California Schemin': Book One in the Malibu Mayhem Trilogy Read online

  As we headed toward the shed, I remembered what Mandy had said about Mia.

  “How can Mia go to a spa for a day and end up staying for weeks?” I wondered.

  “Maybe she wanted to get away from her sisters,” George said.

  “Or maybe she decided she likes being pampered from head to toe,” Bess said.

  George rolled her eyes. “Another Hollywood princess. Just what this town needs.”

  As we approached the shed, I smiled when I saw the three surfboards leaning against the outside. I couldn’t wait to surf some real Malachite waves. Or at least try to.

  “Check out all those tools,” Bess said when we opened the door. Wrenches, screwdrivers, and drills hung on the walls. “Imagine all the things I could fix and build.”

  “How about a robot to clean up the beach?” I joked.

  We searched the shed, only to find more tools, a shovel, a lawn mower, and some folded beach chairs. But then George found something in the back that caught her eye: a black wet suit hanging from a hook on the wall.

  “I didn’t think Stacey was the deep-diving type,” George said.

  “She must be.” I pointed to an oxygen tank, goggles, and flippers underneath the suit on the floor. “She’s got all the gear.”

  “Maybe one of her fabulous parties was under the sea,” Bess suggested.

  After exploring a little more, we found what we were looking for: a box filled with canvas work gloves, and a roll of jumbo garbage bags.

  “We’re all set,” I said. “Now let’s hit the beach and get to work.”

  The three of us carried our cleanup gear to the trash pile on the beach. As we picked up junk, we couldn’t believe what the sisters had left behind: empty face cream containers, used makeup compacts, lipsticks, nail files, and cotton balls, along with empty cans, bottles, and gross stuff like chicken bones, browned and soggy lettuce leaves—even used dental floss. Gross.

  “How can four people make such a mess?” Bess said. “They must have invited some friends after we went to bed.”

  “It sure sounded like more than four people last night,” I agreed. “Those Casabians better not ruin this vacation for us. We hardly ever go away.”

  But as I picked up an empty nail polish bottle, I noticed something else. All the makeup containers seemed to have something in common: a yellow sunburst design on the package.

  “It looks like some kind of brand logo,” I said, pointing it out to Bess and George. “It’s on half of these bottles and jars.”

  “I’ve never seen that brand before,” Bess admitted. “Whatever it is, the sisters must really like it.”

  “Eureka!” George joked. “Step aside, famous archeologists of the world. We’ve just dug up the Casabian sisters’ beauty secrets.”

  I picked up a handful of makeup containers and dropped them into a plastic bag. “Why would Mandy and Mallory need so many beauty products at a bonfire?” I wondered.

  “Nancy, there’s not a mystery everywhere you look,” Bess teased. “The sisters were filming a TV show. They have to be ready for their close-ups at all times.”

  We stopped cleaning to gaze at the spa. Guests were meditating on the beach. A huge yacht was anchored about two hundred feet from the shore.

  “I wonder who that belongs to,” I said.

  “It’s probably for the guests,” George replied.

  “Or it could belong to that guy Roland who owns the spa,” Bess figured. “Business must be good.”

  There was one more thing on the beach that caught my eye. It was a large tarplike tent covered with thick blankets. “That’s a weird-looking tent,” I said, pointing it out. “What do you think it’s for?”

  “Camping? Parties?” Bess shrugged.

  “Covered with blankets?” I wondered.

  Suddenly—

  “OWWWWW!!”

  Bess and I whirled around to see George hopping up and down on one foot.

  “George, what happened?” I asked.

  George clutched her other ankle. “I stepped on something sharp. It went underneath my sandal and pricked the side of my foot.”

  “Maybe a jellyfish stung you,” Bess said.

  Bess could be right, I thought. But when I saw a stream of bright red blood beneath George’s ankle, I changed my mind.

  “That’s no sting,” I decided.

  “Well, it was either that soda can ring, broken glass,” George said, her face turning ghost white, “or…or…”

  “Or what?” I asked.

  “Or that hypodermic needle?” George gulped.

