Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  “Yes, but I’ve gotten to the end and none of the Emily Ryans on here look anything like our girl.” I mean, Alyson had only seen a glimpse of her, though, so how could she tell?

  I didn’t think too much of it. Maybe this Emily Ryan just didn’t have any social media profiles. Though she definitely seemed like the kind of woman who would. Very glamorous. A bit like myself.

  Bianca was breathless by the time she arrived at the table, racing across the dining hall. She also had her phone out and I started to wonder if I was just being old fashioned and uppity to think that we should all have a meal together and talk to each other without staring at screens.

  “Listen to this,” Bianca said, offering one earbud to Alyson and one to me. I flinched a little when the tinny shrill pop song hit my ears, but Alyson was bopping along and singing to the lyrics.

  “I love this!” Alyson said

  “You know this song?” I asked, pulling the earbud out. Ugh. Definitely not my cup of tea. I preferred jazz, and folk music. Something that made my ears bleed a little less.

  Alyson was still grooving along. I did not approve of her outfit that evening either. It was worse than her hair. Did she own ANY clothes at all that did not display her midriff?

  “Yeah, this is what I play when I work out.” She reluctantly handed the earbud back to Bianca. “Really gets me motivated.”

  Bianca was sitting there in excitement like she had a great secret to tell us. And then she dropped a bombshell. “The singer of that track. Lola Bloom. She is the one who got murdered. Emily Ryan was only a code name.”

  5

  Alyson

  There was dead silence in our hotel suite. Claire had gotten a little tipsy during dinner and fallen asleep as soon as we got back to our room. But the news of Lola Bloom’s death had sobered me up, big time. I lay awake staring at the ceiling. What was going to happen when the world heard about this? Claire didn’t even know who Lola Bloom was, but I was shocked to my core. When I still couldn’t get to sleep, I rolled over and turned the TV on, sure that all the news stations were going to be covering it.

  But there was not a single mention on any of the stations. I checked my phone. No news on any apps either. How peculiar.

  Eventually, I must have dozed off to sleep, but I awoke with a jolt and checked the time. 5am. I groaned and realized I’d only gotten about three hours sleep. But I had to be up for training, and I also had to find my liaison for the surfing competition, a guy named Curtis who was meant to meet me on Bondi Beach. This was important. No matter what had happened so far on our trip to Sydney, the surf comp still had to be my focus and my priority.

  I shuffled down the hall sleepily with my towel over my shoulder and a bag with my wetsuit flung over the other shoulder. There was a bunch of glamorous people huddled outside Lola’s room. Or former room. All of them were dressed in things like leather pants and shirts with feathers and sequins, and they all stopped talking and stared at me when I reached them.

  “Alyson Foulkes,” I said, introducing myself. I yawned a little. “I am staying in the room next to Lola Bloom.”

  A man with a goatee and a tight black t-shirt turned white. “What do you know?” he demanded gruffly.

  I wasn’t about to be intimidated. Not at 5.30 in the morning. I just stared him straight in the eye and told him exactly what I knew. “I know that Lola Bloom was murdered here yesterday. And I know that it hasn’t made the news yet.”

  There were murmurs amongst the group. Clearly, they didn’t know anything about Claire and I. Or Bianca.

  The man with the goatee stepped forward with a growling expression and told me he was Lola’s manager Andre. “This is a delicate matter. We are figuring out how to handle this, between us. The people closest to Lola. What did you see?”

  I crossed my arms. “Enough.”

  “You keep out of this, okay?” he growled. “Don’t go speaking a word of this to anyone. No journalists, no strangers. Not even to the people you think you can trust. Or you will regret it.”

  He tried to keep the grim expression on his face. But suddenly the reason for the secrecy was clear. None of Lola’s entourage wanted this to get out to the press, at least not yet. He looked scared, not upset.

