Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  It was time to quit.

  But could I really give up that easily? Now both Claire and I had been intimidated and frightened away, was there going to be anyone left on the case at all? Maybe Bianca was going to have to solve it all by her lonesome. Well, good luck to her. She could have it. Still, I went to sleep undecided. Still hopeful that I would wake up with a new perspective.

  But I got about three hours sleep and the following morning, I was living in fear of that knock from housekeeping. I did not want to do what I was about to do. I did not want to be this person. I wasn’t this person! But I finally picked up the room phone and rang reception. “I need to change rooms,” I said.

  The woman on the other end of the line sounded a little thrown, but she tried to compose herself. “Is your room not up to your standards, Miss Foulkes?”

  I tried to think what Claire would say in this situation. She was the master of making up things to complain about. Inventing problems out of thin air. “Yes. There are not enough hangers in the wardrobe and I don’t like the way that the sun comes in through the window before six a.m.”

  “Have you tried shutting the blinds?”

  “I don’t like to sleep with the blinds shut.”

  I heard a little click on the other end of the line like I was being put on hold. A few moments later, the woman returned to the phone.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have any other rooms available. And your room was being very generously paid for by the organizers of the Palm Sands International Surfing Competition.”

  Geez. Was that any of her business? What was with the attitude I was being forced to put up with?

  I had to play the only card I had left. I put on my best ever “Claire” voice. I even heard my accent turn slightly British. “This is completely unacceptable service. There was a murder in the room next door to mine and I no longer feel safe here.”

  That did it. We were moved. But it was to the bottom floor where there were no celebrity-style suites and I definitely no longer had to worry about the sun coming through the windows in the morning. It was kinda like being on the bottom deck of the Titanic. J was all pouty about there being a view of the parking garage instead of the ocean, and I just asked her when she had turned into such a mini-princess. Must have been spending too much time with Claire.

  It was a much smaller room. Much, much smaller. Now J and I were not only in the same room, our beds were only a foot away from each other.

  And the loud noises coming from her iPad game were already making me want to tear my hair out. I asked her if she wanted to play the game with headphones in, but she just told me that would ruin the fun.

  “I’m just going to see if there is a gym on this level,” I said, locking the door behind me so that I could get forty seconds of peace out in the corridor.

  I saw a girl with silver hair struggling with a suitcase while she tried to unlock her door.

  “Hey there!” I said brightly. “Didn’t know you were joining me in the servant’s accommodation!”

  Dovey let out a wry laugh and waved. “Andre moved us all to smaller rooms as well.” She explained that now they might have to have to refund the concert tickets, they were all on a tight budget. ‘Might’ have to, I wondered? I didn’t know how much longer they were going to be able to keep the death of an international pop star a secret. And I didn’t know how they were going to fake an entire concert. I mean, I knew that some of those arena seats were so far away from the stage that you may as well be watching an ant perform, but still.

  Dovey tilted her head and took stock of my wavy hair, which was even more wild than usual due to the loud noises from J’s game. “Do you always keep your hair like that?”

  Like a bird’s nest was what I presumed she meant but was too polite to say. Believe me, I had been approached—and begged—by hair stylists before who took one look at my mane and wanted desperately to get their hands on it. They were always keen to attack my locks with scissors and hair straighteners and soothing balm. Something about my wild curls always made people want to tame them.

  I shrugged. “Sure. I just roll out of bed and let my locks run free.” I certainly didn’t waste an hour of every day styling my hair like Princess did.

  Dovey stared at me with sad, pleading eyes. Normally, I would have said no. I had only let one person style my hair in my life, for my year ten end-of-year formal, and I had hated how ‘neat’ it looked so much that one hour into the dance, I had escaped to the bathroom to mess it up again. But I felt so bad for Dovey that for some reason I found myself saying the words, “Do you want to give me a makeover?”

  Her eyes lit up. The door to my room popped open and so did J’s eyes. She had been listening the entire time. This was J’s dream come true. She had been bugging me to get a makeover for months, ever since she had seen one of those terrible reality shows where people get a haircut and it apparently changed their whole life.

  I didn’t buy that—not for a second. But hey, I was game.

  J made sure the mirror remained covered for the full two hours that Dovey was pulling and straightening and spritzing and…uh-oh, I even heard some scissors. “Just a trim,” she reassured me as I watched my tresses fall to the ground with skepticism. J gave me a little nod and a thumbs up to let me know that whatever Dovey was doing, it looked good.

  I might look good, but would I look like myself? That was what I was worried about. I’d already done a Claire impression over the phone. I didn’t want to start looking like her as well.

  Forty minutes later, once my scalp was burning from having a hairdryer blasted at it at full speed, J pulled the sheet away from the mirror and cried a triumphant “Ta-da!” as though it had been her own handy work.

  I stared at the chic woman in the mirror with long, shiny, golden brown hair.

  “It-it looks amazing…” I reached up to touch it and couldn’t believe how sleek it felt. I turned my head side to side to check all angles. Somehow, the new style had made me look both younger and older at the same time.

  Dovey grinned at me, looking pleased to be useful for the first time in a while. “Your hair is in really good condition.”

