A Deadly Development Read online

  I had already knocked four times on the door to Justin’s room and still no one had responded. I was starting to think that no one was there when I noticed there was a dim light on in one of the windows.

  Hmmm.

  Looked like he was recording episode three.

  I wondered to myself—what could be the most annoying thing to happen while recording a podcast? Then I started to grin. Outside noise. I knew for a fact that the rooms at the Dolphin (F)inn were not soundproof. I could hear everything in the room next to me.

  Hmm. How could I cause the ultimate amount of noise? I could have knocked again, louder, but that would only cause so much annoyance. No, I needed something worse.

  I had to call for backup.

  Even I had to close my ears and grimace as J arrived on her little motorized scooter, grinning from ear to ear, baseball cap to the back.

  “These things are awful,” Alyson said, shaking her head. “I don’t even let her go on it except on the weekends. She loves it, though. She’s rapt about this, trust me.”

  Yes, Wednesday night, 8pm was not the best time for motorized scooters. And we were risking getting a noise complaint or the cops. I knew that the local council was already thinking about banning them.

  “He is going to hate this,” Alyson said, trying not to giggle as J prepared herself to ride past the window, several times. Alyson was still at least trying to appear as a responsible adult while J was listening in. But she was a kid—she didn’t even care why we were asking her to do it. It was like Alyson said—she was just pumped to be able to ride this horrible thing.

  “Go for it, J!” I called out, stepping back so that I wasn’t deafened by the terrible noise. It sounded like a million mosquitos. She rode right up to the window, stopped, backed up, and did it again. The light in Justin St. Clair’s room went on and he raced to the door, pulling it back, his face red.

  “Hey!” he called out, then went even more red when he spotted Alyson and recognized her.

  “Uh-oh!” Alyson started to run.

  I went after her, and J, giggling and grinning, caught up to us with her scooter.

  “I mean, I know why you did it,” I said as we dug into the ice cream sundae at Captain Eightball’s, J now back at Matt’s and in bed, seeing as it was way past her bedtime. Luckily, the teachers were still on strike and there was no school. “But throwing someone’s phone into the water is a bit of an overreaction.” Those things cost a lot of money.

  Alyson sighed. She stuck her spoon back in and dug into a big chunk of brownie. She’d told me she was carb loading for the triathlon, but I wasn’t sure cake counted. “Yeah, I know…maybe I should offer to pay for a replacement.”

  “Even after what he said about you?” It wasn’t as though I wanted to dissuade her from doing the right thing. I just thought, well, maybe she had already gotten her retribution in the form of being publicly reprimanded. Did she need to give up cash as well as her reputation?

  She nodded. “I acted out in anger. I should give him the cash.”

  “Well, that sounds like the responsible thing to do.” I just wasn’t sure where she was going to get it from.

  “Thanks for having my back tonight,” Alyson said with a wide grin. Sure, I’d tried my best. But a little noise in the background of a podcast wasn’t actually going to do much, and as the thrill of our little adventure had started to wear off a bit, I realized I was going to have to come up with an actual plan to get Justin St. Clair to apologize for what he said.

  But Alyson didn’t have to know all the details of that just yet. She probably wouldn’t even be interested in the legal matters of it. I would work my magic, then tell her all about it when it was done.

  I had to laugh a little. “You know, Alyson, for someone as laidback as you are, you sure do have a knack for making enemies in this town.”

  She nodded. “Don’t I know it.” She let out a long sigh and looked out the window. The moon was almost in its new moon stage. “But you have to admit that the only people I have wound up are these outsiders. Before they all came along, I lived a pretty peaceful life.”

  She told me about this surfboard design she was having trouble getting right. It was strange. It didn’t sound like her. Not just because her artistic skill could usually handle any challenge, but also because it wasn’t like her to get rattled or to doubt her confidence.

  “Is it Troy?” I asked.

  I could tell from the look on her face I had asked her the wrong question. “What does Troy have to do with any of this?” she exclaimed. “I wish people in this town would just shut up about Troy Emerald for one second. He is not that great, you know.”

  Hey, I was no big fan myself. But the way Alyson was acting, she seemed like more than a fan of his. She liked him. But maybe she hadn’t even admitted that to herself yet, so she certainly wasn’t ready to admit it to me.

  “Have you seen him?” I asked quietly.

  She started to shake her head. Then admitted that she had. They’d gone out for dinner the previous night. I was a little surprised.

  “I just wanted to confront him about what he had said. If he’s going to claim to be dying, I am going to need a little proof.”

  Hmm, whether that was true or not, I wasn’t sure. Did this meeting need to be in a five-star restaurant?

  “And what did he say? Do you believe him?”

  Alyson’s eyes were a little watery. “I’m not sure,” she finally said in a low voice. “And I’m not sure whether I want to.”

  13

  Claire

  He’d changed his mind. Decided to splash the cash and upgrade to the Flower of Life. Probably thought he wouldn’t be bothered by motorized scooters in this part of town. Usually, I would have chosen this place over the Dolphin (F)Inn in a heartbeat. But when I’d first arrived in town a month earlier, it had been right before the annual surf comp, and all the rooms in Eden Bay had been filled. There was still the sign up advertising the long-term stays. I ignored it for now. I wasn’t ready to move to Eden Bay in a permanent way—not yet.

