Murder Undercover Read online

  Table of Contents

  Other Bella Books by Claire McNab

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Copyright © 1999 by Claire McNab

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First Published by Naiad Press 1999

  First Bella Books Edition 2013

  Bella Books eBook released 2013

  Editor: Lila Empson

  Cover Designer: Judy Fellows

  ISBN 13: 978-1-59493-360-8

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Other Bella Books by Claire McNab

  Under the Southern Cross

  Silent Heart

  Writing My Love

  Carol Ashton Series:

  Lessons in Murder

  Fatal Reunion

  Death Down Under

  Cop Out

  Dead Certain

  Body Guard

  Double Bluff

  Inner Circle

  Chain Letter

  Past Due

  Set Up

  Under Suspicion

  Death Club

  Accidental Murder

  Blood Link

  Fall Guy

  Denise Cleever Series:

  Out of Sight

  Recognition Factor

  Death by Death

  Murder at Random

  Kylie Kendall Series:

  The Wombat Strategy

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to the exceptional Sandi Stancil and the wonderful Lila Empson.

  For darling Sheila

  and for our Soph

  Prologue

  The clay pigeon arched over the turquoise sea. The stocky tourist, his sweat-stained orange T-shirt sticking to his thick chest, blazed away with both barrels of the shotgun. Untouched, the clay plate splashed into the water.

  “Aw, jeez!” He ripped off his ear protection and wiped a beefy forearm across his forehead. “There’s something wrong with the sights on this gun.”

  Under the meager shade thrown by a stand of coconut palms, several of the group waiting to shoot chuckled at his statement. “Yeah, sure, Morrie,” said a whippet-thin man also wearing an orange T-shirt. Across his narrow chest, glaring purple letters declared ABSCOUND INDUSTRIES.

  “My turn,” said an angular woman with a mean mouth. “Move it, willya?” As Morrie hesitated, reluctant to leave the shooting platform, she broke open the shotgun she held and inserted two heavy red cartridges. Snapping it shut, she began to mount the two wooden steps to the platform.

  Afterward, witnesses gave conflicting details, but all agreed that she had stumbled, her shotgun had discharged, and the side of Morrie’s head had vanished in a spray of blood, bone and brain tissue.

  The wooden platform shook as the body collapsed. “Oh, my God,” someone said.

  Afterward, no one thought to mention to the authorities the jarring way the woman had turned to the appalled audience and snapped with peevish anger, “It was an accident. You all saw. You’ll say it was an accident.”

  As if there had been any doubt.

  Chapter One

  “Got a challenge for you, Den.” Eddie Trebonus planted his elbows on the cane-and-Formica bar counter and smirked at me. “You know how to make a Baltimore bracer?”

  I gave him my best bright smile. “Coming right up.” Up to this point in time, I’d quite liked Americans, but Eddie was a poor advertisement for his nation. Not only did he have the worst taste in clothes—today he was wearing a brown-and-yellow striped top, bilious green Bermuda shorts, and white socks with his sandals—but he also had a flabby body and thick, blotchy skin that was peeling from too much tropical sun.

  I’ve always found American accents pleasant, but Eddie had a kind of metallic twang that put my teeth on edge. “You sure you know how to make a Baltimore bracer, Den?”

  I bit back a retort. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s having my name shortened. Along with my uniform of white shorts and a hibiscus-flower shirt—the choice of pink, yellow, orange, red or a particularly hectic purple—all staff had to wear an identifying tag. I tapped the bright pink hibiscus-shaped badge on my right breast. “The name’s Denise.”

  “Denise, eh?” He said loudly, apparently playing to a nonexistent crowd. “And what’s the left one called?” He chortled at his own joke, looking around to see if anyone else appreciated his humor. As it was ten on Friday morning, the Tropical Heat Cocktail Lounge only had a few people scattered around its glass-and-cane tables. Not one of them showed any interest in Eddie’s idea of humor, although Biddy Gallagher, a sinewy, tanned woman who’d won my admiration with her astonishing ability to consume hard liquor, did snap the paper she was reading with obvious irritation.

  This guy was getting to be more than tiresome. I’d been behind the bar for a week, and Eddie had been one of my first customers. Since then he’d turned up regularly to request a host of obscure cocktails. Well, they were obscure to me, but then, I’d only been a bartender for a short time, no matter what my résumé said, and the crash course I’d done in drink recipes wasn’t much help when someone like Eddie Trebonus was doing his best to catch me out.

  The other employee with me, Pete, was a fair dinkum bartender, so I’d tried to steer the Yank in his direction, but blasted Eddie, his rubbery lips stretched in a suggestive smile, always insisted on giving his drink orders to me.

