“Hey there,” Mr. Swede said with a wide grin. “So, how you finding the race? Been quite full on, hasn’t it?” He was full of cheer and ready to have a good old chat.
Oh no, no way. I did not socialize with other team members while the hunt was going on. I crossed my arms and turned my back to him, my backpack almost hitting his partner in the face. Oh well. She was a ghost to me. I couldn’t even see her.
“Did you guys hear about what happened down at the skatepark?” Miss Swede announced it in this way like she was giving us the best gossip she’d ever heard, like she was telling us something we didn’t know. Oh, this was all too much.
I spun around. “Excuse me? Of course I did. I was the one who found the body.”
She looked at me like I had just run over her dog. Not so cheery now then. “Then why are you all the way out here? Shouldn’t you be helping the police with their investigation?” Her voice was dripping with judgement.
“Oh, I am helping them all right.” That was my story and I was sticking to it.
“Well, I saw them put the tape up and close off the area,” Miss Swede explained. “So some teams had to drop out already.”
I spun around and shot a look at Troy. “That doesn’t mean there’s not still plenty in the race,” I said, just in case he went and got any ideas. But while I was busy talking to Troy, Miss Swede was reading the next clue. And she didn’t seem to have the same difficulties I’d had in figuring it out.
“I’ve got it!” she said and started to run even further west while a feeling of panic rose in my chest.
Technically, you could complete the entire race just following other teams like that. There was nothing in the official rules saying that you couldn’t just tailgate another team. However, it was definitely considered outside the spirit of the game to do so and if you won by doing that, it would be a very hollow victory indeed. And no one would ever let you forget that you had won by almost-cheating-but-not-quite. So as much as I just wanted to run after her, I instead shoved the clue at Troy and demanded that he solve it.
“I have no idea,” he said. “What is this about a bear? And today being the day? AHA!” He actually threw the clue to the ground when he figured it out. “It’s referring to the song, The Teddy Bear’s Picnic! We need to go into the woods.”
That explained why the Swedes had run that way.
But I was torn. If we went into the woods, then we DEFINITELY weren’t in Eden Bay anymore. And we would be so far from the skatepark that it would be impossible to ever get a lead on the Brett Falcon mystery, even if we pulled ahead in the treasure hunt.
I sighed. I looked away so that I didn’t see Troy’s look of satisfaction as I said this. “Maybe—look, I’m just saying maybe—we should head back to town.”
I felt an almost burning feeling on my skin knowing we were getting further and further away from the next clue. Suddenly, it was like my feet were like lead and I couldn’t lift them up even though we were going downhill. My backpack was getting heavy too, and I started to feel weak. Maybe it would be time to eat soon.
“When did you become like this?” Troy asked.
“Huh?” I asked, thinking he was talking about my hunger. It was 4pm. Four hours into the hunt and soon it would start getting dark. That was when it usually became interesting. But maybe this year, interesting was not what we wanted. If anything, this hunt needed to become a lot less interesting. “I don’t know, I guess about twenty minutes ago?”
He shook his head and laughed at me, in that way he did where he always thought that every little thing I did was cute. I mean, I liked that he found me charming, but it was starting to get irritating. Almost like he was infantilizing me. “I mean, when did you become this competitive? It seems to be making you physically nauseated to stay away from the clue. I’m not sure that’s healthy.”
I decided to answer that as tactfully as possible. “You do know that my competitive nature can be a good thing? I have a bunch of medals and trophies to prove it.” I was the current triathlon champ, and it was only due to bad luck and timing that I wasn’t the current reigning surf champ. I sure as heck intended to be the treasure hunt champ, seeing as I had missed it the year before.
Troy nodded. “Okay, that’s a fair point.”
I still had one rule. No stopping.
But my rule to not talk to other teams was going to have to be broken again. Maybe done away with all together. This was a hunt like none other. As we walked down the hill and finally saw the beach again, I saw three different teams all huddled together, deep in conversation. I assumed they were heading upwards, toward the cemetery, but they were all completely stopped.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked. Sometimes teams would call a bit of a truce and agree to all take a break at the same time so that no one got ahead. But this looked like more than that. I hoped they weren’t trying to team up to form one bigger team. That was definitely against the rules. Look, I am no tattletale, but I would be telling the mayor about that immediately and making sure they were all disqualified on the spot.
A man with a tattoo of a mermaid on his arm stopped talking and stared at me. I recognized him from Captain Eightball’s, where he was a regular. Always ordered a soy latte. He shrugged at me. “We are waiting to be told whether the hunt is continuing before we make our next move.”
This was worse than cheating. I was appalled. And not just because there was a chance of the hunt being canceled. But because these guys were just passively sitting around waiting to be told. “And in the meantime,” I pointed out, “all the other teams are up at the cemetery getting ahead of you.” I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, but I’m not the sort of person who just sits around and lets another person control my fate.” I said that way too smugly and confidently. I should’ve been prepared for what they were about to throw back at me.
“Um, then why are you here? Word is the clues go further west out of town before coming back here again.”
