Beach Bags and Burglaries (A Haley Randolph Mystery) by Dorothy Howell Page A

that are fun to have at the beach, especially for people like me who weren’t hard-core drinkers.
    “Another one?” he asked.
    “Sure,” I said, and read his name tag pinned to his burgundy shirt. “Thanks, Shane.”
    He glanced at the dance floor and the limbo game. “Are you girls having fun, Haley?”
    “Okay, look,” I said. “You’ve got to tell me the truth. How does everybody here know who I am?”
    Shane grinned as he mixed my drink. “It’s a secret. Do you like secrets?”
    “Of course,” I said, “as long as I’m the one who knows them.”
    His grin bloomed into a smile—a naughty smile, which was kind of hot.
    “In that case, I’ll tell you,” he said as he set my drink in front of me. “Resort employees are required to study guest photos and memorize who’s who.”
    Jeez, and I thought waiting on customers at Holt’s was tough.
    “Not that we’re supposed to talk to any of the guests, except to respond to their every need,” Shane said.
    I could see where employees fraternizing with guests could create a problem. Aspiring actors might hit up a visiting director for an audition, or a computer geek might badger a multimillionaire for a Silicon Valley job. No way would the resort want guests’ vacations interrupted with personal requests from their employees.
    I nodded toward Sebastian and Sandy on the dance floor, and asked, “What about him?”
    Shane’s expression soured. “He’s golden.”
    “Why does he rate a pass?” I asked.
    “You got me,” Shane said, with more than a little disgust in his voice, and turned away to wait on another customer.
    I sipped my drink and watched as the band struck up another song, and Sebastian and Sandy kept dancing. They were a nice-looking couple which made me think of Ty.
    I pushed him out of my head.
    Then Luke Warner popped in.
    I pushed him out, too.
    Ben Oliver appeared in my thoughts. Then he mentally disappeared and Ty took his place.
    Ty. Tall, handsome Ty. Had he really engineered my contest win at this gorgeous place, thinking I’d ask him to join me?
    The image of the two of us here together raced through my head. Walking the beach hand in hand, swimming, hiking up the cliffs, maybe horseback riding. It seemed so romantic, so perfect, my heart started to hurt a little.
    “You found Jaslyn’s body,” Shane said, standing in front of me again.
    Nothing like a dead body to jar you back to reality.
    Since Shane already knew, I saw no reason to deny it.
    “Yes, it was me, unfortunately,” I said.
    “She wasn’t on the cliffs, was she,” he said.
    The only people I’d shared that information with—other than law enforcement—were Avery and Tabitha. One of them must have told Shane.
    I shook my head. “It was near some big rocks on the north side of the island, close to the dock.”
    “She was murdered, and whoever did it put her phone and driver’s license on the cliffs to make it look like she’d killed herself,” Shane said. His expression darkened. “Jas would never do that. Never.”
    My this-could-benefit-me mental alarm sounded in my head. Bartenders heard all kinds of things—drunk people had a tendency to blab on—so I figured Shane was in a good position to give me the inside scoop. Plus, since this place was an island and employees lived here much of the time, he probably had the inside track on his coworkers, too.
    “You don’t think so?” I asked.
    “She had a lot to live for. All she talked about was getting her degree and touring Europe,” Shane said.
    “Sounds cool,” I said.
    “Jas was a lover of beautiful things. She was an art major.” Shane frowned. “And she would never have gone up on those cliffs, no matter how great the view was. She didn’t like high places.”
    I wondered if something had been going on between Jaslyn and Shane, since he knew so much personal info about her.
    “Were you and Jaslyn dating?” I asked.
    “No, she was just a cool girl,” Shane said. “Her room was