Page 16 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“You only live twice:

Once when you are born

And once when you look death in the face.”

—Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

Jason took my beer, put it down next to his, and clasped my hand, motioning for me to come with him. He didn’t have to ask

twice; I wasn’t staying here alone after that scream.

Now I knew exactly what authors meant by blood-curdling .

Jason set a brisk pace down the main path, never letting go of my hand. We turned left before we were halfway back to the

lodge. He knew the island better than I did, but this path wasn’t well lit. No pretty white lights wrapped around tree trunks,

just a few lights embedded along a narrow stone path.

A minute later, we were on the beach, close to where the water rolled into the inlet we’d just left. Giant boulders separated

us from the cavern.

At first, I didn’t see anyone, though I heard sobs. Jason pulled me close to his side as we approached the shoreline, and

that’s when I saw the newlyweds huddled together in the sand. Had they seen a shark? Were there sharks here? Maybe a jellyfish,

or the carcass of a swordfish that rolled up with the surf.

“Mr. Kent, what happened?” Jason asked.

Mrs. Kent was sobbing, and Mr. Kent pointed toward the rocks.

“I don’t see anything,” I whispered.

Still holding hands, we walked carefully toward the rocks. The waves came in, went out. In, out. Gentle and constant. Seaweed

dotted the wet sand, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then the waves rolled out, revealing a large pile of kelp. I saw something

twisted inside the kelp. A large fish? Maybe garbage, or debris, or... I gasped when I thought I saw a hand.

It couldn’t be a hand.

The waves rolled over the mass, went out again, and then I stifled a scream.

“Ohmigod, Jason,” I said, my voice squeaky.

It was a hand. And the hand was attached to a body.

“Stay here,” Jason said.

I didn’t. I followed him as he stepped closer to the pile.

Kelp wrapped around the body so thickly I almost couldn’t tell if it was male or female, but the hand was elegant, the chipped

nails polished a bright pink. Each time the waves came in, they pushed her body an inch up the shore. When they rolled out,

they took her body half an inch back. The rhythm was grotesquely hypnotic.

The tide had dumped her here. She wore a long sundress, but I couldn’t tell what color it might have been. A scarf was wrapped

around her neck. Slowly, Jason and I walked around the body, keeping several feet away. Her eyes were open and opaque, her

mouth a loose O shape, her body bloated, skin mottled.

I’d read enough crime novels to know she’d been in the water for more than twenty-four hours.

“Oh, shit,” Jason whispered. “That’s Diana Harden, our missing guest.”

Before we could go to the lodge to find help, Gino Garmon and three security officers approached.

They must have heard the scream as well.

Gino took one look at the body and swore, then said, “Jason, take the guests back to the lodge. Tell Tristan what happened and ask him to contact the St. John police chief. We’ll stay with the body. ”

Jason didn’t move. He was still staring at the body.

“Now, Jason,” Gino commanded.

Then he noticed me. “Ms. Crawford.” He looked down, saw I was wearing only underwear and my T-shirt didn’t quite cover my

ass. I had lost my embarrassment with Jason. Now I found it again, but was too shocked at our discovery to blush.

“Jason,” I said quietly. “We need to go. Let them take care of her. Call the police.”

“Yeah. Right. Okay. Thanks, Gino.”

We went over to the newlyweds. Mrs. Kent was still sobbing. “Let’s go,” I said to her. “We need to contact the authorities,

and they’ll secure the crime scene.”

I almost laughed at myself. I sounded like a detective from my favorite police procedural.

Mr. Kent helped his wife up. Okay, I know seeing a dead body is shocking—this was my first in-real-life dead body, too—but

this woman’s near paralysis was a bit much.

“She’s dead! Who is she? Ohmigod!” Mrs. Kent whirled around and clutched Jason. “Is that her ? The missing woman?”

He nodded.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She could have had an accident. Maybe a boating accident. She didn’t return from St. John on Sunday.”

She must have returned because I don’t think a body could have floated nearly from St. John to St. Claire in two days. I didn’t

know exactly how tides worked, but it didn’t seem realistic—especially since she didn’t appear, at first glance, to have been

nibbled on by fish.

Mr. Kent put his arm around his wife’s waist as the four of us walked along the beach until we reached the lodge. It was after

midnight and the Blue Dahlia was closed, but the bar in the main lodge was still open. The music was low, and several guests

talked and laughed.

“I’m taking my wife to our room,” Mr. Kent said, breaking the awkward silence.

Jason said, “The police will want to talk to you.”

“Tonight?” Mrs. Kent asked, her voice high and whiny.

“Maybe,” Jason said. “I don’t know. I’ll tell them you went to your suite.”

I asked, “How did you find her?”

The couple glanced at each other. “We, uh, were having a moment on the beach. And, um, something rolled up next to me,” Mrs.

Kent said.

A moment on the beach. Just like the moment in the ocean this afternoon that I’d interrupted. They must have been rabbits in a previous life.

“I thought it was a giant clump of seaweed, but then I saw her eyes.” She shivered. That’s when I noticed that they weren’t

wearing shoes and, in the lodge lighting, I could see Mrs. Kent had no clothes on under her filmy cover-up. Mr. Kent’s shorts

were on inside out.

