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“Oh, Trevor, I’m so sad,” CeeCee said. Then she saw me and waved. “Mia! Hi, Mia, remember me from yesterday?”
“CeeCee,” Trevor said quietly—but loud enough for me to hear, “you’re shouting.”
CeeCee kissed him on the cheek, then ran over to me.
“Would you like one of my crepes?” I said. “I’m stuffed.” Which was true.
“You’resosweet. But we’ll go to the restaurant.” She glanced over her shoulder. Trevor was talking to the bartender and didn’t look happy. The few times I’d seen him, he had never smiled.
CeeCee plucked a strawberry off my plate and ate it. Normally, such an act would annoy me, but with CeeCee, I didn’t care. Maybe because I felt a bit sorry for her. She seemed so clueless about what an asshole her boyfriend was to her. Plus Ihadoffered her a crepe.
I was about to introduce CeeCee to Luis when she sighed dramatically. “Ilovethis bar and how it just opens up to the beach andeverything!” She spread her arms wide, closed her eyes, and smiled up at the sun.
A comment from the margins of Diana’s book popped into my head.
Why do unhappily married men always go for bimbos?
I’d stayed up way too late last night reading Diana Harden’s cryptic notes. And they might not mean anything. She could have simply been catty and bored waiting for her girlfriend. She probably wasn’t talking about Trevor and CeeCee.
But she could have been.
“CeeCee, let’s go,” Trevor said from the bar. He looked pointedly at his watch. “I have a conference call in ninety minutes.”
“Mia,” CeeCee said, “do you want to go on a hike with me this afternoon to the top of the mountain?” She pointed vaguely north. “Trevor will be in meetingsall day. It’s not a difficult trail, but it would be fun, and the pictures I saw areso pretty.”
She looked... well, a bit too hopeful, as if expecting me to say no.
“Sure,” I said. “After lunch?”
CeeCee grinned widely. “One thirty. We’ll meet right here.” She patted the table. “Ta-ta!” She waved and walked off with Trevor.
I realized then that CeeCee hadn’t said anything to Luis. “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I tried to introduce you, but...” I didn’t finish what I planned to say because I didn’t want to be rude. “I think that’s just how she is. I don’t think she meant to offend you.”
“No offense taken,” he said with that knowing half smile again. “People see what they want to see. You see quite a bit.”
Luis’s comment was cryptic, but maybe that’s just the way he talked. I preferred cryptic Luis over melodramatic CeeCee.
“Not enough,” I said, thinking about how I’d “saved” the honeymooners in the ocean. I finished my mimosa and leaned back in the comfortable chair. I couldn’t eat the last few bites of crepe. I didn’t know if I’d be able to eat for the rest of the day.
“How are you doing after last night’s grisly discovery?” Luis asked kindly.
“Okay,” I said. “It feels surreal now. Had you met her? The guest who went missing. Who, um, died.” I hoped I didn’t sound too nosy.
He turned to me, eyebrow raised, as if he knew there was more to my question than vague curiosity.
“I saw her several times,” he said. “When you’re old like me, people tend to not really see you.”
That made me sad, though Luis didn’t go out of his way to be noticed. Maybe he liked being invisible.
“Do you think her death was an accident?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“But you must have an idea.”
Did I sound overly eager?
“I mean,” I continued quickly, “it seems suspicious that she goes to St. John and no one sees her for more than two days, and then she washes up on the beach of St. Claire. It’s too far for a body to float that fast without, um, a lot of damage.”