  TOXIC TROUBLE

  My blood froze as I stared at the hypodermic needle sticking halfway out of the sand. It still contained some kind of liquid, which worried me the most. What if it was toxic? What if it went straight into George’s bloodstream?

  “George, do you really think it was that needle you stepped on?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I guess it could have been any of those sharp things.”

  “We have to get to a hospital, just in case,” I said. “Fast!”

  Bess shared my panic. She held on to George to keep her from fainting. “I’ll help you to the car,” she told her cousin. “Lean on me and keep hopping.”

  “I’m hopping, I’m hopping,” George declared. She leaned on Bess, then hopped alongside her as they made their way up the beach.

  “I’ll be right there,” I yelled as I pulled off my sweatshirt. “I want to bring this with us to the hospital.”

  “What for?” George called over her shoulder.

  “So the doctors can send it to a lab for testing,” I answered.

  I wrapped my sweatshirt several times around my hand, even though I still had gloves on, almost up to my elbow. Then, very carefully, I scooped up the needle and some surrounding sand into a garbage bag.

  Holding the bag out in front of me, I made my way up the beach and around the house to the driveway.

  “Hurry up, let’s go!” Bess said as I slid into the driver’s seat. She had already entered the address of the nearest hospital on the GPS. George sat silently in the backseat as I followed the directions.

  “This is not funny,” I said as I drove. “Who would think the Casabian sisters could be doing drugs?”

  “Unless they’re plastic surgery fillers,” Bess said. “Let’s face it. Those sisters are pretty augmented.”

  “Can we please shut up about the Casabian sisters and get me to the hospital?” George cried.

  “Turn right at the next light,” the perky GPS voice said as I steered the car away from the house. “Then proceed a quarter of a mile.”

  “Jeez,” George grumbled. “What a way to start a vacation!”

  Malachite General was only ten minutes away from the house. Bess helped George through the emergency room doors while I followed, the bagged hypodermic needle in hand.

  “Please let it only be Botox,” I whispered to myself.

  A woman behind the desk wasted no time taking George’s medical information. A physician’s assistant soon joined George to check out her cut.

  I knew Bess was worried about George when she didn’t flirt with the cute PA. I was worried too. George might not have been my cousin, but she was still one of my two best friends.

  “So what do you think I stepped on?” George asked. She tilted her head to read the doctor’s name tag. “Dr. Viola?”

  “Was it a hypodermic needle?” Bess asked, her voice cracking.

  “I don’t think it was a needle,” Dr. Viola said. “But I’ll have to examine it closer to know for sure.”

  “You can tell just by looking at the cut?” George asked.

  “Most of the time,” the doctor said with a reassuring smile.

  “Well, just in case it was the needle—and we hope it isn’t,” I said, holding up the garbage bag, “I brought it in for testing.”

  “That…and the whole beach,” George blurted.

  “Huh?” I glanced down and felt m
y cheeks burn. Pouring out of a tiny rip in the bag was a steady stream of sand.

  “Oops,” I groaned.

  “Hey, this is Malachite Beach.” Dr. Viola chuckled. “But you did the right thing by bringing it in. We’ll send it to the lab for testing and let you know the results.”

  Dr. Viola and a nurse helped George into one of the examining rooms. Bess and I found two empty chairs in the waiting room and sat down.

  Bess grabbed a fashion magazine from the table and quickly flipped through it. After a few seconds, she tossed it aside.

  “Nancy, what if the stuff in the needle was toxic?” Bess asked. “George is my cousin—even if nobody believes it.”

  “George is in good hands, Bess,” I assured her. “Although now I think we should have covered our hands and our feet when we were cleaning up.”

  “It was an accident.” Bess sighed. “A terrible accident.”

  But deep down inside, I wondered. What if the needle on the beach was no accident at all? What if it had been left there on purpose?

  “Bess?” I asked slowly. “I hate to bring this up now, but what if Mandy and Mallory left that needle on the beach to provoke us?”

  “Provoke us?” Bess repeated.

