Page 25 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“It was fun hiking with you and Brie,” I said.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” Sherry said, pinning me down with a cold stare. “I know exactly what you’re up to.”

“I—what?” I was at a complete loss.

“This little innocent girl next door persona does not work on me. You befriended Brie thinking that would give you a leg up

with Andrew. He’s mine , and you need to back off.”

I was speechless. Where had she got the idea that I was interested in Andrew Locke? Because we had a conversation? Or because

Brie and I were friendly?

I hadn’t been expecting this confrontation, and I didn’t know how to respond. I thought back to the hike. Brie did kind of

give Sherry the cold shoulder, but did Sherry think I had something to do with that?

“I know women like you, Mia ,” she snapped. “Single, coming to St. Claire, clearly looking for a sugar daddy. Not going to happen with my boyfriend.”

“I don’t want your boyfriend.”

“I need to bond with Brie, and you’re getting in the way.”

“That’s not my intention,” I said trying not to let my voice quiver. “Brie and I are closer in age, and—”

“Oh, please . You’re not that young. Stay away from Brie, and stay away from Andrew. I mean it. ”

The cold anger on her face threw me. Before I could respond, she walked out.

I had been afraid my perception of Sherry Morrison was tainted by Brie’s feelings toward her dad’s girlfriend, but clearly

Brie had reason to dislike her other than the mere fact she was dating her dad. I put Sherry high on my list of people to

google when I got back to my cottage.

Anyone who felt so threatened by a virtual stranger might have enough anger to kill.

It took me a minute to calm down after the confrontation with Sherry before walking across the hall to Ginger’s suite. “I’m

sorry I’m late,” I said to the petite brunette with pale eyes. “I took a shower because I felt icky after my hike.”

“Do not worry,” she said in a soft, soothing voice, and motioned for me to disrobe and lie on the table. “When you reserved

the massage, you indicated no allergies to any scents?”

“Correct.”

“Do you have a preference? Or would you like unscented oils?”

I hadn’t thought about scents. I didn’t know what to say. Was I supposed to look at a display, like nail polish when I got

a pedicure and picked a color? I rarely even wore perfume.

“Do you have plans this evening?” Ginger asked, recognizing my indecision.

“The luau... then I’m meeting someone on the beach.” I wondered what Jason would like?

“A romantic interlude?” she asked.

“I hope,” I said before I could stop myself. “I mean, I don’t know, just, um, maybe something light and fresh?”

“I have just the oil,” she said. “It’s my special blend. I call it sea jasmine. Not too strong, but wonderfully calming when

I add a hint of lavender. It’s fresh and romantic.”

“I trust you,” I said, and hoped my trust wasn’t misplaced.

“If you’d be more comfortable in a towel,” Ginger said, and motioned to a fluffy stack of white towels on a shelf.

I realized she was waiting for me to lie down. I hadn’t had a massage in years, but was glad I had a female masseuse. I took

a deep breath, smiled. “I’m fine.” I shrugged off the robe and lay face down on the table, which provided an open space for

my face so my spine remained straight.

As soon as Ginger’s small, strong hands started rubbing my muscles, I moaned.

“You are tense,” Ginger said. “Relax, clear your mind. Think of the ocean, the gentle push and pull of the waves.” As she

spoke, she moved her hands slowly and firmly over my upper body muscles. She was amazing. And the oil was perfect, floral

and salty, not too strong, and oh so relaxing. I almost forgot why I’d made this appointment in the first place.

Fifteen minutes into the process, when Ginger told me I was still tense, I found the opening I needed to ask her about Diana.

“I guess I’m tense because of last night.”

“Oh?”

“I was on the beach. When the Kents found Diana Harden’s body.”

Her hands paused. Then she cleared her throat and said, “That must have been awful.”

“And I’m trying to forget, but I can’t.”

“I can imagine,” Ginger said and moved from my shoulders to my right arm. “Relax, Ms. Crawford.”

“She came here before she disappeared,” I said.

“Mmm-hmm,” Ginger said vaguely.

“Did you help her?”

