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  Wiped Out

  Beach Bound Cozy Mystery, Volume 1

  Tamara Woods

  Published by Tamara Woods, 2019.

  Wiped Out

  Copyright © 2019 by Tamara Woods

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Leanne Winter Cover Design

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JOIN MY NEWSLETTER!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  The crash against the tiled floor jarred her awake. She shouted in protest and cracked her wrist against the arm of the couch. Fraya Taylor had fallen asleep with her laptop on her lap again. This time, it hadn’t made it through the night.

  She peered down bleary-eyed and lugged the thing off the tiled floor. The opened pages of her work stared back at her. She looked over the machine, checking for any issues. After clicking around and checking for flaws, she closed her eyes in relief. Looks like they’d both escaped tragedy. Being an award-winning best-selling author, her laptop was basically her bread and butter. She closed it and gently set it on the coffee table.

  Fraya blindly searched for her phone with one hand, and found it wedged between her backside and the couch cushion. She glanced at the time and shook her head. She really should’ve set an alarm before she’d gone to sleep. She’d been up all night, hunched over her laptop taking her teenage witch through her next adventure. Now she barely had any daylight left.

  Her back cracked while she straightened up. To paraphrase her favorite buddy cop film, she was getting to old for this crap.

  She trudged to her antiquated fridge and retrieved her liquid gold— her jar of cold brew. She thanked past Fraya for hooking her by and lifted up her jar in a silent cheers before taking a strong drink of the Kona coffee, letting the deep roast wake her up.

  Half a jar later, she twisted the crank on the window so the window slabs opened. The birds weren’t singing, which was odd. She’d been in Kailua over a decade and normally she could hear different birds singing their song. She felt a moment of disquiet and then shook it off when she saw a couple walking in the distance. A couple, maybe? They’d probably disturbed her daily serenade.

  Her cute little cottage was situated steps away from the beach. Bushes had been planted to give some semblance of privacy. Though it was private property, strangers still managed to wander through.

  Fraya dismissed the couple and checked her phone. Soon it was going to be time for sunset. Her sleep schedule was definitely screwy, but oh well. She put her jar down on her windowsill and grabbed a colorful scarf draped over the back of her chair. She wrapped it around her afro, knowing the royal purples looked good against her deep skin tone. She picked up her jar and walked onto her lanai. It was time to start her day with watching the sunset.

  Sometimes she still found the palm trees startling when they were her first view. Back home it was mostly tall, sturdy maples and pines dotting the mountainous horizon.

  The ocean washing over the shore just beyond the greenery in front of her was faintly audible. She felt hashtag blessed right then. Her escape from her small town— and these days she did think of it as an escape— had led her to O’ahu, Hawai’I, living in a cottage at the back of a nice elderly couple’s land. They were often gone and would ask her to look after the property and their two aging bulldogs.

  Kailua was a little ocean town located on the North Shore, and Fraya had definitely made it home. People favored bikes to cars, and the ocean always seemed a rock throw away. It was such a welcome, cozy place. Plus, she made sure to fly under the radar, unlike back home in Whisper Valley where her name stayed on people’s tongues. Even to this day everyone talked about her divorce, her abrupt move, her writing career and anything else under the sun.

  She forced herself to take a deep breath and slowly exhale. She didn’t want to focus on that kind of negativity and ruin her daily ritual. The sky was lit on fire with the beauty of the sunset. Oranges, yellows, and reds bloomed while pinks flirted with the fluffy puffs of cloud. It was never the same and never boring.

  “I should really buy a new camera,” she murmured, the coffee and view waking her up. She took another sip, trying to imagine what her main character would do if she was on vacation in Kailua.

  “Probably find a rich guy to toy with for the night and steal his credit cards,” she said, but not without affection.

  In the distance her phone played Santigold’s “L.E.S. Artistes.” She grinned and jumped up to find her phone. Again. Somehow she always misplaced the darn thing. This time she found it underneath her living room chair. How did it get there?

  The familiar song let her answer the phone without look at the screen, “Hey Leilani!”

  “Aloha! What are you doing tonight?”

  They’d met at a writer’s group her first year on island and they’d really clicked over Santigold.

  Settling on her rattan couch, Fraya gave her coffee a big slurp, “Just finishing my first cold brew.”

  “Ah...shai! You just getting up, girl?”

  “You know me.” Fraya laughed.

  They’d had this conversation tons of times. Ever since she’d moved from the East Coast, she’d resorted to writing at any and all times of day, including late at night. They talked story for a few minutes catching up on Leilani’s annoying boss at the Aloha Coffee Hut and where Fraya was in her latest novel.

  “You wanna go North Shore? Your boy is gonna be there,” Leilani said with a teasing tone.

  “Eh, so what? I know your brother is your fave, but he’s too much for me,” Fraya said. He didn’t know what he wanted, and she didn’t feel waiting to see if he’d figure it out.

