A Body on the Beach Read online

  “That looks like a hip place to hang, Blaire” she said.

  I was surprised by her sudden positivity, but tried not to show it.

  “It looks like the only place to “hang,”” Blaire sighed, throwing air quotes around the word, letting Page know that she was not current enough on teen speak. “Where do people in this town even work? There aren’t enough stores here to employ even a third of the people who live here.”

  “Most of the locals take the ferry to the mainland for work,” I said, glad my limited research was already coming in handy again.

  “Every day? That seems like a hassle,” she said.

  I had to admit she was right. I wouldn’t want to take a half hour ferry ride to work every day. However, we’d only been on the island for a few minutes, and I could already see the appeal. The mainland was stuffed with crowded beaches, noisy pleasure piers, and an overall carnival atmosphere that reminded me of the chaos of a major amusement park. It was fun for a day, but not for a lifetime. Whereas, the island offered a peaceful retreat. The commute could be worth it.

  The sides of the road weren’t marked with parking spaces, but numerous cars were pulled up along the curb, so I followed suit.

  “Why are we stopping?” Page asked.

  “I figured we’d grab a few staple food supplies to get us through today and tomorrow.”

  I rolled down the windows for Jasper, reached through the bars of the kennel to scratch his nose and assure him we wouldn’t be long, and then got out and shut the door.

  It was still humid, but noticeably less hot than the mainland. The island was so narrow that the sea air could blow in from both sides, helping to cool it down. I was grateful. As much as I loved Texas, there was nothing worse than a Houston summer.

  “I still don’t have any service,” Blaire said, holding her phone in the air. “This is Main Street. If I don’t have service on Main Street, I won’t have service anywhere.”

  “The store looks nice,” I said, trying to pull them along with my enthusiasm. Perhaps if I was unrelentingly positive, they would catch on. It was a long shot, but the only option I had.

  Inside, the space was small, but the shelves were well stocked with bread, cereal, and canned goods. And the fridge section in the back had milk, eggs, cheese, and deli meat.

  “Are sandwiches okay?” I asked, though I was already loading my basket with packages of pre-sliced ham and American cheese.

  Blaire didn’t answer, but grabbed a soda from the cooler next to mine and dropped it into the basket before walking towards the front of the store, her phone still in her hand.

  Page rounded a corner with two boxes of cereal. “These are the only two that weren’t loaded down with sugar. Bran flakes or rice cereal?”

  I grabbed the bran flakes from her hand and put them in the basket, wishing I could grab a box of marshmallow cereal, instead. However, that would only illicit more unwelcome criticism from Page, and I’d had enough of that for one day. I grabbed a small bag of sugar on my way to the counter, hoping I’d be able to sneak a few spoonfuls of it into my bran in the morning without Page noticing.

  The cashier was a young girl, probably Blaire’s age, with braces and her long red hair pulled into a tight ponytail.

  “Will this be all for you today?” she asked, a smile plastered on her freckled face.

  I nodded and smiled back.

  “Are you just visiting?” she asked as she scanned the items and dropped them into white plastic bags with “Thank You” printed on the side.

  “We’re actually new to town,” I said. “We bought the old bed and breakfast up on Seaward Circle.”

  Her face shifted into a look of confused recognition. “Oh.”

  “Do you know it?” I asked.

  The girl scanned the last item and dropped it into a bag. “Yeah, I know it.”

  I waited for more, but she seemed suddenly less talkative, so I paid, wished her a good day, and left. Page and Blair were already waiting for me outside, reading a bulletin board that was posted on the side of the brick building.

  “They have free movie nights on the beach,” Page said, elbowing Blaire in the side.

  Blaire grunted in recognition and got into the car.

  “I’ll go to the movie with you,” I said, winking at Page, who rolled her eyes at me and followed after Blaire.

  Once back in the car, I pulled out the crudely hand drawn map the realtor had sent to me, and set out for our new home. I turned left when Main Street reached a dead end, and began heading up a steep incline.

  “The Main Street is a dead end? What kind of place is this?” Blaire asked. However, I summoned all of my strength and ignored her. Thankfully, Page did, too.

  Immediately after turning, the paved road switched to gravel, dust kicking up over the windows, making it nearly impossible to see the houses along the street, and the car shook so much that Jasper’s pet carrier nearly fell off the back seat. The realtor had warned me about the roads. A few of them were paved, Main Street and the couple roads that led to the ferry, but the rest were gravel. That would definitely take some getting used to.

  “Are you guys excited?” I asked, gripping the steering wheel to keep the car from veering off the dirt road. “We’re about to see our new house.”

  “I still have no cell service,” Blaire responded. I wanted to throw her phone out the window, but instead I turned to Page, hoping for a slightly more enthusiastic response.

  “Let’s see if this place is even livable, and then I’ll be excited,” she said, turning back toward the road, her arms crossed over her chest.

  I took a deep breath. This was a new start. A new beginning. Everything would be great.

  Chapter 3

  “This place is a dump,” Blaire said, sticking her phone high in the air for the millionth time. “And still no cell service.”