“Uh-huh,” Ginger answered in the affirmative. “If you want to relax, you need to empty your mind.”

She turned up the nature sounds, and it was impossible to ask questions without practically shouting. By the end of the hour,

she hadn’t shared anything I didn’t know. I had no idea what Diana had said or done that had made this sweet woman cry.

I did finally relax, as if I was melting on the table. When Ginger was done, I was half-asleep. She said in a soft, soothing

tone, “Stay here for a few minutes. I’ll be back with a refreshing smoothie.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I said because I couldn’t speak.

I thought about what the honeymooners had said about a couples massage, and then I pictured Jason on the table next to me,

a grin on his lips, his eyes half-closed, his body naked. Instead of being nervous and unsure, I smiled as I remembered how

he almost kissed me last night, the way he made me feel comfortable and desired. Maybe it was the island, maybe it was the

freedom that I could do something spontaneous and not think about every way it could go wrong. I wasn’t even all that upset

that I hadn’t been able to get Ginger to gossip about Diana.

My mind drifted to Amber and her conversation with Trina, demanding information about a book. I distinctly remembered at the

Sky Bar that the three staff members talked about packing up Diana’s room after she disappeared. If the book had been left

in her room, they would have packed it up with the rest of her belongings.

Which suggested that the book had been found elsewhere. Maybe on the beach. That made sense with the damaged pages and sand.

Yet why did Amber think it should be in the gift shop?

As security chief, Gino would have access to Diana’s belongings. Maybe that’s why Amber had talked to him. Had he allowed

her to go through Diana’s personal items? When she hadn’t found the book, maybe she went to housekeeping then to the gift

shop then back to Gino to complain it was still missing.

But I had Diana’s book.

I needed to be more careful with it.

I returned to my room to get ready for the Caribbean luau.

I really didn’t know much about what Diana was doing, other than likely blackmailing people on the island.

Now she was dead. Was it all that big a leap to assume that she was killed because she’d blackmailed the wrong person?

I didn’t think so. But because I didn’t understand most of Diana’s shorthand, I didn’t know exactly who she had blackmailed—or attempted to blackmail.

Just because she was tracking the net worth of her fellow guests didn’t mean

that she had confronted them with a deep, dark secret they would kill to keep buried.

Why write in a stupid code anyway? I thought as I applied a bit of makeup to my tan face—I’d definitely gotten some sun today,

and it looked good. Mid-swipe with my bronzer, I remembered the missing page—the stolen page. I had an idea.

I quickly dressed, then retrieved the book and my notebook from the safe. After leaving them out when housekeeping was here,

I’d decided to be more discreet.

I turned to chapter twenty-eight. I didn’t know who had torn the page out, or why, but surmised it was because Diana had written

something about them—and it was only on this page. How they knew, I could only guess. But there was a reason they took it,

and I wanted to know what it was.

And I knew how to make the words magically appear.

I took the book to the desk and dug a pencil out of the bottom of my laptop case, then turned on the lamp. Every crime show

I watched used this trick.

I tilted the page under the light to see if I could detect an impression on the paper. There was something here, but I couldn’t

read it. Carefully, I rubbed the pencil over the paper, then turned it again under the light, straining to read what Diana

had written.

There were two distinct impressions. One in the margins on the front side of the page that had been torn out. I could barely make out the letters. There were too many missing let ters, which I replaced with x ’s hoping something would jump out at me. But the x could also mean a space.

I wrote them down, but they made no sense.

77 xxx emxxz $50 xxx xx 522 xxx carxx

The numbers were better defined than the letters, maybe because she was writing in script. I put it aside to look at later.

At the bottom of the back side of the page—at what would have been the end of the chapter—Diana had written a list of numbers.

11

19

157

52

210

I had no idea what they meant. A combination to a safe? My room safe required a six-digit code.

Maybe there was a hotel safe with a traditional combination? I still didn’t think the numbers went into the hundreds. Lottery

numbers didn’t go that high, either.

She could have mixed up numbers to hide their meaning, but there were too many digits for a Social Security number or a telephone

number. Unless there was an international code, which was usually two or three digits. So twelve digits would fit for some

countries.