  “He might wanna see you, maybe. He likes—”

  A woman’s voice split through the calm. Fraya looked up in concern. The stranger was speaking so rapidly, Fraya couldn’t understand her heavily accented words.

  “What’s that?” her friend asked.

  Fraya stepped into her slippers, and turned off the lights to attract less attention. She wanted to see what was going on.

  “What’s all that yelling? You’re not going out, yeah?”

  “Of course not,” she said, her voice lowered to a whisper. She was trying to see what was happening beyond that line of shrubbery. The woman sounded really upset.

  The screaming abruptly stopped. So quickly, it seemed like it had been turned off, like a switch. Fraya crouched on her porch trying to see. Her stomach churned with misgivings.

  “What’s going on over there?” Leilani’s tone was cautious. “You’re not getting involved, right?”

  “Of course not,” Fraya said, her voice low. “Listen, let me call you back, alright?”

  “Wait—”

  Fraya ended the call and pocketed her phone. A person walked quickly away, but she couldn’t see the face. She had the impression that it was a man.

  “Hey wait!” She called, but he broke into a sprint. She frowne
d and looked down toward the beach. Two voices. Why did she only see one person walk away?

  Her unease spurred her into action.

  She ran down her few stairs to the stone walkway and then into the sand. Her steps quickly ate up the space while she looked around the bushes and on the pathway. She wasn’t looking directly down when she stumbled over the woman.

  A Chinese-American young lady was sprawled on the ground; her hair, a dark curtain partially covering her face. Her frame was slight, made even smaller with the vastness of the ocean behind her. She had her hand pressed against her neck, her eyes wide.

  Fraya dropped to her knees beside her.

  “Something... Something is...is wrong. I can’t...move.”

  She stared at Fraya, but didn’t seem to register that anyone was with her.

  “Can you hear me? What happened? What’s your name?”

  The girl’s deep brown eyes were unfocused, looking beyond Fraya. Her pupil’s seemed to engulf them.

  “He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t...know...” She started to convulse. Fraya looked around helplessly for the guy who’d ran away. Why would he leave her like this? Was this girl having a seizure? She yelled for help, but nobody was around. When she looked back down, the girl’s eyes were locked on the sky, a pleading look in their depths. Fraya took her hand.

  “You’re going to be Ok. You’re going to be fine. Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine.”

  But she wasn’t fine at all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “You alright? You got ohana you want me to call?” The EMT laid a blanket over her shoulders.

  She almost protested it, but found she couldn’t stop shaking. Her hands were freezing. She shook her head; all of her family was an ocean away.

  Emergency workers seemed to be everywhere, running all over the beach. Police officers looked for clues and told curious passerby to keep it moving. Fraya wished she had been able to give a more concrete description. By now, she feared the guy was long gone.

  Before she’d moved here, she’d thought living on an island, would always be peaceful. The land of Aloha, where people loved each other and the land. But bad things happened everywhere, even in Hawai’i.

  Her mind kept replaying the girl whispering that he didn’t know.

  “What didn’t he know?” she asked out loud.

  “Don’t you worry about it,” the EMT standing nearest to her said. “Let the police handle all that.”

  She nodded, but didn’t feel reassured. “I wish I had a cigarette,” she murmured.

  “There’s probably somebody around here who smokes, if you want one.” he said, settling down beside her.

  “I don’t really want one. I quit years ago. Times like these feel like I should have one. Know what I mean?”

  He grimaced in sympathy and settled down beside her.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Fraya.”

  “I’m Keola,” he said, shaking her hand. “How do you like it here in Kailua?”

  She murmured something in response, her mouth acting on autopilot.

  He kept up a quiet conversation, asking simple questions to keep her talking. She knew he was trying to distract her, and she appreciated the effort. It helped her focus on the moment and keep herself present. Eventually he was called away and she was left to her thoughts.

  Fraya stretched her back, trying to ease the stiffness. She felt like she’d aged 20 years in the past couple of hours. Sand stuck to her skin, making her even more uncomfortable. She needed a shower. Maybe if the sand was gone, this feeling in her stomach would disappear, too. She swallowed back the thickness in her throat. She wanted to be safe in her space. Waving, she caught an officer’s attention

  “If you don’t need anything else, can I go back to my place and take a shower?” she asked. “If you need me, you know where to find me.” She pointed to her home.

  The officer okayed it and she handed the blanket back to Keola. They didn’t have a lot to do, since the woman was dead on arrival.

  “Hey! What a second! What’s going on here?” That irritating voice scratched Fraya’s ears. She groaned inwardly when she recognized him. Brent, one of the mainlanders who rented a place a few yards away.

  She ignored him and kept walking. If he wanted an answer, surely he could go talk to an official. She just wanted to clean herself and try to find a sense of calm. What had that poor girl and the guy been arguing about anyway?

  “I’m talking to you.” He grabbed her by the forearm, squeezing to get her attention.