  Yet, I was still there at the Dolphin (F)Inn. Getting my soggy cornflakes delivered every morning. I knew Mr. Ferdinand needed a proper home. But with my new ever-more severe allergic reaction to him, I wasn’t sure how we were going to live under the same roof without me suffocating to death.

  I knocked on the door of the first-floor room. Luckily, he hadn’t really gotten a good look at me the night before.

  “Hi, my name is Claire Elizabeth Richardson.”

  He was wearing a blue plaid shirt and glasses. He blinked at me a few times. “You say that name like I am supposed to know who you are.”

  Yeah, well, once upon a time, I had said that name and doors had opened. Everyone knew what it meant. It was all a bit of a bruise to the ego now.

  “We set up a meeting earlier over the phone,” I said with confidence as I stepped inside his room. “I am a local of this town.”

  He didn’t want to lose face, or embarrass me, by not remembering. “Oh, right. Sorry, of course I remember, Claire. We met down at the…”

  “Beach.”

  “Of course.”

  I took a seat in one of the leather armchairs and sort of fluffed up my hair as I looked around. I’d finally made it to the hair salon and gotten an intensive treatment to combat the seawater. My hair was now glowing.

  He sort of shot me a look. “You know this isn’t being filmed, right?”

  I decided to take it as a compliment. But I did stop posing.

  Still, too bad that there were no cameras.

  Then again, maybe it was better that this wasn’t being recorded on film.

  I nodded not just at the hotel but at the new equipment he was unwrapping. “Nice setup.”

  He looked a little proud. “I just bought the new microphone today. Picks up less outside noise.” He told me that before he’d splashed out he’d just been using a basic headset he could plug into his phone and tablet. “But all th
e big podcasts have setups like this. It sounds more professional.”

  I smiled at him. “I’ve heard the first two episodes. They sounded pretty professional to me.” Yes, the audio quality had been a little low, but the content had been so intriguing that I hadn’t been bothered by the sound quality. But it looked like he could afford to upgrade now.

  He told me that we would record a few tester questions, just to make sure that the equipment was working correctly and to put me at ease, check the levels, etc. I told him that I was a movie producer and that I totally understood about all these technical things. And that he didn’t need to worry about me being at ease around recording equipment. “This is all second nature to me.” I flashed him a grin and he relaxed a little bit.

  “It’s good to meet someone who gets it,” he said. “Maybe we should hang out when I get back to Sydney.”

  I shifted a little and answered noncommittally. I supposed it was nice to pretend for a moment that I was still someone, and I liked using the present tense, saying that I was ‘still’ a movie producer. He didn’t need to know that I was, at that moment, actually running a bookstore.

  “The people in this town are very interesting,” he said, settling in a chair on the other side of me. I felt a little like I was being interviewed on one of those nightly current affairs programs.

  “You left episode two a little open-ended,” I said.

  He looked a little put out. Like I had just criticized him. “Well, the police haven’t solved the crime yet,” he said with a shrug. “So I could hardly give a definitive answer on who the killer is.”

  “But isn’t the point of a mystery podcast to provide answers?”

  “That’s what the rest of the series is for,” he said, settling back in his seat a little. Hmm.

  “But you have some ideas, about who did it?” I asked him.

  I couldn’t help thinking that if he only knew what Alyson and I had been up to, he would be even more interested in talking to us. So far, he just had us pegged as 1) the crazy girl who threw his phone into the ocean, and 2) the Sydney snob with the outsider’s perspective. Little did he know that he was one of us, though. Just someone trying to solve this crime. If only we could have pooled our resources without me giving us away.

  He mused on this for a moment and sounded excited when he finally spoke, as though he had just been waiting for someone to ask him this question. Which perhaps he had. Perhaps the reason he had held back in episode two was for legal reasons. He couldn’t give away anything too incriminating and risk letting the course of justice play out.

  “It has to have been one of the protesters, right?” he said. His tone was convinced.

  Not really what I had wanted to hear, to be honest. That had been Alyson’s theory as well. Whereas I’d been surer it was someone directly connected to Emerald Development. And of course, I wanted to be right.

  “Why do you think that?” I asked as Justin started playing around with the microphone. He adjusted the volume and assured me that this was still a test run.

  “It must have been personal,” he said. “It usually is. One of them probably was sleeping with someone else’s girlfriend, you know how it is. Hearts got broken and this poor guy just wound up paying the price.”

  I wasn’t convinced by this theory. What I wanted to say was, ‘Mate, you’re a podcaster, not a detective. You just record events. You don’t actually investigate them.’ But I remembered that up until a month earlier, I had been the same.

  “Couldn’t it be personal against Troy Emerald?” I asked, thinking about what Stephanie had said to me in the clothing store. “Couldn’t it be someone who wanted to get back at him?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. Episode three—” He nodded toward the mic. “This one that we’re recording now will go into all those theories.” He settled again and I noticed his voice change into a more professional ‘announcer’ voice as he started to ask me the real questions.

