Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  The one with the junior rank finally said something. It seemed like it took all his nerve to do so. “Tell him to come in to the station as soon as you see him.”

  I shut the door and Kieran finally came out. Apparently, he hadn’t heard much of the conversation. I bit my fingernails as I sat on the couch and wondered if I was doing the right thing by protecting him.

  “Why do we have to wait so long?” he asked, practically chomping at the bit to get out of there. I’d promised him a surprise of my own, but events had to delay it.

  I opened the door, glanced down the hallway, and checked the time. Surely the cops had better things to do then just wait outside my apartment in case Kieran appeared, right?

  “Okay, I suppose the coast is clear,” I said finally, grabbing my surfboard and calling for Kieran to come after me.

  “Clear of what?” Kieran followed me down the hallway and down both flights of stairs. I was still looking around wildly as though we might have snipers trained on us. I must have seemed paranoid to anyone watching.

  But when we got to the bottom, there was no one around and the streets were empty.

  “Phew!” I said and reached out to give Kieran a high-five. He gave me a cautious one back with a curious expression. “That was a close one!”

  “What was?”

  “Don’t worry about it!” I said, starting to break into a jog, then realized that was probably a bridge too far for a man who hadn’t even been able to walk a few days before. I slowed down and waited for Kieran to catch up to me. He had his face up to the sun like he was drinking it in, like it was the first time he had felt sunshine on his face in years, like he had been deprived of it.

  “So what was your role on the boat again?” I asked as we got closer to the water. I had a (nice, not a jumping out) surprise in store for Kieran. We were going to stop by my little business stand on the sand and pick one of the surfboards for him to have. My gift to him.

  Kieran blinked a few times and turned his face down, as though the sun had suddenly become too bright for him.

  “I caught the fish,” he said, as though that was obvious.

  He had said this to me before, but it didn’t tell me what I needed to know. All three of them—Kayla, Jarryd, and Kieran—had been so evasive about what they were actually doing in Australia fishing. Neither Claire nor I thought that their story added up. It wasn’t like they could all just sail back to New Zealand in their tiny little fishing boat and take all the fish back with them.

  “Do you miss it?” I asked as we approached the surfboards. “Being out on the water, I mean.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember too much about it. The whole thing is foggy. Like trying to recall a different lifetime.”

  There were seven different boards for Kieran to choose from. “This one is the most lightweight,” I said, picking up the one on the furthest left. “Although it does have a rather interesting…design on it.” I was referring to the penguin that I had painted with the backward baseball cap, doing the thumbs up sign. I had painted it like that as it had been aimed at a younger audience, someone just starting to surf for the first time.

  Kieran had no idea why I was handing the board to him. “It’s a present,” I explained with a grin. I would take a bit of a loss, not being able to sell it after I had bought it secondhand, repaired it and painted it. But that was all cool with me. As long as Kieran liked it.

  Kieran thanked me and took the surfboard off me. He misjudged how heavy it was going to be—my fault for saying it was lightweight, it’s all relative when it comes to surfboards—and almost dropped it, then held it awkwardly under his arm.

  I tried not to laugh

  “What is it?” he asked, grinning at me

  “It’s just clearly the first time you’ve ever done that,” I said, laughing.

  “I have no idea how to actually use this thing…” he said, trying to spin it around. It almost fell to the ground again. “Your present might go to waste with me.”

  “I can teach you how to surf!” I said, brightening up. “That can be part of my gift to you.”

  He was just staring into the sand. Something was the matter, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. I had to finally ask him what was wrong. If he sulked forever, the sun was going to set before we even got in the waves.

  “It’s just… I should be the one giving you a gift, Alyson, not the other way around,” he finally said, looking guilty. “You have been really kind to me, and all I have done is…” Lied to me? I wondered. That’s not what he said, though. Instead, he just kept staring into the sand.

  I told him not to be so silly. He was a guest of mine, in my town and my country, and I wanted him to have the full Eden Bay—and the full Aussie—experience. “It’s probably too cold to surf in New Zealand most of the time,” I said, teasing him as I started to jog to the water. “Now come on, your first surfing lesson starts now!”

  We’d been in the water for about ten minutes when suddenly we had company. I knew what Troy Emerald would have been thinking, as he approached the waves and stared at me. What was it about Kieran that was so special?

  I had refused to give Troy a surfing lesson in spite of his constant near begging that I do so, and now here I was, teaching a random shipwreck survivor how to surf. He was trying to catch my eye. Next thing, he’d be trying to talk to me.

  I turned my back. Oh well. I had perfectly good reasons for not wanting to have anything to do with Troy Emerald. The fact that he kept creeping his way back into my life was on him, not me.

  “That was fun!” Kieran said as we sprinted out of the surf after about forty minutes of a brief lesson not too far from shore.

  “You are actually a natural at it!” I said, drying my hair off on my towel. It was hard to believe that that had been Kieran’s first time on the waves. Even though we’d kept it simple, he had pretty much mastered it on the first go.

  He straightened up and shook himself off, water flying everywhere. I giggled as some of hit me in the face. “You are just a really good teacher. You must have students lining up to take your classes.”