I was about to lie and say that we’d already been to the woods and come back, but that would have actually required a helicopter to get back to the beach in time so I just stood up straight. “Because I have an even better plan,” I said and gripped both straps of my backpack and stomped off. Troy sighed and apologized to the others before chasing after me.
“Maybe we should stop and wait as well,” he said just as we finally got back to the skatepark after forty minutes of walking. “We don’t know what we’re getting involved with here.”
Suddenly, I got it. The reason that Troy was so hesitant to keep going, the reason he wanted all these breaks. He was scared. Out of his depth. He’d never solved a murder mystery before. Not up close. Just from the sidelines. Just like with construction on his mall, he never actually got his hands dirty.
“If you want to quit, now is the time, Troy. I will find a new partner if I have to.”
The tunnel was just to our left. I was ready to go back in there. But was he?
“Ahem. Excuse me, you two.”
Oh no. Officer Wells. My absolute most mortal enemy on the planet. “We need to get out of here,” I said, turning to run in the opposite direction, back to the woods, but Troy pulled me back.
“We’ve come this far, Alyson.”
Wells was stomping over to us, ready to ask questions. I immediately got my back up. I was ready to tell him to rack off if I had to.
But if I acted too much like a brat then he might shut down the whole competition. I hated myself for having to do this, but I took a deep breath, smiled, and even tried to greet him politely. Eww. I felt like a little bit of my soul was oozing out from me. But it was a very brief blink and you’ll miss it smile. I just vowed not to be too antagonistic when he opened his mouth to talk to us.
“What are you doing here, Miss Foulkes?”
“Just taking part in the hunt,” I said. Troy was very quiet beside me. I did notice him briefly make eye contact with Wells and then look away again. Wells didn’t even address Troy, instead he spoke
directly to me.
“Looks like you’re headed away from the next clue.”
Hmmm. That was weird that he knew where the next clue was located. He just shrugged a little when I didn’t respond. “Oh well, it’s better you’re back here seeing as everyone will need to be soon enough,” he said, raising an eyebrow. Hinting that the race was going to be called off.
“This is an annual town event,” I said, trying not to get too worked up. “You can’t just cancel it.” Then I saw the look on his face. Wow. I got it. He couldn’t call it off. He only wanted to make me think he could.
“I will have a word with the mayor about how this goes forward,” he said, trying to keep his voice confident, even though I knew he had no actual power.
But I was pumped. Wells had no jurisdiction, no authority to call off the race, even if he wanted to. And that made me happier than anything. Well, almost anything. Winning would have made me happier. But I was still grinning like a loon when I realized he had no power.
“You need to stay away from the skatepark,” he said firmly, trying to grasp onto one area of control. But it was weak.
Sure. For now, we could stay away. But he couldn’t be there to guard the area forever. And he couldn’t guard every part of Eden Bay.
The best move was to just keep going with the treasure hunt. Ever forward, never back.
But we were going to need that helicopter if we were ever going to get back to the woods in good time. I mentioned it to Troy as a joke.
“Well,” Troy said. “I just so happen to have one of those.”
8
Claire
Wells had moved us along and Matt suggested we cut our losses and finally go toward the cemetery. I nodded. but I was still staring back at the half-pipe. I just kept thinking about that time I had fallen, and what life would be like if that day had gone differently. What would have happened if I’d never smashed my wrist? Would I have ended up pursuing skateboarding as a profession? And would I ever have left Eden Bay?
“You’re looking in the wrong direction,” Matt said quietly.
I laughed softly. “Yeah. You don’t even know how right you are, Matt.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Do you remember that day?” I gulped a little. “When I fell?”
He squinted a little. “Hmm, I kinda remember. You broke your…leg, was it? And wasn’t there bone sticking out?”
Oh. I was a little hurt that his memory of the day was so foggy when it was so crystal clear to me. I guess he’d seen a lot of injuries in the surf over the years. Anyway, who was I to him at the time? Just his kid sister’s best friend.
“Something like that”
Matt’s feet were starting to get itchy. He kept glancing over at the cop cars and Wells, looking nervous. Matt Foulkes had a lot of respect for police officers, or anyone in authority for that matter, but they still made him nervous.
But my strategy was still slow and steady wins the race. It was just that we were going really slow at the moment. Most teams—the ones who were still competing, anyway—were already up to the third clue by then. Or so I’d heard.
Slow and steady. Slow and steady.
“We know one thing,” Matt said. “We need to leave the skatepark.”
I still had the wheel in my pocket. I patted it just to make sure. “Okay, you’re right.”
I was in no mood to run into Wells right then either. Part of me knew what I was doing—potentially hiding evidence from the cops—but I justified it in my mind. It was just a wheel that I had found on the ground. Innocently. I couldn’t know that it had anything to do with the murder of Brett Falcon.
I didn’t even know it did.
But I was still dragging my feet. Matt asked me what was so wrong, why I couldn’t quite leave the skatepark even though two hours had passed.
“You don’t understand, Matt. I have to solve this one.”
He thought that I was talking about the clue. That would only get us to the next item on the treasure hunt anyway, and then we’d still be dead last.
But I was talking about Brett Falcon.