  “You know,” I said. “To get back at us for giving them a hard time when we found them on our beach?”

  “Well, if it was meant to hurt one of us,” Bess said, “they succeeded.”

  I was about to grab a news magazine when someone shouted, “Somebody help. Please!”

  Bess and I turned in the direction of the voice. A woman who looked about thirty was helping a younger guy through the door. His face was pale, yet beaded with sweat.

  “Hang in there, Brad,” the woman said.

  “I’m…okay,” the guy panted as he leaned on the woman. “Let’s go back, Danielle. Please.”

  Bess and I watched as a doctor hurried over. She shone what looked like a penlight into his open mouth.

  “I’m Dr. Wainwright,” she said, her brows furrowed with concern. Do you know what happened?”

  I was curious myself. But instead of answering the doctor, the two of them exchanged silent glances.

  “Do you have any idea?” Dr. Wainwright asked again.

  “Um…too much sun?” Danielle answered.

  “We’ll see,” Dr. Wainwright said. She helped Brad into a chair. “You’ll need to fill out some forms at the desk while I find an examining room. It shouldn’t take long.”

  The doctor walked past me and Bess.

  “Can too much sun do that?” Bess whispered.

  “Not according to the doctor,” I murmured.

  What struck me as weird was how reluctant they were to answer. As if they had something to hide. As if they—and then I stopped myself. Why couldn’t I turn off my radar? This wasn’t even my business!

  At that moment the door to the emergency room slid open once again. A tall blond woman dressed in a white pantsuit practically marched inside, straight over to Danielle.

  “Danielle, why on earth did you bring Brad here?” the woman demanded in a Scandinavian-sounding accent. “We have perfectly good natural remedies at the retreat to help him.”

  “Sorry, Inge,” she said, and dropped the forms on the desk. “I panicked when Brad almost passed out.”

  Bess and I were stunned when this Inge lady walked over to Brad and pulled him out of the chair.

  “My car is out front,” Inge said, leaning Brad on Danielle’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Do you see that?” Bess asked as the three headed toward the door. “She’s taking that poor guy out of the hospital.”

  I couldn’t believe it.

  “Excuse me,” I called to Inge. “The doctor was just going to check him out.”

  Inge barely glanced at me before the door slid shut behind them. Seconds later Dr. Wainwright returned, looking for Brad.

  “They just left,” I said with a shrug. “With some blond woman.”

  “Left?” Dr. Wainwright said. “That’s weird.”

  “That was weird,” Bess agreed as I sat down. “Why were those two so scared of that woman?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “But she did mention something about a retreat. She had some yellow emblem on her pocket, but I couldn’t make out what it was.”

  “Wait a minute—a retreat?” Bess asked, her eyes wide. “What if that creepy Inge works next door to us at Roland’s Renewal Retreat and Spa?”

  “What are the odds of that, Bess?” I asked. “There must be more retreats and spas on Malachite Beach.”

  “I guess.” Bess sighed. Her eyes suddenly lit up as George entered the waiting room, a white bandage wrapped around her ankle.

  “Dr. Viola found shards of glass in my cut,” George said with a grin. “Which means I didn’t step on the needle.”

  “That’s great,” Bess said, giving her cousin a big hug. I giggled as George grimaced. She was about as affectionate as a sumo wrestler in the ring.

  I was just as relieved. But my questions still hadn’t been answered. One: Did the needle really belong to the Casabian sisters? Two: What was it filled with? And three: Were there any more where that came from?

  I knew I’d said we wouldn’t try to find any mysteries while on vacation. But I had a funny feeling a mystery had just found us.

  SPA SECRETS

  “What are Dr. Viola’s orders?” I asked George as we drove back to the house.

  “I got a tetanus shot.” George raised her arm to show a small Band-Aid. “I have to keep my foot dry for a day or two.”

  “There goes swimming and surfing,” said Bess.

  “We’ll be in Malachite Beach for three weeks, Bess,” George said. “At least I didn’t step on that needle.”

  “That’s for sure,” Bess agreed. “Now the hospital can dispose of it safely. They deal with hundreds of needles every day.”

