Beach Bags and Burglaries (A Haley Randolph Mystery) (10 page)

“Hi,” I said, using my there’s-nothing-to-be-alarmed-about voice.

They just stared.

I tried again with my I’m-really-a-nice-person voice and said, “Can you tell me where to find Gabe Braxton?”

Neither of them said anything, making me think that they were either too stunned by the sight of a resort guest on their portion of the island to speak or that they were afraid something major had gone down and they were in some sort of trouble.

I knew the feeling.

“I need to talk to Gabe,” I said. “I know he and Jaslyn Gordon were seeing each other. I’m the one who found her body, so I figured Gabe would want to hear about what happened.”

They both continued to stare, and finally one of them said, “That was bad. Really bad.”

“She was a nice girl,” the other one said. He pulled a radio from his belt and said, “I’ll tell Gabe to meet you near the docks.”

“Thanks,” I said, and left.

I walked back down the narrow road, past the dorm, the helipad, and dock. When I entered the resort grounds, I saw a maintenance worker dressed in gray work clothes headed in my direction. He stopped in front of me, and I saw the name GABE stitched on a label above his shirt pocket.

He was huge, easily six five, with wide shoulders, a solid chest, and bulging arm muscles. I figured him for late twenties. The sun had given his skin a golden glow and streaked his dark hair with yellow highlights.

I thought he looked great.

I also thought he looked like he could have killed Jaslyn Gordon with little effort.

“I
’m Haley Randolph,” I said.

Gabe Braxton stared down at me. Obviously, the maintenance team wasn’t required to memorize photos of resort guests, as the hotel workers were, because he looked at me as if I were a bug he wanted to squash—which, from the size of him, I thought he could easily have done.

“I’m the one who found Jaslyn,” I said.

Now he looked as if I’d squashed him like a bug. His big shoulders slumped and he turned away, shaking his head.

“I heard that you two were seeing each other,” I said, “so I thought you’d want to know.”

He whipped around, glaring at me. “Who told you that? Who told you about Jas and me?” he demanded.

I jumped, startled by his sudden anger.

No way was I throwing Shane out in front of this bus, so I just gave him an it’s-no-big-deal shrug and said, “A lot of people mentioned it. I guess you two were a great couple.”

Okay, that was a total lie but—thank goodness—it seemed to calm him down.

The hum of a tram’s electric engine sounded behind me.

“Let’s go back here,” Gabe said, and led the way off of the road and behind a couple of big bushes.

“Jas was special. She was awesome. So smart,” Gabe said. “And driven. I’ve never seen anybody as dedicated to something as Jas was.”

He paused while the sound of the tram grew louder as it passed us. I glanced toward the road but couldn’t see much through the bushes, just a broken glimpse of the tram and the uniformed employees onboard, heading for the resort. When the noise faded, Gabe spoke again.

“All Jas talked about was getting her degree. She was an art major. She wanted to go to Europe to visit the museums. She had a long list of places she wanted to go, lots of different cities where she could look at those paintings and statues,” Gabe said. “She was crazy about that artsy stuff.”

It sounded like a yawner to me, but who was I to shoot down someone’s dream?

“Were you going with her?” I asked, to bring the conversation back around to the two of them.

“Sure. I’d have gone,” Gabe said. He shook his head. “But she was so focused on that stuff I don’t think she’d have wanted anybody with her, not even me. She was kind of in the zone when she talked about it, you know? Completely wired in.”

“At least you two had your time here at the resort together,” I said. “Did she like working here?”

“Yeah, I guess. She liked that she could work here on her breaks from school. I guess a lot of students do that. Jas thought the work was easy and the pay was good—better than the last place she worked.” Gabe said.

“Did something happen there?” I asked.

“Somebody was giving her a hard time. She didn’t want to talk about it.” He frowned. “But in the last week or so she seemed upset. You know, troubled about something.”

My senses jumped to high alert, sure I was about to discover a major clue.

“What was wrong?” I asked, and managed to sound concerned and not merely anxious to dig up something that would help
me
. “Did she tell you?”

“No.”

So much for a case-breaking clue. Still, I pushed on.

“Was she having a problem with a coworker?” I asked. “Her supervisor, maybe?”

