Bikinis in Paradise (Tj Jensen Pardise Lake Mysteries) (3 page)

“Could the missing model
have been meeting Ms. Overton?” Dylan asked.

Tj hadn’t considered that
, but now that she thought about it, the idea that the two missing women being connected in some way made sense. “I really don’t know. I do know that based on the information provided in the missing model’s file, Kiara Boswell listed Serenity as her hometown. As far as I can remember, she didn’t go through our school system, but she could have been homeschooled. I believe that Tonya is from Miami originally, but she’s been to Serenity on two occasions, so it seems reasonable that she could have met people who live in the area.”

“
Right now you need to get out of those wet clothes. We’re going to be here a while. I’ve called for the divers, but it could be more than an hour until they arrive. I’ll have Roy drive you and Echo back to the resort. I’ll come by when I’m done here.”

“Honestly
, it’s almost as far up to the road as it is back to the resort along the beach. I’ll just walk so Roy can stay to help you,” Tj offered.

Dylan held her by the shoulders and looked deep
ly into her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay? Finding the girl under the water like that must have been quite a shock.”

“I’m fine,” Tj assured him. “This isn’t my first body
, you know.”

Dylan frowned. “Yeah, I guess not. Call me when you get back to the resort so I know you’re okay.”

“Yes, Dad.” Tj stood on tiptoe to kiss Dylan, who was more than a foot taller than her, on the lips. Tj grinned as Dylan blushed. Kissing the officer who responded to a murder call probably wasn’t proper etiquette, but Tj had endured a long day, and a quick kiss from the man she was growing to care for was just what she needed to get her through the rest of the day.

Tj took off
his shirt and handed it back to Dylan. “You should probably be dressed when the others arrive. The sun will be hitting the beach once I get around the bend, so I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Dylan accepted the partially wet
shirt.

“I’m sure. I’ll see you later.”

Tj called Echo to her side and started back up the rocky path. She wanted to be sure to be good and gone before the divers arrived and brought Tonya to the surface. Tj had seen dead bodies before, but there was something particularity disturbing about seeing the young woman floating in the water with her eyes open and her long hair floating around her like a halo. Whoever killed her had tied one of her legs to an anchor before dumping her.

Tj had called and spoken to Leiani while she waited for Dylan to arrive. Leiani
agreed to go ahead with the orientation without mentioning the dead woman in the cove. She never had been able to track down the young girl Tj had spoken to on the beach. Tj couldn’t help but wonder where she had gone off to, and how she had come to be there. She was too young to make the trip from town to the resort on her own, so she must have arrived with someone. Someone, Tj supposed, who might be looking for Kiara as well.

By the time she made it back aroun
d to the beach, Connor and the other students were gone. Tj decided that was a good thing since she didn’t really feel up to casual conversation, and she suspected that Dylan wouldn’t want her talking about the murder until he had a chance to notify the next of kin. The sun hitting her shoulders felt wonderful. She’d dressed for the day in khaki shorts, a yellow tank top, and a hooded Maggie’s Hideaway sweatshirt. She’d discarded the sweatshirt before she’d left to find Kiara, but now she was wishing she’d had the foresight to bring it along when she left the resort.

Maggie’s Hideaway
was built by Tj’s grandfather more than fifty years earlier. Situated on a wide strand of white sand beach, the resort catered to visitors on a year-round basis. During the summer, guests from all over the country came to enjoy the mild temperatures, hiking, boating, and area casinos, while the winter months brought ski enthusiasts to the quaint mountain lodge. Maggie’s Hideaway had been constructed to provide a variety of lodging options. During the peak of the summer season, the campground, which featured both lakefront and forest sites, was full to capacity. The resort also offered rooms in the lodge, as well as luxury one- and two-bedroom cabins, each with their own deck and hot tub. Tj cut across the beach and made her way through the village, which consisted of a general store, an ice cream shop, a bike and ski rental shop, and a single-pump gas station. If you included the marina and horse stable, Maggie’s Hideaway was the largest resort on Paradise Lake.

The private ho
use where Tj lived with her dad, grandpa, and half sisters was situated beyond the marina, a two-story log home with a front lawn that covered the area between the large deck and the beach. Tj had grown up in the house they all shared until she graduated college and got the job in town. She’d had her own apartment until she’d learned that her mother and her mother’s third husband had been killed in an auto accident and she’d been named as legal guardian for two half sisters she barely knew. Once the shock of her new circumstance wore off, Tj realized that it would be better for everyone if she moved back to the resort, where she’d have the support she needed until she was able to grow into her new role.

“What happened to you?” Grandpa Ben asked when she walked in through the front door. Ben was tall and broad
-shouldered, a mountain of a man, with white hair, bright blue eyes, and a deep baritone voice that demanded to be heard.

“You didn’t hear?”

“I just got back from town and haven’t talked to anyone. Is something wrong?”

“One of the Tropical Tan girls didn’t check in. I went to look for her.”

“Did you find her?”

“No
, but I found Tonya Overton. She’s dead.”

“Dead?” Ben asked. “What happened?”

“It looks like someone hit her over the head and then dumped her in the lake. Give me a few minutes to clean the sand off Echo and shower and I’ll fill you in.”

“I’ll take care of Echo,” Ben offered. “
And I’ll make a pot of coffee. Go ahead and get cleaned up, and then you can tell me what happened.”

“Okay,
Grandpa. Thanks. Did the girls call?”

“Yeah
. Everyone is safe and sound in Florida. They were sorry you couldn’t make the trip but very excited to be going to Disney World.”

“I’m really going to miss them,” Tj realized. “I’ll have to call them tomorrow.”

