Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  I helped him up from the couch and walked him over to the other side of the room. Usually it was “my” room, but I had removed the room divider so I had room for the surprise.

  “What is this?” Kieran asked with a little laugh. He was heavier on my shoulders than his lean frame would have implied. He had a lot of muscle.

  “Well, maybe we can’t go down to the pier, but we can make the most of what we have here,” I said, showing him the spread I had prepared. I had put a picnic blanket down on the wooden floor boards, and the design of the picnic blanket looked like sand on the beach. The surfboard on the side, leaning against the wall, was a nice touch.

  I helped Kieran down to the ground and popped open a bottle of sparkling wine. It was nonalcoholic, because he had to take painkillers for his leg injury. But it was sparkling and tasted sweet, so it was just as good as the real thing. We toasted to a sunny evening and to Kieran’s improving health. We held eye contact for a moment too long and I got a little lost in his eyes.

  I jumped when my phone rang, and I pulled my eyes away from his.

  I hadn’t saved Troy Emerald’s number in my phone, but I recognized the number.

  “Sorry about this,” I said. I considered not taking the call, again, but it was a complicated situation and I could only go so long. Troy had been sick, really sick recently, and it could be an emergency. At least that was how I justified it to myself.

  “What is it, Troy?” I whispered, not wanting Kieran to overhear the conversation. I pushed open the door to the balcony and went outside. The weather was calm and peaceful again, like it usually was in Eden Bay.

  “Oh!” Troy said suddenly. “I can see you now.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “I’m down on the shore.”

  I spun around and stared down at the edge of the waves. Troy was waving up at me.

  It was one heck of a view, I had to admit that. I wasn’t sure I could give it up just for the thrill of having a real room of my own and an extra bathroom. That was what my brother was offering me, you see. He wanted J and I to move in with him full time to make things easier. Sure. That would be easier. But it would also be more boring. And who wants boring?

  “What are you doing down there?” I asked, leaning over the edge just a little.

  Troy sighed and laughed. “I am having to teach myself how to surf…since my pleas for help have been rebuffed time and time again.”

  “Are you sure you are up to that?” I asked, worried about his respiratory system.

  He nodded. “Doc gave me the all clear for gentle exercise.”

  “The waves aren’t always so gentle.”

  There was silence for a moment, at least on the phone. Troy was staring straight up at me, and for the second time that evening, I was getting lost in a guy’s eyes. But I was getting lost in an entirely different sense as well. I didn’t know what I wanted. But I knew that Troy was bad news. And I had a guy waiting for me just ten feet away.

  “I have to go, Troy.”

  “Is he still staying with you?”

  I ended the call and shut the door. It had suddenly gotten slightly chilly.

  “I’m so sorry about that,” I said, rushing back to Kieran, who was leaning over the bag of grapes I had bought. He leaned back and I saw that he had arranged them into a heart shape.

  “For you,” he said.

  I took a deep breath and sat down. “That it really sweet,” I said, and leaned forward to pick up one of the grapes.

  “When I woke, you said, ‘welcome to paradise’,” Kieran said as he poured another glass of the sparkling wine for me. “And so far, it really has been.”

  “We haven’t even left the apartment,” I said with a laugh as I popped the grape into my mouth.

  “I don’t feel like I need to. Just being around you is enough for me,” Kieran said. He reached for my hand and I held my breath.

  For a moment, it felt like we were going to kiss. But it was too soon. And I kept thinking about Troy down there on the beach.

  “It’s getting late,” I told him, clearing my throat as I started to pack up the leftovers.

  “Let me help you,” he said. I told him not to be silly, he couldn’t even walk on his own.

  After I helped him back to bed and said good night, I tried to sleep myself, but I was just staring up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of all the things I was feeling. Eventually, I got up and walked over to the window and looked down at the sand. Of course, it was dark and Troy was long gone.

  “You’re just being silly, Alyson,” I told myself and pulled the curtain shut. Good decision, Alyson. I smiled to myself and decided to see if Kieran was still awake. Maybe there would still be a little bit of the sparkling wine left.

