Carol Clark - Burned

Will looked at his watch. “It’s buffet time. The two ladies in charge always manage to corral a large table in the main dining room near the open doors overlooking the beach.” He briefly described the members of the group whom Regan hadn’t met. “I don’t suppose you want to be introduced to the rest of them.”

“No. Not yet. I’ll try to sit near them. I want to check out the twins. They may be swindling money. It sounds as if Dorinda was definitely on to something there. I just wonder what raised her suspicions about them.”

“I don’t know. All I know is that they only pay their bills after they’ve wrung every discount possible out of me.”

Regan stood. “I’ll go to see what they eat for breakfast.”

Outside Will’s office, Janet was at her desk.

“You’re in early today,” Regan noted, “and on a Saturday.”

Janet smiled up at her. “After this ball I’m taking a vacation.”

“Something tells me we’ll all need one,” Regan said and headed to the breakfast buffet.

C arla and Jason had spent an agonizing night in the cold cellar. Temperatures dropped to forty degrees up in the mountains, and the heat in the house wasn’t working yet. Their bones ached, the ropes cut into their hands and feet, and their mouths were raw and dry with the gags. But those aches and pains were nothing compared to the fear they felt. They were terrified for their lives.

Bound in chairs that were tied to separate cement poles, both Jason and Carla had tried to wiggle around, but it didn’t help. It only made the rope burns worse.

Although they couldn’t talk, they were both thinking the same thought: They’d never get the chance to marry each other.

“G ert and I have no interest in going to the ball,” Regan heard one of the twins saying. “You people go and have fun. Gert and I will find other things to do.”

“You’re not mad we charged the tickets?” Francie asked. “Because Joy here thinks that-”

“Francie!” Joy snapped.

“All I’m saying is that Joy thought you might be upset we did it without asking.”

“Joy is a very smart young lady,” Ev replied. “Normally we wouldn’t be happy, but we’ll let it go this time.”

“Why don’t we get two tickets for you?” Artie suggested. “It might be fun. We’ll go as a group.”

Ev was firm. “Those tickets are overpriced. We’ve already wasted enough of Sal Hawkins’s money on them. Gert and I will go into town and have some twin time. I don’t see that dynamic duo Bob and Betsy. Are they planning to go to the ball?”

“I think they had a fight,” Joy declared as she stirred some wheat germ into her yogurt. She was doing everything she could to keep her figure as trim as possible, but she knew her discipline would evaporate when she got back to Hudville. She had lost most of her zeal for it anyway. Last night Zeke had revealed that he planned to travel the world for five years-with his surfboard.

“What did they have a fight about?” Artie asked.

“I don’t know. But last night when I came back from a party they were sitting on the beach. I heard Betsy complain that Bob was too much of a square.”

“Bob’s not a square!” Francie blurted.

“How do you know? He looks like a square to me,” Artie countered.

“Bob’s nice. He gave me spending money,” Joy said pointedly as she glanced over at the twins.

“Well, if that makes him feel special, then good for Bob,” Ev said sternly. “The world is full of men who need to show off to young girls. It’s sad.”

“Why don’t we leave Bob alone?” Joy asked.

“You’re the one spreading the gossip,” Artie reminded her.

What a group, Regan thought as she ate a forkful of scrambled eggs. It seemed likely to her that the twins were pocketing some of Sal Hawkins’s money. They were on a tight budget when the group was left with $10 million. That’s a lot of money to go through even if you vacation in Hawaii every three months. But how are they going to get away with it? If they did take several million for themselves, it doesn’t sound as though they’ll have a lot of opportunity to spend all that dough in Hudville.

“You’re back in your muumuus,” Joy remarked to the twins. “I couldn’t believe you were wearing those hot clothes yesterday.”

“We explained that to you yesterday, Joy. We were in and out of air conditioning all day looking at hotels all over Oahu. We’re doing our best to keep costs down. Otherwise there won’t be many trips left for the lucky Praise the Rain members.”

Regan watched the twins closely. If they absconded with Sal Hawkins’s money, that would have been a big scoop for Dorinda. Could they have known that Dorinda suspected them of stealing? That would certainly be a motive for them to want to murder her. They looked like two sweet old ladies. Are they capable of killing? The blonde caught Regan staring at her. Regan turned away quickly, but in the instant their eyes met she decided that babe could be scary. Her look at Regan had been withering.

Guilty, Regan thought, of at least theft. She took a sip of coffee and pretended to be entranced by the fruit plate in front of her. It’s clear that the twins don’t want to go to the ball tonight. Why not? They’re up to something. If they have all that money squirreled away, another few hundred bucks shouldn’t matter. What are they up to?

A woman trying to juggle a full tray and hold her toddler’s hand passed behind Gert’s chair and knocked into it. Gert’s purse slid off the back of her seat and onto the floor. I wouldn’t want to be that poor young mother, Regan thought with a slight smile as she watched the annoyed expression that immediately came over Gert’s face.

“Well, excuse me,” the twin said sarcastically as she reached down to grab her purse. Too quickly she picked the pocketbook up from its bottom. The flap of the purse hadn’t been hooked properly, and the contents spilled all over the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” the young mother apologized as her toddler, being only about two feet from the floor, attempted to help out by picking up Gert’s wallet. Gert grabbed it out of his hands, and he started to cry.

Several coins had rolled beneath Regan’s chair. She leaned down and quickly gathered them up, then crouched on the floor where Gert had practically thrown her body, insisting to her group that she could collect everything herself. Regan was the closest to the mess. She noticed Gert hastily put her large hands around a postcard with the word Kona sprawled across the picture of a beautiful beach. Regan picked up a makeup bag. Under it was the stub of a Hawaiian Airlines boarding pass; destination: Kona, January 14.

“Here,” Regan said, dropping the coins, makeup bag, and ticket stub into the purse that Gert was stuffing with her Tic Tacs, comb, eyeglass case, hanky, and room key.

Gert looked into her eyes. They were both on the floor. “Thank you,” she said quickly.

Regan felt as if Gert were searching her eyes for something. Regan deliberately remained impassive. No, she thought, I didn’t notice that you had a boarding pass for a flight yesterday to Kona. Not at all. And I would never mention it to your tour group-the tour group you just lied to about looking at hotels in Oahu all day yesterday.

But what, Regan wondered, do you have going on in Kona?

N ed had barely slept. He woke as the sun rose and went for an early morning run. All he could think about was the fact that someone, probably Glenn, had taken the leis out of his gift-wrapped box and replaced them with cheap imitations. That’s a premeditated crime, he thought angrily. But whoever did it knows I’m a criminal, too.