Possible, but why write it out in five lines? The number 11 could be Canada or the United States, but then there would be

an extra number.

The last impression was a happy face. Two lines for eyes, a curve for the mouth, and a circle surrounding them. It was the

deepest impression on the page, next to the numbers.

The numbers also didn’t match with any of the other written numbers in the book, such as the 77 or 522.

I put my notebook aside. Whatever the numbers meant, they were the last thing Diana Harden had written in this book.

The party was starting, but I didn’t want to be the first one to arrive, so I took a glass of water to my patio along with

my laptop. After the late night and then hiking this afternoon, I was drained. I could fall asleep out here listening to the

ocean. Maybe I wouldn’t go to the luau at all.

I opened my laptop, and my finger itched to log in to the office just to make sure that everything was running smoothly. I

was responsible for other people’s money, and while I trusted Braden and I had left clear instructions for managing each client,

I had this nagging feeling that I needed to double-check every account.

Or, rather, triple-check, because I’d double-checked the day before I left, when I was supposed to be packing.

“Stop,” I told myself. Instead of hitting my employer website, I opened the search engine and typed Sherry Morrison.

Bad idea. There were a lot of Sherry Morrisons out there.

I typed: Sherry Morrison Andrew Locke

Bam. First link was a sports gossip magazine that had a photo of Sherry and Andrew at a football game last November.

The caption read: Former pitcher for the Dodgers and Braves, Andrew Locke, rooting for the Colts where his best friend and former college roommate

Richie Dunn is the interim offensive line coach. Locke seen here with his girlfriend, Sherilyn Morrison, an interior decorator.

Within ten minutes, I’d compiled a long list of articles that Sherry was featured in—or, rather, her boyfriend of any given moment was featured in, where she was also mentioned.

She had been attached to nine different professional sports players over the last ten years. Four, including Andrew, were retired.

I dug around a little more, curious as to why none of these relationships had lasted.

That’s when I found three separate engagement announcements.

The first resulted in her first marriage at twenty-one, which had ended in divorce three years later.

Her second engagement had been called off quite publicly when her fiancé—a professional football player—cheated on her.

Her third engagement ended in her second marriage.

.. and his death. They’d been married two years and two days when he’d died after a heart attack while they were on a romantic couples cruise for their anniversary.

Sherry had fought his adult children and ex-wife during probate, but his will was airtight, and she received only a small

portion of his estate—the house and a million dollars. Not that a million was anything to sniff at, but considering the man

had been a retired football player and was worth over one hundred million, her portion was a tiny fraction of his total estate.

One gossip rag had the dead husband’s daughter ranting about Sherry being responsible for her dad’s death.

“It wasn’t an accident. It was murder.”

But there had been no formal investigation. One article indicated cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest. The autopsy found

signs of heart disease.

Every article mentioned that Sherry was an interior decorator, and she had an LLC under Prestige Design Group, but her webpage

was bare-bones and hadn’t been updated in years.

One divorce and one dead husband in ten years. The first marriage lasted three years, the second two years. Was Andrew Locke

to be the third?

I didn’t want to tell Brie about this, but at the same time, wouldn’t Andrew already know that his girlfriend was divorced

and widowed? It seemed like a topic that would come up in conversation, since it was all public. I wouldn’t necessarily want to

know about my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriends, but I definitely would want to know if he’d been married before. That seemed important.

Maybe Brie knew. Maybe it didn’t bother her dad. It just bugged me that Diana had written about Sherry in the book, and not

in a flattering way. She wrote as if she knew specific dirt on Sherry.

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

No guarantee she’d written about Sherry, but who else here lived in Arizona and had brought their girlfriend to the island?

I might have to dig a little deeper on Ms. Sherilyn Morrison, interior designer.

My phone beeped with an incoming message, making me jump as I was so engrossed in online gossip. It was Brie. I felt surprisingly

guilty—and protective—about what I’d learned about Sherry.

Where you at? I have some tea.

I let out a deep breath, my bangs fluttering up. Guess I was going to the luau after all. I responded:

Getting dressed. Be there in a few.