  As was becoming my habit, I ignored her and looked around the grounds. The house was three stories tall, the roof a series of peaks of varying heights, and quite wide, a wooden porch wrapping around the front and both sides. The wooden railings and beams were carved in intricate details, and it all looked to be in good shape. The porch looked unstable and the roof was missing a good number of shingles, so both would probably need to be replaced, but otherwise it just needed a good power washing and a coat of paint.

  The landscaping, however, was another story. Everything would need to be ripped up and replaced. The grass was nothing but yellow blades that crumbled whenever the wind blew, and the hedges, which had clearly once acted as a kind of privacy fence, were nothing more than tangled empty branches. Tree limbs hung precariously over the house, in desperate need of a trim, and any plants that had managed to survive were growing out of their gardens and impeding the sidewalk that wrapped around the house, as well.

  Jasper was exploring the grounds. I’d had him on a leash, but after being cooped up all morning in his crate, he was desperate to stretch his legs. He pawed at the yard, which was mostly dirt, and tugged on some of the loose branches of the hedge until they broke off in his mouth and he’d made himself a stick. He brought it to me and dropped it at my feet, eager for me to throw it. I scooped it up and flung it towards the side of the house, smiling as Jasper sprinted after it, his stubby tail a blur of excitement.

  “This doesn’t look move in ready,” Page said, her forehead creased in worry. “The porch is about to cave in, for heaven’s sake!”

  I shook my head. “I never said it was perfect. The realtor told me the place only needed a little love and sprucing to be restored to its former glory. This used to be the premier bed and breakfast for the entire island. Everyone wanted to stay here. Once we get this place up and running again, people will come.”

  Blaire turned to me, looking away from her phone for the first time since we’d stepped off the ferry, eyebrows raised and a hand on her hip. “If you build it, they will come,” she said in a hokey deep voice.

  Page laughed as Jasper made his way
back, his tongue already lolling out the side of his mouth from his minimal exercise.

  “You two are annoying,” I said, snapping my fingers for Jasper to follow me. “Let’s see what it looks like inside.”

  * * *

  Wallpaper coated every visible wall on the first floor, which could have been charming, had it not been water stained and ripping in innumerable places. I could tell the design had once been floral and cheery, but time had faded it to a neutral yellow that reminded me of three-week-old chicken. The wood floors seemed salvageable, though they were in dire need of refinishing, but once that was done, I thought they would be very pretty. Plus, it would allow me to welcome guests to the bed and breakfast by saying that they were walking on the “original wood flooring,” which really seemed to be a selling point for a lot of people. The ceiling was in bad shape, though. The few panels that remained were gold foiled and beautiful, if aged, but the majority of them had fallen and apparently been removed by a previous owner or trespassers. The worst thing was the smell. Mildew. Everywhere. I moved through the entrance hall and into what I assumed was once a dining room and then into a sitting room, but the smell remained pervasive and all-consuming. It was hard to think about anything except the millions of dust particles and mold spores I could be inhaling.

  Blaire covered her nose with the collar of her shirt. “Maybe instead of a bed and breakfast, we should turn this place into a haunted house. It would save a lot of money because we wouldn’t have to change a thing.”

  “Blaire,” Page warned, her voice sharp and motherly.

  “I didn’t say that was a bad thing,” Blaire said. “I think it’s kind of cool. Though, that smell is pretty killer.”

  Page turned to me, her finger placed daintily under her nose. “Yes, should we be concerned about the smell?”

  “It’s an old house. It has been shut up for years. We just need to open some windows,” I said, walking over to one of the dining room windows that ran nearly from floor to ceiling. I unlatched the ancient lock with a grunt, and pushed on the window frame. Nothing happened.

  “If opening these windows is even possible,” Page said.

  “Well why don’t you come help me,” I snapped, losing my cool for the first time all day. Really, it was a miracle I’d made it that long, so I was still pretty proud of myself for remaining mostly calm.

  Page came over and with a few pushes, punches, and one kick, the window peeled away from the frame, taking a layer of paint with it.

  Huffing, my hands on my hips, I stood back and admired our hard work. “See? Better already.”

  Page rolled her eyes and went to find Blaire, who had gone in the direction of the kitchen.

  The room immediately felt less stuffy, so I made my way to the windows in some of the other rooms and found they were a little easier to open. As I opened the windows in the sitting room, I noticed the amazing view it offered of the ocean. Perhaps there was a reason the house was at the tip top of Seaward Circle. Seaward, it definitely was. The ocean stretched out to the horizon, and even a sliver of beach was visible between the yards of the two closest neighbors.

  Seeing the sand for the first time since we arrived, I remembered the body I’d seen on the beach. Or, living person, rather, considering the dead body had been my imagination. I was sure of it. No way had I spotted a corpse from the deck of a ferry out at sea. We had been so far away it was hard to tell for certain whether the figure had been a man or a woman. Though, even now, with the gift of time and distance from the incident, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been off about the person’s posture and their attire. How many people laid flat in the sand while fully dressed? There would be sand in too many uncomfortable places to count. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Piper?” Page’s voice from the other room sounded shaky, nervous. That coupled with my gruesome thoughts of a possible dead body made my heart race.