  “Kieran—” I whispered, stepping past my room divider and squinting for him in the dark. But he was not on the sofa. Very strange. He needed my help to even get up to use the bathroom, which was why I had given him a little bell to ring. But I had definitely not heard a bell.

  I let out a little gasp when I realized the door to the apartment was open. I ran over to shut it, in case an intruder got in. I just assumed I must have left it open and unlocked.

  But I saw Kieran. Down the hallway.

  He seemed to be walking just fine to me.

  And down a flight of stairs, no less.

  8

  Claire

  This was the last thing in the world I wanted to be doing. Literally, the last thing. Oh, gosh. The things were squirming. Were they still alive? Didn’t they kill them first?

  Alyson was also a little shell-shocked to be there that morning in her fishing gear, staring into a bucket of worms. “You do remember I ran this plan past you, right?”

  She looked a little green but nodded vigorously. “Yes. I remember.”

  I shook my head. I knew she hadn’t been listening. She just wasn’t going to admit to it. But here we were, taking part in what could only be loosely described as my ‘great’ plan. We didn’t know much about Jarryd and Kayla. Only that they were from New Zealand and had funny accents. And that they were fishermen. Well, they were one fisherman and one fisherwoman.

  So that was the con that Alyson and I were trying to pull. Just two innocent gals who loved to fish and wanted to fish with the best. It was an early start, 5am, and I had already been to One Shot Double Shot for a latte.

  Kayla was a short woman in her mid to late twenties with olive skin and long dark curls that went down to her waist. She was bubbly and spoke in kind of a baby voice, but I kept catching her smile drop as she looked out nervously across the ocean while we were preparing to set sail.

  Jarryd was tall, also young, but with a beard and shaved head so that while he may have only been 24 in age, he kind of looked 45. He also looked like a fisherman. He was more downbeat than Kayla, but he was being super helpful toward me and Alyson.

  Oh my gosh, there was something even worse than worms in the bucket that Jarryd had just bought from the market. Maggots. I tried to keep a straight face. As long as I could just keep my distance from them, I would be all right.

  “Here you go,” Jarryd said, waving the bucket toward me.

  Gulp. “Thanks.”

  I gagged at the smell and then shuddered at the sight of Jarryd putting a worm on the end of his hook. Alyson elbowed me in the ribs and I jumped. “We are supposed to be convincing them we are interested in this, remember?”

  I nodded. “Right.” Then I reached into the bucket of maggots. “I am going to need a stronger latte.”

  We were bobbing up and down on the waves, and Kayla looked over the side with a slightly anxious expression. “I heard there was a shark spotted recently.”

  That was the first thing that had amused me all morning. I tried not to laugh. It was also highly ironic that the “shark” had actually been a piece of wood from the boat that Kayla, Jarryd, Kieran, and Warren had been on. Alyson and I still didn’t know the details of the accident. But that was what
this fishing expedition was for. Ha. This was a fishing expedition in both the literal and metaphorical senses.

  I caught the look on Alyson’s face and even though I’d been about to give a very sarcastic appraisal of the shark spotting, I changed my mind. Instead I just said, “Turned out to be a false alarm. The waters out here are very safe.”

  Kayla didn’t seem to believe the second part.

  Kayla seemed to have survived the boat accident—or ‘shipwreck,’ as Alyson insisted on calling it—relatively unharmed. Jarryd had bruised his ribs, which he had briefly shown us, lifting up his sweater to give us a flash. He was all wrapped up with bandages, but he was still able to go out on the boat. “You can help me fix the worms to the end of the hooks, Claire,” he said with a grin.

  “Great,” I said. “My favorite task.”

  Ugh. I thought the maggot would be worse, but I was wrong. The worm was so much worse. It was so slimy. I mean, I knew it was going to be slimy. I just didn’t realize it was going to be THAT slimy. Omg, it was still wriggling.

