Page 44 of Beach Bodies

Couldn’t blame him. It was a good song.

I pushed the door open, plugged the hair dryer in, turned it on and heaved it into the tub. No hesitation. No big showdown. No chance for last words on either of our parts.

There was a sputter and a crackle and a smell. It was so fast; he was dead.

Still, I leaned over the body and looked, just in case. His eyes were bugged open. Tiny, charred craters marked his chest. He smelled like barbecue. I haven’t had the stomach for barbecue since– a pity, really, since Taste of Heaven does a really good job with smoked ribs.

Still wearing my electrical gloves, I unplugged the hair dryer and pulled it out of the water. My pulse was regular, my head cool. I’d planned it well, and nothing would go wrong.

I took one final look at the man as ‘Sexual Healing’ echoed around us– the last song he’d ever hear.

‘You shouldn’t make women feel like shit about their bodies,’ I said out loud.

He didn’t answer.

Then I kicked his Bluetooth speaker into the water for good measure.

It only took ten minutes to set the electrical panel to rights. Back in my own room, I changed into the slinky dress Carli had lent me for the evening, swiped my lashes with a little mascara, and headed out, backpack slung over my shoulder, already weighted with rocks to make sure it sank along with the screwdriver and gloves.

‘Have fun!’ said my roommate, who was curled up in bed with a novel. ‘I’m totally jealous!’

‘I will! Thanks!’

As the boat pulled out of the marina, I asked Carli, ‘Isn’t Michael coming?’

‘We can’t wait any longer,’ she said, giving her phone a frustrated check. ‘He probably fell asleep in the bath.’

He sure did, I remember thinking.And he ain’t waking up. It would make a killer song. In a parallel universe, I’d tell Carli what I did just so she could write it.

Somewhere between Saint Lisieux and Saint Vitalis, I tossed the backpack into the sea.

Carli slayed that night.

I did wonder if she might remember our conversation by the pool. The way she said,He’d have to be dead. If the possibility would cross her mind that I had done it. But she left the Riovan the next day, undoubtedly to avoid the attention that would surely come after her manager’s untimely death, and I never saw her again.

Sure, a newshound found me because of that picture. And there was that random call Becca WhatsApped me about. But no one ever asked me questions about Michael’s death. Not the Saint Lisieux police. Not hotel management.

No one until Daniel.

Chapter Fifteen

As I lie awake at 2a.m. with only my roommate’s whiffling snore for company, it’s as though I regress mentally to my teen years, playing Trevor’s death over and over in my head. Except this time it’s Michael’s. A useless exercise, but tell that to the 2a.m. brain. Around 3a.m. I doze off, but keep waking up from dreams where Daniel is killing me as he fucks me. Dark? Absolutely. But given everything that happened yesterday, it doesn’t take Carl Jung to interpret that one.

Then, from 4a.m. to 5a.m., my brain decides I need to review every single interaction I’ve ever had with Daniel Black. That is more useful.

A few salient facts emerge:

He didn’t know what a goblet squat is.

He didn’t know that bacon is a processed meat.

He doesn’t like green smoothies.

By the time my alarm goes off at seven, it’s utterly obvious that he can’t possibly be a journalist forFit Life. From the very first morning I saw him, Daniel has seemed like a fishout of water, hasn’t he? Since then, he’s shown me over and over that he doesn’t belong.

Then why is he here?

As I pour my coffee, I come to a swift decision: I have to talk to Vic. If Daniel really is digging into Michael’s death, Vic should know. After all, Vic and I share a common interest when it comes to matters of deaths at the Riovan: cover them up.

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