Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  “I’ve got some poems for you to read,” Maria said, and I managed to keep my groan an inward one. She passed me a thick sheet of papers with a bunch of poems about ‘courtly love.’ Wasn’t she a singer in the 90s? “You can do a book report on these for me.”

  Half the words didn’t even seem to be in English. Eh, what was the point then? Anything to get me out of this, I thought.

  “What is this week’s book club book?” I asked Maria suddenly. Claire ran weekly book discussions at her book shop and I had been to the first two, somewhat reluctantly, but I hadn’t been back for another one since. But the idea of reading a novel sounded like a fun park ride compared to these poems in another language.

  Maria frowned. “Robinson Crusoe. Why do you ask?”

  My mouth dropped open a little. “Perfect. That can be the book I do my report on then!”

  Robinson Crusoe, huh? I wondered why Claire had chosen that book. I was actually excited to read it—maybe it would give me some clues about Kieran. “Umm, hello? Aunty Alyson?” I hated being called that. But I also hated being surprised. J was waiting for me out front of Maria’s house with her skateboard tucked under her arm. Oh, shoot. Kieran was still in my apartment. “Hang on, aren’t you with Matt tonight?” I asked, trying not to sound too panicked. I’m always the cool aunt, you see. Not the crazy one.

  She shook her head and sighed at me like she was the adult and I was the child. “Alyson, are you making one of your little mistakes again?”

  Great. “Little mistakes” was what people were referring to it now. I was already getting this attitude from the rest of the town, I didn’t need it from my eight-year-old niece as well. I told her, of course not, I was only making her think that I had forgotten that she was staying with me for the next week.

  “Right. Let’s, er, go home then, shall we?”

  J skated along the sidewalk while I tried to think up a plan. Kieran didn’t have a phone. But maybe I could text Claire, get her over there, and get Kieran out the window. But that was impractical, not in the least because we were only a block away and Claire was four blocks away. There was no way to get Kieran out of my apartment before I got back.

  J had her own key and she had skated ahead of me, reaching the door before I could stop her.

  “Er, let me explain!”

  But J already had the door open. She was standing in the doorway, staring at the man who was standing at our fridge with the door open. Kieran had told me that he could now walk unaided, just a little bit, but not well enough to descend stairs or leave the apartment. He had no idea that I had seen him the night before.

  Kieran jumped. J, on the other hand, did not seem very fussed at all. “Oh, hey, my name’s J,” she said as she took off her baseball cap and strolled right in. She kinda threw her skateboard down on the hardwood floors, wheels first, which I always told her not to do. Her excuse was always, “Well, the floors are so scuffed anyway, you can’t tell the difference!”

  “Jay?” Kieran repeated.

  “Like the letter,” J said as she walked over the fridge and pulled out a carton of orange juice.

  I could tell Kieran wanted to ask what the J stood for, but I just shook my head at him to say, trust me, don’t bother. J didn’t even let the teachers at her school call her by her full name.

  I smiled at J to make her feel comfortable. She had probably gotten quite a shock. “Um, so Kieran is a friend of mine who is just staying with me for a few days.”

  J shrugged. “Cool,” she said, polishing off the last of the orange juice.

  It wasn’t J who was scared of Kieran. It was Kieran who was scared of J. For the rest of the afternoon, I watched him tiptoe around nervously like he was the elephant who was terrified of the mouse. He let J take over his sofa, let her watch whatever cartoons she wanted, and when J demanded that we all get pizza for dinner, Kieran agreed immediately even though I knew he was gluten intolerant and hated tomato sauce.

  Once I’d told J to go and do her homework in the corner—‘By the way, can you read some poetry for me once you’ve finished your math homework?’—I saw Kieran finally release his shoulders and relax a little. “You okay?” I asked him.

  “Er, I’ve never been around children before.”

  I laughed. “Never?”

  But he was genuinely nervous. To him, this was no laughing matter. “Kids are just humans, Kieran.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t stress. You’ve got this.” J had finished her homework and was complaining that she was bored. I told Kieran that she would love to hear some of his tales of being out on the sea. Maybe he could even tell her about the trip he had been in before the shipwreck.

  J was sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring up at him with wide eyes, ready to hear the tale.

  But he really did not know what to say to her. Poor guy. I giggled through him trying to think of something to say to relate to an eight-year-old. J rolled her eyes and said she was still bored. I pointed out the time and said it was more likely that she was just tired.

  Kieran was just glad to have an adult conversation. “You’re studying?” he asked after J had gone to bed (very reluctantly). He had picked up the part about the poems that I wanted J to read for me. Of course she had taken one look at them and told me they were in a foreign language. Which Old English practically was. Maria was still deciding on whether I was allowed to read Robison Crusoe instead.

  I nodded and told him about how I was getting tutored so that I could apply for university the following year. “It’s a business course, but I need to get my English skills up to scratch as that is a compulsory subject for mature age entry.”

  “That sounds amazing. I’m impressed.”

  We both heard a creaking of the floorboards and turned around.

  “J, what are you doing up?”

  “Why is there a fishing rod in my bed?”

