Page 92 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“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 backbeforeofficial 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, butwouldthey 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 issothrilling.”