Bikinis in Paradise (Tj Jensen Pardise Lake Mysteries) (4 page)

“And what did this man look like?”
Tj asked.

“He was tall. He had broad shoulders and short blond hair. One of those razor cuts people get in the military.
He had on a loose-fitting shirt, but based on his arms, I’m willing to bet he sported a pretty fine six pack. I didn’t notice his eye color. He was dressed in jeans and a blue T-shirt and had on heavy boots. The kind with a hard toe and a rubber heel. I remember thinking that he was way overdressed for the warm weather. I mean, why go to all that trouble to develop guns if you’re going to cover up even in the summer?”

“C
an you describe the shape of the man’s face?” Doc asked.

The girl looked confused.
“His face?”

“Oval, round, square?” Doc clarified.

“I don’t know.” The woman shrugged. “To be honest, I really wasn’t looking at his face.”

“I know this is difficult for you
, but I really need you to try to remember what you saw,” Tj encouraged. “Kiara could very well be in some type of trouble. It’s important that we find her as soon as possible.”

“Okay.” Jazzy looked intently at
the drawing Doc was working on. “He had a rounder face, fuller cheeks, and a dimple in his chin.”

“Like this
?” Doc made a few adjustments and then held up the sketch.

“Yeah, only his eyes were different. I didn’t see the color
, but they were small and closer together.”

Doc made the adjustments.
“Better?”

Jazzy bit her lip as she studied the drawing. “His eyebrows were bushier
, and he had the longest eyelashes.”

“Any other facial hair?” Doc
asked.

“No, he was clean cut. He had a scar at the corner of one eye.” The woman scrunched up her face as she thought about it. “Brown
; I think his eyes were brown. Or maybe dark blue. They were dark.”

It seemed that the model ha
d noticed quite a lot about the man she claimed to have only gotten a glimpse of.

“Okay, how is this?” Doc held up the sketch
again.

“That’s pretty darn close,” the girl
said.

“So after Kiara got off the bus
, you saw the man grab her by the arm and pull her to the side,” Tj continued.

“Yeah, he pulled her far enough away so that I couldn’t hear what they were saying
, but it was obvious they were arguing.”

“Did Kiara seem scared when she first noticed the man?” Tj asked.

“No.” Jazzy thought about it. “Not scared but mad.”

“And after they argued?”

“They headed toward the beach.”

“Was Kiara struggling?”
Tj asked.

“No, it looked like she went with him willingly.
He wasn’t holding onto her and he didn’t appear to have a weapon or anything. There were tons of people around, so I imagine if she didn’t want to leave with him, she could have called out or something.”

“Can you remember anything else?”
Tj asked.

“No. Sorry. I really wasn’t paying that much attention.
To be honest, I was really more focused on the spectators who had arrived to meet the bus. There’s this one guy who has been following the tour for the past month. All the girls have a thing for him, but I’m pretty sure I’m the one he comes to see.”

Tj didn’t understand why anyone would take time out of their life to follow a bunch of women around the country
, but apparently it occurred more often than one would think.

“Are we about done here?”
Jazzy began to tap her long acrylic nails on the table in a show of impatience. Tj understood that the models had better things to do than answer their questions, but one girl was missing and another woman was dead. Of course, Jazzy and the others didn’t know that Tonya was dead. As far as they knew, Kiara had simply taken off with a cute guy who met her at the bus.

“
I realize we’re asking a lot of questions and that Kiara may very well be off on a date, but all of the models are our responsibility, and as such, it’s up to us to make sure that everyone is safe and accounted for. I hope you understand.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.” Jazzy looked toward the other room
, where the girls were drinking and seemingly having a good time.

“
I know you’d like to get back to what you were doing, but we have a few more questions, if you can bear with us.” Tj pasted on her friendliest smile.

“Okay
.” Jazzy sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“
Did Kiara mention a name when she first noticed the man who met the bus?” Tj asked.

“A name?”

“Yeah, did she say something like ‘Bill, what are you doing here?’”

“No. Not that I can remember.”

“Did she say anything at all?”

“She did ask the man what he was
doing here, but I don’t remember her saying his name.”

“And how did the man respond?”

“He said something like ‘we have to talk,’ and then he pulled her aside. I didn’t hear anything after that.”

“How long have you known Kiara?” Tj asked.

Jazzy shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess about a month. This weekend is the final competition for the spokesmodel gig, but there has been a series of regional competitions leading up to this point. I’m from San Francisco and Kiara is representing Los Angeles, so we’re both part of the western division, although initially I was grouped with the north, while she was grouped with the south.”

“North and south?” Tj asked.

“In the beginning there were more than a hundred girls in our division, so the field was divided into the northern section and the southern section. Once the groups were whittled down a bit, the north and south were combined, and that’s when I met Kiara. Farah, who represents San Diego, has probably known her the longest; they would have been competing in the same group from the start.”

Tj made a note to speak to Farah next.

“Did she ever mention having a sister?” Tj asked. She realized that the girl on the beach had seemed to know the man who met Kiara. If they could find her, it would make things a lot easier.

“No, she ne
ver mentioned having any family, but we really didn’t talk about our lives outside of the competition.”

“Had she
said anything to you about being frightened or feeling threatened by anyone in the time you’ve known her?”

“No. Honestly
, I barely spoke to her. She was pretty shy and didn’t really socialize with the other girls. The only reason she even entered the competition was for the scholarship.”

“Scholarship?”

“The winner of the competition not only gets a jumpstart on her modeling career but there’s a cash prize as well as a significant scholarship to the college of your choice. Personally, I’m more interested in what winning this competition can do for my modeling career, but Kiara was in it for the scholarship.”

