Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  She shook her head. “This is more or less what I expected him to have inside his home. Nothing.” She picked up the sole empty vase on the table and inspected it. “I believe you can tell a lot from the interior of someone’s home. It tends to reveal a lot about the person’s interior.”

  “Well, your apartment is pretty empty as well,” I said without thinking too much. Just stating a fact. But Claire shot me an offended look. Right. Was really putting my foot in it that day.

  “And yours is full of mismatched furniture that you found on the street.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  She grabbed her phone out of her pocket when it started to ring.

  “Shh!” I said. Didn’t she know the first rule of breaking into somebody’s house? You turned your phone off. I managed to spot who was calling before she switched it onto silent. “Who is this Simon guy anyway?”

  “I told you, he is Nicole Marie’s editor. Was. Or, rather, wasn’t…” She sounded flustered.

  “Why does he keep ringing you? Are you his secret girlfriend?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s something else you wouldn’t understand.” She was sounding more and more flustered the more she tried to act all innocent.

  “Come clean, Princess. What are you hiding from me?”

  “I’ve written a book, okay!” So, the truth finally comes out.

  I narrowed my eyes. Wow. Just how many secrets were we keeping from each other?

  “You’ve written a book?” I laughed a little, thinking that it must just be a crazy idea she’d had, but her head dropped and I realized I should not be teasing her about this. This was important to her. “Do I get to read it?”

  “You think all books are a waste of time,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  I felt a little hurt. I would have been super supportive if she’d told me, even if reading wasn’t really my thing. She was my best friend. “So this Simon guy, he wants to publish your book?”

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

  “I’m not surprised! I am sure you are a talented writer. I just want to make sure that his motivations are all above board, that’s all.” I raised an eyebrow so she knew what I was getting at.

  “They are. Believe me. He had a relationship with Sadie! And Sadie is nothing like me. Almost fifteen years older for a start. Completely opposite to me physically. I doubt he has any interest in me.”

  “Woah, woah,” I said, cutting her off. I leaned across the kitchen island. “You knew this little piece of information and you didn’t think it would be relevant?”

  “It’s not,” she said, shaking her head.

  It wasn’t relevant that he used to date Sadie? A suspect? Wasn’t that the whole reason we were in Wells’s kitchen that day though? Because HE had had a romantic connection to the victim and thus the crime?

  But Princess was ignoring me to snoop through Wells’s kitchen drawers.

  “Oh, gosh!” Claire said, quickly shut the drawer again.

  “What?” I asked, running around to the other side of the kitchen island.

  She composed herself and opened the drawer again, pointing to an object with a shaking hand. “This looks like the same rope that was used to kill Nicole Marie.”

  We had him.

  Or did he have us? Suddenly, the glass doors were being pulled open and we were no longer alone.

  Seemed like gardening time was over.

  He was still carrying the pair of shears. They were wide open and the sunlight coming through the glass doors was shining off them as he snapped them shut. Gulp.

  “Just what on earth are you two doing?”

  17

  Alyson

  “You only have me here because I have exposed the truth about you,” I said stubbornly as the cuffs were removed and I was asked to sit down. I knew how these things worked. Well, I didn’t really. But it seemed to make sense.

  Wells sat down and started to record the conversation, completely unmoved. “Alyson Foulkes, I am officially charging you with the arson of property 22 McCall Avenue.”

  I leaned forward and banged my fist on the table. “I didn’t do it!” I cried out.

  Events of that evening were still cloudy to me. Well, you could say smoky, if you really wanted to be technical. Because that was what it seemed like when I looked back on them. I had been in Nicole Marie’s house to try and find prints, and because it was dark, I had used a candle. And yes, I had set the candle down near a pile of papers, but there was no way that was enough to cause such a large fire.

  Well, that was my line and I was sticking to it.

  “I heard someone else in the house that night.”

  Wells was still unmoved. “That’s certainly very convenient.”

  I huffed a little. “Not really if no one else knows who they are.”

  He was still busy writing up the form. Gosh, this wasn’t really happening, was it? I was really going to be charged with a serious crime.

  “Am I…am I going to be allowed out of here?” I asked. For the first time, I started to get scared. I knew—KNEW—this was just because we had been in his house. But that didn’t make it any less real.

  “Bail will be set.” He gave me a smug look. “But it’s likely much higher than anything you can afford.”

  I couldn’t believe he’d really come. Except, I kind of could. Did that mean that I really did believe deep down that he was a good guy?

  “You didn’t have to do this,” I said sheepishly. I could barely even look at him.

  “Of course I was going to be here for you, Alyson,” Troy said. He shot Wells a dirty look as he led me out of the holding cell. Wells looked decidedly less smug. I didn’t take too much notice at the time, but it did seem like there was some tension between the two of them. Wells had certainly been surprised that Troy Emerald was a friend of mine.

  “Yeah, but after what I said to you down at the pier…”

  “Just because you don’t want to go on another date with me, Alyson, doesn’t mean that I would abandon you in a jail cell. Do you really think I am that much of a jerk?”

