“Jay, honestly, sometimes—”
“Alex, want to cause a panic?” Jay demanded.
“Sure. Fine. We’re taking a casual stroll.”
They left the lobby, Alex leading, Jay behind her, Laurie following quickly. They took the path through the flowers, passed the Tiki Hut—which seemed unusually quiet for the time of day—and around the lagoon area.
“Alex, slow down. We’re taking a stroll, remember?” Jay said.
She looked back, still moving quickly. “Jay, we’re in shorts and you’re in an Armani suit, about to get sand in your polished black shoes. How casually can we stroll?”
He let out a sound of irritation but argued the point no further.
They reached the pristine sand beach. The temperature was dropping, the sweet breeze still blowing in.
Alex came to a halt. Jay nearly crashed into her back. As if they were a vaudeville act, Laurie collided with him.
“What the hell?” Jay demanded.
“It’s gone,” Alex breathed.
“What’s gone?” Jay demanded.
“The body.”
Laurie was staring toward the thatch of seaweed where the corpse had lain. She, too, seemed incredulous. “It—it is gone,” she murmured.
Without turning, Alex could feel the way that Jay was looking at her. Like an icy blast against the balmy summer breeze, she could feel his eyes boring into her back.
She didn’t turn but ran down the length of the beach, searching the sand and the water, looking for any hint as to where the body had been moved.
“What, Alex?” Jay shouted. “You saw a corpse, but it rolled down the beach to catch the sun better?”
She stopped then, whirling around.
“It’s moved,” she said, walking back to where Jay stood.
“Your corpse got up and walked?”
She exhaled impatiently. “Jay, it was here.”
“Really, Jay, it was,” Laurie said, coming to her defense.
They all turned at the sound of a motor. A sheriff’s department launch was heading their way. Nigel Thompson, the sheriff himself, had come.
Usually Alex liked Nigel Thompson. He looked just the way she figured an old-time Southern sheriff should look. He was somewhere between fifty and sixty years old; his eyes were pale blue, his hair snow-white. He was tall and heavy, a big man. His appearance was customarily reassuring.
He tended to be a skeptic.
A skeptic when rowdy, underage kids told their stories. A skeptic when adults who should have known better lied about the amount they had been drinking before a boating accident. He was never impolite, never skirted the law, but he was tough, and folks around here knew it.
He cut the motor but drew his launch right up to the beach. Hopping from the craft, he demanded, “Where’s this body?”
Jay looked from Nigel to Alex.
“Well?” he asked her.
She lifted her chin, grinding down hard on her teeth. She looked at Nigel. “It was right here,” she said pointing.
He looked from the sand and seaweed to her. “It was there?”
“I swear to you, it was right there.”
He looked at Alex, slowly arching an eyebrow. “Alexandra, I was just about to sit down to dinner when the call came in. Tell me this isn’t a joke or a summer prank.”
“Had to have been a prank—and Alex fell for it,” Jay said. He didn’t sound angry with her, but he did sound aggravated.
“I’m here now,” Nigel said, looking at Alex. “So tell me what you saw.”
“A sunbather who thought it was one hell of a joke to fool someone into thinking she was dead,” Jay said.
“She was dead,” Alex said. “Nigel, you’ve known me for years. Do I make things up?”
“No, missy, you don’t,” the sheriff acknowledged. “But there is no body,” he pointed out.
“It was here, right here. I got close enough to make sure she was…I touched her. She was dead,” Alex asserted with quiet vehemence.
“She sure looked dead,” Laurie offered.
Alex winced inwardly, aware her friend was trying to help. But her words gave the entire situation an aura of doubt.
“She was dead,” Alex repeated.
“Cause of death?” Nigel asked her.
“I didn’t do an autopsy,” she snapped, and then was furious with herself.
“There was nothing that suggested a cause of death?” Nigel asked patiently.
She shook her head. “If she had washed up with a rope around her neck, I didn’t see it. I’m sorry, I’ve dealt with dead dolphins, but I never interned at the morgue,” Alex told him. “But I know a corpse when I see one.”
“So you’ve seen lots of corpses?” Jay asked.
“I’ve seen enough dead mammals, Jay.” She looked at Nigel. “I swear to you that there was a dead woman here, tangled in seaweed.”
He sighed, looking at the sand and the water, then back to her. “No drag marks, Alex. She wasn’t pulled into the bushes.”
“She was here,” Alex insisted stubbornly.
“Alex, I’m not saying this is what happened, but isn’t it possible that someone was pulling a prank?”
“No,” she said determinedly.