  Whoops.

  I hadn’t known where else to put it when I’d been trying to hide it from Kieran. “It’s, um, it’s mine,” I said, jumping up to grab it out of J’s bed. I tried to shove it in the cupboard, but it wouldn’t fit and just fell over awkwardly in the hallway.

  Kieran frowned. “You went fishing?”

  “Um, yeah, haha, I think I did… I don’t really recall…” I sat back down on the sofa with him. I knew I had to come clean. I could feel him glare at me as I told him how Claire and I had gone out on the water with Kayla and Jarryd. “Kieran,” I said, finally having the courage to look at him. “What do you know about Kayla? I think she pushed Claire into the water. Do you think she could have killed Warren?”

  But he just stared at me blankly. “I told you, Alyson. I don’t remember.”

  10

  Claire

  Deep breath, deep breath. Ugh, why was I so nervous? It wasn’t like I didn’t know how to do this. I had been doing it for the past eight years. Yet, I was like a nervous teen on her first day of high school as I stepped out of my Porsche. I could have just walked, obviously, as I was only staying a three-minute walk from set. But that would not have set the right tone. I hoped that I still looked the part. I had been to get a manicure, my second one of the week, and I’d had a blow out on my hair the day before so that my hair looked just as intimidatingly shiny as Danielle’s. But the way to really assert yourself on set was to strut right on through the crowd of cameramen and producers and extras and stare everyone down. Let them all know who was boss.

  “Claire,” Danielle called me in a clipped, stern tone. Right. Clearly showing me who was the actual boss. I felt myself tense a little bit. After being my own actual boss for the past two months, being spoken to like that made my blood pressure rise.

  It was only temporary, though. I had asked Maria to watch the shop for me for the week while I took on producer duties. Then I’d be right back.

  “I’ve got the call sheet for you,” Danielle said, handing me a sheet of paper before she took a phone call and acted like I was invisible.

  So, here
I was thinking that I would be put in charge of the lead actress, Holly V, who I knew was a little difficult to persuade to come to set. She’d just gone through a difficult public breakup and not only was she upset and heartbroken, she was worried that her public image had been destroyed. A total mess. And I was all set to handle it. I always knew how to get them to come to work, even if their eyes were puffy from crying the night before or even if they were about to break down into tears again.

  But Danielle had other plans for me.

  “I need you to take charge of the extras today. Make sure they all sign the release forms and make sure they actually read them.” She handed me a pile of small contracts. Just how many extras did we need for this one scene? “Just wait till Friday,” she said. “We are going to need triple that amount.”

  There was a non-disclosure clause in the release forms which I had to make sure everyone who was in the scene was aware of, which meant I didn’t just need to get signatures, I had to stand there and listen to them all read the clause back to me. It was tedious work. I glanced over my shoulder at the lead actress’s trailer, where she was still hiding away. Why had Danielle even wanted me back if she was just going to give me a task that literally anyone off the street could do?

  Someone familiar with a beard and a beanie came toward me. “Claire?” he said.

  Oh. It was Jarryd.

  I wondered if he had seen anything suspicious during our boat ride. I still didn’t quite buy Alyson’s story about Kayla pushing me overboard, and I hadn’t talked much to Alyson since it had happened, as I didn’t want to cause any further offense. She was not into movie shoots at all anyway. I’d asked her if she wanted to be an extra in one of the crowd scenes and she had turned her nose up at it. Probably for the best anyway—she would have had a lot of trouble sticking to a non-disclosure agreement. She would have spilled the beans about everything she had seen and then claimed that she had never signed anything in the first place.

  Jarryd did look a little shifty when he realized it was me. “I thought you said you worked at a bookshop,” he said as I handed him the contract.

  Hmm. I hadn’t actually told him that. I’d told Kayla. “I inherited one from my grandma,” I said. “But movie producer is actually my real job.”

  He looked a little confused. “Is this what you are here in Eden Bay for then?” he asked, nodding toward the set.

  “Well….no… I have been here for a couple of months…” I had to admit, then suddenly got very busy handing contracts to the next lot of extras who were lining up.

  Herding extras was not exactly a brain strain, but it was a bit of a hassle, like looking after toddlers. Because it was a disaster movie, some of them needed to look as though they had injuries, so they needed to go to hair and makeup, which was causing a backlog and stress for Danielle. We should have started filming an hour earlier and we still needed to do a closeup on an extra who had been banged against hard rocks before we could move on to the wide crowd shot.

  The line was too long. There were too many extras and not enough hair and makeup chairs. Danielle was close to having a meltdown. But I had a sudden idea.

  “Hey Jarryd, can I get a look at your stomach again?”

  “Um, why?”

  “Just trust me.”

  He pulled it up and the nearby extras all let out a collective groan and a few ‘eww’ as they saw the multicolored bruises underneath his bandages. Strange, because those same people laughed when they saw the special effects makeup, which were just as gruesome.

  Perfect. I pulled him away. “Looks like you are ready to shoot.”

  Problem solved. Even if some of the other extras had to lose out on the fifteen minutes of fame. We wouldn’t have time to shoot them all now.