  Alyson was glaring at me as if to say, ‘JUST DO IT, PRINCESS. Don’t give away the fact that we don’t know what we’re doing.’

  Right. All I needed was a bit of confidence. I grinned and picked up one of the wriggling suckers and brought it closer to the end of the hook. Deep breath, Claire. You can do this. Just straight through the end. Right through its little worm head.

  I dropped the hook and the whole line and took several small steps back, almost falling over the other side of the boat.

  Jarryd just nodded and put both hands on his hips. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

  “Y—Yes. Of course I have. I am a keen fisherwoman. I just usually use more…vegetarian bait.”

  He told me I could use a plastic tackle instead. Alyson just shook her head in disapproval. The waves were getting choppier the further out we went.

  Jarryd told me we should take it one at a time till we got into the deep ocean, and he could go first. Fine by me. Gave me a chance to find my sea legs.

  Kayla still looked a little nervous as well, but she was trying not to show it. I took a seat next to her and shot her a little smile to let her know we were in the same boat. Ha. Quite literally. Was that where that saying came from? Was it originally about people being nervous to get onto small fishing boats?

  Kayla’s anxiety must have been contagious. I’ve never been nervous about sharks before, but on this day, it was all I could think about as the boat rocked back and forth on the waves and I stared out at the water that was getting darker and darker the further we went from dry land.

  I gasped. Kayla looked alarmed as well, but Jarryd assured us that it was just an eel. I glanced over at Alyson on the other side of the boat, expecting her to also be jumpy, but she was grinning and having the time of her life over there as she took up her own fishing rod and cast it into the water like an old pro.

  “So, it’s like this, right?” she said, lifting it up. Not even checking for confirmation before she flung it backward into the boat and then forward.

  The hook almost got my cheek. “Alyson!” I called out, touching my face to make sure there was no blood.

  “Aww, you’re fine,” she said dismissively before high-fiving Jarryd. Looked like she had done a perfect job. Jarryd looked impressed with her.

  At least Kayla was still behaving sensibly. She hadn’t made a move to grab a fishing rod at all and seemed altogether unconcerned with what Jarryd and Alyson were doing on the other side of the boat.

  “Not feeling it today?” I asked her.

  She shrugged a little.

  “The actual fishing was never really my thing…”

  Hmm. Strange to be a part of a fishing boat crew, then.

  “I was writing a book about it,” Kayla explained. “I traveled here from New Zealand with Jarryd and I’ve just been following him around, sort of like a reporter.”

  “Oh!” I said, finally brightening up now that we were talking about my favorite subject. “I actually own a bookshop!”

  Kayla leaned forward, her eyes lighting up. “Wow. Do you really? That is pretty much my dream come true.”

  A lot of people said something like that when I told them about the shop. Usually I cautioned them, “Well, it’s just like any other business, it’s a lot of taxes and paperwork and shelf stocking. It’s not all just lazing about glamorously reading books.” But I could tell Kayla was a little different. If she was a writer, then owning a bookstore likely was her dream. And to be honest with you? Sometimes, it WAS just lazing about reading books. And in a place like Eden Bay, where I could see the ocean from the front shop window, that definitely was a dream come true.

  I told her about the weekly book club meetings. “You’ll have to come along,” I said, about to tell her the title of this week’s book. But then I stopped myself. I wasn’t sure it was appropriate.

  “I’m not sure how long we will be in Eden Bay,” she said, sounding less enthusiastic now. “We’ve been asked to stick around until the investigation is complete. But hopefully, that won’t be too long, and we’ll be able to fly back home to New Zealand soon.”

  Hmmm.

  I tried to be casual with my questions. “Do you have any idea how long that will be? I mean, surely the police have some idea of who did it?”

  Kayla’s voice sounded serious for a moment. It lost the baby tone she usually used. “I think the police ought to just stay out of it. Warren’s death was an accident.”

  I just smiled like I believed her. She didn’t know that Alyson and I had been the ones to find the body.