Avery was Jaslyn’s supervisor, and I’d wondered about her possible involvement in Jaslyn’s death.

“She wanted to change teams,” Gabe said.

Thank goodness—a clue I could actually use.

“Why?” I asked.

“She didn’t say,” Gabe told me. “But she and that supervisor of hers didn’t get along.”

“You mean Avery?” I asked, just to be sure.

“Jas said she was always riding her about something,” Gabe said. “Claiming she wasn’t following resort policies, crap like that.”

If that were true and Jaslyn wasn’t keeping up with the housekeeping schedule, it would reflect poorly on Avery, maybe even get her in trouble with the resort’s upper management. I mean, jeez, the standards at the Rowan Resort were incredibly high, and they probably paid key employees very well to maintain those standards. No way would Avery want somebody on her team dragging her down.

But was that a reason to kill someone?

Maybe not a cold, calculated murder, but I could see it happening in the heat of the moment, in an argument that escalated.

“I don’t think changing teams was really bothering Jas that much,” Gabe said.

Damn. So much for that clue.

“Did you get the feeling she wanted to break up with you?” I asked.

Okay, that was a crappy thing to ask, because Gabe seemed genuinely upset about Jaslyn’s death. But I wanted to get something from him that would allow me to take him off my mental suspect list—so it was for his own good. Really.

“No. No way.” Gabe slammed his fist into the palm of his hand.

His anger spun up so quickly I stepped back. I realized I was totally alone with him behind the bushes, at the edge of the resort, out of sight of absolutely everybody.

Not a great feeling.

“Jaslyn and I were solid,” Gabe told me. “And if I’d found out that somebody else was sniffing around her, they’d have been sorry.”

Maybe coming out here to talk to him wasn’t such a hot idea.

“Look, I’ve got to get back to work,” Gabe said.

I didn’t disagree.

His anger disappeared in a heartbeat—which was kind of scary, too. It made me wonder about how comfortable Jaslyn really had been in their relationship. If she’d wanted to break up with him, would she have dared tell him?

“So do you think she, you know, she ... suffered?” Gabe asked.

It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that he was asking about Jaslyn’s death—the reason I’d lured him to this meeting in the first place.

Really, I’ve got to get better about keeping up with things.

“No,” I said, and I honestly believed it. “She looked peaceful. Like she was just sleeping.”

Gabe nodded, then walked away.

I took off in the opposite direction and wound my way through the resort grounds, anxious to get back to the hotel, where someone could hear me scream if necessary. I’d learned some useful info from Gabe that I’d have to follow up on, but the thing that stuck with me was his volatile temper.

No way could I take him off of my suspect list.

That meant I needed more info on Gabe. I could think of only one way to get it.

I stopped near the bungalows, pulled out my cell phone, and called Detective Shuman. He answered on the second ring.

“How’s the vacation?” he asked.

Shuman sounded relaxed—like he was the one on vacay.

“I need a favor,” I said. “Can you do a background check on a guy for me?”

I guess Shuman picked up on the distress in my voice, because immediately he switched to cop mode.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Shuman in cop mode was really hot—but I was too rattled at the moment to properly appreciate it.

“I’m just picking up a weird vibe from somebody here,” I said.

“Are you involved in the murder investigation?” Shuman asked, and I could tell from his tone that he already knew the answer and wasn’t happy about it.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I don’t exactly have a choice.”

“Then explain it to me,” Shuman said.

This didn’t seem like the best time to get into the whole I’m-solving-a-murder-to-avoid-a-wedding thing, so I went with something easier.

“If anything bad turns up on this guy, I’ll tell you everything,” I promised.

Shuman was quiet for a while. I knew he wasn’t happy about it, but I also knew he’d go along with it.

“Text me the info,” Shuman said. “I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I owe you.”

He hung up.

I texted him the info I had on Gabe Braxton and then slid my phone into my pocket. This really wasn’t the vacation I’d hoped for. I had to turn things around.

At breakfast, Marcie and Bella had said they were heading to the beach. This sounded like just the boost my day needed. I decided to put my murder investigation on ignore and forget about all my other problems—for a while, anyway.

“Haley?”

I knew by the way my knees started to tremble and my heartbeat picked up that Luke Warner had called my name.