  Danielle gave me a little nod of approval. I had kept the budget under control and saved the day with my quick thinking. That was always what I was good at. That was why she kept me around.

  Jarryd was believable on screen as well. When he was so realistic on the first take and in his first scene, he was moved to the front of the shot on the crowd scene.

  But when he caught sight of the way that Danielle and I were watching him, he suddenly seemed to go camera shy, as though he had only just realized that the cameras were actually there and this was a real life movie set and before that, we’d only been playing make-believe.

  And when the water started to come toward him, there was fear in his eyes. He gulped, pushed past the rest of the extras, and ran away. Which would have been great if he had been part of the scene where the extras were supposed to be fleeing from the tsunami. But this was one of the scenes where they were supposed to be facing it bravely while they protected their property.

  “What is wrong with that guy?” Danielle asked, keeping her dark shades on.

  I shrugged. “He was one of the shipwreck survivors…maybe this is all hitting a bit close to home.”

  “Well, take care of it,” she said to me.

  Yes, ma’am.

  11

  Alyson

  I’d been warned that I was in for a surprise. I don’t like surprises. Receiving them, I mean. It’s always funny to give them, like when you hide around the corner from someone and then jump out and shout and make the person drop their ice cream cone to the ground. I did that to Claire once when we were twelve. Still makes me laugh to think about it.

  Kieran told me to close my eyes. He was trying not to laugh, and I wondered that if I did what he said and closed my eyes, was he going to hide and jump out at me? At least I wasn’t carrying an ice cream cone. Just a carrot stick that I was chewing on. He told me to open my eyes, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking at. All he had done was change positions from the sofa to standing up with his crutches.

  “Tada!” he said, and threw his crutches to the side

  I grinned at him and clapped, kind of like I was clapping for a dolphin for doing tricks in a water park. But it was great news, wasn’t it, that Kieran could walk on his own? “Are you proud of me?” He looked even cuter when he was grinning like this, showing off.

  “Of course I am.” All I had to do was put the other night out of my head. When I’d seen him walking just fine, without crutches, down a flight of stairs.

  I kept telling myself that if it was true that Kieran had been able to walk earlier, then he must have had his reasons for keeping it to himself. Maybe he had been scared to leave here during the daytime, and thus scared to tell me that he was mobile.

  And now he was no longer scared. He was footloose and fancy free. That was worth celebrating. “Should I get the sparkling wine out again?”

  Kieran nodded.

  There was a knock on the door.

  I told him I’d take care of it—“probably just my brother”—and suggested he make himself scarce for a minute. I hadn’t told Kieran this, but Matt didn’t know anything about Kieran staying in my apartment. I had made J pinkie swear that she would not say anything, and neither of us ever broke a pinkie promise. I waited until Kieran hid himself behind one of the dividers and then kicked the discarded crutch underneath the couch.

  There was another impatient knock on the door. Hmm. Matt usually didn’t knock twice. If I failed to answer the first time, he would just let himself in. I paused, making sure that there really was no sight of Kieran.

  I only knew one person who would knock on the door in such a demanding fashion. Well, besides Claire. But she had a key to my apartment. That left just one person. Troy. I glanced in the mirror, by the door, the one framed by shells from the ocean, and made sure I at least looked presentable. I was showing off my shoulders in an off the shoulder white lace crop top and my hair looked ruffled from the sea and the waves. Unbrushed of course. But some people put sea spray in to achieve the same look. It was easily achieved for free!

  I pulled the door back to find two stern-faced men staring me down. Both in uniforms, but one was a fairly casual police shirt and pants, whereas the other had a la
rger badge that read sergeant and lines on his face that made it seem like he had been around the block a few times. But apart from that, they could have been carbon copies of each other.

  “Alyson Faulks?” the sergeant asked while the other one stood back and observed. He seemed a little nervous.

  “Uh, can you just give me a minute?”

  I shut the door and went to find Kieran. This time, the knocking was twice as loud. “We need to speak to you!”

  Kieran was huddling nervously behind the room divider. I tried to reassure him that I had it under control. “Just stay quiet, okay?”

  “How can I help you, Officers? Sorry about that, just had to freshen up for a moment.”

  “We would like to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Faulks.” The sergeant looked at me warily like he already didn’t trust me.

  “Er, it’s miss,” I said, immediately on the back foot. Who did they think I was married to?

  “Miss Faulks,” he said, impatiently. “We are wondering if you could tell us the whereabouts of a Mister Kieran Douglas.”

  I just pursed my lips, all innocent, and shrugged. “Oh, boy. Haven’t seen him for a few days, I’m afraid.” I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t met him at all because Kieran had already spoken to the cops. And—at least, I’d believed—cleared his name by doing so. But the two men staring at me told me differently.

  The sergeant’s face didn’t crack. “But he has been staying here in your…” He glanced around the apartment, his eyes stopping on one of the cracks in the ceiling. “Residence?”

  I shrugged all casually. “He may have spent a night or two on the couch,” I said, as though I couldn’t really remember the details.