Page 154 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“One of the other staff members killed him! Killed that woman too!” Mr. Kent exclaimed.

“We don’t know that,” I said.

“That’s what everyone is saying,” Mrs. Kent said.

I felt for Georgie. Everyone thought he was guilty.

Tristan sat down next to me. “Hello, hello, hello,” he said to everyone at the table. Parker and Amber sat at the end. Amber was looking at me, imploring me to give her the papers. I shook my head. I knew what the papers meant, and I was pretty certain that when the truth came out about what Parker Briggs did to Ethan Valentine, he would have no clout to kill her career.

“How are you this evening, Ms. Crawford?” Tristan asked.

“Great,” I said.

He nodded, steepled his fingers in front of him. “I’m glad to see you’ve bounced back from your ordeal the other night. And this little hiccup tonight, hopefully everyone will have a pleasant evening.”

There had been a lot of “hiccups” recently.

“I heard the police have a suspect in Diana’s murder,” I said to Tristan. I made sure the rest of the table could hear me. I wanted to see their reactions. Mostly, I wanted to see Amber’s reaction. She still hadn’t told anyone that Diana was her girlfriend, and she didn’t seem to be all that broken up about her death. She was more concerned about what Parker might do to her career—even though she was sitting with him at the table.

These people weresounlikeable.

“Yes,” Tristan said, “I knew between Gino and the St. John police that they would resolve this situation. I’m still shocked that Gino is dead. He was more than a colleague. He was a friend.”

Mrs. Kent said, “I heard it was a staff member who killed her.”

“That is who the police suspect,” Tristan said, his voice calm and clear. “He’s not on the island. No one has anything to worry about. In fact, St. Claire is giving everyone a complimentary weekend to use anytime in the next two years. This week has been highly unusual, and on behalf of the staff, we want you to leave feeling refreshed and satisfied.”

He smiled broadly, the consummate salesman.

Sherry burst out of the tent, Kalise at her heels. “You’ve all ruined my life!” she exclaimed. “But I’ll come out on top. I always do.”

“Shut up,” Amber snapped at her.

“Oh, Amber Jones,” Sherry mocked, “the actress, the model, thewhore.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” Amber said.

“Get a lawyer,” I told Sherry. “I have photos of you paying a man on St. John, and when Brie makes her statement and identifies him in a lineup, I’m pretty certain he’ll squeal to avoid serious jail time.”

Sherry stared at me with deep hatred. “You.”She rushed me, but Jason intervened and motioned for staff to remove Sherry from the Sky Bar.

Tristan jumped up and announced, “Dinner is served.” He motioned to the servers to take care of our table first.

I had to hand it to him. Tristan did a good job of mediating what could have been an awful scene.

The food smelled amazing as the servers placed a perfect plate of steak and seared fish in front of me. I sampled a bite of each and almost moaned. Delicious.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about what Parker Briggs had done to Ethan Valentine. I didn’t know if he would go to jail for it, but he would definitely be censured by his board, and no one in the financial world would trust him.

Stealing intellectual property was a crime.

I couldn’t give Amber or him the papers and let the truth remain buried. It would make me as awful as they were. So I said, loud enough for Parker to hear, “Tristan, do you know how to reach Ethan Valentine?”

“Of course, I can reach him at any time, but why would I need to?”

He sounded nervous. Maybe he hadn’t told Valentine about Diana’s murder or everything else happening on the island—including Gino’s embezzlement of funds, if I had read Diana’s notes correctly. But he would definitely want to tell Valentine about what I’d found.

I pulled the papers from my purse, held them up. “Mr. Valentine might be interested in these documents,” I said loud and clear. I handed them to Tristan, confident that he would be the best person to get them to their rightful owner.