  “Actually,” George said, “I asked Dr. Viola to send” the contents to the lab anyway. If the Casabian sisters were doing illegal drugs and trespassing, someone ought to know.”

  My hands froze on the steering wheel. As much as I thought the sisters had dumped trash on our beach, the last thing I wanted was to spread a rumor that they were users.

  “George, you didn’t tell that to Dr. Viola, did you?” I said. “Celebrity gossip spreads like wildfire around here.”

  “I’m not stupid, Nancy.” George smirked. “I just told the doctor that if the needle had anything toxic in it, we would want to tell the police.”

  “Spoken like a true detective.” Bess smiled.

  “Speaking of the sisters, as soon as we get back, I want to go straight to Villa Fabuloso. I’m going to show them what they did to me,” George said.

  “Let it go, George,” Bess pleaded. “Fighting with Mandy and Mallory would just be bad karma.”

  I could see George roll her eyes in the mirror.

  In no time we were back at the house. While we made sandwiches for lunch, Bess and I told George about the drama in the waiting room.

  “See what you missed?” I joked.

  “I’m glad I did,” George said as she twisted open a pickle jar. “I think I’ve had enough drama from one morning, which is why I’m not calling home. My parents would freak if they knew I’d been in a hospital ER.”

  After lunch I went out on the deck to call my dad. Even though he was Carson Drew, distinguished attorney and helper of all things mystery, I decided not to worry him, either, about the hypodermic needle on the beach.

  “Guess what, Dad?” I asked. “We have celebrities living right next door.”

  “Celebs, huh?” I heard Dad’s voice say. “Anybody I know?”

  “The Casabian sisters,” I said. “Ever hear of them?”

  “Casabian sisters,” Dad said slowly. “Weren’t they a singing group in the eighties?”

  “The eighties?” I laughed. “Oh, Dad, we have got to get you into the twenty-first century once and for all.”

&n
bsp; “Hey, no fair,” Dad said. “I have an iPod.”

  “Because I gave you one for Father’s Day,” I reminded him. From the corner of my eye I could see Bess and George step out on the deck. “Dad, I’m going to go. We’ve got to figure out what to do on our first full day in L.A.”

  “I’ve got to go too,” Dad said quickly. “Bye, sweetie.”

  “Bye, Dad.” As I ended the call, I knew what to get him for next Father’s Day—a cordless kitchen speakerphone.

  “What’s on the agenda?” George asked.

  “Bess and I have to finish cleaning up the beach,” I said.

  “Then what?” Bess asked.

  “My foot is still kind of sore,” George said as she lowered herself into a chair. “So forget a lot of walking like Universal Studios or Rodeo Drive—thank goodness.”

  Bess’s shoulders slumped. Then almost immediately she seemed to perk up.

  “Why don’t we go next door to Roland’s Renewal Retreat and Spa?” she suggested. “We can get basic manicures, which would be a treat after picking up all that garbage.”

  I smiled at the thought. If anything could relax me, it was a luxurious manicure and hand massage.

  “Sounds good,” I said. “And lucky you, Bess, we might even meet Mia Casabian over there.”

  “What about you, George?” Bess asked.

  George heaved a big sigh before saying, “Sure. Anything but Rodeo Drive.”

  After Bess called the spa to make appointments for manicures later that afternoon, she and I finished cleaning up the beach, this time wearing gloves, sneakers and thick socks. We found no more hypodermic needles but plenty of makeup containers with the yellow starburst design.

  “Done!” Bess declared when our last trash bag was filled. “Now let’s get these hardworking hands buffed and buttered.”

  Bess, George, and I walked along the road until we reached the pink stucco mansion at the end of the beach. Two men wearing “Roland’s Renewal Retreat and Spa” T-shirts pulled open the massive gate to let us through. I noticed yellow emblems on their T-shirts—yellow sunburst emblems.

  “You guys,” I said as we made our way up the long driveway to the mansion, “did you see the logos on those shirts? I’m pretty sure they’re the same as—”