Tj walked up the stairs to her room. Her dad had been signed up to be part of a panel discussion on tourism at a conference in Florida. When Ashley, who had just turned nine, and Gracie, who was almost six, heard that he was going to be staying in Orlando, they’d begged and pleaded until her dad had agreed to take them with him so that they could finally go to Disney World. Her dad’s girlfriend, Rosalie, had offered to go on the trip to keep an eye on the girls while her dad was tied up. Tj appreciated how fully her dad and grandpa had accepted the girls into their lives, even though neither were actually related to them by blood. Ashley and Gracie were the products of her mother’s second marriage, to a man by the name of Walton Reynolds, who, as far as she knew, hadn’t contacted his daughters a single time since he’d left home when Gracie was only two months old.

With Mike away
, Tj and Ben were left with the task of babysitting the Tropical Tan girls. Tj had to admit she didn’t entirely understand the competitive frenzy the girls worked themselves into during the final weekend of the competition. The idea of prancing around in front of a huge crowd mainly comprised of male members of the community who whistled and called out suggestions inappropriate for all but the raunchiest of conversations didn’t appeal to her in the least.

Tj
dropped her damp clothes in the hamper before turning on the water in the large tile shower. Standing under the powerful spray, she willed herself to relax. She supposed that she should call the Tropical Tan people and let them know that the woman they’d hired to accompany the girls was dead. Chances were, the sheriff’s office would want to inform the other contestants about the situation as well. Although she’d only met Tonya a couple of times, the woman had seemed nice, and Tj couldn’t help but wonder who had killed her, and why.

After she washed her hair and liberally applied
a scented lotion to her body, she dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a zip-up sweatshirt. She finger-styled her long, curly hair and slipped a pair of worn Nike’s on her feet. By the time she made her way downstairs, Echo was happily napping and Ben was sitting at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in front of him.

“Dylan called,” Ben announced.

“I was supposed to call him,” Tj admitted.

“He figured you forgot. When you didn’t answer your cell
, he called the house phone.”

“Did they get the body up?”

“Yeah. Dylan is pretty sure the victim was hit with a rock or some other hard object and then sank, as you suspected. Sure?” Ben held up the coffeepot.

“Sure.”

“Do you think Tonya’s murder and the missing model
are connected?” Ben wondered.

“I really have no idea.
I suppose we should try to find out who Kiara left with. And if she isn’t back, we should try to get a more-detailed description from the other girls.”

“Why don’t you call Leiani
to see if Kiara is back? If she isn’t, I’ll call Doc to see if he’s free to come over.” Doc was one of Ben’s best friends, retired coroner Stan Griffin. “He has a real gift with a pencil. I’m betting he can draw what the eyewitnesses describe. Maybe we can track down the man from the sketch. If we can find the man she left with, maybe we can find the model.”

“Okay. Let me call Dylan first
to make sure it’s okay for us to talk to the girls. He may want us to wait until someone from the sheriff’s office can come by.”

By the time Tj got through to Dy
lan, he was going over the site with a fine tooth comb to see what, if any, physical evidence he could turn up. He preferred that Tj didn’t fill the girls in on Tonya’s death but was okay with her continuing her search for Kiara, who Leiani verified still hadn’t shown up. Tj looked at the clock. The models should still be in orientation. Leiani already knew what was going on, so Tj decided to call her to request that she keep the girls occupied in the bar until Doc arrived. That way, they wouldn’t have to round everyone up again.

Twenty minutes later, Tj watched as a shiny red ʼ57 Chevrolet with white vinyl seats and chrome wheels parked in the private drive next to the house. A man of average build with a few extra pounds around the middle, dressed in a red-and-white Hawaiian print shirt and perfectly pressed khakis, waved as he opened the driver’s door and climbed out. If there was one word that would best describe Doc it was loud. He wore bright colors, spoke with a booming voice, enjoyed off-color jokes, and had a reputation as being the biggest flirt the Serenity Senior Center had seen for quite some time.

“So
I hear you managed to find yourself another body.” Doc wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

“Not intentionally. One of the bikini girls went missing
, and in the process of looking for her, I found our missing Tropical Tan rep. Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

“No problem. You know I’m always happy to lend a hand during the bikini competition.”

Tj smiled. “I guess I should have known you’d find a way to enjoy helping me with a missing persons’ investigation. Dylan is fine with us continuing the search for Kiara but doesn’t want us mentioning Tonya’s death to anyone just yet. Our main objective this afternoon is to find out what we can about Kiara, and get a description of the man who met her at the bus.”

“Does Dylan think the missing girl is connected to the death in some way?” Doc wondered

“He isn’t ruling out the possibility.”

Doc and Tj headed over to the Lakeside Bar and Grill
, where the girls were just completing their orientation. Tj made a general announcement to the girls that Kiara was still missing, and that they needed to interview them about the incident at the bus. Tj sat at one of the dining tables in the bar with Doc beside her while Leiani organized the interviews. Maggie’s Hideaway’s bar manager, Logan Cole, mixed drinks for the models while Leiani sent them to be interviewed one at a time by Doc and Tj.

The first model sent to speak to them was
last year’s runner up. She was tall and thin, with blond hair and green eyes. Like all of the models in the competition, she had a tan that must have taken hours in a tanning booth to perfect. Now that the spectators who had met the bus had moved on to other things, most of the models had changed into shorts or skirts and casual tops. Jazzy, on the other hand, had chosen to dress in the tiniest bikini Tj had ever seen, with only a very transparent wrap as a concession to the Bar and Grill’s shirt-and-shoes policy.

“I need you to tell me everything you saw
after the bus arrived,” Tj told the woman who had caked silver glitter onto her eyelids.

“I was sitting behind Kiara on the bus. When we arrived at the resort
, I was behind her as we disembarked. When she exited the bus, there was a man waiting for her.”