I was still holding the glass of water. “Doesn’t Troy need that?” Matt asked as he checked on the pizza and a gust of hot air hit our faces.
“Not sure I want to face Claire out there without you with me for backup,” I admitted.
“Why don’t you just call a truce,” Matt said as he pulled the garlic bread out of the toaster oven. I grabbed at it and he smacked my hand away like I was a naughty child. He told me to stop and wait for the others, but I just couldn’t, I was too hungry. I pulled away two slices and popped one of them into my mouth. Oh my goodness, it was amazing. I grabbed the rest of the loaf to carry out and share with Troy. Princess could wait.
“No time for truces in the race,” I said. “This pit stop is just temporary.”
Matt followed me out with the two pizzas. One pepperoni, one Hawaiian. “Well, please tell me you aren’t going to sit on opposite sides of the cafe just to prove a point.”
Oh, I was definitely intending to do just that. I had one booth set aside for Troy and I, and I told Matt that Claire and he could sit on the other side. We’d take one pizza each. “Pepperoni for me. And I may as well just keep the whole loaf of garlic bread for myself now that I’ve started on it.”
Claire claimed that was fine by her. As long as we didn’t have to talk to each other.
But Matt told me that unless we got into the same booth and sat opposite each other, then we were not going to get any pizza. At first, I argued and said I could survive on garlic bread alone, but then I saw the stretch of the mozzarella cheese as he started to pull a slice out of the circle, and I sat down. Grabbed a slice. But I didn’t speak.
Claire glared at me and took a slice of Hawaiian. Of course she did. She was the kind of psychopath who liked pineapple on pizza.
Which one of us was going to speak first? Were either of us going to speak?
Matt stood up like he was done, even though he had only eaten one slice. I knew my brother—he could devour a whole family-size pizza on his own. “I’ll be back in a moment,” he said and kinda nodded at Claire in a strange way, like the two of them were in on a little secret.
Hmm.
I smiled as sweetly and innocently as I could, then excused myself to use the bathroom. But then followed Matt to see where he was going. He was heading back toward the kitchen, where I saw him pull something form the oven. A secret third pizza? I was outraged. Outraged, I tell ya. He must have been eating in secret to make me think that he would be weaker than he really was. But he didn’t eat. He had two slices of pizza in his hand and he was sneaking out the back door with them wrapped in a napkin. What was he doing, feeding the pigeons in the side alley?
I tiptoed after him and stuck my head, ever-so-slightly, out the back door. Matt was indeed feeding a creature.
Well, it wasn’t a pigeon. It was a woman. I squinted and tried to make out who it was. I recognized that red flannel shirt from somewhere earlier in the day. Some part of the race. Ugh. The day had been so long that I could barely remember where I had seen her. That’s right! I slapped my forehead. It had been right at the start, just as Troy and I were making our way to the cemetery. I had wondered why she was heading back to the skatepark. Going in the wrong direction. And wasn’t she an old friend of Claire’s or something?
“Who is that?” I demanded to know when Matt came back inside.
“That was…um, that was just a homeless person who I occasionally give free food to.”
I shook my head. “That wasn’t a homeless person, Matt. I know her. She’s…Anna or something.”
I saw his face turn red. He tried to step back in through the side entrance, but I stepped in front of him. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Explain yourself, buddy.”
“She’s just a customer…”
“Nope. The only reason you would be feeding a random person, and hiding them, is because they’re on your team.” I cocked my head to the side like I was genuinely confused and counted on my fingers. “So there’s one—Claire. Two—you. And three—that girl. Three-people teams are illegal, Mathew.”
‘Illegal’ might be taking it a bit too far. And I never called my brother ‘Mathew.’ I was fuming. This was beyond screwing around with clues. Having three people on a team was a huge advantage that the other people didn’t have.
“Alyson, I can explain!”
I stormed back in with Matt chasing after me. Claire stood up and stared at us, wondering what was going on. Matt just sighed and said, “She knows about Anna.”
“Yeah,” I said, spinning around to look at Claire. “And I know about her in more ways than one. You’re making a huge mistake having her on your team.”
Claire was about to ask me what I meant. And she even knew I was right. I could see it on her face. But instead she just picked up her blazer and put it on and told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.
Well, if she wasn’t going to listen, I was just going to have to shout it at her. I started following her toward the exit.
“Claire, I saw her this afternoon right after Brett was killed. She wasn’t taking part in the race, okay? She was heading in the wrong direction. She’s playing you.”
But Claire didn’t want to hear it. “Come on, Matt,” she called out, ignoring me. “If we’re going to keep our lead, we’re going to have to leave now.” She gave me a smug little smile and opened the door. Oh no way, she was not getting the last word, not like that. I chased her and Matt out onto the street. Troy had to leave as well so Matt could lock up. Even after a good meal, Troy was looking worse for wear.
“I’ll tell the mayor that you have three people and get you disqualified,” I said. That was the only card I had to play. And in that moment, I didn’t even remember that the race was no longer technically on. I had bought my own lie. There was no one to even tell that Claire was breaking the rules.