“We plan to speak to all of the models
, but is there anyone Kiara was particularly close to? Anyone she might have been more apt to confide in than the others?” Tj asked.

“Chloe is the quietest and most serious of the group. She was sitting next to Kiara on the bus
, on the aisle. She got off just in front of her. I guess she might have something to add.”

“Okay, thank you. Please let me know if you think of anything else.”

Tj interviewed each girl in turn. Many had been in front of Kiara on the bus and so had already been at the check-in area before the altercation occurred and so hadn’t seen anything. Of those who had witnessed the exchange, there seemed to be a pretty big discrepancy as to exactly how tall the man was and whether or not he had light eyes or dark. Everyone agreed on the basic look of the man, as well as the length and color of his hair.

Farah
had
known Kiara the longest, but she reported that they weren’t really friends. Farah was aggressively pursuing an acting career and was interested in the competition only to the extent it could help her in her mission to land a major role before her twenty-first birthday. Chloe was representing the Midwest and had just recently joined the tour but was able to confirm that Kiara was very much focused on getting the scholarship. No one they spoke to knew if Kiara had a sister or any other family.

“So w
hat do you think?” Tj asked Doc after they’d interviewed all the girls.

“I think that based on what the girls have said
, this Kiara doesn’t seem like a typical bikini model. Maybe the man who met her was an old friend who convinced her to drop out of the contest.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’d feel better if we could track her down and verify that fact. I
might not be as concerned, but I have an uneasy feeling about things after what happened to Tonya. The high-school kids I ran into on the beach confirmed that Kiara was heading toward the same cove where I found Tonya’s body.”

“
Let’s make a few copies of my drawing and start asking around. Someone must have seen her.”

After Doc left
, Tj helped Leiani and Julie with the remaining twenty-four beauty contestants. By the time the sun had completed its descent behind the mountain, the bar was rocking with bikini models strutting their stuff to the music provided by the vintage jukebox her dad had found in an antique store. Luckily, Logan was an easygoing sort of guy who rolled with the punches as stress relief turned to drunken acts of outrageousness. Between the girls gone wild in the bar, the dead body in the cove, and not knowing what had happened to Kiara, Tj was about to jump out of her skin. It seemed like Logan and Julie had things handled in the bar, so Tj decided to go for a walk to try to unwind and gear up for the long weekend.

Maggie’s Hideaway made out well
by giving over the entire facility to the Tropical Tan people every year; they paid a substantial amount of money for the exclusive use of the resort, and the national attention the competition generated brought free advertising and exposure to the area. Julie Sorenson had been instrumental in turning the competition into a four-day event. While the various spokesmodel contests were the highlights, the resort offered activities that appealed to a wide range of spectators, including a water-ski show, a stand-up paddleboard race, a sunset boat parade, an arts and crafts fair, a BBQ cook-off, and a home brewer’s competition. When the weather cooperated, as it had this year, the beaches around the lake were packed with sunbathers anxious to get started on their summer fun.

The largest single draw, other than the models, was probably
the fireworks over the lake on Sunday night. The larger casinos in Indulgence got together to put on the fabulous display, which was choreographed to music that could be experienced by tuning into Indulgence’s one and only radio station. Tj suspected that the casino owners had decided to have the event on Sunday rather than Saturday night to encourage out-of-town guests to stay an extra night.

Tj stopped to
embrace the quiet of the evening. Most of the beachgoers had gone home, leaving only a few stargazers on the mostly deserted beach. If you closed your eyes, you could feel the warm night air embrace you as the waves churned up by the boats lapped gently onto the shore. Tj had lived at Maggie’s Hideaway almost her entire life, and at times she got so busy that she forgot to stop and enjoy the scenery, but no matter how busy she was, she knew she would never take a perfect summer evening for granted.

After confirming that the models were set for the evening
, Tj returned to an empty house. Ben had offered to cancel his plans with his friends, but she had convinced him that she’d enjoy some quiet time to herself. She had to admit, however, that she was beginning to regret that decision. After everything that had happened, she wished there were people around to distract her from her thoughts.

After wiping the sand from her feet and Echo’s paws, she
poured herself a glass of wine and turned on the stereo. It felt like a soft-jazz sort of night. Something relaxing to calm her nerves, while the models were rocking it out in the bar with the spectators who had chosen to stick around. Although it had been a warm day, it was chilly in the evening, so Tj lit the fire someone had already built in the fireplace.

At least Tj had the family pets for company.
There were four cats in residence: Cuervo, the tomcat Tj had rescued a couple of summers ago from a group of frat guys who’d been staying in the campground; Crissy, who Tj had adopted and Gracie had claimed after Tj’s good friend, Zachary Collins, had died the previous October; Midnight, one of the two kittens Crissy had delivered the past winter and who now slept with Grandpa; and Snowy, the second kitten, pure white and furry, who had been sleeping with Ashley since she’d been weaned. Normally, the four cats could be found with their respective people, but with everyone else out of the house, all of them had piled onto the sofa and curled up with Tj.

Echo, who was really too big for the sofa, was curled up at Tj’s feet.
She sipped her wine and let the harmony of four purring cats calm her soul. As the music changed from jazz to soothing piano, Tj thought about the long day she’d had. Her dad, Rosalie, and the girls had left for the airport at four a.m., and Tj had gotten up to see them off. She’d intended to go back to bed, but she was wide awake by the time they pulled away, so she’d made a pot of coffee and decided to use the time to plan her day.