Cassidy Kincaid Mysteries Box Set

a one-day layover of R&R, and the local scientists and techs had returned to their regular lives and work at OVSICORI—the Volcano and Seismology Observatory of Costa Rica. Cassidy had boarded her bus for the coast, eager to get to the ocean.
When her bus stopped in Cañas, she stood on the corner and dialed again. Rebecca picked up on the second ring.
“What the hell, Cass?” she said, sounding breathless.
Cassidy squinted down the bright, dusty street. The moist, superheated air of midday was making her sweat, but it felt good compared to the over-air conditioned bus. “Reception sucks, okay?” Cassidy answered. “I’ve been trying all morning.”
Rebecca made a dramatic huff on her end. “I can’t get a hold of Reeve,” she said.
“He did call me,” Cassidy said. A stubborn grain of guilt was hitching her progress towards being aloof. Like a tiny irritant stuck in a sock on a long hike—all she had to do was ignore it, and the thing would eventually work itself out.
Why would Reeve call her?
“When?” Rebecca gasped.
“Last month.”
The line buzzed with silence, and Cassidy knew what Rebs was thinking because she was thinking it, too. That Reeve wouldn’t just call to say hello.
“I haven’t heard from him since then. He checks in.”
“What’s he doing down here?” she asked. It wasn’t like she and Reeve talked. Ever. Cassidy got all her news from Rebecca.
“He’s in some surfing town,” Rebecca said. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”
Cassidy shuffled her feet, and the grit beneath her flip-flops scraped noisily against the sidewalk. She leaned against the outer wall of the Supermercado, where an advertisement for a drink called Tropical was painted in bright blue, yellow, and green.
“Which town,” Cassidy sighed, picturing her version of post-field work R&R—five days of surfing uncrowded waves and lounging by a gorgeous pool—bursting into flames.
“Tamarindo,” Rebecca said slowly, as if she was reading it. “Is that anywhere near you?”
“No,” Cassidy lied.
“Come on, Cassidy,” Rebecca replied. In the background, a baby began to scream, and Cassidy could hear Rebecca’s body moving swiftly, then her calming, chirpy mommy voice soothing the baby with some kind of nonsense language. So it was Lyle, her youngest.
“If you gotta go, we can talk later,” Cassidy said, doing her best to not sound hopeful.
The child made some kind of snuffling noise, like it was sucking on something. Cassidy wondered if the something was Rebecca.
“No, it’s okay,” she said in a voice that was halfway between her cooing sweet voice and the bark she usually deployed on Cassidy. “Can you just go and ask around in Tamarindo? He was working on some kind of boat. Something to do with surf tours.”
Cassidy sighed. Reeve was probably high off his gourd somewhere, his phone stolen or lost, and oblivious that Rebecca was distraught with worry. “Okay, I’ll ask around, but I’ve only got five days left, and I’m not going to spend them pulling him out of whatever hole he’s stuck in.”
“He might really be in trouble, Cass.”
Cassidy sighed a long, slow breath, but it only deepened her guilt. Reeve had stolen from her, threatened her, lied to her. There were moments when she had hated him, but her father had loved him, had tried so hard to help him. Deep down Cassidy knew that she cared for him, too. He just made it so hard to sometimes. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Cassidy had to wait for a different bus, and the trip was longer, so she didn’t arrive in the surf mecca of Tamarindo until well after dark. She had no idea where to look for Reeve and had no place to stay. From the bus stop, she shouldered her backpack and walked down the dirt road. Music and lights from the open-air restaurants spilled out onto the street. Cassidy peered into each as she passed. A mixture of young backpackers, couples, or families were eating, or playing pool, or at the bar watching TV. At a place called Crazy Mike’s Surf Camp, she noticed a typical surfer crowd: young guys in loose T-shirts and board shorts, sitting at the bar or hunched over giant plates of food.
She didn’t see anyone who looked like Reeve, but didn’t expect to. By the time she reached the end of the street, her shoulders, worn out from five hard days of schlepping loads of gear all over the mountain, were aching, and she was soaked with sweat. At a roundabout, the street made a sharp turn to the left, away from the beach. The soft shushhhh of waves breaking on the shore drifted through a gap in the storefronts; she followed a path to the cocoa-brown sand and sat down in a tired heap. Another wave crashed on the shore, a pearly white mash in the soft glow coming from the businesses lining it. Offshore, the lights from fishing boats blinked in and out of focus on the black expanse of ocean.
Where would Reeve have hung out, worked? Rebecca had said something about a surf tours business involving a boat. She groaned, realizing that she would need to return to the surfer hangout and brave its testosterone-scented atmosphere. She could visit other businesses, too, but Crazy Mike’s had the right vibe: party.
The gnats had found her ankles, and her stomach was empty. With a sigh, she decided to walk back on the beach. Maybe the town would feel different to her from that perspective.
At the surf camp, she threaded the handful of outside tables full of surfers enjoying nachos or cocktails and peanuts, found the brightly lit bar and slid onto a stool, dropping her grubby pack to the tiled floor. The bartender, a tall, forty-something gringo with a thick blonde ponytail tied at the nape of his neck and quick blue eyes, pushed off the bar and approached her. He tossed down a coaster that landed perfectly between her hands, which were perched on the bar like parentheses.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“Una cerveza, por favor,” she said. Even