  Maybe I would have if I actually offered them. That wasn’t my job, though. I had never charged anyone for a surfing lesson in my life.

  “But how did you do that move?” Kieran asked thoughtfully.

  “Which one?”

  “It looked a little complicated,” he said. “The one where you jumped up onto the board and onto your feet in one move.”

  Well, to be honest, part of that was thanks to yoga. I explained that to him, and he laughed and said he’d have to take a yoga class then.

  “Well, I can show you that one move here on the dry sand,” I said. “If we are just talking about yoga.”

  He nodded, and I put my arms around his waist a little to show him the way that he needed to stretch. “It’s all about power in the arms,” I said.

  “Hmm, sort of like using a fishing rod,” he said.

  I laughed. “Kind of. I guess.”

  The waves were crashing behind us and the sun had almost fully set by the time that Kieran turned around. My arms were still loosely around his waist and I didn’t move them away. “You look really beautiful, Alyson,” he whispered as he picked up one of my curls and held it gently between his fingertips. I hadn’t intended for us to get that close. I definitely hadn’t intended to lean in and kiss his lips. “I’ve been wanting to do this since I first met you here on this beach,” Kieran whispered to me.

  I pulled away, feeling eyes on us. I may have been cold to Troy Emerald lately, but I wasn’t that insensitive. I didn’t want to rub Troy’s face in it.

  But it wasn’t Troy staring at us.

  It was the cops.

  12

  Claire

  Matt was in a slightly hyper mood. So was J. She was running around Captain Eightball’s, squealing at the top of her lungs. Matt told me that she’d spent her lunch money on red frogs instead of a banana for a treat like she was supp
osed to. He picked up J and placed her on the counter, then turned back to me. “Something weird is going on at Y’s place.”

  I quickly started sipping my milkshake. So fast that I eventually almost choked on the milk and had to pull the straw out of my mouth.

  “Erm, what do you mean?”

  “When I picked up J to take her to school, Alyson wouldn’t open the door properly. She just stuck her head out and then pushed J through the small crack.”

  “Haha,” I said, making a forced laugh. “I am sure that Alyson isn’t actually hiding anything.”

  “I think I know what it is,” Matt said as he returned from the back office. He was technically off-shift that morning, but he had dropped in to pick up his paycheck and now that he was here, he had ordered a side of hash browns and bacon. J was supposed to be doing her homework before school, but she was trying to get one of the snooker balls into the hole. She kept shrieking in excitement every time she got close to it going into the net. I’d already eaten my cereal at the motel. Day 101 of soggy cornflakes delivered to my door.

  “And what is that?” I asked, looking a little enviously at Matt’s food. It wasn’t as though I couldn’t change my order at the Dolphin (F)Inn. No one was holding a gun to my head, no one was threatening me if I didn’t order cornflakes every morning. But it was just that I felt like, if I ticked a different box, if I made a different order—say, jam on toast or scrambled eggs—it was like I was committing to life here. If I kept my order the same though, it was like just being on auto-pilot. Less deliberate decision. At least that’s the way it felt in my head. If I just kept ordering the cornflakes, I could pretend it was all just temporary

  “Rats,” Matt said.

  “Huh?”

  My phone was already buzzing. We were supposed to have a relatively late call time that morning—9:30—because Danielle wanted to wait for the sun to be at a high position in the sky before we began shooting. Again, this was a problem that could be fixed in post, but using the real sun and real sunlight would be far cheaper.

  But she was demanding I get to set immediately to sort out one of the dramas taking place with our lead actress. But I hadn’t even finished my breakfast milkshake. Besides, I’d been planning to open up the shop and at least spend an hour there that morning to make sure that Maria hadn’t given away every new book I had in exchange for old paperbacks that were worth ten cents each. Or even worse, she might have made good on her promise to find a new home for one of my cats.

  I didn’t reply to the text. If she asked, I would just claim that I had never seen it. That I’d been having a sleep-in.

  Matt was still waiting for a response to me. “Rats?” I asked, shaking my head as I remembered what we had been taking about.

  “I think she has rats in her apartment and she’s afraid I’ll find out about them,” Matt said, leaning back in his chair as he polished off the last of his bacon and ordered another serving.

  I wasn’t sure which was worse. Should I go along with the idea that Alyson had giant rats in her apartment or should I come clean on the fact that Alyson was harboring a potential fugitive in there?

  “Maybe it’s just really big cockroaches,” I said. Matt raised his eyebrows so high that they disappeared beneath his floppy hair. Right. That wasn’t any better.

  “Is that your phone ringing?” Matt asked

  Three missed calls from Danielle. But I didn’t want to leave the cafe just yet. It was nice having breakfast with Matt, even if I technically wasn’t ‘having’ any and was just watching him eat his food. My mind started to wander… Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up and watch him eat breakfast every morning? Geez, Claire, pull yourself together. Where did that thought even come from?

  “Uh-oh. There’s a really scary looking woman in the window behind you.” Matt had a slice of bacon in his hands and his eyes were wide.

  I jumped at the banging on the glass. Danielle had found me. Not sleeping in. She was rapping her knuckles against the glass and when I turned around, she made a signal at her watch and then pointed to the door, mouthing, “Get out here now.”

