchers, encouraging us to lay off the appetizers. They even invited us to their room one night for cheese and crackers and cheap wine so they wouldn’t have to pay for the expensive tropical cocktails that came from the blender. I don’t think that’s what our benefactor had in mind.

  And that Francie. She drives me nuts asking about my love life every night. I don’t want to talk about it with her. She’s older than my mother! She confessed to me last night that she had a crush on Ned. Well, at least they’re around the same age.

  Joy watched as Betsy and Bob kicked water at each other. Bob looked as if he was really getting into it, almost in a mean way. I hope he falls over backward, Joy thought. She looked up at Zeke who had told her last night that he was a people person. Maybe I should go over and talk to them and let Zeke see that I love people, too. Joy hoisted herself out of the beach chair and, knowing full well that Zeke was watching, did her best sexy strut over to the water. Bob and Betsy had their backs to her, facing the sea. They didn’t realize she was right behind them.