  Probably because I never used any hot appliances on it and never styled it. Claire was always telling me it was getting damage from the sun and the surf, but now I was happy that she was proved wrong. I was pretty sure seawater preserved hair. I mean, I had nothing to back that up, but it seemed instinctively right.

  I barely recognized myself, which was what I had feared. But J assured me that I looked amazing and that I should keep my hair like that forever.

  “Too bad it will all be ruined again when I go in the water a little later,” I said sheepishly to Dovey, shooting her an “eek” look in the mirror. I explained that I had to take part in the surf comp heat that day, amazing hair or no amazing hair.

  “Can’t you wear a cap?” Dovey asked me, her face falling a little. She was referring to one of those things that swimmers wear that make them look like a bald fish.

  I suppose, technically, I could have. But also, no. Surfing was a cool sport. No one wore caps. And it was also very uncool to care about the state of one’s hair. Or getting one’s hair wet.

  Oh well, Dovey didn’t seem too fussed about what fate would hit my hair later. She was just stoked that she had done such a good job now, and she couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. She was even humming a little to herself. I supposed it was nice to still feel needed and appreciated. “What time is the comp?” she asked me. “I can come and watch.”

  By that point, I was getting used to the reflection staring back at me and wondered how much it would cost to invest in a hair straightener. “Sure. Come on down and check it out. But you’ll have to watch out,” I warned her, spinning around in my chair. “One of Lola’s biggest fans, this Zan guy, will also be down there and if he gets wind of the fact that you know her, he won’t leave you alone.” I frowned. “I think he’s become one of my biggest fans, actually.” I ke
pt thinking of the creepy way that he had stared at me when I’d climbed out of the surf.

  “Wait, what was his name?” Dovey stopped putting her brushes and hairclips away and frowned.

  “Zan,” I answered. “I have no idea about his last name.”

  Dovey blinked a few times like she was trying to remember something. “Wait a second…” she murmured. She got her phone out and found Lola’s Instagram profile, bringing up the latest pic of her. And the one before that. And the one before that. “Look at this.” She showed me the comments section on all of the posts. Comment after comment from a user called “Zan The Man” who was writing threatening things, like, “If you don’t come outside and meet your fans Lola then you are going to regret it.” Followed by a skull emoji.

  I gulped. I’d already pegged Zan as more of a stalker than just a superfan. But this was confirmation.

  “I told you that love can turn to hate,” Dovey said, her eyes watering as she put her phone back in her pocket. “I will definitely be at that surf comp, Alyson.”

  The second heat was already well underway when I got down to the beach and it was almost my time to head into the water. J was literally trying to push me down the sand. “I can’t leave you all alone!” I exclaimed. She once again explained that she was nine now and she was practically a responsible adult. Yeah, right. Curtis was waving at me frantically to come down to the water.

  “Oh good, here is Auntie Claire,” I said with a sigh of relief as I saw Princess stalking her way across the sand with a giant blue sunhat on to protect her delicate complexion. I had about thirty seconds before I would be disqualified before I even began. Could she walk any slower?

  J had a weird little smug grin on her face. “She might really be my auntie soon…” she said, doing a little jiggle on the sand.

  Because Claire was only twenty meters or so away, I started to leave. Then stopped and turned around. “What do you mean by that?”

  “When she marries Matt!”

  I blinked a few times and just laughed. How absurd! “Yeah, great imagination there, kid.” Curtis was about to come up and drag me into the water.

  But J just looked indignant. “They kissed.” She stuck her nose into the air. “I know all about it.”

  “Haha. Very funny.”

  J pouted at me, hurt at not being believed. “I heard Matt talking about it one night when he thought I was sleeping. He was telling Kate that he couldn’t get back together with her because he wants to be with Claire.”

  I felt like the wind had gone out of my lungs, like I had been hit by ten tons of water. The shock was in my chest. Betrayal.

  Claire was just about to reach us.

  But I didn’t want to speak to her. Not now, not ever.

  And now I had to go and catch a real wave.

  15

  Alyson

  Curtis was grinning. He pushed his hair back out of his face and gave me a hug. “I knew we’d made the right decision to take a chance on you, kiddo!” Not only had I gotten through to the next round, I’d even scored a ten from one of the judges and Curtis told me that there was rumors of a local shoe brand wanting to sponsor me if I placed top 10 in the final. I hugged Curtis back and thanked him for everything. “No, seriously,” I said. “This is like a dream come true.”

  He told me to not even mention it again. Just to promise him that I would get a good night’s sleep before the final. “I promise,” I said, glancing back over my shoulder where J was still sitting with Claire.

  On my way back towards them, Dovey jumped out and gave me a high-five and a congratulations, but I was not in the mood to be social after the Claire and Matt bombshell and made up an excuse about being too exhausted from the surf to hang out with her. Instead I just ran up and grabbed J’s hand and dragged her back off the beach without even a word of thanks to Claire, who just stared at me open-mouthed as we walked off.