  There were two women in the group. One larger lady who looked like she could be a security guard, and one who was a lot smaller with hair that was dyed silver. They were both sobbing. Andre told them to shush and keep their voices down. “We need to carry on as though it is business as usual for a little while longer, okay? Don’t go giving anything away.” He stomped away and slowly, the rest of the group disbanded and disappeared down the hall after him.

  And soon, there was only one woman left. The slim, silver-haired one. She was sitting on the floor, her back to Lola’s old door.

  “I’m Dovey,” she said, glancing up at me through watery eyes. “I’m sorry Andre was so harsh. He’s like that with everyone. Even on the best of days.”

  I supposed that was the kind of personality it took to manage an international popstar. “It’s okay,” I said with a little wink. “I’ve dealt with worse than him.” Far worse actually. There was a police officer back in Eden Bay called Sergeant Wells who came to mind. Andre was a teddy bear compared to him.

  Dovey waited until Andre was back in the elevator before she started sobbing again. “I’m scared,” she admitted to me. “What if whoever killed Lola comes back for another one of us?”

  I knew I couldn’t do much to comfort her, but I sat down and put my arm around her anyway. I knew that Claire and I could help. And Bianca too, I had to very begrudgingly admit. She did seem to have a knack for these things.

  I told Dovey that we were looking for the culprit.

  She seemed confused. “But…but isn’t that what the police are for?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You would think so.” But more often than not, Claire and I had to tackle the cases that the police force found just too difficult. “Dovey. Can you tell me anything about what happened?”

  Dovey shook her head. Then she started sobbing again.

  “Aww, it’s okay. You will really miss her, won’t you?”

  She nodded a little and lifted her head. “Oh, but you don’t understand, Alyson. I really, really needed this job.”

  Hmm. Well. That was as good a reason to cry as any.

  “Finding out who killed Lola might not get you your job back,” I said, standing up. “But it might give you some closure, and at least it will protect you if you really are worried that the killer might come back.” I waited a few moments for this to sink in and for her tears to stop.

  Dovey stood up finally and showed me to her room where she said she would feel more comfortable talking. She was on the twelfth floor and she held her breath when we entered the elevator and kept it held until there was a ‘ding’ and the doors had opened again. “I didn’t get any sleep last night,” she said, showing me inside. It was slightly smaller than the one Claire and I had, but still nothing to complain about. Dovey told me she was sharing it with Lola’s makeup artist, Issac.

  “And where is he?” I asked, spinning around the room.

  Dovey shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since last night.”

  I was surprised. “He didn’t come back here last night?”

  Dovey shook her head. “He hates blood, I know that much, and he is very easily frightened. He might just be keeping a very wide berth. Then again, he will be out of a job as well now. Maybe he figures there’s no point in coming back.”

  They were so fatalistic about it all. Surely there were other pop stars in the world who needed their hair and makeup done. Or what about the actresses of the world? The social media models?

  “Did Lola have any enemies?” I asked her.

  Dovey looked a little bemused by this. “She was one of the most famous pop stars in Australia. Millions of fans. However, love can turn to hate fairly quickly.”

  Hmm. That was true. There was a very fine line.


  I glanced out the window. I had more questions for Dovey, but the surf waited for no woman. This investigation was going to have to wait.

  6

  Claire

  Bianca was still rocked by the news of Lola Bloom’s death, but it was Saturday in the city and she was ready to hit the boutiques. “I only shop at designer stores,” Bianca said with a little grin. “Maybe that makes me a fashion snob, but I can’t see the point of wearing an item if it doesn’t have a designer label attached.”

  She took me to The Strand Arcade and led me into her favorite boutique store, “Blooms,” where all the sales assistants were wearing black and white and the fittings were made of gold. Finally, I had found my people. Or as far as Bianca was concerned, at least someone I didn’t have to pretend with. Water down my tastes with. Alyson would rather shop at thrift stores for clothing. One time I had gone with her and picked up a scarf, but the thoughts of lice or fleas was too much. In the end, I felt itchy only looking at the thing and wound up throwing it in the trash before I ever wore it. She had asked me about it once and I’d told her that I thought it was too nice to wear out. The naive girl had actually bought it.