  I wanted to ask her how well she knew Kieran, but Jarryd and Alyson waved me over to their side of the boat. “Come on, princess, it’s your turn,” Alyson said with an encouraging laugh. Jarryd handed me my dry tackle and promised I wouldn’t have to touch any worms.

  I copied what Alyson had done half an hour before and managed to get the fishing line flung over the side of the boat without also getting it hooked in Kayla’s face.

  “Is it supposed to take this long?” I asked, getting irritated when I still hadn’t caught anything after twenty minutes. My arm was getting sore.

  Jarryd shot me a strange look. “I thought you two were keen fisherwomen… You should know that this is an art that takes a lot of patience.”

  “Er, well, yes, I am very experienced… It just never usually takes me this long. There must be more fish in the water in Sydney.”

  Alyson shot me a look. “Yes. That must be it,” she mumbled.

  I was actually starting to doze off, just standing there with my arms outstretched, looking into the waves. Luckily, I don’t get seasick. Alyson on the other hand is not so blessed in that department and had to go lay down on the other side of the boat. Kinda funny considering how much time she spent out on the waves on the back of a board. I guess it was a little different when it was a boat.

  But I was fine. Just bored.

  My eyes drifted shut, but I was suddenly awake when we hit a wave and I felt myself being thrown toward the edge of the boat.

  I squealed so loudly as I went overboard that I startled the pigeons overhead.

  The water was far colder than I was expecting and as it hit my chest, I panicked and thought I couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was just the fact that I wasn’t prepared to be thrown into a deep, shark-infested ocean. Right. Wood-infested ocean. That thought didn’t help me as my legs paddled frantically. “Help!” I yelled.

  Alyson, dizzy as she was, reached over the side of the boat and screamed for me to grab it. I paddled like a madwoman to the side of the boat and put my arm up. Alyson was strong.

  I was shivering as Jarryd wrapped the blanket around me. “I just feel stupid,” I said when he asked if I was okay. He opened his mouth as though he wanted to lecture me about boat safety, but he must have realized it wasn’t the time. Instead, he just wrapped the blanket more tightly.

  “Let’s turn this ship around.”
<
br />   The sand had never felt so solid underneath my feet. Alyson was still helping me to shore, asking if I was in any danger of suffering from hypothermia. I was more worried about my hair, to be honest.

  “You’ve been super quiet since we got back,” I said, assuming it was just the seasickness affecting her.

  She sat down beside me on the sand. I wasn’t quite ready to walk all the way to the Dolphin (F)Inn. In fact, I had been avoiding spending any more time than I absolutely had to in that place. It had maybe temporarily felt a little like home, but it no longer had that feeling.

  “I think I saw something,” Alyson said flatly. She was staring into the ocean with a dazed look on her face. She seemed traumatized. Hang on, wasn’t I the one who had been thrown overboard? “While we were out on the boat.”

  “Another shark?” I asked a little sarcastically.

  She slowly turned to me. “That is going to be thrown back in my face forever now, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged, just a little. Well, until people moved on to the next thing…but it would be kind of hard to forget. She did shut the entire beach down over a piece of wood.

  “What did you see?” I asked, trying to keep an open mind.

  “I think Kayla pushed you overboard.”

  Now, I didn’t want to question Alyson’s perception of reality. But. Well, okay, I definitely had to question it. Why would Kayla throw me overboard?

  “You were dizzy, Alyson. You were laying down, and you were suffering from seasickness.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I saw what I saw.” She stood up and brushed the sand off her shorts. “And you can either believe me or you can’t.”

  9

  Alyson

  We were discussing myths. I thought. Maria, my tutor, was using big words like ‘allegories,’ and I was struggling to keep up with it all. Apparently, this was an important part of studying English literature, but I didn’t really care about the King Arthur myths and legends at all. And if she kept using words I didn’t know, I was going to consider leaving, grabbing my skateboard, and going down to join Claire at the skate park. I was starting to think that going back to university as a mature age student was a dumb idea after all. What did I need a business degree for anyway? I’d always done just fine on my own without one.