Beach Bags and Burglaries (A Haley Randolph Mystery)

by Dorothy Howell

  Bella looked back and forth between Sandy and Marcie. “Was it Brad Pitt? Did I miss Brad Pitt? Damn.”

  Sandy shook her head, drew in a star-stuck breath and said, “Chris Hemsworth.”

  “Chris Hemsworth? You saw Chris Hemsworth?” Bella demanded, her gaze darting around the garden as if he might be lurking behind a fern plant.

  “Really?” I asked Marcie.

  She shrugged and threw an apologetic smile Sandy’s way.

  “I wasn’t sure it was really him,” she said.

  “Of course it was him,” Sandy insisted, then collapsed into a dreamy smile. “Wow, he looked fantastic.”

  We all just stood there for a minute, thinking about how fantastic-looking Chris Hemsworth was.

  “I’m hungry,” Bella said, breaking the spell. “How about we get something to eat?”

  Sandy pulled the resort brochure from her pocket.

  “Let’s try the barbeque pavilion,” she said. “It’s one of the resort’s original structures. It was built with imported oak inlaid with rosewood, featuring carvings that portray Dionysus, the Greek god of vegetation and wine.”

  Sandy pointed to the photo in the brochure. I thought the guy looked more like Clint Eastwood in his Rawhide days, but didn’t say so.

  We all agreed that barbeque sounded good, so Sandy led the way through the resort grounds to a big, round, open-air pavilion surrounded by tall shade trees. It kind of looked like a dining hall at summer camp—if you attended summer camp in Switzerland. The huge stone grills and ovens were manned by a dozen chefs. Tables were made of distressed wood and decorated with lanterns and red-checkered linens—which was, I figured, as close as Rowan Resort guests ever came to roughing it.

  As we approached the hostess stand, Sandy flung out both arms and stopped dead in her tracks.

  She swung around to us and whispered, “Oh my God. Look who’s here. It’s that really hot guy from that TV show. The one in Hawaii. He’s taking out his cell phone, standing by that bench. ”

  Immediately, we all jumped to high alert, stretching up and craning our necks—but trying to look casual at the same time, a standard celebrity-sighting move—at the guy Sandy was trying hard not to nod toward.

  Marcie gasped. “I see him.”

  “I see him, too,” Bella agreed. “He’s calling somebody.”

  “Maybe he’s calling Chris Hemsworth,” Sandy said.

  “He’s standing next to—hey, wait a minute,” Bella said. “That’s not him.”

  “Yes, it is,” Sandy insisted.

  “That’s another guy Haley knows. I’ve seen him in the store,” Bella declared.

  I scooted around Marcie for a better look, and—oh my God, it was Jack Bishop. What was he doing here?

  Bella gave me stink-eye. “Have you got another hot-looking man on this island?”

  All my BFFs were mad-dogging me, so what could I say but, “No, absolutely not.”

  My cell phone rang.

  I yanked it out of my pocket and saw Jack’s name on the caller ID screen.

  Crap.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I know him.”

  “He’d better have a brother,” Bella told me.

  I hit the green button on my phone, waved, and said, “Over here.”

  Somehow, Jack knew where here was, because he immediately hung up and started walking our way.

  “Are you sure he’s not a movie star?” Sandy asked.

  “He should be,” Bella said.

  I couldn’t disagree. Jack was super-hot. Today he had on khaki cargo pants, an olive green shirt, and CAT boots.

  “Hello, ladies,” Jack said when he joined us.

  “Have you got a brother?” Bella asked.

  “Get us a table,” I said to my friends. “I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”

  They all just stood there—not that I blamed them, of course.

  I walked away. As I expected, Jack followed.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked when we stopped beneath a shade tree.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Jack said, and gave me a disapproving look. “You’re not vacationing.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to explain myself to Jack. What I did on my own time was none of his business. Yeah, okay, I’d called him, involved him in Jaslyn’s murder, and asked for his help with my investigation, but still.

