Page 149 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“Oh, Dad,” Brie said, tears in her eyes. “I—how can I show him this? It’ll break his heart.”

“How can you not?”

Brie squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.

I hugged her, and a minute later, Brie jumped up. “Okay. I have to rip the Band-Aid off. But... alone. Because I don’t want her in the room making excuses, I don’t want to get in a fight with her. I just need to show Dad and let him see the truth for himself. Sherry has a spa treatment at one, but Dad went to St. John earlier to get something. I don’t know when he’s going to be back.”

“Go to the dock and wait for him.”

“What if she goes to meet him?”

“If you see her, call me. I’ll think of something—maybe ask Kalise to grab her for a fitting or whatever. Or ask Jason to distract her.”

“Okay, I’ll let you know. What are you doing?”

“Going to the library. I have an idea about the documents, but I need to ponder it a bit more.”

“You think they’re in the library?” Brie asked.

“Yeah, I do. But I have no idea where.”

I first walked through the Blue Dahlia; Jason wasn’t there. I asked Callie for one of her yummy spritzers and asked, “Is the Sky Bar party off because of the wedding?”

“Oh, no. Kalise refused to do that, because Mr. Locke and Ms. Morrison didn’t plan for a wedding when they booked the trip. However, she’s a romantic at heart, so she’s setting up the Sky Bar to have the wedding an hour before the party officially starts. All guests are invited, and they’ll have a special dance for them and everything.”

“Oh. Good. I didn’t want to miss tonight, I heard so much about it, and I’m leaving Tuesday.” I didn’t know if I was leaving Tuesday—I might end up staying for the extra three days. I was trying not to think about it. I had responsibilities... but I wanted to spend more time with Jason. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to make the decision.

I told Callie, “Jason said he was working up there tonight. You too?”

“Naw, I rarely work nights. Charlie will take the extrahours—his wife is pregnant with their first kid, so he needs the money.”

She put the spritzer in a to-go cup. “How’d you know?” I asked.

“You didn’t sit down.”

I thanked her and walked through the lobby and up the stairs to the second floor.

The library was empty. Good.

I pulled out my phone and looked at Diana’s writing, and the list of words that I thought for certain was a clue to the location of the files. Slowly, I roamed the shelves, flipping through all the books written by these authors, and no papers fluttered out to the floor.

But thisfeltright.

I looked again at Diana’s social media pages, willing the photos to reveal something to me.

The five photos that had no caption. They had to represent a book,thebook where she hid the file.

I closed my eyes and put myself in Diana’s shoes. She liked puzzles and codes and secrets. What did the pictures tell me? Something was on the edge of my memory. Something familiar.

I looked at the pictures again.

A photo of her painted toes—she had a tattoo on her ankle. A rose with thorns.

The resort.

A white dahlia with a wasp as the focal point. A wasp... that was important.

A skinny woman smoking alone.

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