Chapter 1
Connie Petretta burst out laughing at the flurry of excitement racing in her direction.
That flurry was Stephanie Harrison, who had become one of Connie’s very best friends since she relocated from the Boston area to Sapphire Beach nearly two years ago. With every step, Stephanie’s long athletic legs kicked up a pile of white silky sand, and her arms flailed as she ran toward Connie and her other bestie, Elyse Miller.
“What are you doing here so early?” Elyse asked, giggling at the sight.
“My 11:00 appointment was a no-show.” Stephanie’s broad smile indicated that she wasn’t too disappointed. “Since Andrea was my only client for the day, I was able to come early.” Stephanie was a physical therapist and worked for a company that provided in-home therapy.
“Wasn’t this the client who insisted she couldn’t meet you until 11:00?” Elyse asked.
“Yup,” Stephanie said, settling into one of the lounge chairs that Connie had set up for herself and her friends. They had planned this beach day weeks ago, and each of them had taken the day off from work and their other responsibilities to make it happen. “I tried to schedule my only appointment of the day for earlier in the morning so I could get to the beach ASAP, but my client, Andrea, is on vacation this week and had plans earlier in the morning. I’ll bet she was having so much fun on her first day of vacation that she completely forgot about her physical therapy appointment.”
Connie smiled and shrugged. “Her loss is our gain.”
“Nothing can bother me today,” Stephanie said. “I’m here with my two best friends soaking up some rays on a Monday in late October and dipping my feet in the Gulf of Mexico. Life doesn’t get any better than this.”
Connie leaned back in her lounge chair and pressed her feet into the soft sand. Then she turned her face toward the sun and inhaled the warm, salty air. “I can’t argue with that.” Connie had been looking forward to spending this day with Stephanie and Elyse for weeks. Between Connie running her jewelry shop, Elyse’s business as a realtor – not to mention her husband and two girls – and Stephanie’s more-than-full-time job as a physical therapist, it was rare for the three women to have an entire day to spend together.
“You didn’t miss a thing,” Elyse said, lazily lifting her sunglasses. “We just got here, too.”
Connie opened her large, blue cooler and pulled out three cans of cranberry-lime seltzer water. She handed one to each of her friends and opened the third for herself.
“I love your little setup, by the way,” Stephanie said, gesturing toward Connie’s stand-up paddleboard, which she had set in the middle of the lounge chairs as a makeshift coffee table.
It was a clever use for her paddleboard while it wasn’t in the water, if Connie did say so herself.
Connie lifted her can of seltzer water. “It’s too early for a real toast, but I thought we could raise a glass, or a can, just the same.”
“What are we toasting?” Elyse asked.
“Us, of course. We’ve had a lot thrown at us in the past few months, and we persevered. That deserves a toast.”
“In that case,” Elyse said, raising her can, “here’s to the successful purchases of the buildings that house Just Jewelry and Ruby’s souvenir shop.” Connie had been afraid that she, as well as her neighbor and friend, Ruby, would have to relocate their businesses, after their landlord announced he was selling his properties so he could retire worry-free. That might have meant that Connie and Ruby would have to move their businesses from the properties that had become like a second home. However, after Hurricane Emery swept through southwest Florida in late August, Connie’s landlord dropped the price of both shops. This allowed Connie to purchase the building that housed her own store, and her parents, as an investment, purchased Ruby’s shop. Elyse, being a realtor, handled the transactions.
“And to the completed repairs on Stephanie’s bungalow and Connie’s shop from the hurricane damage,” Elyse added. “We all came through the storm better than we had hoped.”
“Speaking of something being better than we could have hoped for, we should also toast Hurricane Emery for bringing Stephanie and Gallagher together,” Connie added.
Gallagher owned Gallagher’s Tropical Shack, a thatched-roofed restaurant and bar across the street from Just Jewelry, where Connie sold Fair Trade pieces, in addition to her own handmade creations. Gallagher and Stephanie started dating after getting to know one another while they were sheltered-in-place at Palm Paradise, which was the condominium building where Connie lived.
All three took a long drink from their cans.
“Speaking of Gallagher,” Elyse said. “How are things going with him?”
Stephanie cheeks turned pink. But definitely not from the sun.
Elyse laughed. “That well, huh?”
Connie tapped the paddleboard with her palm. “Now that I see how happy the two of you are together, I could kick myself for not introducing you sooner.”
Stephanie shook her head. “Don’t feel badly. The timing of when we met was perfect. We’ve both been super busy over the past couple of years with our careers, and we were each starting to realize that something was missing from our lives when we met. I don’t think either of us would have been ready for a relationship if we had met a year ago.”