  I guess Jack picked up on my don’t-ask mood, because he said, “I’m here with the security team for Tate Manning’s wedding.”

  It took me a second to realize he meant Yasmin and Tate-Tate-Tate, and remember what she’d told me.

  “The Heart of Amour for her bouquet,” I said. “You’re guarding a necklace?”

  Jack nodded. “Among other duties.”

  “Is she making a big deal out of the murder of Jaslyn Gordon?” I asked.

  “There are safety concerns,” he said.

  The only danger Yasmin was in came from me, but I didn’t think this was the best time to mention it.

  I guess Jack didn’t want to talk about Princess Yasmin any more than I did, because he changed the subject.

  “I found more info on Jaslyn’s brother,” he said. “He’s a druggie.”

  Talk of murder, drug addicts, and jail terms was more appealing to me than Yasmin’s wedding, which says something about her, not me.

  “Was he arrested for possession?” I asked.

  Jack nodded. “And other things. One of which was selling stolen property to support his drug habit.”

  I got a maybe-I-solved-the-crime tingle in my belly.

  “Any connection to the Colby Rowan robberies?” I asked.

  Jack gave me a look like my question had come out of left field, bringing on the more familiar I-haven’t-solved-the-crime anti-tingle.

  “What about them?” he asked.

  I filled him in on what I’d learned about Colby’s criminal acquaintances, her crime spree, jail time, and missing accomplice. Jack listened, but I had the feeling he already knew about it.

  I doubted he’d learned it from People magazine.

  “Jaslyn and her brother were close,” Jack said. “She visited him in prison.”

  Having a brother who was a criminal—and who had criminal friends in and out of prison—could have tied to her murder somehow. I just didn’t know how.

  “Did you find any connection between her brother and Jaslyn’s job here at the resort?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Jack said.

  I was about to ask another question when movement off to my right caught my attention. I turned and saw Walt Pemberton, the head of Rowan Resort security, half hidden behind a palm tree. He was watching me.

  CHAPTER 20

  “What are you wearing this afternoon?” Sandy asked as we left the barbeque pavilion, stuffed with massive quantities of vacation calories.

  “Something with an elastic waistband,” Bella moaned.

  “This afternoon?” Marcie asked. Then she gasped and said, “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten. Yasmin’s bachelorette party.”

  For a couple of seconds, I feared I might see my lunch again, in reverse.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Marcie told me. “You’re going to that party. It’s the right thing to do.”

  I hate it when I have to do the right thing.

  “Okay,” I grumbled.

  “I told Sebastian I’d meet him in the sun room after lunch, but I think I should go look at my clothes. I don’t know what to wear,” Sandy said, and reached for her cell phone.

  Despite the calorie-carb mega feast I’d just consumed, a brilliant idea flashed in my head—I’m pretty sure the calorie-carb mega desserts I’d had helped.

  Since I’d had no luck finding Sebastian’s hidden door in the library—I’d searched the shelves after Luke left but hadn’t found anything—I figured I could do the next best thing—ask him.

  “I’ll stop by the sun room and let him know,” I said, using my let-me-make-this-easy-for-you voice.


  “I was hoping you’d help me decide what to wear,” Sandy said. “I’ve never been to a bachelorette party in a garden before.”

  “Nobody has,” I said.

  But I suppose every bride-to-be would be doing it soon, thanks to the article in Brides magazine.

  “I’ll help you,” Marcie said.

  “I’ll be up in a bit,” I told her.

  “I’m taking a nap,” Bella said, stifling a yawn.

  We all headed across the grounds, through the gardens, and into the rear entrance of the hotel. I turned down the corridor-of-no-return and everyone else went upstairs.

  I followed the signs for the sun room—taking a moment to mad-dog the entrance of the shop where my Sea Vixen beach tote had been switched-at-point-of-sale—and finally found it, a large, glass-enclosed room with wicker furniture and enough plants to stock every Home Depot garden department on the West Coast.

