Beach Bags and Burglaries (A Haley Randolph Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

chairs. People splashed in the water and floated on the waves.
    Immediately I scanned the area for the most sought-after bag of the season. Not a single one in sight.
    “There they are,” Marcie said, and pointed to Bella and Sandy as we left the tram.
    They were lying on chaises near the bar, sipping drinks from tall, umbrella-topped glasses. Sandy had on a red one-piece and a floppy hat. Bella wore a bright yellow bikini and huge sunglasses; no way would she put on a hat and ruin her carefully sculpted hair.
    An attendant brought us towels and spread them over our chairs, and we settled in. The waiter came over, and Marcie and I ordered frothy, beach-vacation-worthy drinks.
    “Oh my God,” Sandy said. “You’ll never guess what just happened.”
    “Did you see Brad Pitt?” Marcie asked.
    “No, something even better,” Sandy declared. “Two little girls came up to us and asked for Bella’s autograph. They thought she was Beyoncé.”
    “No kidding,” Marcie said.
    “So what did you do?” I asked.
    Bella shrugged. “I gave them an autograph.”
    “And then,” Sandy said, “they took her picture.”
    “I smiled and waved,” Bella said.
    I figured that photo would make one heck of a vacation memory for someone—Bella in her bright yellow bikini and a hair-sculptured dolphin atop her head.
    I sat back ready to enjoy the ocean view, the breeze, and the late-afternoon sun. This was great. Just what I needed. Nothing—except maybe spotting another murder victim—could spoil the moment.
    Then it was spoiled.
    “Haley! Marcie! I can’t believe you’re here!”
    Oh my God. Yasmin.
    She walked toward us through the sand smiling and waving—just as if she actually thought we were glad to see her. She had on a pink bathing suit, pink sandals, pink hat, pink-framed sunglasses—really—and a pink cover-up that had BRIDE written across the front in dark pink hearts.
    Where was that waiter with my drink?
    “It’s really you!” Yasmin declared as she sat down totally uninvited on the foot of Marcie’s lounge chair.
    Yasmin was about my age with dark hair and a great figure that her dad had paid one of L.A.’s highest profile personal trainers serious bucks for to keep his little girl happy—or at least quiet.
    Her dad was a hotshot lawyer. He brought down seven figures a year representing celebrities who ran afoul of the law. Honestly, I didn’t know how he put up with some of those people. I wouldn’t have the patience to deal with them. I pictured finding myself in his position captured in a YouTube clip with a celebrity who’d just been sentenced to jail for violating the terms of her probation again , as she sobbed and threw herself on the defendant’s table, and me in her face screaming, “What did you think was going to happen, you crazy bitch?”
    Anyway, Yasmin’s parents had money, which she seemed to think was her money, so she got pretty much everything she wanted.
    “I’m Yasmin,” she said to Sandy and Bella, and they introduced themselves. “Haley and Marcie have been my friends for—well, forever. Since I started dating Tate. Oh my God, I can’t wait for you to meet Tate. We’re getting married!”
    Nobody said anything.
    “So, let me tell you all about the wedding,” Yasmin announced. “Oh my God, Tate insisted I pick pink for my color. He’s so sweet about giving me absolutely everything I want. Somehow, he just knows!”
    Nobody said anything.
    “When Tate first asked me out, I wasn’t sure if I should go out with him,” Yasmin said, and made a little frowny face I’m sure she’d perfected early in her teen years. “He was nice, but he didn’t compliment me much—not as much as I thought he should.”
    “I can see why you wanted to break up with him,” I said.
    Yasmin, deep in Tate-Tate-Tate mode, didn’t hear me.
    “But then he started sending me flowers, and calling me, and texting me, all the time,” she said. “That’s Tate. He’s just so