  I sighed at Matt and stood up. “Duty calls.”

  I raced after Danielle, hating that I couldn’t keep up with her. She had longer legs. But also, she seemed to be driven by some kind of inner fire and I couldn’t quite get up that same drive.

  It wasn’t a long walk down to the beach where all the trailers and cameras had already been set up for that day’s shoot. It may have been a late start for us producers and the actors, but the crew would have started at the break of dawn.

  We were at the trailer for Holly V.

  Danielle knocked on it again and then turned her glare toward me when there was no response. “She won’t come out.”

  I checked the time. “We’ve still got one hour before shooting,” I said. Seemed like plenty of time to me. But my time in Eden Bay had made me far more relaxed when it came to morning routines. These days, I pretty much just rolled out of bed and threw on some slacks and a t-shirt, maybe running a hair straightener through my locks before I went to work. Whereas back in the city, getting ready had been a one-hour job. And I’d never even needed to be in front of movie cameras and heavy lights, ready to be shown on screens twelve feet high.

  “We are going to be hours behind schedule. That means hours behind budget,” Danielle snapped as she tried to pull the door open.

  Holly V had locked the door. The only option left was to take the door off its hinges, as Danielle had suggested. But as I’d pointed out, that would only enrage her more. “She’s likely to walk off set for good if you do that, and then not only will this be today’s problem, it will be every day’s problem.” I shot Danielle a serious look. If she didn’t listen to me, this was going to blow right up.

  Danielle said I had twenty minutes to come up with something or she was taking the door off the trailer.

  I paced, trying to think of a solution. Meanwhile, we were getting closer and closer to 9:30 and the sun was getting higher and higher.

  Hang on.

  I grabbed my tablet and looked through the footage that had been shot so far. I hadn’t had much to do with the leads so far, but in the movie, Holly V was playing a local girl—a girl next door type, who just happened to be caught up in all the drama of the tsunami and had to step up to become the reluctant hero at the end. And of course, she fell in love with a dashing lifeguard along the way.

  But the point was, in the movie at least, she looked like your typical small town surfer girl. That was why it took so long to perfect the look in hair and makeup every morning. Because Holly V looked nothing like that in real life with her short, sleek, dark hair that required a wig and extensions, and porcelain skin that required both bronzer and fake tan to be applied every day - just so that she could be turned into your typical beach bum.

  But I already knew someone who woke up looking like that every day. With zero effort.

  Danielle was storming back to the trailer with that driven look in her eyes. She had some kind of tradesman in tow and was waving him over. He started up the electric screwdriver and headed straight toward the trailer door.

  “No, wait,” I said, standing in front of Danielle. I wasn’t quite brave enough to step in front of live electronics, but I asked her to call him off.

  “I have an idea,” I said, a little breathless. If I could pull this off, it would be brilliant.

  Danielle didn’t even respond, just waited for me.

  “Do we have to shoot Holly V from the front today?” I asked Danielle

  Danielle looked like I had just asked the most stupid question in the world. “Even if that hid her tears and puffy eyes, that is still not going to get her to come out of her trailer, is it?” I hated when she spoke to me—or anyone—like that. Like she wasn’t even listening to the person who was speaking, and she had only heard what she wanted to hear and had already decided that it was wrong.

  “We are not going to use Holly V at all,” I
said, cutting her off before the screwdriver started up again. “We are going to use Alyson Faulks.”

  Alyson was strolling onto set with dark glasses and an attitude that she must have picked up along the way.

  “Lights, camera, action,” she said drolly, throwing her wet tote bag (holding her bathing suit and beach towel) onto the floor of the trailer. “Never thought I would be a movie star.” She wiggled in her chair and puffed up her hair in the mirror.

  I warned her that she better drop this attitude before she bumped into Danielle. “Why? I’m not scared of her.” Alyson scoffed and put her glasses back on, even though we were indoors and we needed to put makeup on her face.

  “You’re only saying that because you’ve never met her.” I pulled the glasses off and called the crew member over.

  Alyson only needed a few minutes in the makeup chair to get a touch of powder and some gel in her hair to hold it while we drenched it underneath the rain machines. But she used that time to rant and rave about what a favor she was doing for all of us. “I hope I will be getting paid accordingly. Looks like I have saved the day once again.”

  “Shh!” I said, warning Alyson to keep her voice down. I pulled back the curtain and peeked out to make sure that Danielle wasn’t on her way. She could move fast. Like a snake. Attack you when you least expected it.

  “I can’t believe you even went back to working for her if she is that bad,” Alyson said.

  “It’s only temporary. Very temporary,” I said as I gave Alyson’s head one more spray of hairspray. I wasn’t sure that the hair guy had applied enough. Alyson was going to get drenched out there on set.

  The door swung open without even a knock. I braced myself for Danielle to meet Alyson. For Danielle to roll her eyes and say something scathing. But she just paused and looked around. then smiled sweetly at Alyson. “You look beautiful!” she said, clapping her hands together. “Why, you look just like a lead actress should. Shooting starts in ten minutes, doll.”