Page 18 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

I would be able to comfortably retire and live within a budget for thirty years, but I doubted I’d retire that young. Ideally,

when I accepted my promotion, I would put my raise into a second retirement fund and build up a larger portfolio. By sixty-five,

I would be able to take one very nice trip a year. I’d never be able to live like this—full-time at an all-inclusive private

island like St. Claire. While the resort was beautiful and peaceful, it was also extravagant and wasteful. Even if I had the money, I wouldn’t squander it.

But for the first time, I considered maybe retirement could look different from my plan to buy a small house in Connecticut and travel two weeks a year.

I wouldn’t live on an island, but maybe a quaint beach town in South Carolina or Florida.

And if I planned carefully, I could take a vacation to the Caribbean every couple of years.

I would be thirty tomorrow. I was planning my life after sixty-five and all the things I would do then because I had a compulsive need to be financially secure now . What about the next thirty-five years? Was life about working hard and then having fun? I thought about Jane and Amanda,

who’d balanced their careers with dating. Now Amanda was married and trying to get pregnant, and Jane would soon be married,

and they’d both have families, and I would still be alone.

Suddenly, my eyes burned with unshed tears, and I felt so sad that it made me angry. I was here on the most beautiful island

on the planet, and I was making myself depressed.

I saw Luis watching me. What was he thinking? Did he feel sorry for me? Because right now I felt sorry for myself. I forced

a smile.

“You are a very serious young woman,” Luis said. “But when you smile, you’re as beautiful as a dahlia.”

“Thank you,” I said, knowing he was trying to cheer me up. “What did you do before you retired?”

“Oh, this and that,” he said.

That wasn’t an answer.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Everywhere.”

“I mean, where were you raised.”

“I was born in Texas.”

I don’t know why, but his answer surprised me. His slight accent sounded more foreign than Texas, as if he had been born here

in the islands.

“My father enlisted in the Navy after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. That was nine months before I was born. He’d never been on a ship before, but he loved it.

When he came back, I was a little tot. He had jobs that took him to the sea.

He shared his love of the ocean with me.

Then he got into a bit of trouble with the law, and we—my dad, my ma, me—we traveled on a boat all over the world.

Settled for a time in Spain, where I met the love of my life. I was sixteen. She was nineteen.”

His eyes became glassy with the memory.

“My parents left. I stayed. Married Maria, and we had a wonderful life.”

I could picture their epic love story and wanted to know more. What happened to Maria? How did he end up on the island? They

must have had children, and one of his children, or maybe grandchildren, worked here. The way he spoke was both old-fashioned

and romantic and everything that made a great historical romance. A young boy from Texas whisked off because his dad was a

criminal, traveling the high seas and finding true love in a faraway land with a princess...

Well, Maria probably wasn’t a princess, but a princess in Luis’s eyes.

Before I could ask more about his story, I spotted Brie walking up from the beach and heading right to our table.

“Hi, Luis,” she said, then turned to me. “Spill the tea.”

“What?” I was confused.

“Ohmigod, you know what I mean! You found Diana Harden’s body!”

I glanced around to make sure no one was listening. I didn’t want to be a gossip, though I was sort of dying to talk to someone about it. So what if the only person interested was an eighteen-year-old?

“I didn’t find her body,” I said.

Brie leaned forward. “I heard the sex addicts rolled on top of her.”

With a glance at Luis, who seemed amused at our conversation, I said, “That was my impression.”

“And?” Brie pushed. “I know you were there. Gino was talking about it with Tristan. I tried to get Kalise to spill, but she

can be so tight-lipped. And I can’t find Jason anywhere.”

Now I was blushing.

“Ohmigod!” Brie exclaimed again. “You were with Jason .”

“I wasn’t with Jason. We were, just, well, at the same place at the same time.”

Brie wasn’t listening to me. Her mouth spread into the first real smile that I’d seen in the twenty-four hours I’d known her.

Her clear blue eyes lit up with humor. “I totally knew it.”

There was no way I was talking about Jason with a teenager and in front of Luis. Last night was all mine, and I wanted to

keep it that way.

Clearing the hot bartender from my thoughts, I said, “ Anyway , yes, Jason and I heard screams and went to see what happened. Diana was dead, tangled in a pile of kelp. She must have been

brought in with the tide, but she’d been dead for a while. Maybe even since she went missing on Sunday.”

“Were you there when the police came? What did they say?”

I shook my head. “There was no reason to stay. I thought they might talk to me last night, but no one came by. I’m sure they’ll

be around to ask questions.”

I glanced around the resort, but nothing appeared different from yesterday. People on the beach, a few lounging in the sun,

a small water aerobics class in the shallow half of the pool. The yoga class had broken up, and one of the women was talking

to the instructor, standing very close. More people had come into the bar, laughing.

Did no one else care that a woman had died?

Maybe no one knew. CeeCee hadn’t said anything, and I suspected if she knew, it would have been the first thing she mentioned.

“How did you hear about it?” I asked Brie.

“Who doesn’t know? I was chilling on the balcony last night—” she vaguely gestured to one of the larger private cabins on the cliffs “—and saw two boats come in late. No one comes at night, so I went down to see what was going on. I thought maybe a celeb or something, though they usually come in on a helicopter. I got real close to where they were set up and hid in the trees until Gino saw me and actually called my dad.” She rolled her eyes. “Jerk. I’m eighteen, a legal adult.”

“Did the police say anything?”

“Not much that I could hear,” Brie admitted. “The coroner from St. John was there, said she’d been in the water for around

forty-eight hours.”

I glanced at Luis, but he didn’t appear to be listening to our conversation. He was looking out at the water again, his eyes

shaded by sunglasses, and I wondered if he had fallen asleep.

Diana had disappeared Sunday morning. She could have died anytime between then and maybe Sunday night, which was forty-eight

hours before she was discovered. How long could a body stay submersed? Had she been there all along, weighed down until a

rope broke? I hadn’t seen a rope, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been one.

Kalise entered the Blue Dahlia and walked over to our table. “Ms. Locke, Mr. Caruso, if you’ll please excuse me, I need Ms.

Crawford.”

Brie looked excited. I thanked Luis for having breakfast with me.

“Anytime, Mia, anytime,” he said. He rose, stretched, bowed to Brie, and headed leisurely down the beach.

I glanced at Brie as I walked out of the Blue Dahlia. She pointed to herself and made a motion with her hand, indicating she

wanted me to find her later, probably to tell her what I learned about Diana’s death.

Maybe I would.