Beach Bags and Burglaries (A Haley Randolph Mystery)

by Dorothy Howell

  But was that a reason to kill someone?

  Maybe not a cold, calculated murder, but I could see it happening in the heat of the moment, in an argument that escalated.

  “I don’t think changing teams was really bothering Jas that much,” Gabe said.

  Damn. So much for that clue.

  “Did you get the feeling she wanted to break up with you?” I asked.

  Okay, that was a crappy thing to ask, because Gabe seemed genuinely upset about Jaslyn’s death. But I wanted to get something from him that would allow me to take him off my mental suspect list—so it was for his own good. Really.

  “No. No way.” Gabe slammed his fist into the palm of his hand.

  His anger spun up so quickly I stepped back. I realized I was totally alone with him behind the bushes, at the edge of the resort, out of sight of absolutely everybody.

  Not a great feeling.

  “Jaslyn and I were solid,” Gabe told me. “And if I’d found out that somebody else was sniffing around her, they’d have been sorry.”

  Maybe coming out here to talk to him wasn’t such a hot idea.

  “Look, I’ve got to get back to work,” Gabe said.

  I didn’t disagree.

  His anger disappeared in a heartbeat—which was kind of scary, too. It made me wonder about how comfortable Jaslyn really had been in their relationship. If she’d wanted to break up with him, would she have dared tell him?

  “So do you think she, you know, she ... suffered?” Gabe asked.

  It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that he was asking about Jaslyn’s death—the reason I’d lured him to this meeting in the first place.

  Really, I’ve got to get better about keeping up with things.

  “No,” I said, and I honestly believed it. “She looked peaceful. Like she was just sleeping.”

  Gabe nodded, then walked away.

  I took off in the opposite direction and wound my way through the resort grounds, anxious to get back to the hotel, where someone could hear me scream if necessary. I’d learned some useful info from Gabe that I’d have to follow up on, but the thing that stuck with me was his volatile temper.

  No way could I take him off of my suspect list.

  That meant I needed more info on Gabe. I could think of only one way to get it.

  I stopped near the bungalows, pulled out my cell phone, and called Detective Shuman. He answered on the second ring.

  “How’s the vacation?” he asked.

  Shuman sounded relaxed—like he was the one on vacay.

  “I need a favor,” I said. “Can you do a background check on a guy for me?”

  I guess Shuman picked up on the distress in my voice, because immediately he switched to cop mode.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Shuman in cop mode was really hot—but I was too rattled at the moment to properly appreciate it.

  “I’m just picking up a weird vibe from somebody here,” I said.

  “Are you involved in the murder investigation?” Shuman asked, and I could tell from his tone that he already knew the answer and wasn’t happy about it.

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “I don’t exactly have a choice.”

  “Then explain it to me,” Shuman said.

  This didn’t seem like the best time to get into the whole I’m-solving-a-murder-to-avoid-a-wedding thing, so I went with something easier.

  “If anything bad turns up on this guy, I’ll tell you everything,” I promised.

  Shuman was quiet for a while. I knew he wasn’t happy about it, but I also knew he’d go along with it.

  “Text me the info,” Shuman said. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I owe you.”

  He hung up.

  I texted him the info I had on Gabe Braxton and then slid my phone into my pocket. This really wasn’t the vacation I’d hoped for. I had to turn things around.

  At breakfast, Marcie and Bella had said they were heading to the beach. This sounded like just the boost my day needed. I decided to put my murder investigation on ignore and forget about all my other problems—for a while, anyway.

  “Haley?”

  I knew by the way my knees started to tremble and my heartbeat picked up that Luke Warner had called my name.

  I spun around and, oh my God, there he stood.

  I got the feeling he’d been watching me for a while, which caused my heart to beat even faster.

  Luke walked over. “I saw you talking to a maintenance worker. Is everything all right?”

  He sounded genuinely concerned—and, jeez, he looked great—but I couldn’t forget our history. I forced myself to calm down.

  “Are you stalking me?” I asked.

  “I was just out for a walk,” Luke said with an easy grin.

  Luke has a terrific grin.

  He was also a terrific liar—all in the line of duty, of course.

  Luke was an FBI agent who’d been working undercover when we’d met a few months ago. He had extensive experience pretending to be someone other than himself, so a lie could roll oh so smoothly off of his tongue. When he’d finally revealed his true identity, I wasn’t happy about being deceived—or about some of the other things that had happened. Luke tried to make it up to me, but I was done with him.

  Until now.

  Maybe.

  I wondered if he’d mention what had happened between us a few months ago when we’d both been searching for a murder suspect in the Garment District and something had sparked between us—long story. I doubted he would—the whole thing wasn’t exactly a shining moment for him—and that was okay with me. I didn’t really want to think about it, either.

  “I saw you yesterday inside the hotel talking to the detectives,” Luke said. His brows drew together. “Are you all right?”

  I couldn’t be certain whether Luke knew what was going on with Jaslyn’s murder.

  “You don’t know?” I asked.

  “I’m just here for a wedding,” he said, and gave me another grin.

  I’d fallen for his cover story once before; I wasn’t doing it again.