I stopped walking completely. This was really taking slow and steady to a new extreme.
“Skating is my thing,” I said, sighing. “Once upon a time, all these guys were my best friends.” Twelve years earlier, Brett and I had been close. Along with the rest of my skater friends, the skatepark had been our second home. I barely even recognized that girl now. I glanced down at my wrist. I still had the scar, though.
Usually, Alyson was the one with the home ground advantage when it came to solving mysteries. But this wasn’t the surf, or even just some random part of Eden Bay that she knew like the back of her hand. This was the skatepark. Skating was the one thing I knew. And this was my mystery to solve. Part of me was happy that Alyson seemed more focused on the treasure hunt than Brett. Because this was my case.
Matt reached out and touched my shoulder. “You don’t have to feel guilty about leaving Eden Bay, Claire. You didn’t abandon any of us.”
That was easy to say. I didn’t quite believe it. “Try telling your sister that,” I said quietly. Then I rolled my eyes a little. “Oh, wait, you tell your sister everything, so you probably will.”
He took his hand away from me. “Whoa, what do you mean by that?”
“You told Alyson that you and I kissed.” Uh oh. I hadn’t meant to have this confrontation. Not in the middle of the hunt. Not ever, in fact.
He stared at me blankly. “No, Claire, I never ever told Alyson anything about that…” He looked offended. “You asked me not to. And I would never go back on my word like that.”
But I had seen him, with my own two eyes, in the bookshop, pulling Alyson aside and whispering some great secret in her ear about me. I knew it was about me because Alyson had stared at me with a worried look in her eyes.
As if that convo hadn’t been about the kiss.
“So what was it you told Alyson about three weeks ago in my shop?”
He grimaced and looked at the ground. “I feel rotten for doing it now,” he said, his voice deep with regret. “I had a word to the local council about the fact that you were operating a small cafe without a food and beverage license. I’m not proud of it, Claire. Like I said, I’ll get you those coffee beans for free to make up for it if you still want them. I think I just came clean that day to Alyson because I felt so guilty. I had to tell someone. She was just shocked that you were breaking a law. And I think she was kinda disappointed in me.”
Oh, so I had been ignoring Alyson’s calls and texts for two weeks over some coffee beans.
Oh well, I told myself. It wasn’t like she had made a huge effort to contact me and straighten things out.
“Do you forgive me?” he asked. He leaned in closer and reached for me again, stroking my arm a little.
Ugh. It sure was hard to stay mad at him when he was looking at me like that. I nodded, just a little, and he moved in even closer, until our lips were touching.
Well, great. I certainly hadn’t meant to kiss him again. I pulled away. “Matt, that can never ever happen again.” I stepped away from him and tripped over something behind me. “Woah, what is this?” I stopped and looked down at a bucket that I had just overturned. It was full of shells. Shells that had tiny little clues sticking out of them.
Matt reached for one and pulled the clue out.
My eyes shone. “I think we just accidentally skipped ahead to first place.”
Slow and steady. Slow and steady.
9
Alyson
When even a helicopter can’t save you, you are really in trouble.
Our old friends, Mr. and Miss Swede, were already waiting at the clearing in the woods where the next clue lay, and there is really no way to land a helicopter inconspicuously. I almost told Troy’s driver to turn it around. But that would have just set us further behind. And I was not going to fall behind again.
“That is cheating!” Mr.
Swede was all indignant when we climbed out. “You’re supposed to walk and use your legs for the entire race.”
Ugh. Tourists. Those were the real cheaters. This was a town event and they were not from our town and… Okay, maybe I needed to calm down just a tad.
The worst thing was—he was right. We had broken the rules and if they were to be enforced, then we would get a penalty. We’d have to sit out for thirty minutes. Troy’s eyes were practically shining in delight at the prospect of this while Mr. Swede read out the rules from the book.
“No way, we can’t afford to lose half an hour,” I said, getting desperate. “Let’s make some other kind of deal. I’ll trade you some of the prize money when we win.”
“No way. You have to sit out for thirty minutes.” Mr. Swede and Miss Swede stomped out of the clearing with their noses in the air. Great. Now they were in the lead. There would be a riot.
It was going to take us half an hour to decipher the next clue anyway. I didn’t understand this one at all. “Don’t get crabby, just get grabby.” The one saving grace was that Claire was nowhere in sight. Her and Matt probably hadn’t even gotten to the second clue yet. The thought filled me with glee.
“It is going to be a long walk back into town,” Troy grumbled, looking at the helicopter. We couldn’t risk taking it back. The driver had to leave with the passenger seats empty.
“Yeah, well, that is kind of the point,” I said with zero sympathy. “It’s a physical endurance as well as a mental one. You should have been training for this.”
He didn’t respond, but I had hurt his feelings a little. I knew his health hadn’t been the best. In fact, a few months earlier, he had almost died. This race really was probably too much for him. But I just turned away and pretended I didn’t know.
But I had to wonder how he was going to survive the night.
The thirty minutes was up. “So stupid that we actually stuck to that,” I said, hopping up. “There was no one around to even see it to prove that we did it…”
Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set Page 49