Maybe a dead woman interrupting their sex on the beach rendezvous would turn them off of excessive PDA. Yet my “rescue” this

afternoon hadn’t stopped them from sex in public, so I don’t know what would.

Then I looked down at my bare legs. I wanted to disappear.

“Don’t think about it.” Mr. Kent steered his wife through the lodge toward their cabin.

“Are you okay?” Jason asked me.

“I should be asking you the same thing. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Cliché, I know, but truth.”

“I didn’t—I mean, I knew who she was. I didn’t think she was dead. I thought she went to St. John to wait for her girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

“She complained Saturday that her girlfriend was late and ruining their first vacation in a year. She was irritated and—I

shouldn’t be telling you this. We have a strict policy not to talk about other guests. I’m sorry. I need to talk to my manager.

I’ll walk you back to your cabin.”

“I’m fine,” I said. He didn’t look like he believed me. “Really, I promise I’m okay.”

“I’m still escorting you back to your room,” he said and took my hand. We walked down the path that led to the private cottages.

It seemed I was less disturbed by the events than Jason was. I thought there must be more to this than he was saying—things

he must know about Diana and her disappearance. But like he’d said, staff wasn’t supposed to talk about guests. But they would talk to the police.

Maybe, deep down, I’d been thinking all day that Diana Harden was dead. People didn’t just go missing and leave all their

stuff behind on a Caribbean island unless something bad happened.

We didn’t speak on the short walk to my cottage. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, though. I’m sure Jason was thinking about

all the things he needed to do, and I was wondering how Diana Harden had ended up dead on the beach.

I stopped outside my door. “If the police want to talk to me, I’ll—” My voice faltered as he gave me a half smile, and it

was so sexy that all thoughts of the body on the beach disappeared. I blinked as he stared, a jolt of lust hitting me. Jason

stood so close, too close, and then he brought our joined hands to his lips. The feathery kiss on my palm left me speechless.

He said, “I’d like a do-over.”

“What?” I knew what he meant, but now I was stalling, trying to regain my balance and composure.

“At the lagoon. Tomorrow? Same time?” He leaned in, almost kissed me. “Please?”

“Okay.” I couldn’t believe I’d agreed. A thrill ran up and down my spine in anticipation. And nerves. And lust. And a hint

of fear. These feelings, this attraction, wasn’t just in my imagination. It was real. For both of us.

“Great.” He casually ran his fingers through my damp hair, then stepped back. I breathed easier... yet I had hoped he would

kiss me.

Really? Now, right after seeing a dead body, you’re thinking about kissing an almost-stranger?

Well, they did it in all the romantic suspense novels I loved. Why not here and now?

“Be careful,” Jason said. “I mean, I don’t think anything criminal happened to Ms. Harden. It was probably an accident, but

until we know exactly what happened, watch yourself.”

“I will. You too.”

I reached for my pocket... but it wasn’t there. My room card key was in the pocket of my jeans, which were still at the

lagoon.

“Dammit!”

Jason reached into his pocket and pulled out a card key. “I have a master,” he said. “Do you mind?”

“Thank you,” I said as he unlocked my door. “I’ll get dressed and go get my things.”

“It’s late. I’ll have someone bring them to you.”

“You don’t have to—”

He put his finger on my lips. I couldn’t breathe as my pulse quickened, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I

almost asked him to come in, but didn’t. All these unexpected feelings washed over me. I needed to sort through things, regain

some control over this situation that had gone from flirting to lust way too fast.

“Stay put,” he whispered.

I nodded because I couldn’t speak. He smiled, then walked away.

It took me a minute to breathe normally again, and I was grinning—until I saw my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My hair

was tangled and frizzy. No sexy windswept-in-the-sea-breeze look. The makeup I’d put on before the Sky Bar had given me raccoon

eyes because I hadn’t planned on diving into the ocean. And my filthy shirt stopped halfway down my ass, revealing now grubby-looking

pink underwear.

I took a very long hot shower, shampooed and conditioned my hair.

My feet were sore, and when I got out, I saw little cuts on them.

I rubbed lotion all over my body, put fuzzy socks on my feet, then wrapped myself in one of the fluffy bathrobes.

I grabbed a can of nuts from the gift basket in the living area of the cottage and went out to the beachside patio.

On the beach where we had found Diana Harden’s body, there were bright lights set up highlighting several people, but they

were too far away for me to make out what anyone was doing. I ate the nuts and considered what might have happened to her.

Accident was the most likely answer, but her disappearance was suspicious. She had a scarf wound around her neck in a way

that didn’t look like she’d have done it herself.

The book.

I went back inside, pulled Diana’s book out of my bag, then sat down on the comfy bed and read through the comments in the

margins.

Everything began to click into place.

Comments about people on the island—other guests that she seemed to know a lot about, including their net worth and properties

they owned. The old man, the catty comments, numbers that made no sense at all to me, but must have meant something to Diana.

It was the dollar signs and calculations of net worth that gave me the final clue.

Was Diana Harden blackmailing someone? She was obsessed with money. The comment about scoring and including dollar signs.

Had she been paid to keep a secret? Or had someone agreed to pay her, she met them Sunday on St. John, and something very

bad happened?

Maybe her death wasn’t an accident.

Maybe someone had killed her.