  “A hotel maid was murdered,” I said. “I’m sure you heard about it.”

  “I read it on the Internet,” Luke said. “But I’m staying away from the news as much as possible, since I’m on vacation.”

  “You hadn’t heard that I found her body?” I asked.

  “Haley, that must have been awful for you,” he said, and again sounded genuinely concerned.

  This hardly seemed like the time to remind him that Jaslyn’s was not the first dead body I’d ever discovered.

  “Why did you come into the room where the police were interviewing me?” I asked.

  Luke gave me an I’m-an-idiot-sometimes shrug, and said, “I made a wrong turn, went into the wrong room.”

  “Which room were you looking for?” I wanted to know.

  He paused, and I saw in his expression that he knew I didn’t trust what he was saying.

  And it was true. The bottom line was that I didn’t trust Luke. He’d claimed he was here for a wedding, and that may have been true—or he could have been here working undercover investigating Jaslyn’s death, or something totally different.

  Of course, working undercover was his job—and a pretty cool job, at that—so I guess he couldn’t help that he had to lie about things. And even if he was working undercover, he couldn’t tell me—which would be a repeat of what had happened between us before.

  “The cigar room,” Luke said. “I was looking for the cigar room.”

  Okay, now I felt kind of stupid. His reason made perfect sense because the hotel’s first floor was a maze of hallways, alcoves, and dead ends, and was crammed with shops, restaurants, and a zillion other who-knows-what-they’re-for rooms.

  Maybe he really was telling the truth.

  “The detectives just wanted to ask me some questions because I found Jaslyn’s body,” I said. “That’s all.”r />
  Luke nodded—I could see he was in semi-FBI mode—toward the resort grounds. “And the maintenance worker?”

  It irked me that Luke was grilling me as if I were a suspect or something. But maybe he really was concerned about my safety.

  That’s the thing about Luke—I never knew what the truth really was.

  Was it a coincidence that I kept seeing him? Okay, sure, this was an island, but it was a sizable one, so why would we just happen to keep running into each other?

  Or were we?

  Was Luke following me? Was he really here working undercover? Was something else going on that involved me and the investigation of Jaslyn’s death—or some other totally unrelated crime?

  “I asked the guy if he knew when the next supply ship was docking,” I said. “I’m waiting for something.”

  Of course, that was a lie—which was the very reason I was unhappy with Luke, but still.

  He grinned. It was an I-know-your-deepest-thoughts kind of grin that set my toes to curling again.

  “A handbag,” he said.

  Jeez, he really was handsome.

  “You’re still crazy about purses,” he said.

  Why did he have to be a man I couldn’t trust?

  “Which one is it this time?” Luke asked, still grinning.

  Why couldn’t things be different between us?

  “You’re the FBI agent,” I told him. “You figure it out.”

  I walked away.

  CHAPTER 11

  As I approached the hotel, I spotted Sandy and Sebastian standing near the entrance. He was doing some serious male I’m-a cool-dude posturing, and Sandy was responding with the female wow-you’re-a-cool-dude giggle. Normal stuff. Yet there were things about Sebastian that bothered me.

  Or maybe I was a little envious that Sandy had found a guy, despite our no-men-on-this-vacation pact.

  Not a great feeling.

  “Oh, Haley, you should have been at my art lesson,” Sandy said as I walked up. Her eyes were round and her cheeks flushed. “Colby Rowan—she said I could call her Colby—she’s fabulous. She’s awesome. Oh my God, she really is a celebrity.”

  “And this one here?” Sebastian said, and laid his hand on Sandy’s shoulder. “She’s got real artistic talent.”

  Sandy blushed and made girl noises. “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do,” he insisted.

  “No, not really,” Sandy said, and dipped her chin demurely.

  “Yes, really,” he told her, and leaned closer.

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  I had to break this up.

  “You were at the lesson?” I asked Sebastian, noting that once again he wasn’t dressed in a Rowan Resort uniform.

  “He stopped by to make sure I was enjoying myself,” Sandy explained, and gave Sebastian an endearing smile.

  He returned her endearing smile with one of his own.

  Okay, these two were starting to get on my nerves.

  Sebastian must have picked up on my you-two-are-making-me-nauseated expression, because he stepped away and said, “You two girls enjoy your day. Sandy, I’ll see you later.”

  He walked away, then glanced back and waved. Sandy gave him a little wave in return, and he disappeared behind a stand of palm trees.

  Her gaze lingered on the palms for a few seconds, then said, “Sebastian invited me to have drinks with him later.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, and, really, I could have put a little more enthusiasm into it, which was bad of me, I know.

  “Am I doing the wrong thing?” Sandy asked, sounding serious and more than a little troubled. “I mean, I have a boyfriend—a real boyfriend, and he’s abandoned the work he loves to go on sabbatical so he can recharge his emotions and improve his art.”

  I had a feeling that Sandy’s tattoo artist boyfriend’s sabbatical was code for Las Vegas.

  “Do you think I’m being a bad girlfriend?” Sandy asked.