I spun around and, oh my God, there he stood.

I got the feeling he’d been watching me for a while, which caused my heart to beat even faster.

Luke walked over. “I saw you talking to a maintenance worker. Is everything all right?”

He sounded genuinely concerned—and, jeez, he looked great—but I couldn’t forget our history. I forced myself to calm down.

“Are you stalking me?” I asked.

“I was just out for a walk,” Luke said with an easy grin.

Luke has a terrific grin.

He was also a terrific liar—all in the line of duty, of course.

Luke was an FBI agent who’d been working undercover when we’d met a few months ago. He had extensive experience pretending to be someone other than himself, so a lie could roll oh so smoothly off of his tongue. When he’d finally revealed his true identity, I wasn’t happy about being deceived—or about some of the other things that had happened. Luke tried to make it up to me, but I was done with him.

Until now.

Maybe.

I wondered if he’d mention what had happened between us a few months ago when we’d both been searching for a murder suspect in the Garment District and something had sparked between us—long story. I doubted he would—the whole thing wasn’t exactly a shining moment for him—and that was okay with me. I didn’t really want to think about it, either.

“I saw you yesterday inside the hotel talking to the detectives,” Luke said. His brows drew together. “Are you all right?”

I couldn’t be certain whether Luke knew what was going on with Jaslyn’s murder.

“You don’t know?” I asked.

“I’m just here for a wedding,” he said, and gave me another grin.

I’d fallen for his cover story once before; I wasn’t doing it again.

“A hotel maid was murdered,” I said. “I’m sure you heard about it.”

“I read it on the Internet,” Luke said. “But I’m staying away from the news as much as possible, since I’m on vacation.”

“You hadn’t heard that I found her body?” I asked.

“Haley, that must have been awful for you,” he said, and again sounded genuinely concerned.

This hardly seemed like the time to remind him that Jaslyn’s was not the first dead body I’d ever discovered.

“Why did you come into the room where the police were interviewing me?” I asked.

Luke gave me an I’m-an-idiot-sometimes shrug, and said, “I made a wrong turn, went into the wrong room.”

“Which room were you looking for?” I wanted to know.

He paused, and I saw in his expression that he knew I didn’t trust what he was saying.

And it was true. The bottom line was that I didn’t trust Luke. He’d claimed he was here for a wedding, and that may have been true—or he could have been here working undercover investigating Jaslyn’s death, or something totally different.

Of course, working undercover was his job—and a pretty cool job, at that—so I guess he couldn’t help that he had to lie about things. And even if he was working undercover, he couldn’t tell me—which would be a repeat of what had happened between us before.

“The cigar room,” Luke said. “I was looking for the cigar room.”

Okay, now I felt kind of stupid. His reason made perfect sense because the hotel’s first floor was a maze of hallways, alcoves, and dead ends, and was crammed with shops, restaurants, and a zillion other who-knows-what-they’re-for rooms.

Maybe he really was telling the truth.

“The detectives just wanted to ask me some questions because I found Jaslyn’s body,” I said. “That’s all.”

Luke nodded—I could see he was in semi-FBI mode—toward the resort grounds. “And the maintenance worker?”

It irked me that Luke was grilling me as if I were a suspect or something. But maybe he really was concerned about my safety.

That’s the thing about Luke—I never knew what the truth really was.

Was it a coincidence that I kept seeing him? Okay, sure, this was an island, but it was a sizable one, so why would we
just happen to
keep running into each other?

Or were we?

Was Luke following me? Was he really here working undercover? Was something else going on that involved me and the investigation of Jaslyn’s death—or some other totally unrelated crime?

“I asked the guy if he knew when the next supply ship was docking,” I said. “I’m waiting for something.”

Of course, that was a lie—which was the very reason I was unhappy with Luke, but still.

He grinned. It was an I-know-your-deepest-thoughts kind of grin that set my toes to curling again.

“A handbag,” he said.

Jeez, he really was handsome.

“You’re still crazy about purses,” he said.

Why did he have to be a man I couldn’t trust?

“Which one is it this time?” Luke asked, still grinning.

Why couldn’t things be different between us?

“You’re the FBI agent,” I told him. “You figure it out.”

I walked away.