  Well… I had to be honest with him. I just kinda looked up at him and shrugged, the jacket the he had given me over my shoulders. “Sort of.”

  But he knew I was only teasing. We walked out the front and he led me to his car. Part of me wanted to protest that I was able to walk home on my own, but I was completely exhausted. And part of me didn’t want to go back to my own house anyway. Now that J was with Matt almost full time, it didn’t feel like home.

  Troy lived in a hotel for the time being, but it still felt warm when I walked in. And it was more fully decorated than my apartment. And surprisingly, I noticed that Troy had a bunch of mismatched personal items scattered over the place. “Thermostat,” he explained while he made me a cup of green tea when I asked how the temperature was so perfect.

  It was late, and I was curled up on the sofa under a blanket like a cat who didn’t want to be disturbed. “Do you mind if I sleep here tonight?”

  “Of course not, Alyson. You can have the bedroom and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  But I insisted on taking the sofa. I didn’t mind at all. It was actually more comfortable than my bed at home.

  “That guy is a real piece of work,” Troy commented as he got me some spare blankets from the closet.

  “Who?” I asked, a little groggy from the fact that I was about to fall asleep.

  “Wells.”

  “You’ve met him before?” I asked. It was just a guess, but it seemed like I had hit on something.

  “Yeah, he was down at the construction site one night.” Troy shook his head as he took his shoes off. “Some idiot had made a complaint about the noise, but it wasn’t a weeknight or anything.”

  “Hang on, what night?” I asked, sitting up straight. Geez, that ‘sleepy time tea’ sure had done the trick.

  “Last Friday,” Troy said.

  “So Wells was down at the deve
lopment on the night that Nicole Marie was killed?” I suddenly felt cold even in the room that was supposed to be perfect temperature.

  Troy looked at me in surprise, like he had no idea why this news was troubling to me. “Yes. Friday night. He was down there for quite a while.”

  “What time?”

  He shrugged. “About six-ish till about seven-ish?”

  I tried to scramble for an explanation. One that still made Wells guilty. “Well, maybe he was so angry when he left that he was looking for someone to hurt. Did he storm away from the site in a rage?”

  Troy shook his head. “No, he went for a drink with one of my men.”

  Great. So that theory was shot to pieces. I groaned and reached for my phone to text Claire the very bad news. Troy was still befuddled about why this was all such a disappointment to me. I just told him. Long story. Too long. And not a great ending. “I need to sleep,” I said. He nodded and wished me sweet dreams as he left to go to his own bedroom.

  I finally fell asleep an hour later, but I left first thing the following morning. I didn’t even think to ask how Troy had gotten Wells to leave the construction site that night.

  18

  Claire

  Simon’s cottage had the most beautiful view. And one that would never be obscured by any mall development because it was right against the ocean. I could see why writers paid big bucks to be burrowed up in seclusion here. Simon had already told me I could borrow the cottage for a weekend—even a week—if I needed some time to finish my book alone. I was grateful. I felt a little greedy accepting the offer as I already lived on the beach. It should go to a writer who really needed it, one who lived in the city with all its distractions. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t tempting.

  A lot of things were tempting.

  “It’s just… I know that he is hiding something,” I said as I paced. I’d filled him in on the whole Wells situation.

  Simon was staring up at me with an amused expression. It annoyed me because he looked like he ‘knew’ something about me that I didn’t know and people thinking they knew better than me was my number one pet peeve. “What?” I finally asked.

  He leaned forward and put the stack of papers down on the coffee table. My manuscript. Three quarters of the way done. Now that Simon had given me notes and suggestions, I was speeding ahead with it any spare chance I got. “Could it be that Wells being innocent doesn’t just destroy your real-life ideas? But also something else as well?”

  I shook my head a little in frustration. “What are you talking about?” Did he always have to be so cryptic?

  He tapped the pile of papers. “Could it be that it also destroys the plot for your book?”

  I felt a little called out and tried to object. “Of course not. It has nothing to do with that.”

  I was protesting too much.

  But Simon saw right through me. “You know you can still have the twist in the book be that the cop did it, even if it didn’t turn out that way in real life,” he said with a laugh.

  I shrugged. “I know that,” I said. But did I? That was the way that The Bookshelf was supposed to end. It all made sense—the cop was the first on the scene, he was a former lover to the victim, and he had the murder weapon in his house. I sighed. If it didn’t work in real life, how was it going to work in fiction?

  I sat down and sighed again. “So what do you really think of the book?” I asked. “You can be brutally honest, you know.”

  He looked at me with amusement. “Can I?” he asked.

  I had to laugh at that. “Well. Sugar coat it a teeny little bit, maybe. But I’m being serious, Simon. If it’s no good, I would rather stop now and cut my losses before I finish the whole thing.”

  He shook his head. “It’s really good, Claire.”

  I leaned back. Huh. Considering how honest he had been with the other writers—he’d even refused to publish Nicole Marie’s book, for crying out loud, and she was his good friend—I had no reason to think that he would be lying to me just to protect my feelings. He must have sincerely liked the book.

  But I didn’t quite want to ask the question, so I just danced around it a little.

