Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  Footsteps came in from the back.

  Finally, there was another human in the room and I didn’t feel quite so much like I had just stumbled into a desert. I wasn’t sure he had even noticed me, so I stepped forward and made an extra loud clicking noise with my heel so that he would know that he wasn’t alone. He only just barely glanced up though, his mind and eyes occupied with other things.

  He was perusing a painting, and I wasn’t sure whether he worked there or not. He looked like he could have. He was wearing a black and white polka dot shirt that was thin like it had been worn thousands of times, with a brown leather coat over the top, and he had slightly spiky brown hair that looked like it had never been brushed, not even once, in his whole life.

  Because he was literally the only person in there and the only one who could help me, I needed to get his attention. This time, I cleared my throat loudly and made a big deal looking over the painting in front of me as though I was really considering buying it. Well, I mean, I supposed I was. I had to buy something for my plan to work.

  He glanced up at me and shot me a sort of wonky smile this time, and I still wasn’t sure if he worked there or not.

  “Is this your place?” I asked, wondering if he was the owner. If he was a shop owner, we’d at least have some common ground.

  “Kind of,” he said, still smiling. “Volunteer. That’s how this place works. It sort of belongs to all of us who show our art here.”

  Sounded very communal. I wasn’t sure that was entirely my ‘vibe,’ as Alyson would put it.

  I walked over next to him so that I could see the piece of art he had been so carefully inspecting for the past five minutes. Huh. I wasn’t really sure what to make of it. To me, it seemed a little bit juvenile. It was a woman, only the back of her head, and she was staring at a house located down a very short path. Only she was way bigger than the house, or at least appeared to be. She was bigger than the entire path as well, like the perspective was all out of whack.

  He told me his name was Drew and that he was currently thinking about reducing the price on the piece of art. “Hey, if I want someone to have my piece in their homes, I’d better at least make it affordable, right?”

  “Oh, this is your art?” I asked him, glad that I hadn’t made a comment on it either way. I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not anyway.

  He smiled at me. “It is.”

  “Er, what style would you call this?” I asked, tilting my head to the side, as though that could help me to make sense of it all… As though it would make the objects appear the right size.

  He laughed a little. He sort of looked me up and down a little, slightly confused, as though he’d gotten me all wrong. “And here I was thinking that you were a bit of an art snob.”

  At least my outfit had worked. A little too well.

  I shrugged a little and smiled at him. “I have a lot of money, just not sure what to spend it all on.” I nodded toward the painting. “So you’re going to have to sell me on this one. But just because I don’t know much about art doesn’t mean that I am a fool. I am savvy.”

  He smiled at me, but he looked a teeny bit sad this time. “I am sure you are, Miss Elizabeth Richardson.” I’d given him my full name so that I seemed more sophisticated.

  “This is the ’naive’ style,” he started to explain. Hmm. Perhaps that was why it looked like it had been painted by a child, then. But the more he talked about it, the more I understood the quiet charm of the whole picture. I nodded. It felt like it had been painted from the heart. Felt, not thought. Hence how unrealistic it looked. And full of hope.

  Drew explained the style in more detail as he pointed to the piece and the individual elements of it.

  “It’s out of scale. At least, in ‘realistic’ terms. The things that are most important to me, I paint the largest.”

  I nodded toward the figure who loomed so much larger than the house and the trees. “So, this woman in this photo, she is the most important thing to you?”

  When he didn’t answer, I looked up to see him blushing a little. “Yes. Yes, she is.”

  I turned back to the painting, this time to have a better look at the woman who meant so much to this man.

  Her face wasn’t showing, but from the back, she had long red hair.

  16

  Alyson

  Even though the sky was mostly blue, all I could see was the one grey cloud. I couldn’t tell whether it was coming or leaving. Matt had texted me early that morning, asking me if I wanted to join him in the surf. I didn’t want to go anywhere near the beach, so I said no.

  I just wanted to be indoors.

  Claire was off on some kind of holiday in Newcastle. She told me that she was ‘investigating,’ but I knew her. They had probably opened some new department store in Newcastle and this was just her excuse to go there.

  Speaking of department stores. That was where I found myself that day, even though if I’d had any sense, I would have been scrambling around, trying to find cheap blank surfboards and painting them up like a maniac.

  The scent of perfume smothered me as I entered the revolving doors of the ground level of the mall. I had planned to see a movie, alone, in the dark.

  And I didn’t want to be disturbed by another living being.

  But Troy Emerald had other ideas. I don’t know if he’d spotted me from above, or maybe on one of the security cameras, but I had only been inside for about thirty seconds before he appeared in front of me and told me he had something to show me. “You are going to be the first to see it,” he said proudly.

  I just sighed and told him that I would miss the movie if I got sidetracked. There was one starting at 11:20 and it was already 11. I needed to buy my choc-top ice cream cone and find a good seat up the back.

  “Come on, it’s too nice of a day to be sitting alone by yourself in a movie theatre.”

  It wasn’t a nice day at all. It was one of the worst days I had ever experienced in my life.