But she didn’t know that. And she just threw it right back at me.
“Well, what about the fake clue you slipped to us!” she said, outraged.
I shrugged. “You’ve got no proof that I did that.”
She was fuming. But then the outrage on her face turned to a little smile. “Well, in the end, it gave us an advantage. So I suppose I have you to thank for that.”
“Why? What did you find out in The Horseshoe?” I asked, stepping right up to her. My heart was pumping. Surely she hadn’t found an actual clue there.
But then I saw her face turn a little sad. Then I realized. She’d found something there all right, but not a treasure hunt clue. It was something to do with the death of Brett Falcon.
“You found out something about Brett?” I asked softly. Maybe it was only a temporary truce, but I no longer cared about her having a third person, or breaking the rules, or even who was going to win the race. None of it.
She shook her head. “I can’t tell you…”
“Claire, this is about more than just the race,” I said. I was starting to think that maybe we ought to combine what we knew. “I’ve already told you what I know about Anna, even if you refuse to believe it. Okay? I think she’s lying to you.”
Claire huffed and puffed for a moment but finally, she told me what happened in the bar. The other three were just out of earshot. Giving us our space. They probably thought we were patching up our friendship. “Brett won the treasure hunt last year, did you know that?”
“I—” For a second, I was stunned. I’d always prided myself on knowing everything about the race, inside and out. But I’d skipped the previous year’s when I was overseas. It only hit me then that no, I’d never known who had won. Or at least I hadn’t retained that information.
“But that’s a motive to kill him,” I whispered.
Claire nodded. “Exactly.”
I started to get a theory forming in my head. But I hadn’t quite pieced it together yet. “Did you learn anything else while you were at The Horseshoe?” I asked, suddenly glad that I had come up with that little detour for them.
Claire hesitated again. But t
hen she told me. “Brett was supposed to team up with this girl called Stacey. But some time before the race he switched partners on her.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the girl with the pitch-black hair. “And do we have any ideas on who this new partner might have been?” I raised an eyebrow.
“It wasn’t Anna, okay? She didn’t even have a partner. That’s why she was doing the race by herself. Why would she kill Brett and then keep racing?” But she didn’t seem entirely convinced about this.
I decided to backtrack a bit. If Brett was the expected winner, then anyone desperate enough for the prize money could have killed him. “We know how completive the two of us are,” I mused, thinking out loud. “But which other team rivals us?”
Claire let out a short laugh. “I met one team just earlier. Pretending to be super friendly. But they were desperate for the cash. Something about a wedding or an engagement, I believe. But no one will be happy if they win. They’re not even from this town.”
“Oh no, not the Swedes,” I said.
“You know them?” Claire asked, surprised.
I nodded. “And while we’re out here arguing with each other, they’re getting further and further into the lead.”
Claire nodded. She understood perfectly. “Better one of us win than them.”
17
Claire
We hadn’t exactly put all our differences aside and made up. No official treaty. But maybe we were kinda on the same side again. We all wandered down the street away from Captain Eightball’s, a little unsure of what we were supposed to do next. But a team of five was just taking the whole thing too far. It was just getting silly.
“I guess this is where we part ways,” I said to Alyson when we got to the end of the street. But before we actually split, she pulled me aside out of earshot of the others.
“Just keep an eye on Anna, okay? Believe me. You can’t trust her.”
I sighed and said I would. Then I reached out to shake her hand. “Let’s make this a fair fight, okay?”
She nodded. “May the best woman win.”
Rather than give us energy, all the food we had eaten seemed to be slowing us down. Probably because it had contained nothing but cheese and salt. Matt was dragging his feet and I was starting to get very, very tired.
But Anna had a little pep in her step. “So where is this wave?” she asked us. She just kept repeating ‘wave’ over and over like that would help, and I kind of just wanted to push her over to make her stop.
Oh boy, I was tired.
2am.
We needed to figure out this clue. I put out my hand and told Anna to give me the clue.
I shrugged. “We know it’s not the visitor center.” The Swedes had already been up that way and had to double back. That was one good thing. And we knew it wasn’t the beach. “But where is it? What do waves have to do with…” And then I caught the back of Alyson’s head as her and Troy crossed the street a little further in front of us.
“It’s the hair salon,” I said to Matt quietly and put up my hand for a very quiet high-five, then shushed Anna. I didn’t want any other team to hear us. And I had no intention of sharing my break-through with Alyson.
18
Alyson
“Waves, waves, waves… I don’t get it!” I said, throwing the clue to the ground. What was the point of carrying it around? It wasn’t like the letters were going to magically rearrange themselves to form a new clue that made sense. Stick a fork in me, I was done. I may as well quit and go home to bed.
“Maybe it is about new wave music,” Troy said, picking the clue up and dusting it off. “Maybe we should head toward the record shop?”
I rolled my eyes. I hadn’t meant to be so rude, but come on, Troy. New wave music? How old was this guy? “That’s not it,” I snapped.
“Well, sorry,” Troy said. “I’m only trying to make a suggestion.”