  “I suppose when it is completed, there will still be quite a lot of work to do,” I mused. “You know, to bring it up to what you called ‘publishable standards’.” I was acting causal, but I peered out of the corner of my eye to check his reaction. And held my breath.

  He shook his head a little. “Well, yes, of course, every manuscript can do with a little tightening. But that is where an editor’s suggestions come in handy.”

  I swallowed. This was it. The moment. “Ahem. And I don’t suppose you would want to be that editor, would you?”

  He leaned forward a little. “Claire, as long as you keep up the same standard for the last quarter of the book, I would be more than happy to be that editor.”

  I sat up a little straighter and couldn’t stop the grin that was spreading over my face.

  But I had to clarify something, as much as doing so made me want to crawl into a hole and die. I even squeezed my eyes shut as I said it. “And this isn’t because… Well, it isn’t because you have feelings for me, or fancy me or anything, right?”

  I had to fully open my eyes again to see his response. Uh-oh. He looked slightly offended. But when he saw I was looking at him again, he straightened his face into a smile. “Claire. My only concern is the quality of your writing. I hope I never gave you the impression that there were any strings attached.”

  I shook my head. “No. Of course not. I just wanted to make sure.” Darn, I hoped I hadn’t put my foot in it and jeopardized the whole deal.

  But even if I had, maybe it didn’t matter—because when I left the cottage an hour later, I saw I had an email.

  From another publisher.

  There were butterflies in my stomach. Now I really was in demand.

  19

  Alyson

  It had been quite a few years since I’d wrapped an apron around my waist. As soon as I did, I seemed to become some sort of slave to demanding customers who all wanted their colas and coffees faster than I could make or carry them.

  There was a man in his late thirties sitting at the bar waiting for me to take his order.

  “Sorry,” I said, blowing my hair out of my face. “Busy morning.”

  He smiled at me like he knew me even though I’d never seen him before in my life. “Alyson, right? I’m Simon. Your friend Claire’s…friend, I guess. Hopefully editor.”

  “Oh,” I said, stretching my arm out. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  I had to laugh to myself. Of course Claire would tell me that nothing was going on between them. But he was her exact ‘type.’ I gave him a quick up and down and tried not to smirk.

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “You look like you know something I don’t know?”

  I smiled while I dried a milkshake glass. “Oh, just that best friends tend to have a sixth sense for these sorts of things.”

  He looked at me curiously. He was smart. But maybe he caught my drift and maybe he didn’t.

  “So, you work here?” he asked me.

  I sighed. “No. But I am doing a huge favor for my brother. I haven’t actually waitressed in years. But he’s looking after our niece full time now. Long story.”

  He smiled. “Well, any friend of Claire’s is a friend of mine. Maybe you can tell me this long story some time. It might even make a good book.”

  I had to laugh. I always thought my life would make a good book.

  I came back to clear away his empty plate a half-hour later. “What’s that?” I asked, leaning over to look at what he was reading.

  “Well, speaking of—this is Claire’s book, actually.” He frowned at me. “But surely it must familiar to you.”

  I tried to laugh that comment off causally. “Haha. Sure. Yeah, of course Claire has let me read it. I’m very familiar with the story.”

  Was he buying this?

&nb
sp; He nodded. Then looked slightly embarrassed. “I guess you know then that Claire took my notes about the cop being the guilty party.” He flipped through the pages and looked deep in thought. “But it doesn’t seem like that is going to work out now…” he said in this weird, low voice that sent a shiver down my spine. “Unfortunately.”

  Hmmm.

  I quickly smiled when he looked up at me. “I’ll, um, get your check for you.”

  I banged on Maria’s door. Of course, I was pretty much the last person she wanted to see right then. Neither Claire nor I had spoken to Maria in days. But she was the one—the only one—who might know the answer to the question I had to ask. “Come on, Maria, I am still your favorite student, right?”

  She sighed and finally let me in.

  “Maria,” I said, panting due to the fact that I had run all the way from Captain Eightball’s to her place. And it was all uphill. “You know about Nicole Marie’s book, right?” I really needed Claire for this, but I could not get a hold of her.

  Maria nodded. “Yes. She had written a murder mystery…”

  I didn’t have time for a full explanation. “And this guy, Simon someone or other, he was going to publish her book?”

  Maria threw her head back. “Oh, he wished. No. Nicole Marie had a deal with a much bigger publishing company.” She sighed. “A shame for Simon, because he really, really wanted that book.”

  I gulped. Of course he did.

  “Maria. The night Nicole Marie was killed. Did you see anyone else in the shop? Or outside?”

  She shrugged a little.

  “Maria. This could really help get you off the hook,” I said.

  But she didn’t look sure at all. “I thought Nicole Marie was gone when I left…”

  “She wasn’t, though,” I said. “Someone followed her there that night, Maria. Simon. And he was still there when you left.” I paused. Then a light bulb seemed to go off in my mind. “But there was something strange, actually. He told Claire that he was away in Newcastle for an awards ceremony. But I could have sworn I saw him here in town. One evening, I thought I spotted him coming out of a large glass house down by the jetty.”