Page 74 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

When the housekeepers were done, I thanked the women, and they left, followed by Jason and Gino. I double-checked thedoor and slid the security bolt. Then I made sure the glass doors were locked, closed the blinds, and fell face-first onto the bed.

I was exhausted.

I grabbed my cell phone on the nightstand to text Brie.

Then I stopped.

Brie knew I planned to hide the book behind the dresser—she had suggested it. Maybe she broke in and took it, but staged the mess to make it look like someone else had searched, so I wouldn’t suspect her.

I didn’t want to believe it. I hadn’t let her see the book because I didn’t want her to read the information that might have been about her dad and Sherry, so she had motive. But would she have broken the mirror? I didn’t see her acting soviolent. The beach thief who tore out the page didn’t have motive—he’d already gotten what he wanted. Unless he thought there was more in the book about whatever Diana had written about him?

Yet anyone Diana wrote about could have seen me reading the book on the beach and come here to look for it. Maybe Amber figured out I had it.

I put my phone back down. The jury was out about Brie. I’d rather talk to her face-to-face than over text.

I stripped and took a shower. I didn’t feel unsafe. The thief had taken what he—or she—wanted. I still had my notes, but I hadn’t written everything down.

I bundled up in a robe, leaned into the mound of pillows on my bed, and looked through my notebook. The first couple pages were lists of books we were considering for book club and notes about books I’d read for when I recorded my video reviews. It wasn’t until halfway through the notebook that I’d copied what Diana had written with my questions and impressions.

Brie knew where I’d hidden the book, but she also knew about my notebook. Amber knew about Diana’s book, but she didn’t know I had it unless someone told her I picked it up at the gift shop... or she saw me with it. Maybe Amber had enlisted Gino’s help, and that’s what their conversation had been about earlier. Maybe he recognized the book. The person whotore out the page on the beach might have decided they wanted the whole book.

Or someone else who had more to lose. Someone who had seen me with the book and knew its value.

Finally, I turned off the lights and tried to sleep. I wished I had taken Jason up on his offer to stay. I closed my eyes and tried to remember the lagoon, the blanket on the sand, kissing under the moonlight, how Jason had touched me, making me feel as if I were the only person in the world...

Someone had stolen my book.

Dammit. I couldn’t even properly set up my subconscious for a satisfying dream.

I got up, turned on the lights, checked all the doors (again), and went back to bed with my notebook.

I looked at the numbers from the page the beach thief had stolen. I still had no idea what they meant, but if the thief had the page he wanted, why come back and take the whole book?

Diana Harden was blackmailing not one person, but several. And the book was the key as towhoshe was targeting. And I’d lost it.

She had gone to St. John for a reason. I needed to know why. Had she gone to meet someone on St. John? If so, who? Someone must have seen her, talked to her, known what she was doing on the larger island.

I pulled out my laptop and checked the ferry schedule. The ferry left St. Claire every three hours starting at 7:00 a.m. I definitely wouldn’t be on that ferry, considering it was after three in the morning. I signed up for the next.

I didn’t know if I would learn anything on St. John, but it stood to reason that Diana’s Sunday adventure had something to do with her disappearance and subsequent murder.

I flipped to the last page I’d written on, and I’d circled the number 77 and written:Is 77 Diana’s shorthand for Gino Garmon?

Why did that feel right? Because of the comments... or...

I flipped the page of my notebook and wrote out the alphabet, then wrote numbers next to the corresponding letters, one through twenty-six.

G = 7.

Gino Garmon = 77.

Did that work for all the numbers?

I took the two most commonly written numbers, 112 and 2012. 112 could be KB or AL. AL... Andrew Locke. That number was also on the page with Diana’s notes about a house in Arizona and his girlfriend’s dirty secrets.

2012 would then be TL. Trevor Lance... which would fit with what she wrote about a future deal, if she had in fact been in business with him or wanted to be, based on what CeeCee had said.

Another number... 522. If I’d broken the code, that would be Ethan Valentine?