Page 37 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“Sometimes we need to take big risks if we want to find out who we are.”

—Meg Cabot, Queen of Babble

Thick trees with heavy, wide leaves shadowed the St. Claire Peak trail. The dank dirt made me sneeze, and I quickly put a

hand to my mouth, hoping Amber and Parker hadn’t heard me.

“Don’t worry,” Brie whispered. “They’re too far ahead of us to hear anything.”

She couldn’t know that, I thought.

Brie gestured to the packed dirt trail. Because it was damp, we could easily follow their tracks.

The trail wound up the mountain in a steady incline. I felt it in my calves, still sore from our hike yesterday and traipsing

around St. John this morning.

Halfway up the mountain, there was a fork. Neither was marked. “Which one?” Brie asked.

It had only taken us fifteen minutes to get to this point, so it was still light enough to see. We could continue south or

turn right. The right path was steeper, the southern path narrower. Both looked partly overgrown.

“To the right,” Brie said, answering her own question. “See? Their tracks.”

Their footprints were clear in the damp soil. Parker had been wearing Top-Siders. I could see part of the Sperry logo clearly in several spots. Amber was wearing Chacos. I recognized the sandal pattern because I had a pair myself.

I was impressed. “Good eyes, Brie.”

“When my dad played ball, he sent me to camp for summer. I learned some cool stuff.”

Though sunset was still two hours away, the farther we went, the darker the trail became. In a few spots, a railing marked

a particularly precarious edge. Other sections we navigated through dense bushes. The trail lights weren’t on yet, and we

had to pay careful attention so we didn’t venture down an unmarked path. The resort’s outdoor lighting turned on one hour

before sunset, and I hoped these did as well. If they didn’t, we’d have to use our cell phone flashlights to find our way

back.

“Where does this trail go?” I asked Brie, my voice low partly because of the environment, and partly because I didn’t know

how far Amber and Parker were ahead of us.

“There’s a vista point about three quarters of the way up. Then there are three trails. One is usually closed. It goes to

the helipad and then Ethan Valentine’s house beyond that. One goes over the mountain, past the lake, and then down to the

West Beach—I’ve been there many times, but we usually take a boat back. The path is fine to go down, but it’s really tough

coming back up.”

“The third trail?”

“To the Sky Bar.”

I frowned. “This isn’t the way we went up the other night.”

“This is the longer scenic route.”

“The dark and scary route,” I muttered.

“It’s pretty in the morning,” Brie said.

Voices ahead had us stopping. Brie clutched my arm.

At first, we couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying. I motioned for Brie to stay, and I slowly crept down the path,

careful where I stepped, hoping to hear. Instead of staying, Brie followed me.

“You’re just making this up as you go along, aren’t you, Amber?” Parker said.

“I’m not making anything up,” Amber snapped. “She wrote in code. It’s an educated guess. Do you have a better idea?”

“Fine, but I swear, Amber, if we don’t find those documents soon, you’re going to pay.”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, her voice fading as they walked away.

I wanted to follow, but the trail both straightened and widened. We might be seen.

“What do you think?” I asked Brie.

“They’re looking for the documents you overheard them talking about earlier.”

“Right, but why would Diana hide documents outdoors? Wouldn’t they get damaged?”

Brie shrugged.

Though I didn’t know what they were looking for, they had stolen my book, and I wanted to see what they were doing. We continued up the trail until there was a fork.

“Where’s the path that goes to the West Beach?” I asked.

She pointed. “It’s off-limits at night. Too dangerous.”

“So, which way did they go? They must be going to the Sky Bar, right?” I said. “If they’re looking for papers, they’d be protected

from the elements there.” But they must be well hidden if no one on staff found them.

“Hold on,” Brie said, and disappeared down the path leading to the beach.

She returned a full minute later.

“Don’t do that again,” I said.

“They went down there. We need to follow.”

I bit my lip and looked around, trying to come up with an excuse to head back.

“Come on,” Brie urged. “We have more than an hour before sunset, and nearly two before it’s totally dark.”

“Fine,” I said reluctantly. “But we head back before official sunset. I don’t want to get lost up here or fall off a cliff.” And maybe I could salvage my evening with Jason.

Brie saluted and led the way.