  But he insisted on trying to brighten up my spirits even though I didn’t want him to. Before he took me to this new secret location that he was so excited about, he took me to the gelato store on the second level and allowed me to get as many scoops as I wanted. I wanted three. All chocolate. So much for being on a diet for triathlon training.

  “So what is this place you want to show me then?” I asked, now that the chocolate ice cream had worked its magic on me and I was starting to feel a little happier about being alive.

  Troy grinned at me. “It is a new function room.” He looked up and nodded toward the as-yet-unopened third floor of the mall. He told me to get up and follow him into the staff-only elevator. Ooh, how special, I thought a little sarcastically. He told me I was the first non-staff member to ever set foot on the third floor as the doors opened and I stepped out.

  “Wow,” I said, a little sarcastically, only this time out loud, and I started to realize what a sulky brat I was sounding like. Troy, to his credit, ignored my mood and kept an excited look on his face as he led the way.

  “I am thinking that this place will be mostly used for weddings,” he started to explain.

  He was?

  “Who would want to have their wedding in a mall?” I asked dismissively, sure that he was pulling my leg. Just teasing me. Trying to take my mind off things. Because surely that was a joke.

  To be fair, Troy had done a pretty good job of taking my mind off things, ever since my boards had all been washed to sea. Cheering me up. There had been no point taking the boat out to look for them, even though Troy had asked again if that was something I’d be interested in doing.

  “No, really,” he said, leading the way till we got to the end of the hallway. “See?” he said, pulling the door open. “It is brand new and ready for action.”

  It was new all right. I could still smell the cream-colored paint. There was a stunning view of the ocean, and the room was at least 1800 square feet. It was new. It was pretty. But as far as a wedding loca
tion went, it lacked character.

  “What is it?” Troy asked, his face falling a little bit. “You don’t seem too impressed.”

  Well, I was surprised he would think I would be impressed at all with anything that concerned the mall. So I didn’t know why he was looking so crestfallen.

  “It’s just not very me, that’s all.” I was still in a sullen mood about my boards sailing away, so I didn’t say much more than that.

  Troy was staring down at his feet. “What isn’t? Getting married?” he asked in a low voice. It was clear that that was his assumption from what I had meant.

  Huh. I suppose I had never really thought about it. Not seriously, anyway. I’d always thought I was too young. Definitely too much of a free spirit.

  I looked around the function room. “Well, if I ever did get married, I wouldn’t want it to be in a place like this, that’s for sure.”

  “Ah.” He looked like he’d perked up, and that was when I realized that he wasn’t upset that I’d critiqued the function room… He was upset that I might not be interested in marriage at all.

  Troy stared out into the ocean and moved slowly toward the window. There was a little smile on his face now that he was trying to hide and I could feel a new tension in the room. There was a reason he had brought me there all right.

  But what did this all mean?? It was Claire and Matt who were getting married, not Troy and I! We weren’t even dating!

  “You’d want to get married on the beach?”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Come with me. I have something else to show you.”

  I gulped. I sure hoped it wasn’t a diamond ring. Surely not, but things had been getting a little heavy that afternoon so I’d have to be on my guard.

  This time, we took the staff elevator down low, to below the ground floor to the floor that was just labeled “W” on the keypad. The warehouse. Troy ripped open a long, tall box and then another long, tall box.

  He turned around to show me what he had for me. There were a bunch of blank surfboards. A dozen. All fresh. New.

  For me.

  “If I could have painted them for you, I would. But I figured you’d want to, anyway, you are the artist around here.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t. It was too much. “Troy, I can’t accept these…”

  He shot me a look that said, I know that your pride doesn’t want to accept these, but actually, you can.

  I stepped forward and gulped a little as I ran my hand down over one of the shiny smooth surfaces. It would only take me a few months—maybe even less—to get back on my feet if I accepted all the help that Troy was offering to me.

  And as I looked at all the blank boards I saw all the possibility. All the designs…a chance to make something brand new. And even better than before.

  I’d always thought that Troy Emerald was my enemy. Someone that I needed to defeat.

  Certainly not someone I could ever see myself marrying.

  But maybe he wasn’t the worst option in the world after all.

  17

  Claire

  I stared down at the painting I had purchased as it sunk into the middle of my hotel bed. Hoping it wasn’t a total waste of money. Well, maybe it would appreciate in value over time. Maybe Drew Alice was an undiscovered genius in his lifetime.

  Did I really want a photo of Lilly, though? Forever?

  I had nowhere to hang it in the hotel room I was checked in to. I supposed that would have been plain weird anyway.

  I rang Alyson and filled her in.

  I told her that Drew Alice was another arty-farty type that she would probably hate. That he was basically Charlie Lewis but without the dramatics. I stared down at the painting of the bed as I described it to her. She was already familiar with the ‘naive’ style.

  I was still staring down at the artwork. “I think it is a painting of Lilly.”

