Read Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 01 - Peril in Paradise for Free Online

till yesterday. And you’re the one who sent
me there” I flashed a narrow-eyed glare at her.
    “True” Ignoring my accusatory eyes, she took a long,
meditative drag on her cigarette. “You should be all right
since Nick Billie is handling the case. He’s a straightshooter.”
    “You know him?” Heat crept into my cheeks. Just the
mention of his name made my heart beat a little faster.

    “Sure do. I’ve been editing this weekly rag for almost twenty years. There isn’t anybody on the island
that I don’t know, haven’t heard about, or written up in
the paper-including Nick.”
    “How long has he lived here?”
    “He was assigned as chief detective of island police
about five years ago. Before that, he was a tribal police
officer.”
    My interested sparked even higher. “I thought he
looked Indian.”
    “Native American is the preferred term todayremember that if it comes up in a news story.” She
pointed a warning finger at me. I nodded, not wanting
to stop the flow of information about Detective Billie.
“Nick’s a Miccosukee. He grew up on the reservation
south of Naples and was involved with a case there a
while back that turned ugly. The case was never solved,
and he left.”
    “What was the case?”
    “I don’t know the particulars. It had something to do
with the kidnapping of a young boy.”
    “How was Detective Billie …”
    “Forget it-ancient history.” She waved her hand and
shook her head. “That’s not your main concern right
now. We’ve got a murder to cover, and you have a prime
opportunity to write the story of your life.”
    “What about the bike path article?” I held up my finished copy.

    She cleared her throat with a scoffing sound. “That’s back-page drivel right now. Our lead story is going to
be Hillman’s murder. And who better to write it than
the person who found his body?”
    I chewed on my lower lip. “Look, Anita, I might be
in a little over my head. I mean … I’m a suspect.”
    “A mere technicality.” She waved her hand. “You can
do it. You’ve just got to believe in yourself.”
    Those words sank in like weights falling to the bottom of the sea. I felt them dropping inside of me with a
distinct thud that reverberated through my being. Believe in myself. That was what I’d been trying to do most
of my life and, so far, I hadn’t been exactly successful.
    “When you meet with Nick, give your statement, but
tell him that you’re also going to be covering the story
for the paper and you’d appreciate any sharing of information. Then we’ll start doing background work on
Hillman. We want to give our readers a sense of who he
was, and why his death was such an … an untimely,
tragic event” She enunciated the last part with theatrical flare. “They’ll eat it up”
    Heartless hag. “There seem to be any number of
people who might’ve had a legitimate reason for wanting him dead.” I thought back to the four stricken faces
around the table at Hillman’s house. All of the writers
sitting there probably had grounds for murder. And
then there was the wronged husband Wanda Sue had
told me about.

    “Unexpected then. No one imagines something
like that can happen on a quiet little place like Coral
Island.”
    At that point, Sandy removed her headset. She exhaled in a long, musical note as her eyelids fluttered
open. Her eyes misted over with contentment and her
mouth turned up in a blissful smile. “What did I miss?”
    “Hillman’s murder,” I supplied.
    “Old news” She opened her desk drawer and pulled
out a small plastic bag that contained exactly two ounces
of lowfat cheese and some saltine crackers. “If he’d
been aware of the auras around him, he might not have
been killed.”
    “He didn’t strike me as the sensitive, New age type”
I drained my coffee cup.
    “His loss.” Sandy shrugged as she nibbled a piece of
cheese.
    “I want the murder story on my desk by the end of
the