  Pete looked like what he was—a genuinely nice guy. He had a pleasant, nondescript face, usually warmed by a cheeky smile, and a neat, compact body. I hadn’t been able to hide from Pete that I wasn’t half as experienced as I’d claimed to be, but he’d been a good sport and had only grinned when he caught me in the back quickly flicking through a paperback titled The Home Bartender’s Guide to Every Drink after my first encounter with Eddie. That time Eddie had requested, leering appropriately, a temptation cocktail. I’d tried to steer him onto the Aylmer Resort’s own drink, the tropical whacker, as I’d been comprehensively instructed on how to make this lethal combination of fruit juices, rum, brandy and gin. No such luck. Eddie had been determined to embarrass me, an ambition he was still pursuing.

  “Baltimore bracer,” Eddie repeated, seating himself on one of the cane bar stools. “Don’t you hurry, now, Den. Wouldn’t want you to make a mistake.”

  I contemplated hitting him, hard. That would wipe the stupid grin off his face. Of course, it would also blow my chances of continuing undercover, so I said, “You’re a challenge!” with just the right tone of playful respect.

  Eddie snickered. “Yeah,” he said. “A lot more than you know.”

  Convinced that he was about to add that he could show me a good time, baby, I hastened around the back of the bar to consult my cocktail guide. Pete, who was getting a replacement bottle of B
aileys Irish Cream, said, “Let me save you the trouble, love. It’s a measure of brandy, measure of anisette, throw in an egg white, shake it up with ice and whack it in a stemmed glass.”

  It sounded revolting to me, but then, I only drink beer, and that not very often.

  Eddie was waiting like a fat, sunburnt toad, chewing peanuts with his mouth open. I put the Baltimore bracer ingredients in a shaker, added ice, and did a good imitation of a demented maraca player. Straining the results into a glass, I placed it in front of Eddie with a flourish. “Your cocktail.”

  Then, sighing to myself, I got down to business. “You’re not here for the convention, then?” I said, knowing there was always some convention underway at Aylmer Resort, usually drawing overseas guests. That was part of the reason I was there.

  “Nah. Strictly a vacation.” He leaned closer. “Looking for a little action.”

  It wasn’t clear to me if this was a question or a statement. Either way I was repelled. I soothed myself by nonchalantly wiping the bar, a skill I’d learned from watching countless bartenders in countless movies. Lifting the carved wooden peanut bowl, the contents severely depleted by Eddie’s depredations, I swept my damp cloth over the spot. “Action?” I said vaguely. “You’d mean windsurfing, snorkeling, skeet shooting, that sort of thing.”

  “Skeet shooting? You talking about clay pigeons? No way are you going to get me doing that. Didn’t you hear what happened to that guy? Someone blew his head off!”

  “Did you know him?” I asked casually.

  “Who? The guy?” Eddie shook his head. “Nah, he was here with a convention group. Electronics, or something.” He took a gulp of his Baltimore bracer and swished it around his mouth before swallowing it.

  For a moment I’d been afraid he was going to spit it out like mouthwash. Hiding my distaste for everything that Eddie said or did, I said, “I’ve seen you with the Aylmers, and I thought you must be a friend of the family.”

  Eddie was pleased with my observation. “Yeah,” he said, “they don’t socialize with just anybody.”

  That was true. The Aylmer dynasty has been a force in Australian politics and business for well over a century, and counted the other rich and famous as their friends and relatives. Aylmer Island, inside the Great Barrier Reef, and only a short flight or boat ride from the mainland, had been deeded to the first robber baron Aylmer in the late nineteenth century and, apart from a small holiday shack, had been left in its natural state until fifteen years ago, when one branch of the family had developed it as a luxury resort.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve noticed,” said Eddie, smacking his lips, “but the daughter, Roanna Aylmer, is a real looker.”

  Of course I’d noticed. And he was selling Roanna short. She was sensational. Slim, tall, dark-haired and with a rebellious get-out-of-my-way look I found instantly attractive.

  “I hadn’t noticed,” I said.

  Over Eddie’s shoulder I saw with surprise that the subject of Eddie’s leering comment had just strolled into the cocktail lounge and was heading our way.

  Eddie, oblivious to this, nodded wisely at me. “And Roanna’s hot for it. Trust me, I know.”

  “Who’s hot, Eddie?” said Roanna behind him.

  The whole cocktail thing instantly became worth it, just to see Eddie’s face flush an unbecoming scarlet.

  “Hello,” he croaked, twisting around to look at her. “I didn’t see you come in.”

  “Obviously.”

  There was a long silence, one that I enjoyed and Eddie clearly didn’t.

  “I’d better be going,” he said at last. He tossed back the last of his drink. Nodded to Roanna, and slid off his chair. “Be seeing you.”

  She watched him go, then turned back to me. “What do you think of Eddie?”

  Difficult. Eddie was a guest of the Aylmer family, and I was just an employee, and a new one at that. I tried a blank expression and a minimal shrug as a response.

  “I asked you a question,” Roanna said.

  “A trick one.”

  She raised one eyebrow, a capability I’d never been able to master. It was clear she was going to wait until she got an answer, so I said, “I reckon if I say what I really think, I’ll get fired. And if I lie…” I grinned at her. “Why, I wouldn’t be true to myself.”

