Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  “Where is she?” I asked fanatically, trying to see into the ocean. There was still the slightest bit of sunlight, but it was fading and I couldn’t see her for the life of me. It wasn’t a very big beach. There wasn’t very far she could have gone. I got out my phone and tried to call her, hoping that she had gotten out of the water while I was gone, but there was no answer.

  Matt was on the phone to the Coast Guard and he’d managed to contact Eric, who was calling the lifeguards for a rescue.

  But it was going to take a while for the lifeguards to get there, seeing as the beach was closed and they hadn’t actually been guarding anything for almost two weeks.

  “What was she thinking, going out there?” Matt was almost as frantic as I was, but he was trying to keep a lid on it for J’s sake.

  Guilt was clawing at my stomach.

  “She was mad at me… She was trying to run away from me…” I was starting to hyperventilate. “Matt, this is all my fault.”

  Matt looked angry, betrayed for a second, but then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “This isn’t your fault, Claire. We both know what Alyson is like. Nothing stops her when she gets an idea in her head.”

  I knew that there was nothing I could have done to stop her from actually going into the water, but as I sank down on the sand, I knew that maybe I hadn’t forced her to go into the surf but I HAD upset her to the point where she didn’t care anymore. I probably had accidentally said some stuff to Rachael about Alyson’s family. It was careless. Stupid. And my loyalty should have always been to my best friend.

  I just prayed that she was right. That there were no killer sharks in there.

  “There she is!” I screamed, jumping to my feet when Alyson’s face rose out of the ocean like a phoenix from the flames. She must have spotted J standing there on the sand, shouting and waving her arms, because Alyson laid stomach-down on her board and started paddling back to shore.

  The news had broken and there was already a crew down on the beach. Alex Higgins was taking notes, and Rachael was climbing out of her car.

  I could overhear Alyson grumbling to Matt. “Now I am really going to be a laughingstock.”

  I gently cleared my throat as I gingerly approached them. “Maybe it can be spun…to make you look brave. Like someone who has convictions. Who sticks to her word.”

  Alyson turned her head from me. Dead silence. She was wet and shaky. She must have actually been terrified out there. But she was never going to admit it.

  “I don’t know what I can ever do to make this up to you, Alyson…”

  “Nothing…” she started to say.

  We both stopped and turned when we saw the same thing.

  Dylan Fox. Sidling up to Rachael and handing her a stack of cash. “What’s going on over there?” Alyson asked. She was actually speaking to me. That was something. I shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, if you ever want to make things up to me, you’ll go and ask your bestie why she’s taking money from Dylan Fox.”

  Rachael hadn’t realized anyone had been watching. When Dylan walked away, I approached her. “You’d better come clean,” I said. “Or this town isn’t going to have a paper at all when their sole editor and writer is fired.”

  Rachael looked down at the sand. “He’s been asking me to keep quiet about something.” But then she looked up and glared at me. “And I will be sticking to my word on that.” She nodded over toward Alyson. “Looks like you’re not exactly a woman of her word yourself, Claire Elizabeth Richardson.”

  20

  Alyson

  I sat on the rock and stared into the water, wondering how close I had come to death. I’d slipped off my board at one stage. Thought for a second I’d seen a fin.

  Claire was still wandering, nearby. She’d asked me what she could do to make it up to me, to show me she was really sorry. I’d thought about asking her to pick up a surfboard and go into the water just to really put her money where her mouth was. But she had already spoken to Rachael for me.

  Claire filled me in on everything she knew. I was dumbfounded.

  So, Alex had wanted Rachael to print anti-shark propaganda, and he had wanted to make sure that the cull went ahead.

  “I knew they were in on it together. The press, I mean,” I said.

  Claire glanced up from her pacing and nodded vigorously. She was way too pleased that I was talking to her again. She practically skipped over to where I was sitting on the rock.

  “Of course. You were totally right. You’ve been right about everything. Just like you usually are.”

  Oh my gosh. Now she was just sucking up to me. I wanted to tell her to knock it off.

  But then there was the problem of Dylan Fox. Paying off Rachael.

  Claire was stony-eyed. “Why would anyone pay off the newspaper, unless they didn’t want something getting out? She said he was paying her to stay quiet. But what?” She stared at me. “Unless they want everyone to think the shark did it. Because they are the real killer.”

  “If you are right, this is actually a good thing,” I murmured, lightly kicking the sand as something dawned on me.

  Claire frowned and shrugged. Like it was obvious. “Well yeah. Because it means there was no shark attack. The nets can be taken down.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, if this is true, then it knocks Dylan Fox out of the race. And that means that I will almost definitely become mayor.”

  21

  Alyson

  Dylan Fox was the sort of man that would have had a bad reputation in any other town. In a city, he would have been just another slimy guy in the real estate business. But in Eden Bay, he was one of the most popular. He had bought his way into people’s hearts with his charm and now, as it turned out, with actual money. And that same false charm and those same deep pockets were going to be the reason he won the election.

