Beach Blanket Bloodbath (Amanda Feral Book 4) (11 page)

Death on the Dunes. A murder mystery it
seemed. And there on the cover, instead of dentures was a sloppily rendered
prosthetic arm complete with harness and a few droplets of blood jutting from
some beach grass. At the bottom, of the cover, the name Marissa Winterford
popped out in bold all-caps.

“Only partially autobiographical, of
course,” she said, retrieving it from my hands and petting it like she might a
treasured heirloom. “And available at the online retailer of your choice.”

“What?” I said, cocking my head. “You’re
a writer? I’m a writer. I’m here for an event at the bookstore.”

This was apparently the wrong thing to
say. The woman’s eyes narrowed, her lips pinched. “A writer, you say?”

I nodded.

“Well,” she huffed. “Everyone claims to
be a writer, don’t they? My Aunt Sylvia, on my mother’s side twice
removed—wish it was three times—whenever I mention I’ve got a new
thriller ready to hit the shelves, she scoffs. Sylvia says, I wish
I
had the free time to write a book.
People always tell me I tell the best stories. Don’t you think I tell the best
stories, Marissa? What I don’t say is No, no I don’t Aunt Sylvia, and you
couldn’t tell a Goddamn story if your life to depended on it. If you were
locked up in a goddamn gulag and the key to your release was one good story,
you’d be in there until the rats gave up on the tough meat clinging to your
carcass, started spitting it out. But I don’t say that. I just smile, as you
do, ‘cause I’m a nice person. Who says mean things like that? And who’s this
handsome young man, you brought with you? Are you a writer, too, sweetie?”

“No.” Gil shook his head.

“No? Well, after you get settled, you’re
more than welcome to come down here and rub some analgesic cream on poor Mrs. Winterford’s
aching shoulders. Would you like that? I’ll make you a cup of tea with a little
bourbon…and some cookies.”

“Would you like that, Gil?” Wendy asked.

“Gil’s quite the masseuse.” My silent
laughter had reached the trickling pee stage—if I did that anymore, which
I don’t. Ever.

Mrs. Winterford’s smile dwindled.

Wendy raised her brow, as if to make
another joke when a loud gurgle interrupted the pleasantries and Wendy hunched
over moaning.

“Bathroom’s right this way, little lady.”
She ushered her down the hall and out of sight quicker than I’d thought the
chair could manage.

Gil grabbed my hand and pulled me close,
choking back tears of laughter. “I’d totally fucking forgot about the Twix, she’s
gonna be on the crapper all night!”

“Bad joke,” Abuelita grumbled.

“Oh shut up you, take your phone to your
room and watch Senor Sinister twist his mustache hair some more.”

“No no. It is variety show now. So much
singing and dancing.”

Abuelita had completely forgotten her
disgust at my guttural prank and was swiftly wrapping herself in a fandom I
cared less about than…well, you name it, I simply don’t give a shit about what
cranks your hog. I mean, I understand. I get it. People are really
into
things and they buy replicas and toys
and dress up, and I guess that’s just what you do when you don’t have a purse,
shoe or clothing addiction—I might pet my Birkin bag, what of it? It’s
not like I’d collect Fashion Trading Cards. Though if there were such a thing,
I’d definitely need an Hermes and a Balenciaga, possibly an Alexander McQueen.
I’ll trade you a Tim Gunn for your L’Wren Scott—I heard that one just
shot up in value.

What? Too soon?

Wait…are there fashion trading cards? I
might need some, but that’s where it would stop. I’d never go to a convention
or anything…except for Fashion Week.

Whatever. Shut up.

Mrs. Winterford ground her chair across
the shag carpet, back into the room sans Wendy. We surely wouldn’t be seeing
her for a while. The woman took up residence behind a tall bamboo bar. She
slapped her palm atop a bell and waited with a smile.

We were waiting too. “Was someone coming
to get our bags?” I asked.