  “Must be strange being back in Eden Bay after living in the city?” he asked. It was sort of a leading question. I didn’t completely bite, instead, I just said that it had been interesting. That it had been good to catch up with old friends. But he was a good interviewer, and he started asking what I actually did with my time here.

  “Not much to see or do around here,” he stated.

  “Unless you’re into surfing or skating,” I said. “Which I am.” I noticed the surprise on his face. I always liked surprising people with statements like this. They take one look at me—icy blonde slick hair, expensive outfit, not to mention the Porsche—and get one idea in their heads about me. I never minded turning it upside-down when I told them about my more tomboyish interests.

  But this guy didn’t look like he was particularly into either skating or surfing. He had pale skin. He clearly spent most of his time indoors.

  “Why do you think there were so many protesters the other day at the development lot?” Justin asked.

  I had to think about my answer. I laced my hands together. If this had been being filmed, I would have come across as thoughtful and intelligent. Maybe. “People in this town are a little afraid of change,” I finally said.

  “True,” he said, nodding as he leaned back, his own gestures mirroring mine. “But word is that not all of those protesters had such pure motives.”

  Sounded like he knew what Alyson knew about some of the protesters being paid to be there. Her theory was starting to sound more and more sound.

  Justin laughed and dropped the serious reporter tone for a moment. “I’ll tell you what, Claire—great name, by the way—some people in this town are complete bonkers.”

  “Oh, I completely agree,” I said, playing along. But was I playing along? The words came a little too easily.

  He switched back to reporter mode. “So you are in favor of the development?”

  I paused and glanced over at the still recording microphone.

  “I am actually.” I was surprised by how authentic and easy my answer was. It wasn’t that I couldn’t see Alyson’s side of things. But she was like the rest of the people in the town. She was driven by a fear of change, just like everyone else, when actually, the development could be just the thing the town needed. On a more selfish note, I wanted a place to shop.

  I’d been so caught up in the actual interview that I had almost forgotten what I had come there for. Justin started asking me personal information, about who I was friends with in Eden Bay and if I was seeing anyone. That pulled me out of my little fog. But that was okay. Lulling him into a false sense of security and wasting his time had all been part of the plan. I heard my own voice change.

  “I think you need to be careful what you say on this podcast, Justin St. Clair.”

  I leaned forward and pulled out the papers I had gotten Dawn Petts-Jones to draw up and handed them to him with a thin smile. I wasn’t like Alyson. I wasn’t going to throw any phones into any oceans. But I was going to shut down this podcast, and the best way to do that was with paperwork.

  “What is this?” he asked, looking over them quickly before he shot a glance back at me. He looked betrayed.

  “You can’t just say anything you like and think you can get away with it.” I stared at him. “And you can’t just call people crazy because they throw phones into the ocean. I would call that…passionate. Not crazy.”

  “You are friends with her.” He said the word ‘her’ like he was talking about some kind of demon that could be summoned if you used its actual name.

  He tossed the papers back down on the coffee table. He didn’t look too troubled by then. “It isn’t libel if it is true.”

  I leaned back in my seat. “Prove that is it true.”

  “Prove that your friend is crazy? That will be easy.”

  I noticed too late that this whole conversation was still recording.

  “You should probably turn that off,” I said, keeping my voice low.

  “What, are you going to sue me for this recording a
s well?”

  “I will if I have to.”

  He reached forward and tore up the papers. Was he being serious? Was he really not going to turn that thing off? I reached for the off button while he was still shredding the paperwork.

  He moved in front of me, but I was quicker than him, and fitter, and I was able to grab it before he could stop me. Well, almost. There was a tug of war.

  I heard a snapping noise

  Uh-oh. The microphone was broken.

  Justin’s eyes were gleaming. “You are paying for this. You both are.”

  But before he could get a cent out of me, I ran out the door—and realized that I had just made things worse for my best friend, not better.

  14

  Alyson

  There were really strange vibes in the coffee shop that morning. Some would tell me I was being paranoid, but I knew I was just being perceptive. I picked up my skateboard and stepped inside One Shot Double Shot. How was it possible for everyone to stare at you at the same time as they all avoid making eye contact with you?

  The young blonde girl behind the counter asked me for my order.

  Normally, I would have loved an iced coffee. Or even just a regular coffee with cream on top. But training was calling and I’d already justified one too many sugary treats as ‘carb loading’. So I asked the barista for an English breakfast tea, low fat milk and no sugar, and stood back and waited for my order.

  The barista looked super cool that morning. He was wearing a white tee with the sleeves off, which showed a peek of a tattoo.

  He looked up from the hot water spout and his eyes opened wide.

  “Are you…Alyson Faulks?” Hot steam spurted out everywhere.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You know I am,” I said as I grabbed my tea from him. “We went to school together.” What was going on with people on that day?

  I backed out of the coffee shop and eyed the other customers sitting there. One leaned into the other and whispered something, they both giggled. I made my exit.