  Except, now it wouldn’t. People might vote for a real estate agent who ripped off people to make a profit, but they were never going to vote for a killer. You would have to be PRETTY charming to talk your way out of that one. Spin that one to the press. He could only pay them off for so long. But we were going to expose him.

  I burst back into Fox Real Estate with Claire right behind me. No sign of Dylan. I asked the secretary where he was, searching around the office trying to see where he was hiding. He was always trying to get other people to do his dirty work for him, always trying to weasel his way out of things.

  “He’s not here. Can I take your number and get him to give you a call when he is back in the office?” Her tone was snippy, but she ended the sentence with a smile to try and smooth it over.

  “I will wait,” I said, crossing my arms, not believing that he wasn’t actually in the office, hiding somewhere.

  The secretary licked her lips and composed herself. “Aren’t you the one who was dragged out of the ocean last night? It was all over the radio this morning.”

  “It’s called making a point,” I snapped back. “Having principles. I doubt anyone who works around here would know anything about that, so I don’t expect you to understand.”

  Claire tugged on my arm. “Maybe we should just go,” she said, trying to drag me out.

  “No way. He’s here. He just doesn’t want to talk to me. He is probably in the back room.” I decided I was going to barge in there and check.

  “Mister Fox is at the hospital!” the receptionist finally snapped, slapping the flats of her hands on the desk.

  I turned back to her. “Yeah, right,” I said, rolling my eyes. Geez. They really would say anything to get people on Dylan Fox’s side, wouldn’t they?

  “His daughter is sick.” She glared at me and sat back down. “So now you know.”

  I slowly walked back toward the desk. Sounded like a nice little story. Problem was, I wasn’t willing to take anything at face value. “Well, we will go down to the hospital and check this out for ourselves.”

  The
largest hospital near Eden Bay was in Sydney, and if you needed to use any technology that had been made in the last decade, that was where you were air-lifted to. But Eden Bay did have a small hospital right on the highway, which also serviced Rushcutter’s Bay and the other small surrounding beach towns.

  Another reception desk. Another chance to make an enemy. “I will handle this one,” Claire said, gently but firmly. “You don’t exactly have the best track record.”

  I was about to take grave offense when I realized she was right. I nodded and stood back, but I felt a little ashamed. A little put in my place. What kind of mayor would I be if I couldn’t even get people to get along with me? Maybe Dylan Fox’s charm was all false but at least he had charm. And at least people liked him.

  Claire had managed to sweet talk her way past reception and was even able to get the room number by telling them that she was Dylan’s cousin and wanted to visit young Susie. Maybe Claire was the one who ought to be running for mayor.

  “How do you do it?” I asked her.

  “It’s not so hard when you sugarcoat things a little,” she said with a little shrug. “What you need to do is make them feel flattered, important. Then they will want to help you.”

  Rather than insulting them right to their faces, was what I assumed she meant.

  “You’re starting to sound a lot like Dylan Fox….” I hurried along the short corridor to where the ward was. We had to pass through emergency to get there. Even in a country hospital, the beds were full, and I averted my eyes from all the injuries and sorrowful looking people. I could hear a young girl crying behind a curtain somewhere. She was either in pain herself or crying for someone who was. It all made me think about how lucky I was. And how lucky I had been to come out of the surf with no injuries

  Dylan Fox was behind a curtain. There was a woman, his age, sitting beside him. And on the bed was a young girl, about the same age as J, who looked sickly and pale with a tube coming out of her nose.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked angrily, standing and blocking our view of his daughter. We had disturbed a sacred space, an intimate moment…

  “I just didn’t believe your secretary when she told me your daughter was sick.”

  “Well, believe it. And leave.”

  Claire was glaring at me. We need to go. But I was being stubborn and even when she pulled on my arm, I refused to go.

  “What were you doing handing that cash to Rachael Beckham?”

  I saw his whole face contort in shock and indignation.

  “What is she talking about, darling?” the wife asked.

  I stared straight at her while Claire just buried her head in her hands. “He was bribing the newspapers so that no one knows that he has killed two people.”

  He was glowering. “You think I killed Meg Brian and…that other guy? Are you crazy?”

  His wife’s voice was rising. “Dylan? Please tell me what is going on.”

  “These two were just leaving.”

  But as we stood in front of the hospital in the afternoon sun, I felt a little shocked and stunned like I had been slapped in the face. And not just because I had been thrown out of the ward. Something was not right. He could deny it and call me crazy all he wanted, but I had seen him bribe Rachael.

  Claire told me she was going to walk back into town. “Bianca can’t be left in charge of the shop for very long.”

  But she wouldn’t tell me more than that. She was still being super weird and secretive about Bianca. I told her I would wander back into town later. I seemed to be rooted in the spot in front of the hospital.

  I heard footsteps to my left. Dylan Fox.

  “Where’s your friend?”

  I told him she had left. Stepped up to him. There was something he wanted to tell me. And now that it was just the two of us, in the quiet, he could.

  “Yes, I knew Meg, but I didn’t kill her. That editor found out something about Meg and I that could really upset my wife.”