  Blooms smelled like expensive leather, with a soft scent of vanilla mixed in with the scent of lilies. Even the seats in the dressing rooms were expensive.

  “Get a look of me in this,” Bianca said, holding up a brown leather jacket with a chocolate fur trim collar. It looked amazing when she tried it on, hugged her. Incredibly slimming and flattering. She looked like dark chocolate.

  “Wow, suits you perfectly. It’s stunning, Bianca.”

  She laughed. “Well then, I have to get it, don’t I? Can’t ignore my favorite cousin’s advice!”

  “Only cousin,” I pointed out.

  “Still counts,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Even if I had another one to compare you to, I am sure you would still come out on top, Claire Elizabeth!”

  I was still a little annoyed that I liked Bianca so much. But she was fun, and smart, and had amazing taste, so how could I not?

  I glanced at the tag of the coat. Two thousand dollars. And she was just going to purchase that without even checking the price? She grinned as she handed over her credit card and I stood back and considered the implications. This girl was loaded. If Bianca did take our legal matter to court, she was definitely going to be able to outspend me as far as legal representation was concerned.

  I started to feel a little bitter. Why does she even need my bookshop if she has so much money?

  The coat looked amazing on her, though, I had to admit.

  “What about you?” Bianca asked, waving her hand around the store. “I can’t have all the retail fun on my own.”

  But I was starting to realize that there was nothing in this entire store that I could actually afford in my current financial position. Not even a pair of sunglasses. The cheapest pair was $350. Maybe these were not my people after all.

  Still, part of me wanted to impress Bianca. Or at least keep up appearances.

  “Ah, no, nothing caught my eye today, I’m afraid. I think a lot of this stuff is about to go out of season.” Not that I would know. I hadn’t even cracked open a fashion mag since I’d moved back to Eden Bay.

  Bianca was in the mood for gelato so we went to the mall, to the top level that had a view of the city on one side and the harbor on the other. Of course, it was the most expensive, exclusive gelato store in Sydney with flavors such as burnt fig and lavender. Whatever happened to good old plain chocolate? It was also $7 a scoop, which I thought was outrageous. “You can get an ice cream cone for a dollar back in Eden Bay,” I said with a laugh. I ordered a dark cherry fudge flavor and braced myself for it to be sour. But the texture was smooth, and the flavors mixed together perfectly, so in the end, I decided that it was worth the price.

  Bianca finished up her scoop of green tea and macadamia and suddenly looked a little somber. “I regret that I never had a chance to meet our grandmother,” she said softly. “What was she like?”

  Oh. I was a little taken aback by the question. “She was a very headstrong woman,” I said. “Certainly didn’t suffer any fools.” I paused and remembered Saturdays in the bookshop with my grandma. “But she was so beloved because of her generosity. And she never swayed from her principles…” I told Bianca about the policy that my grandma had always had, where she would let any customer exchange any book they owned for any book in the shop. It was a sort of honor system, but I didn’t believe that my grandma had never had it taken advantage of.

  Bianca frowned. “So you grew up in the shop, practically?”

  “Er, yes. I suppose you could put it that way.”

  I knew what she was getting at with a statement like that. Like I was being greedy, that I had had my fair share of time with the bookshop and I should let her have hers. Well, I took it the exact opposite way. I had far more of a claim to it. It was my second home. It belonged to me. It was rightfully mine.

  It was the first time there had been tension between the two of us, and the silence seemed to drag on far too long. I swirled my spoon around in my empty cup.

  “Hey, look at that,” Bianca called out softly, looking up at a sign on the other wall of the mall. It was several levels high, with a pink, glittery backdrop and in front of all the glitter was a blonde woman, her hand on a microphone and a knowing smile on her face.

