Final Sentence (6 page)

I carried a large glass of sauvignon blanc, the guacamole, and a bag of tortilla chips—I didn’t think I had the talent yet to cook cumin-dusted tortillas and not burn down the place—into the art nook that I’d fashioned by the picture window. Whenever I suffered an emotional upset, I focused on my art. I set a canvas on an easel and retrieved a palette of oil paints and a paintbrush from the Ching cabinet. While I drew big angry swirls, Tigger circled my ankles; he refused to get sucked into my dark hole. I wished I could face life with his panache, but I needed to know the truth. Where in the heck was Desiree?

Close to midnight, I strode outside to the porch, leaned against the railing, and listened to the roar of the ocean, which was louder at night than any other time of the day. I stood there for a long time, allowing the crash and boom to pummel my overactive brain into submission. When I returned inside, I forged a battle plan. In the morning, after my walk and breakfast, I would storm Crystal Cove Inn and demand answers from my college pal.

• • •

AROUND 6 A.M.,
I awoke with a start. Something clacked against the exterior of the cottage. Tigger mewled and skittered around the box sitting on the floor beside my bed. I reached over and nuzzled his neck. “Shh. You’re hearing a shutter swinging in the breeze. I’ll fix it later.” My father had taught me a thing or two with a screwdriver and hammer, but I didn’t want to deal with repairs now. I rose, checked myself in the bathroom mirror, and groaned. Puffy eyes, red nose, grim mouth. Late-night pity parties and I didn’t mix.

Forbidding myself to wallow, I fed Tigger some warm milk and kitty kibble and enclosed him in a “safe” area that I created in the kitchen, after which I donned walking clothes and headed out for my stroll.

Morning sun carved a path through the gloomy clouds, giving me hope that today might go better than yesterday. I would learn that Sabrina had made a mistake, Desiree was a true friend, and the opening of The Cookbook Nook would go off without a hitch. I zipped up my navy blue hoodie and traipsed to my aunt’s house. I peeked through the sheer kitchen curtains and spied Aunt Vera. Clad in robe and slippers, her hair fixed with bobby pins in tight curls to her head, she sat at the dining table reading a newspaper.

I rapped on the kitchen door and opened it.

“Good morning, dear,” Aunt Vera said. “You’re up early.”

“Full day ahead.” I didn’t add that I had barely slept a wink worrying about Desiree and what I would say to her when I saw her. “Do you have any sun block?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

Okay, so maybe I couldn’t maintain a stoic face. Maybe it was the puffy, red-nosed look—a dead giveaway. “It’s nothing, really.”

Aunt Vera shuffled to a cupboard, her vintage gold genie slippers never leaving the floor, and retrieved a few items. She held up a canister of fifty-strength sun block. I allowed her to spritz me. Afterward, she offered me a bottle of water and a snack of homemade trail mix—enough for an army of squirrels. “In case,” she said.

“In case I get stranded on an island?”

She tapped her head as if she knew something I didn’t about my future.

I ignored the shiver that prickled my neck, thanked her for the gifts, tucked them into the deep pockets of my khaki capris, and trotted down the steps to the ocean. A glimpse back at the seaside cottage tugged at my heartstrings. David and I had exchanged our first kiss on the white lattice pergola that nestled to the right of the house. Had he and Desiree—

Stop it, Jenna!

I pressed onward. Palm trees and scrub brush jutted out of the incline that sloped from the main road to the beach. The water, which was green along the sand, grew to a deeper blue about fifteen yards out. Speed walking, with my arms pumping like train axles, I breathed through my nose and out my mouth the way I had learned on a television yoga program. From my aunt’s home, the beach ran north for nearly two miles before ending in a crag of rock upon which perched a lighthouse. I was angry enough with Desiree to make the full loop.

To keep my rekindled fury in check, I opted to admire the handiwork of yesterday’s sandcastle builders. The first was a tunneled sandcastle with dozens of different-shaped turrets.

“Nice,” I mumbled. “But points off for building too close to the shore.” The tide had eroded much of the front wall. Next, I spotted a five-foot-square castle, complete with moat. “Simple, yet elegant.” While I pondered whether I could apply for a judging position in the upcoming sandcastle competition, I heard shouts.

A man and a woman descended a set of stairs that ran from the public parking lot abutting the highway to the beach. He trailed her. Both wore floppy hats. At one point, she yelled something and pointed toward their car. She carried a diviner; the man was empty-handed. He raced back up the stairs and returned with a net bag. He reached his partner at the base of the steps, and the two moved toward the shore.