“What’s so important,” I wondered out loud, “that Parker would come all the way to St. Claire to get it?”

Brie shrugged. “Money? Financial documents? Diana likes to blackmail people. Maybe she took something to blackmail him with.”

Parker and Amber weren’t here when Diana disappeared, so they weren’t killers, but would they kill for these papers?

My head was spinning with the possibilities.

Fifteen minutes later, we hadn’t caught up with them, couldn’t hear them, and warning signs started to pop up along the path.

St. Claire Trail closed at sunset.

DANGER! Steep drops ahead.

DANGER! No security rail.

Lake Access with St. Claire Personnel Only

“We need to go back,” I said.

“Not yet,” Brie said.

Did Brie have a death wish? I didn’t. It’s why I didn’t hang glide, I obeyed all the rules of the road, and I paid attention

to danger signs telling me that, well, something was dangerous.

Brie stopped abruptly, and I almost ran into her.

“Wh—” Then I almost stopped breathing.

Below us was the mountain lake we’d been warned to avoid. It was the most beautiful site on an island of beautiful sites.

The volcano was inactive and had been for thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands of years (I’d taken one geology class in college

and hadn’t paid much attention). Like Crater Lake in Oregon, but much, much smaller. To the east was a steep, smooth rock

face that ended in the highest point on the island. To the west was a waterfall, the running water I’d been hearing for some

time. The lush shorelines of the lake had trees and bushes of all sizes, untouched. It was like stepping back in time.

But what made this scene particularly gorgeous was the setting sun—it lit the cliffs in spectacular color, so bright and sparkly I was nearly blinded, considering the dark path from which we’d emerged.

“There’s only one way to get out of the lake,” Brie said reverently, as enamored as I was by the sight before us. She pointed

toward the far southern shore, where there was an alcove. “I’ve been swimming over there—there’s a cool lagoon. You can’t

quite see it from here. But most of the lake is off-limits because the waterfall is dangerous, especially after a storm. It

goes straight down to the ocean.”

I stared and saw a wire crossing the lake. I blinked; that couldn’t be a zip line?

I followed the thick wire up until I saw a clearing only fifty feet away from us, with a metal and wood contraption where

the wire was attached in multiple places, until it wound into one thicker wire.

“Hell no,” I said.

Brie followed my gaze, then grinned. “Zip-lining! I was terrified my first time, too, but it’s a lot of fun. You just have

to remember to disengage the harness and let go between twenty and fifty feet from shore. Otherwise you hit land and could

break something. But it is so thrilling.”

“Never,” I said. I estimated the distance from one side to the other to be at least three hundred yards—maybe more.

“The view is to die for,” Brie said. “You have to try it. You land in that lagoon. From there, it’s just a short hike to the

West Beach, and a boat takes you back to the resort.”

“Over my dead body,” I muttered, then squinted and shielded my eyes from the sun. “Wait—are there people over there?”

Brie held her hand above her eyes, narrowed them. “They walked all the way around. Idiots! They’re never going to get back

up in the dark, not without risking their necks. They’ll have to go the long way.”

A flash of memory hit me. I pulled out my phone, but the images Brie sent me hadn’t all downloaded. “Brie—let me see your phone. The book.”

She gave me an odd look, then took out her phone, brought up an album, and handed it to me, squeezing in to watch as I scrolled

through the pages. There were fifty-seven photos, meaning Diana had written on fifty-seven pages—fifty-eight if I counted

the page that was torn out. I stopped when I came to a page that had a word underlined. Moon. I remember when I saw this and thought it was strange to underline just a word. I flipped further and stopped. “There!”

Lagoon had also been underlined.

“I don’t get it,” Brie said.

“Diana underlined or circled random words in the book. What if they weren’t random? We know her numbers stood for people on

the island. What if the words she circled also mean something?” I gestured to the lake and noticed that the sun was rapidly

falling, casting odd shadows around us. “There’s another lagoon on the island. I’ve been there. It’s closer to the resort.”

Unless Amber and Parker checked it out earlier, or lagoon was just one part of the code.

“There’s at least a dozen words underlined,” Brie said. “How do we know what they mean?”

“We should head back,” I said. “Write them all out, and maybe the answer will be obvious.”