  I was convinced that if Sandy ever did something not quite right in her relationship with her boyfriend, it was nothing compared to some of the things he’d done to her—long story

  “You’re not being a bad girlfriend,” I told Sandy. “You’re just having a nice vacation, that’s all.”

  She thought about it for a while, then sighed. “I guess you’re right. And Sebastian is an employee here. He’s probably just making sure I’m having a good time.”

  I thought there was a little more to Sebastian’s interest in Sandy than even the astronomically high guest-relations standards the Rowan Resort required of its employees, but thinking otherwise seemed to help Sandy deal with her am-I-being-a-bad-girlfriend situation with that idiot boyfriend of hers. She deserved a guy who would treat her well, and Sebastian seemed to be doing that.

  Still, I wished I didn’t have a weird feeling about him.

  “Haley, you absolutely have to take an art lesson from Colby,” Sandy said. “She’s so smart, and so gifted. You’ll love her.”

  I didn’t really see myself loving an art lesson, but hey, this was my vacation. Maybe I would give it a try.

  “She’s super nice,” Sandy said, then frowned. “I don’t think she liked Sebastian, though. She started acting kind of, I don’t know, kind of strange when he showed up.”

  Okay, Colby could have acted strange around Sebastian for a lot of reasons, but since I was picking up a weird vibe from him too, I decided I needed to check it out. I knew just what to use for cover.

  “Want to go to the beach with Marcie and Bella?” I asked

  “Sounds great,” Sandy agreed.

  “I’ll meet you there in a few minutes,” I said. “I want to check with the shop and see if my Sea Vixen is in.”

  I knew my totally fabulous tote hadn’t arrived yet, because I’d just been to the docks and there had been not even the slightest glimmer of a supply ship on the horizon. But it was the easiest way to check out Sebastian without Sandy knowing what I was doing.

  We walked into the hotel together, and Sandy headed for the staircase in the lobby. I hung back, shifting into stealth mode.

  I figured the resort had a business center, so I checked the directory posted near the snack bar and saw that it was located down the same hallway as the shops, restaurants, and other specialty rooms.

  I headed that way, following the signs, changing directions a zillion times, going deeper and deeper into the hotel. The carpet was thick, muting my footsteps. The lighting was low. So far, I hadn’t seen anyone.

  My this-place-is-kind-of-creepy meter jumped up a few notches.

  I heard the murmur of deep voices coming from a room up ahead, then saw as I passed that, according to the discreet sign beside the door, it was the cigar room.

  Luke flew into my head. He told me that’s where he’d been headed when he wandered into my interview with the homicide detectives, so at least now I knew a cigar room actually existed—even though it was nowhere near my interview location.

  Damn. Why did I keep thinking about him?

  I forced Luke out of my head, turned right, then left, and finally—whew!—found the business center.

  Inside were a half-dozen computer workstations, fax and copy machines, and shelves containing every office supply product on the market. It all looked out of place among the dark wood furniture and the black-and-white olden-days photos on the walls.

  I had the room to myself, so I chose the computer farthest from the door and sat down, ready to do some serious research on Sebastian. I had only sketchy info on him—his full name, the type of business he owned, and the possibility that he came from a wealthy Connecticut family—but I figured it was enough.

  I was wrong.

  I Googled everything Sandy had mentioned about Sebastian and came up with nothing. Absolutely nothing. I got no hits on his name, his business, his family, or his home state. I typed every possible combination of info I could think of into the search engine, and still nothing popped. I couldn
’t even find a Facebook page for him.

  I sat back in my chair, not feeling so great.

  True, a great many people probably weren’t accessible on the Internet. It could happen—even these days.

  But a guy who claimed he owned a consulting firm? From a maybe-wealthy family? In Connecticut? With a distinctive name like Sebastian Cannon Lane? Not likely.

  So that could only mean one thing—Sebastian had lied to Sandy.

  And I’d encouraged Sandy to get involved with him.

  Oh, crap.

  “Was that text from him?” I asked.

  “No.” Marcie huffed irritably and tossed her phone into the tote bag—a way cool Coach—next to her lounge chair.

  We were on the beach enjoying the sun, the ocean breeze, the smell of fresh salt air—not to mention fruity umbrella-topped drinks. Bella was dozing in her lounge chair, and Sandy was listening to her iPod.

  “I’m never going to hear from him,” Marcie grumbled.

  Her first-date guy from a few days ago still hadn’t bothered to respond to her text message thanking him for a nice evening—which was really crappy of him, I thought.

  “It’s for the best, I suppose,” Marcie said.

  Marcie had a way of always looking on the bright side—which could be really annoying, at times. But I decided that if she could let it go, so should I. And I did—kind of.

  Ty popped into my head.

  Jeez, what was going on with me? I hadn’t thought about him this much when we were dating.

  “You’re making that face,” Marcie said. “The one you make when the handbag you’re dying for is not available. Except, you’re not thinking about a handbag, are you. It’s something else.”

  How did she know that? Wow, even for a BFF, she’s good.

  “Ty,” I said.

  Marcie nodded wisely. “Have you heard from him?”

  I’d only seen Ty one time since our breakup and it hadn’t gone well—something I didn’t like remembering, especially on vacation.