  Right. I got it.

  “So, you paid Rachael not to print it?”

  He nodded and scratched his head. “Please, Alyson. Don’t say anything to my family. It will kill them. And if all this got out, it would kill my campaign.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “You went to the press about me, and now you want a favor from me?”

  He scoffed lightly. “It’s not as though I told them anything they didn’t already know thanks to that friend of yours.”

  Yes, I had been double-crossed by several people. It made my head spin. Was this what politics was all about? If so, I didn’t think I was cut out for it.

  “You still spread dirt about me. Why shouldn’t I do the same to you?”

  He turned around and pointed toward the hospital. “My daughter is sick, Alyson. And I would—WILL—make a great mayor for this town. Are you really that selfish that you would do something out of spite even though it could hurt people?”

  I was speechless as I watched Dylan Fox hurry back into the hospital.

  Rescue arrived just as my knees were feeling like jelly and I wasn’t even sure I could walk.

  Troy pulled over and asked me to get in. His car always had the overwhelming scent of expensive leather. I always pretended that I didn’t like it, but secretly, I thought it smelled like a home I had never actually had. And the seats were so comfortable… I felt like a wretched old dog being finally called into the house at night and I sank into the passenger seat with a sigh.

  “Tough day, kiddo?” he said to me.

  I shrugged. “Nothing I didn’t deserve, I guess.”

  “You only deserve good things, Alyson. Don’t ever forget that.”

  He was being too nice to me. I couldn’t stand it.

  “I have something to tell you,” I said softly. So softly, in fact, that he didn’t even hear me at first and I had to repeat it. Had to raise my voice again and he still didn’t hear it, then he finally pulled over when I told him I was feeling sick. I was.

  “When I decided to run for mayor, I originally planned to take you down.”

  He laughed, like he always did, whenever I said something that he found highly melodramatic. Almost as though I only said these things for his amusement, his entertainment. Sometimes, I supposed that I did. But not this time. This was not a joke. This was deadly serious, and I didn’t want him to laugh. I wanted him to listen, to understand what I was truly trying to tell him.

  “No, Troy. I know about you and Sergeant Wells. I know that you gave him money so that you could get the mall built early.”

  I’d expected him to deny it. To maybe even fly into an indignant rage. But it was so silent in the BMW that I could hear the tick tock of the indicator that was still going even though we were stationary. I could hear my own breathing.

  “It wasn’t much money, and it was only a couple of times…” Troy was gripping the steering wheel even though we weren’t moving.

  I was incredulous. “You think that makes it any better?”

  “This is just how things work in the business world, Alyson!” he snapped. “And you are naive if you think any different.”

  I was trying to pull my seatbelt off, but I got it tangled up and then jammed. And then when I tried to open the door, Troy had the safety lock on. It was like I was stuck in a leather prison.

  “You might think that I am naïve, but at least I have my principles. And at least I have the guts to tell the truth, tell it like it is, even if it makes me unpopular.”

  Troy looked at me flatly. “You were really going to go to the press about this? Without speaking to me first?”

  Maybe in the grand scheme of things, bribing officials to get around noise bylaws wasn’t the most heinous of crimes. Didn’t necessarily deserve the death penalty. But the fact that he was so calm about it all was only making my blood boil. This wasn’t ‘just the way things worked.’ We could do better than that in Eden Bay. We could all do better than that everywhere.

  “And what about Save
Sharkey?” I asked, still struggling to open the door but Troy was so far refusing to unlock the child lock. “You only supported my campaign because you had a vested interest.”

  Troy looked confused. “What possible vested interest could I have in that? The only thing it did was make me look foolish.”

  Okay, wow. Wow.

  That was it. I was going to break the door down if I had to. “Let me out,” I demanded.

  Troy sighed. “Fine!” He opened the door, but he also opened his and started chasing after me down the street.

  “I don’t need you to come after me, Troy Emerald. In fact, I don’t need you at all!”

  But he was a quick runner and managed to get in front of me. He blocked my way. “Alyson. I just want you to know that I was part of “Save Sharkey” because I do care about you. That is the only reason.”

  I just stared at him. Did he really expect me to fall for that? Did he really think I was that “naive?” He’d just lectured me about how the real world worked. Where profit was more important than laws or principles.

  I wanted to believe him. Of course I did. It would make my life a lot easier. But I just shook my head and backed away from him in disgust. “Good-bye, Troy.”

  I started to drift toward the newspaper’s office. I had a lot of dirt I could drop on Rachael, if I wanted to. My two biggest competitors were both dirty and they would both make great cover stories. Allowing me to easily win the election.

  I stopped and stared up at the sky, so clear that you could see the outline of the moon. Was there anyone in this world who was purely good? Or purely bad?

  Maybe not. But we could all do better.

  And the truth deserved to be told.

  I was just about to push the door open when I saw that that day’s paper had been printed and was in the wind.

  There was a new news article about me.

  The newspaper had spoken to the ‘best friend’ of one of the candidates.