  Lola Bloom live at Olympic Stadium that Wednesday night.

  All tickets sold out.

  Bianca checked something on her phone. “Look at this,” she said, showing me a concert website. “Those tickets went for $200 each. They are being scalped for three times that much.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Well, that explains why they don’t want word getting out yet. There will be a riot.”

  7

  Alyson

  Bondi beach was only a hop, skip and a jump from our hotel room—quite literally—so I was down on the sand within seconds of exiting the lobby. That was why the organizers had me staying there, so that there was no chance of me being late or missing a heat.

  Hmm. It was almost like my reputation had preceded me.

  I noticed my legs were like jelly as I made my way over the sand. I just kept telling myself some simple facts. Sand was sand. It didn’t matter if it was at Bondi Beach or Eden Bay. Water was water. Sea was sea. And waves were waves.

  But there were never any camera crews set up on Eden Bay beach, filming me surfing. Well, only that one time when I’d thought I’d spotted a shark, but it was only a piece of wood. Anyway, I was suddenly camera shy, self-conscious of my cheap swimwear and of the fact that my wetsuit and board didn’t have any sponsorship logos like the pros had. Just the design I had done myself, of a mermaid with long purple hair and a tail made of flowers instead of scales. A tan-toned, six-foot woman with blonde hair pushed past me carrying a board with so many designer surf logos on it that it had almost run out of space.

  You do this every day, Alyson. You can do this today as well.

  I took a deep breath and ran for the waves. And for the next hour, I was on top of the world. Or at least it felt like it, staring back at all the people on the sand who suddenly didn’t feel so intimidating.

  But this was only a warmup.

  Yeah, I surfed every day. But this was an international competition. I felt suddenly out of my league as I tried to find the area for the wild card entrants. I still hadn’t managed to track down Curtis since I’d been in Sydney. Apparently, he’d been looking for me the night before and couldn’t find me. I gulped when I saw yet another TV crew setting up on the sand. This one was a US one.

  A tall man with long, blond hair came up to me with a clipboard and nodded. “Are you a ranked surfer?” He was ready to point me in the right direction of the tent where the professionals were all hiding away, out of the glare of the public and the spotlight.

  I shook my head. “I’m just a wild card,” I said. “Still need to qualify for t
he main round.” So while the rest of the surfers were using this time to practice and size up the competition, I had to fight for my place to even compete properly.

  “Oh, you must be Alyson! Alyson Foulkes!” He extended his hand. “I’m Curtis.”

  I glanced down at my purple wetsuit and apologized for my lack of sponsorship. And for being so hard to find. And for not being a professional.

  He was kind, though. “Ah, no worries,” he said and offered to show me to the tent anyway. “There’s free drinks and food in there,” he said with a wink as he led me over to the blue tent. Most of the food left by that stage was the sweet stuff that the pro surfers wouldn’t touch, but I grabbed a donut and a sports drink and said a quiet hello before I left again, with Curtis walking me back out. By that stage, we were down the north end of the beach, which was so close to my hotel that it practically backed onto it.

  Home, sweet home.

  There were about a dozen people, all in their twenties by the looks of it, with signs and posters. At first, I thought they must have been fans of the surf comp, but as I looked closer, I saw that the posters did not contain images of famous surfers. Instead, they all contained the face of one very familiar blonde pop star.

  Lola Bloom.

  “What are they doing here?” I asked Curtis, as though he might have an explanation for them.

  As it turned out, he did. “They are waiting for a sight of Lola Bloom. Been camping out here all night for the chance. Apparently, she is staying at that hotel right there,” he said, nodding to The Onyx. I just gulped and tried to feign ignorance. “Apparently, she hasn’t been outside in almost a day, so she’s got to be due out any moment now.”

  The fans were frothing at the mouths for a sighting of Lola Bloom. They were going to be spectacularly disappointed when they found out the truth. No wonder Dovey and Issac and all the rest of them wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible.