So she would have no reason to tell Wells that I had killed Dan. And she didn’t see me on the ship, either. Neither of us saw each other once we were actually on board. It was a good effort on Wells’s part, but he hadn’t played it cleverly enough. I was outsmarting this guy, and it was kind of disappointing.
“Claire is still sitting in that room on her own, waiting for me,” I said coolly, in a tone that Claire herself would have been proud of. “And she has said nothing to you.”
Wells just held my glare for a long while. “Don’t be so sure of yourself,” he said.
“You were once a lion, and now you are more like a kitty cat,” I said with a little shrug. Not a very tough adversary for me. I picked up my bag because I knew that I was free to leave. I wasn’t going to wait for him to dismiss me either. I chose when I left.
But Wells had one final thing to say to me before I waltzed out. “Don’t have any contact with Claire Elizabeth Richardson. And don’t leave town.”
9
I’d always hated being told what to do, but not leaving town was an easy demand to make of me. I’d never leave Eden Bay again if I didn’t have to. And for the most part, I wouldn’t have to. After the wedding, Troy and I would live in the Bay and start our joined lives together. It was quite funny in a way, maybe even ironic: All along, I had been so opposed to Troy’s mall being built in the Bay and yet now, it was not only the reason I had met my soon-to-be-husband but it was the reason he was more than willing to stick around and make a life in the place I loved. He had me, and he had his mall. And I was pretty much tied to the Bay just as heavily as that steel building was.
It's funny the way some things we thought would be disasters could turn out to be our biggest blessings.
But I would be starting university in the autumn, and that would require two days a week out of town. Two days too many if you asked me. But the campus, which was located in a small mountain town called Ferguson, was pretty enough that I could bear to spend two days a week away from the beach. But that was still months away. Surely they would have caught Dan Millen’s killer by then. We couldn’t ALL stay in town for that long. For one thing, Eden Bay couldn’t hold all these ship passengers without collapsing under the weight.
Troy was waiting for me in the parking lot of the station, leaning against the passenger side door of his car, which he started to open for me. It was muggy and I could feel my hair frizzing and my clothes getting soggy just during the short walk to the car. “How did you go?” he asked, looking concerned
“If you’re asking if I was arrested for murder, then no, nothing like that.”
“Alyson, this is serious.” He climbed into the driver’s seat but didn’t start the car right away. “We need to do something. I’ll call my lawyer in the morning, get her to meet with you…” He was rambling on and on about strategy.
I sighed. I loved Troy, but this was something I was going to have to figure out on my own. And it wasn’t something that he could just make disappear with money.
I was thinking about the other demand that Wells had made of me. That one was going to be a little more difficult to follow.
“What is it?” Troy asked when he realized I hadn’t been listening to his rant about the lawyers.
“I’m not allowed to talk to Claire while the investigation is underway.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “How are you not going to have any contact with your maid of honor when your wedding is only a few weeks away?”
Oh. Right. I hadn’t even thought about it from that angle. I was more concerned with how I was going to solve the mystery of Dan Millen’s death all on my own, without Princess’s input.
But to Troy, the most pressing issue was the wedding.
I glanced over at him as he finally started the engine and the air conditioning hit my face. “Maybe we should just elope.” I was only half kidding. It was going to be a super low-key wedding anyway, down on the beach. But if the cruise ship was still there, then we were going to have to make other plans. I didn’t want that monstrosity in my wedding photos. I wasn’t a typical bride—not by a longshot—but I had fallen into the cliché of being a little obsessed with what the photos were going to look like.
Troy wasn’t impressed with my idea. “You’re not allowed to leave town, Alyson. And I really think you should be taking this more seriously.”
We got back to Troy’s apartment and he asked me what I wanted for dinner, but in that heat, all I wanted was a piece of fruit. He was still asking me if I wanted him to contact his lawyer for me while he pulled open the salad drawer to try and put together a dinner of his own. I bit into my apple and shook my head. “Wells doesn’t have anything on me. Trust me.”
But I didn’t know just how things were about to blow up. I bit into my apple again, right into the core, without realizing that I was about to be at the center of a town-wide controversy. Again.
Even people with all the money in the world can’t do much when an entire town’s power supply is cut off. The strain on the town had reached peak levels and there was a blackout due to every house in town using their air conditioners at top speed on the hottest night of the year.
It was 3am when the unit went silent and the whole apartment filled with an unbearable heat. Troy stayed in bed—he claimed he didn’t mind—and went back to sleep, but I couldn’t stand the suffocating heat. I had to get outside.
I felt like I was almost gasping for air by the time I got outside. It’s not like I had really been sleeping inside anyway. I had been restless, tossing and turning and having half-dreams about being inside the police station and a cage being put around me and the bars closing in and in, squashing me.
Or maybe it hadn’t been a dream. At all. Or maybe I was still sleeping. Because I suddenly felt two arms around me, there in the middle of the night, in the middle of the dark.
I screamed and kicked, thinking that I was being abducted. The arms around me loosened and apologized and told me to be quiet.
The voice was way too familiar. Deep and gravelly.
My eyes started to adjust to the moonlight and suddenly I saw who the strong arms belonged to.
Wells.
“What the… I didn’t think that police officers were supposed to sneak up on people on their own properties!”
Wells glanced up at the fancy, million-dollar apartment block. “Didn’t think this was your property,” he said flatly.
I was still rubbing my arms where he’d grabbed me. Seriously, what was up with that? Talk about a pyscho. “Troy and I are about to be married and then I will be moving in here,” I said. “So it’s as good as.” I stared at him. “What are you doing here?”
He nodded towards the police car behind him. “Keeping an eye on our top suspect.”
“Troy?” I asked in complete surprise.
“No,” he said flatly, like I was an idiot. “You.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Sorry for grabbing you,” Wells said, and he sounded like he meant it. Like he was genuinely ashamed of it. “I shouldn’t have even left the car. It’s just that when I saw you exit the building, I thought you were leaving and wanted to stop you.”
I shook my head. “Just getting some fresh air. Not going anywhere.”
He seemed extra stressed that night. Even worse than he had been at the station. Like he was really losing control. “So why did you get out of the car then?” I asked, taking a step back. It was clear to him that I wasn’t going anywhere and yet he was still hanging around.
“Do you know what is being said?” he asked quietly, and I had to wonder again if I was still dreaming. Maybe it was the hot, muggy atmosphere, but the whole thing felt weird and dreamy and like I was in the middle of an old detective noir, with steam coming out of the sidewalk pipes.
I shook my head. “No.”
There was a grave look in his eyes that I only caught because the moonlight hit them just right. He told me that we needed to talk. That he could explain every
thing.
What, he didn’t mean right then, did he? It became clear that he did mean that. He wanted me to follow him. “Well, I don’t want to skulk around in the dark.”
Wells sighed. “Well, when can we do it?” he asked me in a frustrated whisper.
I straightened up. “Tomorrow morning. When the sun is actually out and this isn’t so creepy.”
“It will look like we are out on a date.”
I rolled my eyes. He wished. Everyone knew that I was engaged to Troy Emerald and no one would think that I was having an affair with the ancient, haggard Sergeant Wells. He was flattering himself a little too much there if you asked me.
“Meet me at Captain Eightballs’ at ten a.m. tomorrow,” I said firmly, before I turned around and marched back through the doors of the ground level of Troy’s apartment block.
I had the power now.
I didn’t even recognize him when I walked in. Well, I wasn’t expecting a man in a disguise, was I?
“Halloween was a month ago,” I said, taking a seat across from him.
“Ha-ha,” he said, and I saw that his cappuccino was already half gone. He must have been there quite some time before me, even though I wasn’t late as far as I knew. Well, only five minutes late. That told me he was anxious.
It was a terrible wig, though. Blonde, and it looked scratchy. It was in danger of falling off into his coffee if he made any sudden movements, so he was staying very still. He didn’t want to draw any attention to us, I could tell that. But if that had been his intention then he should have gone with a hat rather than a wig.
I could see the corner of the Eden Bay Journal tucked under his arm, still folded. I wondered why he hadn’t been reading it with his coffee rather than just sitting there, but I was soon to find out.
He pushed the paper across the table to me. My stomach did a little flip as I saw my photo there on the cover, alongside a few other faces, including Claire’s. And Wells’s. I did feel a few eyes on me—my bare shoulders seemed to be extra sensitive to these weird stares—but I tried to ignore them and concentrated on what the article said.
The article started on page one and continued to the next two pages. It must have gone to press early in the morning. It was the biggest story that the Eden Bay Journal had printed in years. A controversy. A conspiracy. Or at least, that was what Rachael thought she had uncovered.
“This is crazy,” I said, more to myself than to Wells. I read right to the end and then let the newspaper fall out of my hands onto the table. The latte I had ordered when I’d walked in was growing cold and the froth on top stale. “We definitely got the right guy,” I said in a squeaky voice. I wanted to sound more confident, but I’ll admit I was shaken. This was the last thing I had expected to wake up to. They were saying that Claire and I had gotten the wrong guy a year earlier in the original “Surfboard Killer Case” and that the real culprit was still on the loose.
Wells was red-faced.
He didn’t say anything.
Then suddenly I got it. Why he had really been stalking me that morning and why he’d wanted to meet me. And why he was wearing that ridiculous disguise. “This looks way worse for you than it does for me,” I said. And I realized that I had all the power. The paper may have been focusing on Claire and I—that made a really good story—but in reality, in the real world, it would be Wells’s butt on the line if he had put the wrong person in jail and the real killer was still out there.
He was still silent, but he was lacing his fingers together and staring down at his hands.
“This could end your career,” I said.