  I didn’t see anyone in the room—really, why would somebody be in here when they could be in the actual sun—until I spotted Sebastian stretched out on a bench, fiddling with his cell phone. Even though he had on his official burgundy Rowan Resort polo shirt, I doubted he was working.

  Lying around, playing with a phone while on company time. I mean, really, who would do such a thing?

  All the questions I’d had about him flashed in my head. No way was I letting him get away without answering them.

  I shifted into kind-of-private-detective interrogation mode.

  Sebastian glanced up from his phone as I approached. “Hi, Haley. How’s it going?”

  I didn’t respond.

  He rose from the bench and looked past me.

  “Where’s Sandy?” he asked. “Is something wrong? She didn’t get hurt or sick, did she?”

  I ignored the concern in his voice.

  “Yeah, something’s wrong,” I told him. “But not with Sandy. With you.”

  I got the expected who-me eyebrow bob. It’s a sure sign that someone is lying—I know because I’ve used it many times myself.

  Sebastian shrugged and gave me an I’m-completely-lost half grin. “Nothing’s wrong with me,” he said.

  “You’re a liar,” I said.

  I got the what-do-you-mean double eye blink—and, yes, I’ve used that one, also.

  It’s a personal favorite of mine.

  He uttered a weak laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Haley. In fact—”

  “You don’t own your own consulting firm,” I said.

  Now I got the maybe-I-can-still-wiggle-my-way-out-of-this shoulder roll—I’m way better at this than Sebastian.

  “I really can’t discuss my job here at the resort,” he said. “Honestly, I can’t.”

  “Then maybe you can discuss how you walked out of a secret door in the library,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, and managed to look totally confused. “I don’t know anything about a secret door.”

  I had to hand it to him. He was clinging to his bogus story determined, apparently, to ride it straight into the ground.

  “I saw you,” I told him.

  Sebastian opened his mouth but didn’t say anything.

  “I also know you disappeared in the lounge,” I said.

  He gave it another few seconds, then accepted the inevitable.

  “Damn.” He sank onto the bench again.

  “What the heck is going on?” I demanded.

  “Nothing,” he said, and seemed a little panicked now. “Nothing’s going on. Just forget it, okay. Forget you saw me.”

  “No way,” I told him. “Look, you’re hanging out with my friend. I’m not going to let you lead her on with these wild stories about you being some sort of consultant when none of it’s true.”

  “It is true,” Sebastian said, jumping off of the bench. “I got hired to work here on a very special project. It’s strictly confidential. I can’t tell anybody—anybody—about it.”

  “And this special, strictly confidential project you’re assigned to includes going through secret doors and creeping around in hidden passageways behind the walls?” I asked.

  He looked away. “No. I found out about those by accident.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “I was up in the tower room—”

  “Avery said those rooms were for family only,” I remembered. “Are you related to Sidney Rowan?”

  “No. No way,” Sebastian said, and shook his head. “I’m a college student. I need to work to pay my tuition and expenses. I was offered a job here, so I took it.”

  “Doing what?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

  I turned my confess-all-now X-ray vision on him.

  “I can’t tell you. I can’t. I really can’t,” Sebastian said again. “If word got out, all hell would break loose. I’d get fired—and that would be just the beginning of my problems.”

  He sounded desperate—and truthful.

  “But the other stuff,” Sebastian said, shaking his head. “Well, it just kind of ... happened.”

  My brain jumped to high alert. Was the other stuff code for I murdered Jaslyn?

  “What stuff?” I asked.

  Okay, not my most clever interrogation tactic, but I was investigating on the fly here.

  Sebastian stalled for a minute or two. I could see he was mentally debating whether to confess, which didn’t suit me, of course. Finally he seemed to give up the struggle.

  “Okay, you got me. You saw me using the hidden passages,” he said, and shook his head. “I can’t lie about it—not to you, anyway.”