“They already did that,” Brie said, gesturing across the lake to the lagoon, where we could no longer see them. “They know

what they’re looking for.”

“Diana was here for two days. Would she have come all the way up here to hide papers? She would have to retrieve them at some

point, right?”

“Maybe, but Amber thinks they’re up here.”

“Or maybe she’s trying to convince Parker of that. We’re not going to get over there and back before dark. I certainly don’t

want to fall into the lake.”

“You have a point,” Brie conceded.

“The most logical place for any documents would be in her belongings that housekeeping packed up. That would be the first place to look. Amber didn’t find the papers or the book, so she broke into the cottage where Diana had been—my room—thinking Diana hid something there.”

“I’m with you. And?”

“Wouldn’t you keep something important or valuable close to you? Maybe she was killed for the documents, and the killer has

them.”

“And Amber and Parker are on a wild goose chase?”

“It’s possible.” Which meant we were also on a wild goose chase.

“Or she did hide them and told Amber she hid them, which is why Amber’s going through all these lengths to find them,” Brie said.

“That’s possible too,” I agreed. “Logically, it would be a place someone wouldn’t accidentally discover, yet easy for a guest

to access.”

I craned my neck, but Amber and Parker were no longer in sight. “Do you think they’re okay?”

“Sure,” Brie said. “There’s another way up to the Sky Bar from the West Beach, but it’s going to be a bitch of a hike, especially

at night.”

I didn’t like those people, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to them. “If they’re not back by the time we are, we

should tell Tristan or Kalise where we saw them.”

“They can sleep on the beach,” Brie said. “Serves them right for being so sneaky.”

“Let’s not tempt fate,” I said, pointing to all the danger signs. “We should go.”

“Let’s use the Sky Bar trail,” Brie said. “The bar is closed tonight because of the cruise, but the road is easier to walk

down and better lit.”

“I’m all in,” I said.

We backtracked until we hit the three-way fork, then headed north to the Sky Bar.

The path was mostly straight and flat. The ground lighting came on as we walked, and I noticed signs of construction—a clearing to the left, a large toolbox with a lock on it, and some orange netting to block off part of the area.

A huge pile of branches and leaves was pushed to one side, weighed down by tarps.

“What are they doing up here?” I asked.

Brie shrugged. “My dad said something about building a cell tower. There’s a couple other private islands in the area, and

I guess they don’t have good internet. St. Claire is in the middle and has the highest peak, so a cell tower would make sense.

And give St. Claire better reception.”

“I haven’t had a problem with reception at the resort.” But I remembered I’d had none when I shot my video review at the Sky

Bar the other night.

“It’s glitchy,” Brie said, “but usually the rooms are fine. Anywhere else and it’s hit or miss. Wow, look at the sunset.”

Because of the clearing, we could see the ocean from the path. “It’s sad that they’re going to put a tower here,” Brie said.

“It’ll totally ruin the view.”

We watched as the sun brightened the western sky.

“Hey, want to take a selfie?” Brie said. She pulled out her phone and motioned for me to turn around.

I wasn’t great at taking selfies, but Brie knew what she was doing, so we had fun with it. She took several photos and grinned.

“See, you can lighten up.”

“Can you take one of me so I can send it to my friends? And my Grams. She called me today and wants me to post more on social

media.”

Brie laughed. “My grandma doesn’t even know how to use her smartphone.”

“I taught Grams, and sometimes I think she knows how to use hers better than I do.”

Brie took a few pictures. Then she said, “Okay, loosen up, relax. This isn’t your senior portrait.”

I rolled my eyes, and Brie laughed. “Oh, oh! Make a circle with your arms. The sun is at the perfect angle! Okay—okay—take a step back. One more—got it! You’re slaying it. Now squat and put your hand up like you’re blowing a kiss, but face south. Yeah—lower your hand just a bit—great!”

“Are you studying photography in college?” I asked.

“Naw. Pre-med. Photography is a hobby.”

“Pre-med?” I said. I don’t know why that surprised me.

“Yeah. I want to cure cancer.”

“That’s really awesome.”

Brie shrugged. “Somebody has to do it. Why not me?”

I stood, but my foot slipped. Then the rest of my body followed my foot, and I screamed.