  Fraya quelled the urge to smack his hand, and shot him a look that dropped the temperature at least twenty degrees. Finally, he let go.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he said, taking a step back. “What’s going on?” He looked her over, his brow furrowed. “Why are there emergency workers here? Did this have something to do with that guy who ran through my yard?”

  Fraya’s interest immediately piqued. “It might have. Did you get a good look at him?”

  “Yeah, but he was like every guy ever. Jeans and a dark T-shirt. A white guy with a tan.” He frowned for a second. “Wait, he had a limp or something. Wasn’t too noticeable.”

  She nodded, filing away the information for later. “When did he run through?”

  “A few hours ago, maybe? I went inside the house until he was gone. The way he glared at me, kinda freaked me out. I finished setting up my camera for the sunset later.”

  How much time had passed—an hour, two? It was pitch dark now, and it had taken some time for the police to get there. Even so, over three hours might be too much time elapsed.

  “You were close enough to see his face? You think you could do a sketch with the police?”

  “Yeah, probably. I—“

  “Excuse me, hate to interrupt this, but maybe you should have a conversation with me. Ms. Taylor was on her way inside, weren’t you, Fraya?”

  She couldn’t suppress her groan. Her best friend’s brother— and also her biggest pain in the butt stood looking at her with an echoed annoyance. She refused to acknowledge how great he looked in business casual. The blue tie really set off his gray suit. A nice suite on a fit bod wasn’t everything.

  “Ayden.”

  “Fraya. I shouldn’t be surprised. Of course you’d be here at a case that’s going to get us all kinds of scrutiny.”

  Fraya narrowed her eyes, zeroing in on his words. “What do you mean? Why would this case attract more attention than any other?”

  His mouth opened to answer, but then snapped close. “Go away, Fraya.”

  “What are you doing here anyway, Detective? Is there something more going on here?”

  “Now Fraya.” His tone left no room for argument. He turned to her neighbor, effectively ignoring her.

  “Gladly,” she said, wishing she had a better parting shot as she attempted to stomp away on the shifting sand.

  AFTER HER SHOWER, FRAYA pulled on a loose fitting shirt and some comfy shorts. She curled up on her rattan chair, hugging her knees to herself. She felt cleaner at least, but her body had that rundown, twitchy feeling, like she’d been up for days on caffeine and adrenaline. Sleep would be a hard time coming tonight. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that poor girl.

  The knock on the door startled her. She peeked through the peep hole in the door and smiled with relief. Leilani stood there with a concerned frown on her chubby face. When Fraya opened the door, Leilani’s signature scent of orchids wafted in. Her friend always wore flowy maxie dresses and kept her long dark hair up in a bun. She said it was the easiest thing to do in her crazy household with twin toddlers bopping around. However, with a little effort, she could look like she actually cared.

  She held out a bag with the L&L Drive-Inn logo on it. “I brought plate lunches. I didn’t think you’d want to worry about cooking right now,” Leilani said, grabbing her bestie up in a hug. “You okay? I can’t believe somebody died out there like that. That’s crazy.”


  “I think so? I don’t know,” Fraya said. “I always felt so secure, you know? Now it’s like my life is one of those snow globes and somebody shook the crap out of it.”

  “Better hope it wasn’t some kids like Kanoe and Kekai. They’d shake you right out the dang globe.” Lani sounded exasperated, but Fraya knew how much she loved her “little monsters.” Those twins had her heart in their hands.

  They sat at the small eat-in kitchen beside the open windows. Some police officers were still milling around, presumably gathering evidence. Yellow and black caution tape blew in the wind. She hadn't wanted to sit outside so close to where that girl had...

  "I can’t get her words out of my head. What did she mean?" Fraya said, opening her carton.

  "Maybe it didn't mean anything. Maybe she was just saying words before she joined her aina."

  "Maybe," she agreed, but wasn't so sure. There had been something in those pain-filled eyes that looked so resolute. So sure. But Fraya hadn't gone through something like this before. What did she know about someone's last moments?

  They ate their plates in silence. Normally the huli huli chicken with mac salad and sticky rice was Fraya's favorite, but she barely tasted anything. The food stuck in her throat. She put her fork down, prepared to eat it tomorrow as a leftover.

  A loud knock sounded at the door. She checked the time on her phone and frowned. It was late for visitors. The only person who would stop by that time of night was already there.

  "You expecting people?"

  "No, I better see who it is." She opened the door and a microphone was shoved in her face. She took a step back in confusion.

  "Did you know Gamilla Kim?"

  "Have you ever watched her perform?"

  "Do you know who killed Gamilla?"

  "Did you see the murderer?"

  "Do you know what the murder weapon was?"

  "What were Gamilla's last words?"

  Questions flew from the group of reporters in front of her. They had their microphones up, their cameras rolling, and determined looks on their face. They weren't as aggressive as they would've been on the mainland, but it all stunned her. Her chest tightened and her palms went sweaty. If she spoke, she was afraid she'd cry or vomit. Instead of doing anything, she froze.