  Sebastian collapsed onto the bench. I sat down beside him.

  “Look,” he said. “If you tell anybody about this, a lot of people are going to be hurt.”

  Oh my God. Had I just uncovered a massive conspiracy here at the ultra exclusive Rowan Resort?

  Wow, that would be so cool.

  “I was working in the office I’d been assigned to up in the tower,” Sebastian said. “Everything is old up there. It wasn’t refurbished when the mansion was converted into a hotel, I guess. I was trying to get the drawer open on a built-in storage cabinet and, somehow, I bumped something by mistake and a hidden door swung open.”

  “Just like that?” I asked.

  Sebastian shrugged as if he didn’t really understand it, either.

  “So I thought, what the hell,” he said.

  I’d have done the same—depending on the cobweb situation, of course.

  “I went inside. You won’t believe what I discovered,” Sebastian said.

  I felt like I’d walked into a Nancy Drew novel—or maybe how Americans felt when they found out who shot J.R.

  “The old part of the hotel that used to be the Rowan home is honeycombed with staircases and hidden entrances into the rooms,” Sebastian said.

  I remembered what Luke had told me about wealthy families building safe rooms into their homes, back in the day. The architect who’d done the original design of the Sidney Rowan mansion must have intended the secret passageways for use in the same manner.

  “There are secret entrances to all the rooms?” I asked.

  “Most of them,” he said.

  “That’s really creepy,” I said.

  “And dangerous,” he said. “It’s pretty dark in there. Some of the steps and banisters are rotted.”

  “Bugs?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “And spiders?”

  “Yep,” Sebastian said.

  “Oh, crap.”

  “It’s worth it, though,” Sebastian said. “The site has made a ton of money.”

  I got a weird feeling

  “What site?” I asked.

  “I named it Celebrity Panty Raid,” he said.

  Oh my God.

  “That’s the site that auctions off the underwear of A-list stars,” I said. “You came up with that?”

  “Yes, it was my idea,” he said, with a modest shrug.
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br />   “You’re taking things that don’t belong to you. You’re stealing,” I told him, “then selling those things for profit.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Sebastian insisted.

  I gave him my are-you-listening-to-yourself look.

  “These celebrities have millions and millions of dollars. They have closets full of things on multiple continents,” Sebastian said. “One article of clothing means nothing to them. What do they care about a missing pair of panties? I’m not hurting anyone.”

  “You use secret passageways and hidden doors to sneak into the rooms of unsuspecting guests—guests who think they’re safe here—steal their underwear, sell it for hundreds or thousands of dollars, and you think nothing is wrong with that?” I asked.

  Sebastian shook his head. “Look, I’m not a bad guy. I just need money for college.”

  It flashed in my head that Sebastian probably wasn’t the only person involved with this thing. And from what Ben had told me about the site, thousands of dollars were at stake. It made me wonder whether this had somehow led to Jaslyn’s death.

  “Do other employees know about this?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Okay, so I was wrong about that.

  But the tip Ben had received was right. The it’s-really-icky Celebrity Panty Raid site was connected to the Rowan Resort. Obviously, Ben hadn’t yet learned that Sebastian was behind it.

  “You’re not going to blow this for me, are you?” Sebastian asked.

  I thought about it. I wasn’t exactly seeing the whole thing as harmless, as Sebastian had insisted. But I wasn’t convinced that ratting him out was the best option, either.

  If I told Ben that Sebastian—an employee of Rowan Resort—had come up with the idea and ran the site, it would really pump up his story.

  But if Sebastian thought I intended to tell, he’d probably shut down the site to save his own skin—he’d have no other choice, really—and Ben’s story would disappear into virtual reality, taking what was left of his journalism career along with it.

  No way was I doing that to Ben.

  “Look, it’s just for a little while longer,” Sebastian said. “I’ve got a huge item coming up for auction. I’ve been teasing it for a while now and if the bids go the way I think they will, I’ll have enough money to cover my college expenses and then some.”