“Well, make better suggestions next time.”
“Hang on, do you see that?” We’d wandered onto the next block of shops and I could see movement in the dark on the other side of the street. One, two, three figures. Claire’s team. I looked up at the sign above the shop they were in front of. “Janet’s Super Cuts,” I murmured and then slapped my head. “Of course, duh, Troy! Waves as in waves in your hair!” I started to pull him across the street.
“I thought it was against the spirit of the game to follow another team…” Troy said, jogging behind me.
“Yeah, well, it’s more than just against the spirit of the game to have a third team member.” Looked like I still hadn’t quite let go of that one. I wondered what I would have done if the race was still technically going. Would I have actually turned Claire and Matt into the mayor for breaking the rules?
Probably.
Oh well, they never had to know that.
Even from a slight distance, I could see how many clues were still in the bucket. It was almost full right to the brim. Hmm…either we were really far into the lead or the other teams had realized that the race had actually been canceled and gone home. No way to tell whether or not the Swedes had been here yet. Claire had only said that they were as stumped by the ‘waves’ clue as we all were. But they’d had the chance to get ahead while we were all eating. They could be close to the end of the race for all I knew.
“You followed us!” Claire yelled. Did she always have to be so outraged?
I planned on sticking my ground. Or at least, I planned on sticking to the lie I had already come up with as fact. “We figured it out on our own.”
“Yeah, right.”
I stepped up to her. “Yeah, well, so much for joining forces to make sure that the Swedes didn’t win. You clearly don’t want our team to get any clues and you were hunting around for this one in the dark without even a flashlight.” She’d stuck to our deal for a whole zero minutes.
Maybe it was the time of night. The lack of sleep. Our competitive, animal instincts coming out in full force. But when I knelt to grab a clue out of the bucket, Claire shoved me out of the way.
I stood up. My mouth fell open. “Oh, you did not just do that.”
She shrugged and reached over to shove me again.
I pushed right back.
“Hey, you two, stop it!” Matt yelled at us. But he looked at a complete loss for what to actually do. He didn’t want to try and get into a fight between two women. I wasn’t sure what happened next because I was too busy getting into a slap fight with my bestie, but I think Matt must have told Anna to try and do something.
“What does this matter to me?” I heard her say in a sullen way, reminiscent of a teenager. She even got her phone out of her pocket and started scrolling through it. Even though there was a full-on brawl breaking out in front of her.
“Anna, come on, help me!” Matt said. “Someone is going to get hurt!”
Anna sighed, put her phone away, and stepped between Claire and I. “Get out of the way, Anna!” I said as I tried to sidestep her so that I could grab Claire again and wrestle her for the clue.
But it wasn’t Claire I grabbed. It was Troy who ended up on the ground.
Someone did get hurt.
The nurse looked stern as she finished wrapping the bandage around Troy’s wrist and told him to try and rest. They were keeping him for observation due to the knock on the head he had received and due to his general medical condition. “No doubt the dehydration didn’t help,” she said in this lecturing way, as though I had purposely dragged Troy Emerald around all day and refused to let him have water stops. Well, that was unfair. That was only kinda what I had done.
“I didn’t know you were still so unwell,” I said, taking his hand, more out of automation than anything. I mean, that was what you were supposed to do when someone was laying in a hospital bed, wasn’t it? You were supposed to take their hand.
But the truth was, I had seen the signs that he was struggling, I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself or to him. It was easier to look the oth
er way, and focus on something that didn’t really matter. Like the race.
“I’ve been coping,” he said, trying to smile. “I think it just got too much today.”
“Anna will not get away with this,” I said, trying to make it seem like less of my fault and more like hers—mostly because I didn’t know what I could do to make him feel better, so taking revenge on Anna seemed to be the only action I could take.
“It was an accident,” Troy said.
I nodded and told him I needed to get some water. Talk about your unscheduled stop in the race. A trip to the hospital had not been on my list of things to prepare for.
“He’s sleeping,” the nurse said when I returned.
“Oh.”
I stared down at him. Then looked at the time. 3am. There was still nine hours left in the race. The home stretch was coming up.
I should stay, though, right?
But what could I do while he was sleeping?
The nurse was still looking stern, but slightly more sympathetic this time. “You can go home, get some rest yourself.”
I pretended I was thinking this over. “Hmm. Yes. I think that would be for the best. Please call me if anything changes.”
19
Claire
“This has gone too far, Claire.”
I hated it when Matt was disappointed in me. Which happened more often than I would have liked. He had put up with a lot that day, but apparently me getting in a brawl with his sister and someone ending up in hospital was the final straw.
We were lingering in the ER just in case there was news. None of us were sure what we should do. I wanted to keep going, solve the next clue.
But Matt was calling it.
Anna was standing by, smirking a bit, waiting for us to figure it out. Oh well, she was my backup. And now we could win fair and square in a team of two. “Go then,” I said. “I’d rather compete without you than to hear you guilt-tripping me for the rest of the race. It’s not exactly fun, Matt.”
Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set Page 53
