Page 10 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.”

—Gabriel García Márquez

Secret. What secret? Was this unknown destroyer of books writing about people here on the island?

That seemed far-fetched and rather ludicrous.

Yet... I felt surprisingly like her confidante, her friend. As if she were writing these notes for me. Silly, I know, but

still... it was exciting to be privy to information both tantalizing and intimate. She was Harriet the Spy, and I had found

her secret diary.

Over the top of the book, I looked around, sunglasses masking the direction of my gaze.

David, Doug, and the two men they’d been drinking with were now playing a friendly game of beach volleyball, away from the

reclining sun worshippers.

A couple—the couple from the ferry who I hadn’t spoken with—argued in a nearby cabana. I only recognized them from the man’s

bright flowered shorts. What were they fighting about? Maybe this vacation was their one last chance to save their marriage.

I glanced down at the book, half expecting to see commentary about the couple in the margins, but they were new on the island,

and my compatriot couldn’t have spied on them.

Brie watched her dad and his girlfriend walk hand in hand along the edge of the water.

Though Brie’s face was blank, her body was tense, practically screaming in silent rage.

She watched until they disappeared from view.

I could relate to Brie in some ways—my mom had walked away when I was six and my dad had dated on and off.

He’d once told me that after my mom left—a beautiful woman who was never happy—he didn’t have the energy to fall in love again. I asked him if he was lonely.

“No, I’m content with my life.”

I wanted to be happy, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t want to end up like my mother, never happy with anything or anyone,

or my father, being merely content.

“Stop being so melancholy,” I whispered and opened the book again.

How much will he pay for me to keep his secret?

Whose secret was she keeping?

One of the guests? One of the staff? Maybe there would be more clues in the book.

Both stories were interesting—the book and the writing in the margins. A thrill ran up my spine and had me reaching for my drink. I had two mysteries to solve. I had

the missing woman and the identity of Harriet the Spy. Plus, who were the people she was writing about? Were they still here? The idea that I might

share in this treasure trove of secrets kept me reading, book in one hand, drink in the other.

At the end of chapter two, the graffiti artist had penned:

Money or love? Money, of course—he’s worth a small fortune. Does he know all the dirt on his new girlfriend?

Below that, written in a different color, as if added later:

112 ~ est. net $80–90m, AZ residence $5m+, vacation house $3m

Why would this person be tracking anyone’s net worth? Maybe the second note had nothing to do with what was written above. It was the same person—I could tell by the penmanship—but written at a different time.

Harriet was being catty. Why was anyone who dated someone wealthy, man or woman, suspected of being a gold digger?

She could be right. Harriet might in fact have a better grasp of human nature than most. Bookish people were often more observant.

I have more than one wealthy client who had been the target of unscrupulous con artists. One of my favorite clients, a sweet

seventy-year-old retired secretary, had invested five percent of her paycheck every week and every bonus for over forty years

in the company she worked for—IBM. When she retired, she was worth more than $10 million. She’d been scammed once—lost over

$100,000—and then was romanced by a younger man who wanted her to cash out her investment fund so that they could travel the

world together. Fortunately, her children talked her out of it.

So yes, there were assholes out there in the world, though preying on a senior citizen was a lot different than dating a wealthy

man.

The running commentary in the margins was both salacious and addictive. Who was Harriet writing about? Trevor and CeeCee?

Andrew and Sherry? Another unmarried couple on the island?

I flipped through the pages, looking for something like a receipt or a room key that might identify the previous owner. Dozens

of passages were highlighted. Notes dotted the margins, all written in the same handwriting.

About two thirds through the book, the writing stopped... and at the page headed Chapter Thirty-Two , I found a business card that had likely been used as a bookmark.

She writes in books but doesn’t dog-ear pages... she gets a point for that.

The business card read:

Broussard Antiques & Collectibles

The address was in New Orleans, Louisiana. Why did that sound familiar? I had never been to New Orleans. But I knew I recently read something about New Orleans.

I left the card sticking up and continued to read, finding myself reading faster than usual with an eye on the margins to

discover what my new friend wrote next. A few words in the text were underlined or circled, but I couldn’t make any sense

of them with no accompanying notes. Home? Child? Port?

