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

bad. Really bad.”
    “She was a nice girl,” the other one said. He pulled a radio from his belt and said, “I’ll tell Gabe to meet you near the docks.”
    “Thanks,” I said, and left.
    I walked back down the narrow road, past the dorm, the helipad, and dock. When I entered the resort grounds, I saw a maintenance worker dressed in gray work clothes headed in my direction. He stopped in front of me, and I saw the name GABE stitched on a label above his shirt pocket.
    He was huge, easily six five, with wide shoulders, a solid chest, and bulging arm muscles. I figured him for late twenties. The sun had given his skin a golden glow and streaked his dark hair with yellow highlights.
    I thought he looked great.
    I also thought he looked like he could have killed Jaslyn Gordon with little effort.

C HAPTER 10
    “I ’m Haley Randolph,” I said.
    Gabe Braxton stared down at me. Obviously, the maintenance team wasn’t required to memorize photos of resort guests, as the hotel workers were, because he looked at me as if I were a bug he wanted to squash—which, from the size of him, I thought he could easily have done.
    “I’m the one who found Jaslyn,” I said.
    Now he looked as if I’d squashed him like a bug. His big shoulders slumped and he turned away, shaking his head.
    “I heard that you two were seeing each other,” I said, “so I thought you’d want to know.”
    He whipped around, glaring at me. “Who told you that? Who told you about Jas and me?” he demanded.
    I jumped, startled by his sudden anger.
    No way was I throwing Shane out in front of this bus, so I just gave him an it’s-no-big-deal shrug and said, “A lot of people mentioned it. I guess you two were a great couple.”
    Okay, that was a total lie but—thank goodness—it seemed to calm him down.
    The hum of a tram’s electric engine sounded behind me.
    “Let’s go back here,” Gabe said, and led the way off of the road and behind a couple of big bushes.
    “Jas was special. She was awesome. So smart,” Gabe said. “And driven. I’ve never seen anybody as dedicated to something as Jas was.”
    He paused while the sound of the tram grew louder as it passed us. I glanced toward the road but couldn’t see much through the bushes, just a broken glimpse of the tram and the uniformed employees onboard, heading for the resort. When the noise faded, Gabe spoke again.
    “All Jas talked about was getting her degree. She was an art major. She wanted to go to Europe to visit the museums. She had a long list of places she wanted to go, lots of different cities where she could look at those paintings and statues,” Gabe said. “She was crazy about that artsy stuff.”
    It sounded like a yawner to me, but who was I to shoot down someone’s dream?
    “Were you going with her?” I asked, to bring the conversation back around to the two of them.
    “Sure. I’d have gone,” Gabe said. He shook his head. “But she was so focused on that stuff I don’t think she’d have wanted anybody with her, not even me. She was kind of in the zone when she talked about it, you know? Completely wired in.”
    “At least you two had your time here at the resort together,” I said. “Did she like working here?”
    “Yeah, I guess. She liked that she could work here on her breaks from school. I guess a lot of students do that. Jas thought the work was easy and the pay was good—better than the last place she worked.” Gabe said.
    “Did something happen there?” I asked.
    “Somebody was giving her a hard time. She didn’t want to talk about it.” He frowned. “But in the last week or so she seemed upset. You know, troubled about something.”
    My senses jumped to high alert, sure I was about to discover a major clue.
    “What was wrong?” I asked, and managed to sound concerned and not merely anxious to dig up something that would help me . “Did she tell you?”
    “No.”
    So much for a case-breaking clue. Still, I pushed on.
    “Was she having a