In the water, a lone surfer in a wetsuit sat on a surfboard waiting patiently for the morning’s first wave. A pang of sorrow swept through me. It shouldn’t have; I knew some surfers didn’t need companionship when surfing. They bonded with the ocean. But seeing him floating solo, with a family of seagulls circling above, painted such a desolate picture and made me think of David. Had he drowned and died instantaneously, or had he suffered?

I stroked the locket that held his photograph and pressed on toward a third sculpture. It was longer, lower, and flatter than the others. When I neared within a few feet, I gasped. It was the figure of a naked woman—no, a mermaid—face turned sideways, a sandy hook coming out of her mouth, a clump of seaweed for her hair, and a drizzling of sand for her fingers. Care had been taken, each curve honed.

I started to giggle nervously. The mermaid reminded me of the painted woman in the movie
Goldfinger
. She looked so beautiful . . . so serene . . . so still.

I glanced around. Was the artist nearby, recording on video how people reacted as they passed? Would the treasure-seeking couple rat me out if I touched the mermaid’s tail fin with my toe? Tough. I had to. Curiosity bubbled to boiling point.

I stretched out my foot and tapped the far end of the sculpture. It didn’t crumble as expected. It resisted. Sand fell away and a flesh-colored toe emerged. Human.

A shriek gushed out of my mouth.

The couple down the beach swiveled. The man ran toward me shouting, “What’s wrong?”

“A body,” I yelled and swooped toward the mermaid’s head, hoping whoever was buried was still alive. Kneeling, I swept sand away from the mouth. The nose.

A face emerged.

Desiree.

A huge fishhook punctured her lip. Her face was blue, her eyes open yet lifeless.

Stomach roiling, I leaped to a stand. Somebody had murdered Desiree. I wrapped my arms around my body. My shoulders started to shake uncontrollably. How long had she been buried here? The murderer had to have struck after nightfall; otherwise, beachgoers would have seen the attack. Who had done it? Why?

The couple reached me. The woman gagged. The man turned her so she was unable to look then dropped to his knees and started to sweep away sand where I had left off.

“She’s dead.” I clasped his shoulder. “Stop.”

He shrugged me off, intent on his mission.

“Don’t disturb the evidence,” I shouted. “Stop!”

He didn’t.

I punched him. “Did you kill her?”

He twisted at the waist and gawked at me. “What? No.” He slumped, rump on his heels, arms limp.

I covered my mouth with the back of my hand to fight off another scream. She was dead. Desiree was dead. I hadn’t made things right. I hadn’t found out the truth about David and her. I hadn’t—

Sobs wracked my body. Feelings that had overwhelmed me when I had learned about David’s death came at me like a tidal wave. Shock, panic, despair.

“Do you have a cell phone?” I asked. During my walks, I left the danged thing behind. Whenever I cavorted with nature, I wanted the fantasy of living in the days of old, before cell phones, before faxes, before advertising and marriage and death and heartache. “We need to call 911.”

“No,” the man muttered.

“For heaven’s sake,” the woman said. “Give her your iPhone.”

While casting short glances at Desiree’s buried body, the man rummaged in his jeans pocket and withdrew his cell phone.

During the time I spoke to the police, a crowd amassed. The treasure-seeking man organized the throng behind a line he drew in the sand, and then he and his wife joined the assembly, wanting no part of the investigation. They had seen nothing, knew nothing. Gossip buzzed among the onlookers. Parents embraced their children, but they didn’t pivot and march away from the gruesome scene.

I remained in front of the line gaping at Desiree. Shock and grief muddled my vision.

“Stand back, people.” A woman in brown shorts and matching short-sleeve shirt and baseball cap, who brought to mind a well-toned camp counselor, packing a gun, moved toward us shouting through a bullhorn. Two fellows in similar uniforms trailed her. The woman—strong face, alert eyes, midthirties—pulled up alongside me. “Chief Pritchett.” She flashed a badge, quickly pocketed it, and gestured to her colleagues, who immediately started unwinding yellow crime scene tape.

I gaped at the chief, surprised that she—Cinnamon Pritchett, if I recalled correctly—could be related to the bitter woman who had stormed into The Cookbook Nook.

“Are you the person that called?” she asked me.

