Page 95 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

I stood, my feet sinking into the mud, my limbs heavy with it. Ugh.

“Can you climb out?” Brie asked.

“Maybe,” I said. The hole was about twelve feet deep, but it was too wide for me to shimmy up. Even if Brie reached down,I wouldn’t be able to reach her hand, and the chances were high that I would pull her down with me.

I took out my phone and turned on the light, though it took me a couple of tries because my fingers were wet and slippery. I looked for a ladder, footholds, anything to hoist myself up and out.

Nothing.

I was stuck.

I didnotwant to be stuck. There had to be a way.

“Can you see a ladder up there? Remember the tools we saw? Go look there.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Brie walked away. I stood in the muck feeling absolutely, totally,completelyfoolish.

“Mia?” Brie called a few minutes later.

“Don’t come too close,” I said. “I don’t want you to fall, too.”

“There’s no ladder, no rope. Maybe if I lie down, I can pull you out?”

“No,” I said. “It’s too deep.”

The hole was for the foundation of the cell tower. There had been orange warning mesh around the tools, but the mesh that was supposed to block off this hole? It was down here, at the bottom, where it did no good to warn anyone.

“You need to get help,” I said. “Don’t tell anyone we were following Amber.”

“Of course not. I’ll be as discreet as possible. We were on a hike, and it was getting late, so we cut through here. Total accident. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Nothing’s damaged except my pride.”

“It won’t take too long,” Brie said. “I’ll try to get a cell signal at the Sky Bar. You have your phone? Light?”

“Yeah. It’s at fifty percent. Go.” The faster she got help, the faster I’d get out of here.

“Okay,” Brie said, and then I heard nothing as her footfalls disappeared.

I wanted to cry. It was my thirtieth birthday, and I was stuck in a muddy hole at the top of a mountain when Ishouldhave been on a cruise with the sexiest man on the island.

I stared up at the sky that was now dark. Stars twinkled brilliantly, and if I hadn’t been stuck in the bottom of a twelve-foot hole, I would have enjoyed them.

How foolish was I? I’d followed Amber and Parker deep into the island, two people who didn’t like each other and had broken into my room and stolen my book. I went to St. John to talk to the police as if I, myself, were an investigator. I went on a bike with a kid I didn’t know, following Sherry around the island. He could have left me in the middle of nowhere—or worse. I’d dragged an eighteen-year-old college girl into the middle of this mystery and put her in danger as well. I literally saw a dead body and thought I could solve the crime? Why was I more invested in finding out what happened to Diana—and what she had been doing on the island—than I was in exploring my feelings for Jason Mallory?

My imagination had not only gotten away from me, it had landed on Mars then taken a side trip to Jupiter. Gino Garmon wasn’t a killer. He was the head of security. He’d been a Miami cop and was more than capable of working a murder investigation. And just because Diana Harden had paid a kid to take her to Ethan Valentine’s dock didn’t mean that he’d killed her. He probably wasn’t even on the island. And all those people Diana might have been blackmailing? What if I was wrong? What if her shorthand had nothing to do with blackmail and was just nasty gossip?

CeeCee was a typical trophy girlfriend of an asshole fifty-year-old walking midlife crisis. I’d read far more into her offhand accounting comment than I should have. Who cared if she met with his ex-wife? Maybe the ex was just warning her away. Yet I was having my assistant in New York research Trevor Lance and Parker Briggs! I was wasting his time—and mine.

Who did I think I was? Miss Marple? Veronica Mars? I was more like the fumbling Clouseau, tripping my way into a pit.

But unlike the endearingly clumsy French detective, I was ill-equipped to solve the crime.

I was a grown woman with a grown-up job. I didn’t have time for mai tais and sexy bartenders and solving crimes. This wasn’t me.

I was Mia Crawford, CPA, Financial Planner: intelligent, responsible, diligent.