From the look on his face, I could tell that he didn’t need me to tell him that. He was already well aware of how bad this was. If the cops had put the wrong guy behind bars and there was still a serial killer out there, whoever had been responsible would surely be suspended—or worse. There could be a whole investigation. A royal commission.
He looked like he was about to explode from the stress of it all. I wasn’t sure a sleepless night and a coffee had helped matters either. But to be honest, I didn’t think he had anything to worry about. Mr. Carbonetti was guilty. “This is just a news article,” I said. “It’s sensationalist. This will blow over.”
I wasn’t quite sure why I was reassuring him so much. I felt sorry for him. His wings had been clipped.
“It will only blow over if there’s no truth to it,” he said. He kept looking around in an agitated manner. Oh no. His wig was starting to slip. He needed to keep his head still or it was gonna fly off.
“Why did you really ask me here?” I asked, taking a sip of my now-cold latte. Oh well, it was too hot out to have a hot drink anyway, so it all worked out perfectly.
He frowned at me. “I didn’t. Remember? You forced me to meet you here.”
“Okay then, why were you stalking me out the front of Troy’s apartment then?”
He looked like he didn’t want to say what he was about to say. “Alyson, I need your help. We need to find out who did this. And quick. We need to work together.”
10
I unlocked the door and stepped into the silent apartment. At least I still had air conditioning in mine, so I was going to be staying there for a few days. The power supply had been restored, but Troy’s cooling unit had not survived the sudden shock to the circuit and was going to take days to fix with the backlog the electricians in Eden Bay were having to deal with.
Yep. Complete silence.
There were still clothes strewn all over the floor though. And just the faintest lingering scent of cheap spray-on men’s deodorant.
In a way, I’d gotten lucky. I was the only person in Eden Bay without an unwanted and unexpected house guest. Because mine was dead. Well, lucky wasn’t really the right word, but I did appreciate the peace and quiet as I went about my business. My head was still trying to process what Wells had suggested to me, so I started scrubbing the kitchen counter while I tried to clear my head and make sense of everything.
But peace and quiet only lasts for so long.
Bang-bang.
Matt was knocking on the door and when I opened it, I saw that it was not only my bother there but my sweet-but-naughty niece J as well. She was jumping up and down, clearly excited to have a sleepover at her Aunty Alyson’s house. “There is no room at my house with the two new houseguests I have,” Matt said as he passed me J’s overnight bag. “And I know that you have…er, room now.”
Of course I was more than happy for J to come and stay, but I couldn’t help pointing out that no one made Matt volunteer to take not one but TWO passengers from the cruise ship. I mean, these were rich cruise ship passengers, not refugees.
“I think we need to have a little chat, actually, Alyson,” he said, getting all serious.
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. It seemed suddenly as though there was another reason for his visit rather than just dropping J off. I settled J on the sofa with her cartoons and an iced chocolate and then joined Matt in the kitchen area where we were out of earshot. It was clear that he didn’t want her overhearing this conversation.
“I have a bit of news,” he said and there was an air of both nerves and excitement in his voice. He was a little breathless as he told me. “I’ve actually secured a bit of sponsorship.”
“For what?” I asked, completely confused. Matt worked as the manager of The VRI restaurant, so I had no idea what he would need sponsorship for.
“Surfing,” he said with a quiet laugh as he exhaled. “To join the amateur-pro circuit for the upcoming summer season. I won’t be paid much, but still, this is pretty much a dream come true for me.”
My mouth dropped open. “And you are going to go?”
“It’ll just be a short tour. Well, relatively,” he said. “Just four or five months.”
Wow. I was stunned. It’s going to sound bad, but I never really thought my brother had it in him to get actual sponsorship and to go on the tour circuit. I walked over to the other s
ide of the bar and gave him a huge hug. When I pulled back, he asked me, in all seriousness—and we were getting really serious now—if I would be able to be the full-time guardian of J while he was away.
“Of course I will, Matt. You don’t need to worry about that. I just want to make sure that you really want to do it?” I mean, I could see it was a great opportunity, but he also had a lot going on in Eden Bay. He had J, he had a new job as a restaurant manager, and he had all his friends and family in Eden Bay.
He nodded. “The timing is a little off. Or maybe it is perfect, actually…” he added, looking a little thoughtful.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it would probably be good to get away for a bit,” he said meaningfully. “It’s tough running into Claire all the time. It’s a small town.”
Oh, right. I hadn’t thought about that too much, but it had definitely been a little awkward since they had broken off their engagement. I hadn’t had to take sides or anything—they were super friendly and civil—but there was still an underlying tension.
“And are you going to tell her?” I asked him. “That you are going away for almost half a year?”
He shook his head. “I was hoping to just avoid her for the time being.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Because that is what I have been instructed to do as well.”
Matt glanced over his shoulder at J, who was still slurping on her iced chocolate and watching her shows. “Yeah. I read the paper. It is kind of crazy. What they are saying about you and Claire I mean. I think the police are right—you shouldn’t speak with her until this is all straightened out.”
Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set Page 105