  Of course, the only reason I thought that was because of the hair color. I could only see the back of the woman’s head and her green dress that was longer than the path she walked on, but her hair was her most defining feature. And she did live near Drew. And she was part of the art world.

  “It makes sense that they would know each other, Alyson.”

  She mused on this. “Well, a lot of women have red hair.”

  Actually, it was a relatively rare genetic feature, and only a small percent of the population, especially naturally red like Lilly had. But Alyson was right in the sense that Lilly certainly wasn’t the only woman on the planet with red hair.

  “So, what do I do?” I asked.

  Alyson was completely and utterly silent for about ten seconds after I asked that question. I actually thought we had been disconnected.

  “Are you actually asking me for advice? On the case?”

  I sighed. “This art world is outside my comfort zone, Alyson… What do I do to get closer to Drew? If he is in love with Lilly, then he is a prime suspect for killing Charlie.”

  Alyson didn’t seem to completely agree. “But he lives in Newcastle. You have to find out if he left at any stage last Friday and came to Eden Bay.” She paused. “And then came back again. In this day and age, that should be reasonably easy to track.”

  She was right.

  I wandered back down to the gallery. It was a twenty-five-minute walk from my hotel, and by the time I got there, I was feeling a bit hot and disheveled so I took a few seconds out in front to fan myself off. I still wanted to give Drew the impression that I was a woman of high sophistication.

  “Back again?” he said with a grin.

  “I am actually looking for some work by the artist…” I paused on purpose to try and pretend that I had to think about the name for a moment before I remembered it. “Charlie Lewis.”

  “Oh,” Drew said, his face growing darker. He shook his head and smiled a little, but it was a forced smile. “You won’t be able to find any of his work at an affordable price now that he’s…” He didn’t want to say the word.

  “Dead?” I asked.

  Drew gulped and nodded. “You know the story then.”

  I acted like this price hike was a huge blow to me. “Darn,” I said, snapping my fingers. “I should have snapped up one of his works while he was still alive.”

  Drew had been so cheery and charming the day before, but all this talk about Charlie had turned him a bit sour. Or at least, he was less happy to be talking to me. He led me around the corner of the gallery where there was an abstract painting in orange and red that looked like it was just paint smeared in lines to me. It had Charlie Lewis listed as the artist underneath.

  “Doesn’t really seem fair. Like justice hasn’t really been done,” he said through gritted teeth as we both looked up at the painting. It had been priced at only $70 originally but was now selling for a hefty $2000 dollars. A ridiculous markup.

  At first, I thought he was talking about Charlie’s murder—that the person who was responsible had gotten away and that was why justice hadn’t been done.

  But that wasn’t it at all.

  “It’s not like he was a great artist,” Drew grumbled as he looked at the new price tag with both envy and derision. “This would never have sold for anything like this in his lifetime, and it’s not fair that it is selling for so much now.”

  I shrugged a little. I wasn’t sure what the big deal was, to be honest. It wasn’t like Charlie was going to get the money himself, was he?

  “It’s not like he faked his own death just to up the value of his artwork,” I said with a nervous laugh at the end.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Drew said and just for a moment, I wondered if that had been a real possibility. What if Charlie Lewis wasn’t dead at all and Alyson had just been used as a stooge? There to find the body. Make it all look legit. And then Charlie could take off into the wilderness on his piles of cash. Hmm, but no. As great as a plot twist that would be—and I thought maybe I could use it in my next book—Charlie Lewis was def
initely dead. He was in the morgue. It had been reported in the local paper, and the police were on the case.

  But still… I went completely silent as a new thought occurred to me. I must have known I was on the right path with my hunch about investigating Charlie Lewis’s art life. Brilliant Claire strikes again! I looked around smugly. I couldn’t see any police down here either. Looked like they weren’t quite as clever as I was.

  I glanced around at the price tags. And at Drew’s threadbare shirt, which had a hole in the back that was clearly visible now that he wasn’t wearing his jacket.

  So, no, I didn’t think that Charlie faked his own death to get money and notoriety in the art world. But maybe the motive had been something along those lines… It was just that it wasn’t Charlie who would get the money.

  It would be the person closest to him. Say… The person he was about to get married to, who was most likely his next of kin. Surely there would have been changes to wills and inheritances made before the wedding.

  I started to get a little tingle in my guts as it all came together. Oh, there was no way this was anything innocent now. I was sure that Lilly and Drew were involved with each other, and that they both wanted Charlie dead.

  Oh. I’d gotten distracted. Drew had wandered away from me to another section of the gallery, a little nook on the east side that I hadn’t seen before. There were a dozen small paintings in front of him, and all of them had the same style as the one that was still in my hotel room. His name was listed as the artist.

  Again, there was a painting of a woman with red hair. Same style, only this time she was staring longingly at a plane. And Drew was staring longingly at the painting.

  I moved my eyes to the left of it. Another woman with red hair. Bigger than the entire planet.

  It was Lilly. I was sure of it. Again, the face wasn’t visible, but this time, the side of her nose was just peeking out. It was slim and pert, just like Lilly’s.