  There was a snort of laughter behind me. “We couldn’t have that, could we?” said Pete.

  Roanna was smiling too. She was also looking at me with a speculative expression. I’d surprised her, and that was good. My instructions were to infiltrate the Aylmer family if I could, and I had been shuddering at the thought that Eddie Trebonus might be my only way in. Roanna was more than preferable.

  I said, “Can I get you something to drink?”

  She hesitated, then gave a quick nod, to herself more than to me. “Lemon squash,” she said, then added, “Please.”

  While I was filling a glass with crushed ice, Pete, who was cutting lime wedges, said softly out of the corner of his mouth, “Nice going, Denise, but watch out. She can be trouble.”

  He already knew that I preferred women to men. Hell, I didn’t just prefer them, men had been totally excluded from my romantic fantasies since my late teens. Pete had cheerfully put the hard word on me during our first shift together, but had been quite unfazed when I’d set him straight. “Too bad,” he’d said, grinning. “I’ve always had a weakness for blond, athletic women.”

  In truth, I was really a sort of dark honey blond, but I’d lightened my hair for this undercover job, and gone back to wearing my contact lenses full time. As for his reference to the athletic, too much desk work had softened me up, and I’d had to spend hours in the gym getting fully fit and bringing my self-defense skills up to a reasonable standard.

  “How is she trouble?” I whispered back.

  He grinned at me. “Goes through hearts like a hot knife through butter.”

  I plunked down a hibiscus coaster in front of Roanna Aylmer and set the lemon squash on it. She was watching me with a disconcerting dark stare, which I ignored. “Peanuts?” I said.

  She peered at the bowl that Eddie had depleted. Wrinkling her nose, she said, “Have you got something better?”

  “I’ll have a look.”

  I disappeared to my refuge behind the shelves of brightly labeled bottles. Bar staff were told to provide upmarket nuts for obviously upmarket customers, and I guessed Roanna fitted the bill. I dug out a large container that declared itself MIXED SUPERIOR NUTS and put a generous scoop into a wooden bowl painted with tropical birds of garish plumage.

  Pete put his head around the edge of the shelves. “Can you hold the fort for a mo? I’ve got to get some stuff out of the storage shed.” I nodded, and he disappeared out the back door.

  My ASIO briefings hadn’t given me much information on Roanna, other than that she had a degree in computing but she’d never used it. She was the youngest daughter of Moreen and George Aylmer and was said to be wild, though no details were given. There was another daughter, Greta, who was considerably older and who had married and was living in Broome, Western Australia. The male side of the family was reinforced with two sons, Harry and Quint, who helped run the resort. I hadn’t spoken to either, although both were quite presentable, if you liked the sulky, arrogant look. I hadn’t up till now, but their sister had it down pat, and on her it seemed quite engaging.

  I slid the nuts next to her untouched lemon Squash. “Anything else?”

  “Why are you working here?” Roanna said. No beating around the bush for her.

  “I love the tropics.”

  She gave me an unbelieving smile. “Oh yeah?”

  At a table behind her, Biddy Gallagher folded her paper and slapped it down. “Jeez!” Biddy said, glaring in my direction. “What’s a woman got to do to get a drink around here?”

  “Coming.”

  “Let Pete do it,” said Roanna.

  I made a mental note that she knew Pete’s name. Perhaps his remark that Roanna
was trouble came from personal experience. “Pete isn’t here,” I said, lifting the leaf in the bar. “He’s gone to get supplies.”

  I went over to Biddy, who was tapping impatiently with bright scarlet nails. “Took your time,” she said severely. “Double Scotch on the rocks.” She grinned. “I suggest you go light on the rocks and heavy on the Haig.”

  When I turned back to the bar, the bowl of superior nuts and the lemon squash sat all alone. Roanna had gone.

  Chapter Two

  My first shift of the day ended. I was expected back for the boisterous evening period, where every night was party night, but in the meantime I had the afternoon to myself. I set off for the staff quarters, strolling through the lush beauty of the tropical gardens. A small army of gardeners rushed out at dawn to keep the burgeoning vegetation in check, then disappeared before guests could see them tampering with perfection. I stopped at my favorite spot, a little clearing hidden from the path. There was a dark green wooden bench situated to give a view of the water, but I’d never seen anyone else sitting on it. I sat down to enjoy the moment of tranquillity before I faced the exuberance of the staff quarters.

  This was the first time I’d seen Roanna Aylmer in the flesh, although, like all new staff, I’d had to sit through an orientation video, which introduced each member of the Aylmer family. The rest of the family had made an effort to smile at the camera, but Roanna had gazed coolly out of the screen, as though nothing to do with the resort related to her. The video featured patriarch George Aylmer’s voice extolling the wonderful qualities of Aylmer Resort Island, followed by an outline of staff duties —various individuals were shown being helpful, smiling, and otherwise appearing as perfect employees—and finally a list of things staff did not do. These forbidden items included having any close personal relationship with a guest, failing to wear a name tag, and neglecting to present a smiling face and a helpful manner at all times.