I look at the crooked welcome sign, the tired fans, the ocean winking through the palms like it knows a dirty secret or two. I look at Ruby, who is all sparkling chaos, and Lani, a touch of stubborn grace.
“Lani,” I say, “tell me where you keep the extra duct tape.”
She finally breaks out a smile, and it’s the kind that looks as if it could hold up a roof. Good thing, because it just might need to.
She nods my way. “Now you’re talking.”
Heels click in our direction as Melanie reappears, looking freshly recalibrated, and with a fresh touch-up of her Hostile Cherry lipstick, too.
“Heads-up,” she barks, glowering at me like I personally offended her. “A new group of guests is arriving in twenty minutes. I have a nail appointment. You—” her pen jabs the airat my chest— “will greet them. Smile. Don’t promise anything. First impressions can be murder around here.”
She pivots and stalks off, leaving a trail of perfume and disapproval in her wake.
Ruby gives my arm a quick squeeze. “Welcome to Coconut Cove, Jinx. I hope you specialize in miracles.”
I glance at the tiki statue by the door. His painted grin dares me to say it.
“Miracles I can do,” I sigh. “It’s the murder I can do without.”
And yet somewhere outside, a police siren wails like a promise of murderous things to come.
CHAPTER 3
“Please tell me you’re a room,” I say to what looks more like a supply closet than the swanky digs I was hoping for as far as my personal accommodations go. “Blink once for yes.”
The gecko on the ceiling does a smug little push-up. The window—more of a mail slot than a window—shows me the back tire of a rental Jeep and a generous view of asphalt. Coconut Cove Paradise Resort has tucked my “accommodations” behind the laundry facility and directly in the parking lot, which is convenient if my hobbies include inhaling carbon monoxide.
“It’s early evening,” I announce to the gecko, who’s become my therapist by default. “The breeze is on strike, the air smells like sunscreen, sweet bread, and victory for the mosquitoes, and I am glistening in a way no woman hopes for.”
I flop onto the mattress hard, then immediately regret it because it has all the bounce of a decision you made at 2 a.m.and wish you could take back. I push myself up and kick off my flip-flops—one lands under the chair, the other skitters under a stack of extra toilet paper rolls, which tells me everything I need to know about how much faith Coconut Cove has in my digestive system.
No AC. No fan. One bare bulb that hums at me. A towel with the texture of a loofah that got its heart broken. I guess it is paradise in a character-building way.
“Jinx!” Ruby bangs on my door like she’s serving a warrant. “Party time!”
“You brought a party to what is essentially a broom closet with delusions of grandeur?”
“It’s anunderutilized suite,” she calls through the door, which I’m pretty sure is made of cardboard, hope, and whatever was left over from the luau decorations. “And yes, Lani and I found supplies.”
I open up and get a face full of Ruby with her long red hair braided with a pink paper lei, far too many rings that sparkle, and eyes bright with the look of a woman about to ask forgiveness instead of permission.
Lani stands beside her in a flour-dusted muumuu, wooden spoon tucked in her pocket like a sidearm, and expression steady as a heartbeat. She takes one look past my shoulder—the mattress, the window, the view of automotive excellence—and her face softens in a way that makes me feel simultaneously pitied and cared for.
“You need ice,” she says.
“I need a priest and possibly an exorcism,” I say. “But ice is a solid plan B.”
“We have neither,” Ruby trills. “But we do have paperumbrellas and a blender that screams when it decides to work. Come on.”
“Where did you get a blender?” Lani asks.
Ruby holds up a finger. “Where do I get anything? Don’t ask.”
We march toward the beachfront veranda carrying our haul—a plastic tub of questionable cups, a tangle of string lights, a half-case of cream of coconut, pineapple juice, and a bottle of vodka whose label has faded into a memory. The path runs under palms that click together and shed brown fronds at dramatic intervals.
The ocean sighs beyond the hedge—it was blue earlier, but now its melted into pewter under a dreamy peach sky. Tiki torches cough smoke and resin. And somewhere, a rooster argues with the moon.
Melanie materializes by the front desk as we pass with her posture perfect, her expression preloaded, and she’s wearing a new lipstick in a shade I can only describe as deeply unfriendly.
