Cassidy Kincaid Mysteries Box Set

the open-air hotel lobby and down a second set of stairs to two tables in the hotel’s restaurant. She joined the couple at a table set on a covered balcony overlooking a broad, cocoa-brown beach. A waitress in a crisp, white button-down shirt and black skirt hovered at their table with a tray of coffee cups and a silver carafe. She placed the cups and coffee service on the table, and a minute later did the same for the three guys.
Bruce returned with a small stack of papers, which he distributed to them with a fistful of mismatched pens. “These are so we can enter Santa Rosa National Park, where the waves are,” he said, pointing to the page. “Just need to fill out the top,” he added, and stepped to the other side of the restaurant where a lump was snoozing in a hammock hanging from the edge of the patio. Bruce tapped the lump, which stirred. A moment later, a slender, teenaged boy—a Tico—stood and stretched, then trotted barefoot out to the street.
Cassidy scanned the paper form and filled in the required information. The coffee was a step up from the cup she’d had in the van; she sat back and sipped it as she took in the scene. This must be Playas del Coco, she realized, and they must be headed to Witch’s Rock or Ollie’s Point, two famous waves she had always wanted to surf.
Tall, brown cliffs closed in the sapphire-blue bay in front of the hotel to the North and South. She realized that the cliffs must block the swell because the bay was as flat as a lake. The Tico boy made several trips back and forth from the street with the surfboards, carrying them through the hotel and down to the beach. He then rowed a dingy out to a medium-sized boat anchored to a faded orange buoy and climbed aboard.
Cassidy heard someone laugh and turned to see Bruce standing at the rear of the restaurant, sipping coffee from a gold-rimmed china cup with a person who she assumed, by the way he was dressed, was the hotel proprietor. Bruce slipped the man an envelope and disappeared.
Bruce returned to their tables, scooped up the paperwork, scanning each as he did so, and then tapped the pile against the table dramatically. “Drink up, mateys!” he said. “The surf waits for no one.”
The group filed down to the beach and waded through soft, gushy sand to the idling boat. The Tico boy helped Cassidy aboard and gave her the “hang loose” sign flashed by surfers around the world. In spite of herself, Cassidy felt a weak smile stretch her lips. She was about to surf the famous Witch’s Rock!
As they motored slowly out of the bay, Bruce pulled down his sunglasses and topped his thick mop with a salt-stained trucker hat, pulling the bill low. The couple had seated themselves in front of the transom and were busy applying another coat of sunscreen, nibbling on gold-wrapped energy bars, and tightening the drawstrings of their nylon sunhats. The same three young males who had been chortling with each other since getting in the van had claimed the bow.
“So, was Reeve one of your helpers?” Cassidy asked, seizing her chance to talk. In the van, she had thought to ride in the front, but the pastries and coffee had been in her way, and at the hotel in Playas del Coco, Bruce had been too busy.
She had imagined Reeve loading the boards in Tamarindo, or prepping the boat in Playas del Coco, or maybe even working a job like mechanic. Reeve was handy with things like motors and could fix almost anything. But he was also not a legal resident and so would only be able to work jobs “under the table.” If he worked at all.
“Yep,” Bruce said, his eyes on the horizon. “Until one day he wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“He ran my shuttle, helped with tours, like Augusto there.” Bruce nodded his head towards the stern, where the Tico had his back to them, watching the shore recede. “I run tours up North every now and then. He worked a few of them.” Bruce accelerated slightly as they cleared the edge of the bay.
In the distance, Cassidy saw miles and miles of ocean, with the brown and green land sloping into the sea ahead of them. Clearing the bay, they passed jumbles of rock and skimmed past cliffs that were getting sloshed by junky waves and currents.
“On my last trip, on the morning we were set to leave, he didn’t show up.”
“What do you mean?”
“We had anchored overnight in San Juan del Sur,” he said, then reached over to the cooler and pulled out an iced bottle of water, opened it, and took a sip. He must have noticed her confused look because he added, “Nicaragua.”
Cassidy thought about this for a moment while also trying to conjure up a map of the coastline. Nicaragua’s southern border was only a short distance from their position, surely within a day’s travel by boat.
“We’d hit epic Witch’s and overnighted at Ollie’s, surfed it at first light.” He seemed to pause, as if lost in a memory for a moment. “He was doing some video for me, for the guests, but he got some waves, too,” Bruce added, placing the water bottle in a cup holder attached to the nav station. “After that we surfed some select spots in southern Nica. I always overnight in San Juan. There’s a great little bar right on the beach, some nightlife, good anchorage. The guests get a night in a four-star hotel, the whole deal. It’s gorgeous. Anyways, the next morning, I get up first, make the coffee, you know, the ritual. But he doesn’t come out of his cabin. Finally I knock—it was time to go pick up the guests—but he’s not there.”
“Did you go ashore? Ask around?” Cassidy asked. The boat was picking up speed, and the noise was making