In the middle of chapter three, an entire paragraph was underlined:

“I told your dad years ago, when you were just a pup, that the Santa Regina was cursed. He told me curses can be broken. Be

careful, Gabrielle. The coins showing up now... I don’t think this is the work of divine providence.”

In the margins was written what appeared to be a math equation:

$2.7m—bonds + $350K - bank + property $4m 5% @ $200K—convert into gold? Check business net. 2012, $1m liquid–more? (If I’d

have known there was so much potential here I would have come years ago!)

Potential? What did that mean? Whoever she was writing about didn’t have the wealth of the first person with more property and net worth, but they

certainly weren’t paupers.

I started flipping through the pages, not reading the book but looking for the comments, more interested in the story in the

margins.

At the end of one chapter, Harriet had circled a snippet of dialogue—an argument between the hero and heroine—and written:

Fool me once, shame on me? Hell no. Why do people think they can walk all over anyone they think is weak? Do they think I’m stupid? I haven’t been stupid since I walked out of the house when I was 18 and took control of my life...

I leaned back and wondered about this woman. She was self-confident, a take-control type who didn’t let people push her aside.

She would have told Amber Jones to move out of her way.

A scream from the ocean startled me. I looked up and didn’t see anyone. The volleyball players were gone. Brie had left. A

couple I hadn’t seen before were walking south on the beach, toward the dock. A family played a good fifty yards away, kids

running in and out of the surf, laughing.

It must have been the kids, I thought, scanning the ocean.

A head bobbed up out of the calm water, then went back down again. I jumped up, the book falling to my lounge chair. Someone

was in trouble.

I called out, “Help! Someone’s drowning!” as I kicked off my flip-flops and ran to the water’s edge. The lazy waves rolled

over my feet, then back. Was there an undertow here? Or had a swimmer cramped? Or maybe someone was tangled in seaweed, the

tide rolling in and out over them.

Quickly, I waded into the water, then dove against the gentle surf, taking long strokes toward the bobbing head. The water

was refreshing, not cold. A minute later I stopped, looked around me for any sign of life, fearing I was too late and a freak

accident had taken someone’s life. My toes just barely touched the sandy ocean floor. Flora or fauna caressed my ankle, and

I shivered in surprise. The water was clear. I could almost see the bottom. Something bright pink was floating under the surface.

Twenty feet from me, a man surfaced and groaned. He was hurt. “I’m coming!” I called out to him, and swam over.

He looked at me, his face twisted, and he groaned again, his entire body convulsing. He must have been stung by a jellyfish

and was having a seizure.

“Take my hand. It’s not too deep. I’ll help you to shore,” I said, reaching for him.

At that moment, I recognized him. The honeymooner. Where was his wife? Was she lost at sea?

Then she surfaced, taking a deep breath and laughing. “Oh, God, honey! That was amazing. I lost my bottoms. Let’s go find

it.” She was about to go under again when her husband pulled her toward him and stared at me.

“Hi,” he said.

I wasn’t an idiot. Okay, I was an idiot, I just wasn’t stupid. I put two and two together and got sex on the beach .

“I—didn’t mean—sorry—I thought—” I was making the uncomfortable situation even more awkward.

The wife finally noticed me. “Oh,” she said. Then she brightened. “Mia?”

“Yes?” My voice was a whisper.

She pointed next to me. “Grab that for me, will you?”

I looked. Her pink bikini bottoms were floating just beneath the surface. I tossed them to her. She wiggled into them, half

swimming, half bouncing off the ocean floor. I wanted to disappear, to float out to sea and never be seen again. Instead,

I was frozen, looking up at the sky to avoid looking down through the far-too-clear water at their nearly naked bodies.

She smiled at her husband and said, “I love you, Mr. Kent.”

He grabbed his wife’s waist and pulled her to him, making her giggle. “I love you, Mrs. Kent.”

I stared. They weren’t going to—not with me just five feet away. Then they smiled at me, and Mrs. Kent wiggled her fingers

and said, “See you later!” They half swam, half walked to shore.

I stayed right where I was, the waves softly hitting me, worried that someone might realize what had happened. I watched the

pair walk up the beach, heading toward their cabin, her hand down the back of his swim trunks. The family was still playing,

oblivious to what had just happened.