  J complained that she was hungry, so I agreed to take her for a burger and fries. I knew a place near The Onyx that was child-friendly and where Claire would never go because the floors were sticky with soda and there were kids running around screaming. J skipped along, already forgetting what she had told me earlier. That was a nine-year-old for you, though.

  Part of me wanted to ask J for more of the goss, but a larger part of me wished that I had never heard anything.

  “Remind you of anywhere?” I asked as we walked into the burger joint half a block down from the hotel. The three pool tables in the middle gave the same sight and sound as the restaurant back in Eden Bay where my brother worked, called Captain Eightball’s.

  We sat up at a booth and J immediately waved a waitress over so she could order. But then a familiar face walked in and we were sprung.

  Dovey smiled at me a little sadly as she walked in and I felt guilty for blowing her off. She paused like she was wondering if she should just walk back in the other direction, but I waved her over to us.

  “Come sit down with us,” I said, and made a joke about my hairstyle not surviving the waves while she ordered a caramel milkshake. She asked for some extra honey on the side and an extra scoop of ice cream, then looked at me and said that she was actually trying to gain a little weight. She was very slim, I will give you that.

  “Did you see Zan?” I asked her.

  She shook her head but pulled out her phone as she sipped on her milkshake and showed me the latest comments. “He is still trying to find Lola.”

  Has he checked the morgue? I thought. But I had to be careful of what I said with J sitting right there beside me. Now Zan was threatening to find his way into her dressing room on the night of the concert. I shrugged a little. That was never going to happen for obvious reasons. Still, Dovey looked a little nervous.

  “He is becoming more and more crazed by the second,” she said. “The more he is denied access to Lola Bloom, the more his craziness intensifies.”

  “Can we go to the concert?” J asked me.

  “Er, it’s sold out, unfortunately.”

  J looked across the table at Dovey. “But can’t you get us tickets? You know Lola Bloom, right?”

  Dovey looked down at the table and didn’t answer. So it was up to me.

  “J, you can’t just go asking people for favors like that, okay? It’s rude.”

  J pouted again but when her bowl of fries and ketchup arrived at the table, she perked up again. I had a sudden image flash in my mind of my brother kissing my best friend. Maybe she was only imagining what she heard, I thought to myself. Maybe she only dreamed that Matt and Claire had kissed.

  Oh gosh, it still made me feel sick to think about it. I pushed away my burger, and Dovey asked me if I was feeling all right. I made up a lie about needing to eat lightly before the next heat of the competition.

  Oh great. The burger joint must have been the place to be for all guests of The Onyx who were sick of paying forty dollars per meal at the hotel restaurant. Because there was another familiar face walking through the doors. Mr. Sweaty.

  “Dovey, can you look after J for a couple of minutes?”

  She grinned at me. “No problem,” she said, winking at J. “We are great buddies, aren’t we, J? That’s an interesting name, by the way.”

  Well, so was the name ‘Dovey’. I just hoped she didn’t ask her what the J stood for. Or they would not be great buddies for very long.

  Mr. Sweaty had taken a seat by the door. He was sitting all alone, again. I walked up slowly and paused by his table until I got his attention.

  “Hi there,” I said, acting like I was flirting with him. I even twirled my hair a little and wished it still looked as glamorous as it had a few hours earlier

  He smiled up at me, but he had sad eyes. He nodded but didn’t quite say hello.

  “Can I sit down?”

  He looked shocked that I would even ask, but he nodded in a shaky kind of way and pointed to the other side of the booth. “Can I order you anything?” he asked, suddenly perking up once he’d realized
I was serious about joining him. His eyes lit up and he sat up straight and tried to get the attention of the waitress.

  “Just a water,” I said and noticed that he looked a little disappointed.

  “I’m Alyson,” I said and reached out to shake his hand across the table. “With a Y. The Y is very important.”

  He smiled a bit. “I’m Yalcin,” he replied. Then laughed. “I suppose that is also with a Y.”

  “Oh, that’s an unusual name.”

  He told me that he had been born in Turkey, but his family had moved to Australia when he was just four. And that, yes, he didn’t meet too many people who had heard the name before.

  I kept up the flirting act as I twirled my straw in my water and leaned forward a little. Even batted my eyelashes for good measure. “You know I’ve seen you around The Onyx.”

  He looked surprised. “You have?”

  I nodded. “But I was too shy to say hello…” I looked down a little, trying to be all coy. My game plan had to be to disarm him, otherwise I would never find out what he was up to or how he knew someone named Emily Ryan.

  He looked pleased to hear that he had caught my eye, but a little sad at the same time. He went quiet, and I knew I was going to have to play it a little stronger than ‘coy’ if I was going to get the info I need. I glanced up at him and asked him flat out, “Are you seeing anyone?”

  He shifted uncomfortably like he wasn’t sure how he should answer. “I thought I met someone at the hotel. Someone that I liked. But now she won’t even return my calls… And when I tried to go to her room—she told me she was staying in room 204—she wouldn’t even answer the door.”

  I sucked in a breath but tried not to look like I was too affected by this news. The poor guy thought he had met a lovely girl. Now she was dead.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure it’s nothing personal, Yalcin.”