Page 156 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“Tristan,” Jason said firmly, “what happened?”

“Nothing!” Tristan said, and plastered a smile on his face. “Nothing at all. This is a misunderstanding.”

Said every guilty person ever, I thought.

Little facts began to fall together. “Amber used to date Parker, but he cheated on her.”

“I did not!” Parker said.

“Did too, asshole,” Amber said. “Me. You cheated onme.” She ran her hands over her body as if to emphasize the absurdity of anyone cheating on her.

“And Amber and Diana have been friends and lovers foryears,” I said. “They were in the same sorority. So I think Amber and Diana hatched a plan, and Diana seduced Parker.”

He harrumphed, but then glared at Amber. “I knew you were behind this.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Diana stole the papers from Parker,” I continued, “and Amber claims she had no idea what was in them, but I think she’s lying.”

“Am not,” Amber said unconvincingly.

Everything was finally fitting into place, and it had to come out. “She and Diana thought Ethan Valentine would pay for the evidence that Parker stole his ideas and sabotaged his relationship with Roland Briggs, his father.”

“My dad loved Ethan more than me,” Parker wailed.

“Diana hid them,” I continued, “maybe because she thought Ethan would have just taken them without paying if he knew she had them. Or, more likely, because Amber called her and told her Parker was on his way to St. Claire.”

“Or because she just loved her stupid games,” Amber said in a tone that was both admiring and sad. Maybe she really had loved Diana, in her own shallow way.

“You knew Diana was blackmailing people here on St. Claire. You argued with Gino Garmon because he was one of the people she had something on.”

Jason looked at me. “What?”

“The page that Gino had Georgie steal from the book had notes related to Gino embezzling money—I think from the resort—and losing it in cards. It’s in shorthand, and I’m missing some letters because I could barely see them, but that’s the gist. I could prove it if I could look at the resort books. I am a CPA, after all.”

Something else clicked. Georgie knew what was written on that page. Gino might have destroyed it, but Georgie was still a threat to him. Had Gino gone after the kid and Georgie killed him in self-defense? Or maybe Georgie understood theimportance of Gino’s embezzlement... and that someone was covering it up.

“Jason, do you know where Georgie is?”

“I’m trying to find him,” he said.

“Because he might have figured it out, and that’s why he’s in hiding,” I said.

“And that’s why he killed Gino,” Tristan said with an air of finality.

“No,” I said. “Georgie had no reason to kill him.”

“To protect himself!” Tristan said as if it was a foregone conclusion. “Because he killed Diana!”

“I thought Gino killed Diana,” I said, “because of whatever she was blackmailing him with, but Amber also knows. And if Amber knows, Parker knows, and Gino didn’t kill them.”

“True,” Amber said. “Diana called me Saturday and said Gino paid for her silence. She was so good at digging up dirt.” She sighed again in admiration and wiped a tear I was half-sure was fake away from the corner of her eye.

“Which is why you had him go through Diana’s belongings to look for her book. When he couldn’t find it, you searched my room.”

“I saw you with it. I knew Diana had left notes in the margins. I needed to find out what happened to the files she took. She always set up these little scavenger hunts. She loved the games.”

“Why did you care?” Doug spoke up for the first time. “You wanted to screw your ex over. Why not just let him suffer?”

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