The Mystery Megapack

features.
    “As my best friend and former sister-in-law, you have a moral obligation to help me find it again.”
    Kate—convinced that more than a few of those lines on her face were the direct result of Marlene’s bright ideas—sighed, stalling, wanting to support and dissuade simultaneously. No easy trick.
    “Look, you haven’t lost your gusto, but even if you had, why would taking sailing lessons help get it back?” Kate’s stomach churned in the all-too-familiar Pepcid AC alert that Marlene’s schemes often generated.
    “Not lessons, Kate. Holiday USA has invited us to spend a day aboard a thirty-six foot motor/sailboat, and yes, we can take the wheel or hoist the jib, while deciding if we’d like to become one of its part-time sailors/owners.”
    “Sounds like a scam to me.” They sat in their striped beach chairs planted at the water’s edge, with warm surf washing over their feet. Kate arched her toes in pleasure and took a deep breath of the sharp, salt air. “Whoever heard of timeshares on a sailboat?”
    “Scam?” Marlene’s laughter certainly seemed as lusty as ever. “We’re former New Yorkers, too old and too smart to scam, right? All we have to do is listen to an hour-long Holiday USA timeshare presentation. In return, we get to cruise up the Intercoastal and out to the ocean, maybe do some deep sea fishing or sit back and sip a Cosmo. Who knows, an attractive man might be on deck.”
    Kate suppressed a giggle: Gusto gone, huh?
    “Come on, Kate. The voyage is limited to six passengers…”
    “Prospects. We won’t be guests on a private yacht, Marlene. You filled in the Holiday USA promotion form you found on the counter in the dry cleaners.”
    “Okay, prospects. But their sales office and pier are located on the beach side of the Intercoastal, so we can walk there. The ship sails at noon. And we get a free lunch onboard.”
    The free lunch closed the deal for Kate.
    * * * *
    They met at 11:30 in Ocean Vista’s ornate, bordering on gaudy, lobby. Marlene’s nautical attire reminded Kate of Carol Channing on Broadway in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . However, knowing they’d be sailing into the wind, she’d arranged her platinum hair in a sleek French twist.
    Kate wore boat shoes, khakis, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
    She’d moved in to Ocean Vista nine months ago on the same day that her husband, Charlie, had dropped dead still clutching the pen he’d used to close on the condo. She missed Charlie and their decades of pillow talk about his cases as a NYPD Homicide Detective. And she missed her family up in New York, especially her granddaughters.
    South Florida’s relentless sunshine still depressed her, but with Marlene two floors below, and Charlie’s beloved Westie, Ballou, as her beach-walking companion, Kate had—ever so cautiously—begun to think of Palmetto Beach as home.
    In the February midday sun, as they walked the one long block north along A1A to Neptune Boulevard, Kate took time to both see and smell the flowers: a riot of fuchsia and purple hibiscus and jasmine so sweet its aroma embraced you like a lover.
    Senior citizens tended to arrive early. As they approached the Holiday USA berth on the Intercoastal pier, Kate spotted her shipmates queuing near a rope ladder at the aft of the boat.
    Good. That meant they wouldn’t be going into the office for a preliminary sales pitch. But why were so few prospects boarding a 36-foot boat?
    The white double-ender appeared sleek and yar. Kate had done some sailing off Shelter Island years ago and learned the lingo. While she could handle the wheel and, being the smallest onboard, had been hoisted up to the crow’s nest to adjust a line, she failed knot tying, and when she tried to work the sails, they’d flapped around her face.
    Still … she felt a sudden rush of excitement, a shiver of anticipation.
    “We can’t be this bloody low on gas. Where the hell did those landlubbers from Ohio motor out to last night?” A crusty old salt, in dirty shorts straining to cover his wide bottom and sporting a stained captain’s hat, shouted down from the bow, addressing another old guy—this one toned, tanned, and impeccably dressed in yachting white—on the dock.
    The walking/talking Ralph Lauren ad looked angry, but only for a fleeting moment, before he turned from the captain and flashed thirty thousand dollars worth of dazzlingly white, capped teeth at Kate and Marlene.
    “Good afternoon. According