  Before I could respond, Page and Blaire darted back into the room hand in hand, their eyes wide.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, looking around.

  “I think there’s a big animal or something upstairs,” Blaire said, her voice a whisper.

  Page nodded. “We heard a loud thump and then what sounded like slow steps. We should have had someone check this place before we just marched in. It could be a drug house or something.”

  I sighed. With Page’s constant complaints all day, I’d been hesitant to tell her about one teeny tiny detail related to the purchase of the property. I knew she wouldn’t like it, so I’d acted as if it didn’t exist, until I had nearly forgotten that it did exist.

  “So,” I said, taking a deep breath and trying to keep my voice calm and casual. “There was a little bit of a string attached to the purchase of the house.”

  Page’s eyes narrowed immediately.

  I held my hands up to defend myself against the attack I knew was about to come. “The previous owner wanted to be allowed to live in the attic.”

  Page and Blaire stared at me, their eyes glassy and lifeless as marbles. Then, Page threw her hands into the air. “You have got to be joking. You are joking, right? Surely you wouldn’t agree to something that insane?”

  “I’m not joking,” I said.

  Then, for the first time, I heard the footsteps, as well. The creaking of the stairs. The shuffle of slippered feet.

  “Mrs. Harris,” I called, walking past Page and Blaire to get to the stairs. The realtor had told me all about the old woman. Her name and her various mental lapses. Apparently, she spent most of her time confused about what year it was. Which was why it was important that she remained in the house. Many felt it was her last claim to sanity. If she couldn’t remember which century she was in, at least she could remember where in the world she was. “Mrs. Harris?”

  Suddenly, a thin, feeble woman turned the corner of the stairs, one liver spotted hand on the railing.

  “Who is there?” she yelled, her voice shaky, her eyes unfocused.

  “Piper Lane,” I said, speaking loudly so she’d be able to hear me. “I just recently purchased the house. Do you remember? The realtor, Mr. Donaldson, told you about me, I believe?”

  “Piper Lane?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I moved towards the stairs.

  “I’m the owner of this house,” she said, her voice suddenly angry.

  I looked back at Page who was currently standing in the sitting room, her face whiter than I’d ever seen it.

  “This was your house, yes,” I said gently. “However, I bought it from you. You sold it to me. You still live here, but I technically own the house.”

  “My father owns this house. He and mother built it fifteen years ago, before I was born.”

  My mouth gaped open and then closed several times, words struggling to find their way from my brain to my mouth. This house was around one-hundred years old. It had originally been built in the late 1800s, but the hurricane had wiped it out. However, it was fully rebuilt in 1920 based on the original blueprints, or so the realtor had said. It was definitely more than fifteen years old.

  “This lady is crazy,” Page said, whispering in my ear. I hadn’t heard her approach, so I was startled when she spoke. “You agreed to live in a house with a crazy woman and you didn’t think it was important to let me in on that detail? I have a daughter to think about. I can’t have her living with an insane person.”

  “So how old are you?” Blaire asked, stepping around Page and I to stand at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Ten,” Mrs. Harris said, her hands folded behind her back.

  “Cool,” Blaire said, turning around to look at her mom and I, her eyebrows raised. It was the first time I’d seen her smile since we’d stepped foot on the island.

  Page grabbed Blaire’s hand and pulled her into her body. “You are not to talk to that old woman, do you understand?” she whispered.

  “She’s harmless,” Blaire said, turning around to wave and smile at Mrs. Harris.

&nbsp
; “Do. You. Understand?” Page repeated, placing a sharp emphasis on each word.

  Blaire sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Yes. Fine.”

  “She’ll probably just stay in the attic most of the time,” I said quietly. “That’s what the realtor said, anyway.”

  “Yeah, well, the realtor said a lot of things, Piper. I don’t know how much we can trust him.”

  “Relax,” I said, hoping I sounded more sure than I felt. “It will be fine. Plus, she will be like an attraction. People love small town charm. Mrs. Harris can be our small town charm.”

  “She’s a side show attraction. The woman belongs in a loony bin, not our attic.”

  With my expression, I signaled Page to lower her voice. “There isn’t anything we can do about it now. I signed the contract. We might as well make the best of it.”

  Just then, Mrs. Harris groaned, catching the attention of the entire room.

  “Mrs. Harris?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Death has made a visit.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, taking a step toward her, my brain flashing back to the figure I’d seen on the beach earlier. “Death?”

  “Death what?” she asked, her wrinkled face contorted in confusion.

  “You said something about death,” Blaire said, stepping forward as well, her face eager. Page grabbed her and pulled her back.

  Mrs. Harris seemed to think about it for a moment, her eyes rolling around in her head. Then, she turned and headed back up the stairs, mumbling to herself.

  “My father built this house for my mother. Isn’t it grand?”

  Chapter 4

  Blaire chose the room at the top of the first flight of stairs. It was large, the striped wallpaper mostly intact, and most importantly, her things were already unpacked in that room. Though we’d only arrived that day, our belongings had been shipped over and unpacked a few days earlier.

  “Open your window,” Page instructed Blaire through the door as she made her way next door to her own bedroom. “I don’t want you choking on dust bunnies in your sleep.”