“Yes. I’m Jenna Hart,” I mumbled, my tone numb.

“Vera’s niece?” The chief squinted her eyes, not to block sunlight but to evaluate me. Had her mother given her an unfavorable account? “Call me Cinnamon.”

“Cinnamon,” I repeated.

“Tell me what happened here.” Cinnamon was nothing if not perfunctory. Her bobbed dark hair matched the serious attitude. The development girls in advertising, the young creative souls who would sit in on meetings looking hopeful that we would nurture their ideas into
the one
, hadn’t looked nearly as intent, purposeful, and dedicated.

“I was taking my morning walk.” I paused. Did the killer know that I walked daily? Had he . . .
she
. . . wanted me to find Desiree?

“Go on.”

“I power walk. I slowed to view some sandcastles. I was going from one to the next. This one . . . It was so . . . real.” My teeth started to chatter.

Cinnamon said, “Breathe.”

Appreciating her show of support, I told her how I touched the toe, saw flesh, screamed, and dropped to my knees to see if the person was alive. “That’s when . . . that’s when”—I licked my lips—“I realized it was her.”

“You know her?”

“It’s Desiree Divine.”

“The chef?”

“She is . . . was . . . supposed to be our celebrity at the opening of the shop.” The day David died, I phoned his parents, his best friend, and his clients. Would Sabrina want me to do the same for her sister?

“Was Miss Divine an acquaintance? A friend?”

How did I answer that? I thought Desiree and I were friends, but if Sabrina was telling the truth, Desiree had duped me for years. Not knowing gnawed my insides. What else had I been blind to in my past? Had David had other affairs?
No, Jenna, stop it. He was faithful. The love of your life.

Cinnamon studied the crowd huddling behind the yellow crime scene tape and refocused on me. “You scraped away sand from the face.”

“A little, to see if”—I urged my legs to keep holding me up—“to see if she was still alive. I thought maybe someone had played a prank. Maybe she was getting air to her mouth through—”

“A straw? A tube?”

I nodded. “She wasn’t breathing. That man came to help. He wanted to uncover her.” I indicated the treasure hunter. The man inched behind his wife, the coward. “I told him not to disturb the evidence. We backed away. You can ask him.”

“I’ll get to him in a minute.” Cinnamon tucked the bullhorn beneath her arm and crouched beside Desiree. Using a fingertip, she brushed away sand from Desiree’s neck. “Strangled,” she whispered, then mentioned something about a blow to the right side of Desiree’s head. She rose and addressed a patrolman. “Get the coroner here ASAP.” She trained her eyes on me. “What else did you notice?”

“There was a surfer out there when I first arrived. He’s gone.”

Cinnamon pulled a pad and pen from her breast pocket and jotted a note. “Can you describe him?”

“He was too far away.” I reexamined the crime scene, my mind growing clear and discriminating. I pinched my leg to force myself to feel, but I couldn’t. Was I separating myself from grief the way I had when I’d heard the news about David? Desiree was murdered. She did not fall off a boat and drown. She was not a mermaid that had washed up on shore. Somebody had murdered her. Sabrina? J.P.? Why? Where had the surfer gone? Why hadn’t he come to shore when I screamed?

“There are no footprints,” I blurted out.

“Sure there are,” Cinnamon said.

“Not around the body, other than mine and the treasure seeker’s prints. Look. There are none from Desiree’s head to the water.”

“Whoa.” Cinnamon held up a hand. “Don’t go all
CSI
on me.”

“I’m not. All I’m saying is someone cleaned up after making a sand sculpture out of Desiree. Do you think he used a palm frond and escaped through the water?”

“Why do you think it was a he?”

Because a surfer was out in the water and he has disappeared
, I wanted to yell, but I backed off. “You said Desiree was strangled. If the killer was a she, she was a big woman. Desiree is . . . was almost six feet tall.”

“Go on.”

“She would have been heavy to carry.” Desiree mentioned seeing a hunky fisherman outside The Cookbook Nook. What if he hadn’t been looking for me? What if he had been stalking her? “What do you think about the fishhook jabbed through her lip?”

Cinnamon took off her baseball cap, swatted it against her leg, and replaced it with a firm tug. She crouched down and reinspected the area, this time paying attention to Desiree’s face and the fishhook. She didn’t touch either. Over her shoulder, she said, “I’m afraid you’re going to be here for quite a bit, Jenna.”