“No.” The woman shook her head as though
I’d said something completely ridiculous. “This isn’t a hotel, dear. I was
ringing the bell so’s y’all would know I was ready to receive you formally.”

Gil and I exchanged a quick uncomfortable
glance and approached her cautiously. Her expression had changed. Soured
somehow. She stole several suspicious glances across the top of her glasses as
she flipped pages in a dusty old guest register.

I guessed this had something to do with
interrupting her. “I’m sorry that we kept you from your event, Mrs. Winterford.
I’m terribly sorry.” The apology clung to my throat like sour milk. An unfamiliar
sensation, since I’m rarely wrong, as you know.

But the woman softened slightly. “It’s
fine really. I had to work on my latest novel anyway.”

I stared at her, waiting for whatever
constituted a formal receiving, and shouldn’t have been surprised when she
pulled a credit card reader out and put out her palm.

“That’ll be one nineteen a night per room
for three rooms and then another nineteen for my new book, The Pine Fresh Scent
of Murder. Can I put you down for eight?” she asked, resolutely.

“Just the rooms,” I said.

Mrs. Winterford prickled, clutching her
pearls once more and wincing as though some mysterious pain had come on.

 
Gil nudged.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay. I’ll take one of
the Goddamn books.”

“Perfect!” she slapped it onto the bar
and proceeded to sign it with a flourish. “To Amanda, my newest fan.”

Gil chuckled beside me.

“What are you laughing about,” I
whispered, curling my fingers and pretending to knead old lady chicken skin. “You
better get those hands ready for later.”

“Enough chattering, I’ve got a bestseller
to write and you’d probably like to rest up after such a long trip in from the
big city and the excitement of the pageant.”

Wait…what? She knew we had been there?

“So you know what happened at the pageant,
then?” I asked.

The woman stopped ambulating away and sat
silent for a second, refusing to respond as only a fraudulent paralytic could.
I had the urge to come at her, jaw jacked open and snapping and see how fast
she’d bolt from her chair.

“Uh...no,” she said finally. “Did that terrible
Becky Swinton win? She’s about as interesting to look at as a sheaf of blank
paper, you just want to adorn her with something.”

“Like a personality?” I watched the woman
closely. She seemed to have blown off the fact that she’d given herself away.

“So, she did win.”

We followed Mrs. Winterford down the hall
to a closet that turned out to be the basement stair and an elevator the size
of a closet.

“I’m afraid so, but shortly after was
forced to relinquish her crown.”

Mrs. Winterford backed into the elevator
and descended as Gil and I took the stairs. At the bottom, she rolled out and twisted
playfully toward us. Her smile so broad and fixed, she could have had a stroke
and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

“Shut up! I don’t believe it. Drugs? Whoring?”

“Well, it’s nothing scandalous. Just a
murder.”

The woman threw her hand up to put a stop
to my story and ushered Gil ahead of me ahead of me toward an open door. “In
here young man.”

Her eyes coursed over him lewdly, lost
for a second in a fantasy and then snapping back as soon as he’d tugged his
luggage inside and closed the door behind him. “Are you saying Becky was
murdered?”

I nodded. “It was quite the scene, too.
Blood everywhere. Someone had it out for the girl...or possibly they were
hungry.”

Mrs. Winterford gestured to the door
opposite Gil’s and I opened it, propping my suitcase at the foot of the bed, I
turned to judge her reaction only to find an empty door frame and the sound of the
little elevator cranking its way upward. I went to call after her, to figure
out where we could get a drink close by, but a door opened onto the hall and
soon after a mammoth figure of a man filled the space.

“Uh...” the sound flittered out of my
throat, but before I could come up with a greeting, the shape sank back into
the shadows. A moment later, a latch clicked at the end of the hall.

At least the Dunes of Hazard Bed and
Breakfast wasn’t filled with suspicious characters. Five, by my count.

Shrugging, I locked the door behind be
and sank into the bed, one of those memory foam nightmares that pools around
your body like packing peanuts, and stared at the ceiling. The dead don’t sleep
but we can rest our eyes and use it as an excuse to get away from each other
for a while.