“I can tell you one thing for sure,” Connie said. “Gallagher smiles a lot more. And he visits Just Jewelry more frequently than ever. He brings us complimentary smoothies and snacks, especially on the days Grace is working.”
“You can’t blame him for trying to get in good with his new girlfriend’s mother,” Elyse said. “Smart man.”
Stephanie’s mother, Grace Jenkins, was Connie’s neighbor, friend, and part-time employee.
Stephanie smiled and blushed again.
“Okay, we’ll leave you alone,” Elyse said. “We’re just so happy for you and Gallagher.”
“By the way, Elyse,” Stephanie said, “I gave Gallagher your phone number. He’ll be calling you to set up an appointment to look at some houses. He was waiting to complete the hurricane repairs on his restaurant so he could see how much money would be left in his savings, but he’s ready to get out of his beat up old trailer and into a grown-up’s house, as he put it.”
“I’ll look forward to hearing from him.” Elyse winked at Stephanie. “I’ll try to direct him to a neighborhood near you.”
Stephanie playfully tossed some sand in Elyse’s direction. “You’re impossible!”
Elyse raised her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, this time I mean it. I’m done teasing you. Let’s move on to Connie and Zach,” she said with a mischievous smile.
“That’s right,” Stephanie said. “I heard Zach’s parents are coming to town to meet you.”
“They’re not coming to meet me,” Connie said. “They are coming to visit their son. It was his mother’s birthday a couple of weeks ago, so they are coming for a belated celebration.”
“And to check out his girlfriend before the wedding,” Elyse said.
This time, it was Connie who tossed some sand in Elyse’s direction.
“Oh, come on. We all know it’s only a matter of time before there’s a wedding,” Elyse said. “You two have been dating for nearly two years now, haven’t you?”
“We met two years ago in January, but it’s been less than a year that we’ve been serious.”
“When you’re in your mid-thirties like us, that’s long enough to know,” Elyse said.
“When are they arriving in town?” Stephanie asked.
“They fly in on Friday. We’re all going to dinner that night.”
“You see, the first thing Zach’s doing with his parents is taking them to meet you,” Elyse said.
“Stop. Don’t make me more nervous than I already am.”
“They’re going to love you,” Elyse said. “I’ve met Pauline and Ben before. They are great people.”
Elyse’s husband, Detective Joshua Miller, was also a detective, along with Connie’s boyfriend, Detective Zachary Hughes, in the Sapphire Beach Police Department. So, Elyse had known Zach longer than she had known Connie. Connie hoped Elyse was right about Zach’s parents.
“Not to change the subject, but I, for one, am thrilled that we have the entire day together,” Stephanie said.
“Me, too.” Elyse finished her seltzer water and threw the empty can back in the cooler. “Emma is going to a friend’s house after school, and I don’t have to pick Victoria up from daycare until 5:30. There’s nothing like a relaxing day on the beach with your best friends.”
“We need to do this more often,” Stephanie added.
The women spent the next couple of hours soaking in the sun, bathing in the crystal blue water, and taking a leisurely walk on the beach. At about 12:30, they broke into the cooler and devoured the chicken salad sandwiches, chips, and cookies that Connie had packed for lunch.
While they were eating, Connie pointed to a lime-green kayak off in the distance that looked as if it were drifting toward the shore. “That kayaker has the right idea. He or she is lying back in the sun and floating the day away.”
As they put their trash in the cooler to dispose of it later, the water was calling Connie’s name. “My mom always told me to wait twenty minutes after eating before swimming, but patience has never been my strong suit. I’m going back in now.”
Stephanie and Elyse followed Connie into the warm salt water until they were waist deep.
Like three little girls, the women rode the waves back to shore, then waded back out and did it again. After a while, they had drifted far from their lounge chairs, so they swam back to where they had started. It was easy to tell which lounge chairs belonged to them, because theirs were the only ones set up around a paddleboard coffee table.
Connie looked toward the horizon and noticed that the lime-green kayak they had seen earlier was still drifting toward them. Connie’s gaze settled on the boat, rising and falling on the waves. An eerie feeling swept over her when she couldn’t get a clear view of the kayaker.
Elyse glanced toward the kayak, then back at Connie. “What is it? You look like something is wrong.”
“It’s just that I don’t see a driver in that boat,” Connie said.
At this point, the kayak was about twenty yards away. Elyse swam toward it, and when she arrived, she let out a shriek. Connie and Stephanie waited anxiously as Elyse pulled the kayak towards them. As it got closer, Connie realized the problem.
There was a woman lying in the kayak alright, but she wasn’t sunbathing. She was dead.
When Stephanie saw the body, she let out a loud gasp. “Now I know why my 11:00 physical therapy appointment didn’t show up. That’s Andrea Fontaine, my client.”