The house quieted around me and for a moment
I had a chance to think about the last few hours. Had it only been that long?
The zombie walk and the cloud heist, the Golden Boys and the landshark feeding
in the alley. So much in so short a time. Our lives weren’t getting any
easier...or normal. That was obvious. In fact, I seemed to be attracting the
craziness like a magnet. Everywhere I ended up, insanity followed, like the
Pied Piper of crazy.

If there was somehow to make money at
that, I’d be golden; sadly people didn’t buy into fairy tales, except that
whole true love thing.

Which brings me to my ex-boyfriend Scott.

Technically, we’re on a break. I guess,
since Scott was the one that termed it that. I’d merely shrugged and watched as
he grabbed his bag and flew to Sweden. I’d had my suspicions about his fidelity
upon finding several coarse blonde hairs on his favorite black cashmere
sweater--one I’d purchased for him as a birthday gift, I might add. The
confrontation wasn’t violent, I merely held the three hairs I’d combed from the
discarded sweater like a post-rape pubic mound out in his direction and watched
as his cheeks went cherry red.

“Listen,” I’d said. “I understand if you
need someone more alive, from time to time. But I’m disappointed that you can’t
use your big boy words and tell me there’s a problem or that you want a living
person from time to time. Seriously. Just don’t be a pussy.”

Scott had stood there silently, nose
crinkled up like I’d shit on the carpet. Finally, I’d just pointed to the door
and let the dog out and like the werewolf he was, he high-tailed it out of
there. I’d only kept him around so long because he was fantastic in bed,
despite the occasional lapse into leg humping.

The love I thought we shared turned out
to be indigestion.

“And on that note.” I shot a quick text
to Gil and Wendy.

One word.

dranks

Okay.

What’s with Gil? Wendy, I can understand
passing on pickling her insides since half of them were probably dangling into
the chilly water of Mrs. Winterford’s toilet. But Gil? There was something strange
going on and I was pretty sure it was the same thing that kept him isolated to
his Victorian manor of horrors.

That he was keeping a secret bugged the
shit out of me. I like to keep mine, of course. No one needs to know I provide
jars of pear cilantro butter with adorable lace toppers tied with twine to a
Pike Place vendor named Gracey (10 oz. $8.99—the jam, not the vendor).

Gracey’s worth at least twenty, if for
nothing else than to coax her into replacing the loose gauge in her earlobe
with the big black vibrator she always carries in her purse. When she turns
that thing on and it jiggles against her jaw you’ll lose your shit, especially
when you realize the whole stall smells like pear, cilantro and pussy.

Better make it $25.

I slipped out of my heels and sank into
the sand. According to the brochure I’d found in the Dunes’ conversation pit, The
Driftwood Inn was only a quarter mile down the beach, but in a dress as tight
as the Versace, it was going to take a half hour, so I glanced up and down the
beach for creepy midnight beachcombers and seeing no one, rolled the skirt up
over my hips to get some extra leverage. It seemed only right that panties as
expensive as the Natoris I wore, should get some exposure. But, as I can’t seem
to experience a moment that isn’t tainted by embarrassment, as soon as I did
it, a tall and obviously muscular figure stepped from between a thicket of
pampas grass and onto the beach.

“Woah!” The voice was deep as a lagoon.

I scrambled to cover my nethers.

“Hey, I can turn around if you need to
pee, or something.” The spare slice of moonlight blazed against the man’s jet
black eyes and caught on a head as slick and shiny as neoprene.

“No, no,” I said, still tugging. “Feel
free to watch, you fucking pervert.”

But when I looked back he’d already
turned, the blackest monolith this side of a Kubrick flick. The more I looked
at the guy’s back, the more it seemed he wasn’t entirely clothed either. Maybe
I’d caught him cramming his legs back into his pants, silently escaping a sedated
rape victim still tangled in the dune grasses.