Free Murder at Dolphin Bay (Sand and Sea Hawaiian Mystery Book 1) by Kathi Daley Page B

will bring food over to Elva’s for the three of us to share when Cam and Kekoa are out.
    “I feel a little bad we’re all here except for Mr. B. Should we invite him to come over?” I wondered.
    “I tried,” Kevin reported. “I knocked on the door and waited, but he never answered.”
    “His lights and television are on.”
    “They were when I knocked as well,” Kevin informed me. “I suppose he could have been in the shower.”
    “Or he’s just avoiding us,” Cam offered.
    “I’m sure he’ll be over to complain about the noise,” Sean commented. “We can invite him to join us then.”
    I sat on one of the barstools and watched Sean mix a pitcher of potent drinks. He was a fit man of average build and a snappy dresser, kindhearted, with a pleasant disposition and an appreciation for art and the theater. He was friendly and neatly groomed, and I’ve heard he was an excellent flight attendant. I know he made a decent amount of money and had been pretty much everywhere he’d ever wanted to go, but I often wondered whether his talent would have been better served if he’d gone into fashion or interior design. 
    Kevin, on the other hand, reminded me of Cam. A large man who enjoyed cooking and sports of all kinds, he tended to dress casually, and while Sean enjoyed the opera, Kevin was more of a heavy metal type of guy. On the surface they seemed as different as two men could be, but they seemed to have what it took to sustain a relationship that would go the distance.
    “So how was Mexico?” I asked Sean.
    “Hot, muggy, and overcast. The surfing wasn’t what we hoped and it was too hot to do much hiking, but the food was good and we enjoyed the amenities at the resort.”
    When he’d heard about their wedding, Sean and Kevin had been given a two-week stay at a luxury resort by one of the frequent fliers who patronized the airline they worked for. They’d just returned home earlier that day.
    “It was really nice of Mr. Brown to comp your stay.”
    “The guy’s loaded. The resort in Mexico is only one of the ones he owns.”
    “He owns the resort? I thought he just worked there.”
    “No, he owns it. At least partially. I think there are several partners and a handful of investors with their hand in the pot. Speaking of investors, I heard about Mr. Cole. It’s a shame what happened.”
    “You knew him?”
    “As much as one can know a customer. I usually work the first-class cabin and Cole always flew first class. In fact, he was on the last flight I worked before Kevin and I headed for Mexico.”
    “Which was two weeks ago.”
    “Yeah, thereabout. Sixteen days ago, to be specific. Why?”
    “He only checked into the Dolphin Bay on Sunday.”
    “He mentioned he had plans to stay with a woman he knew on the island. I imagine he must have done that first. Did you know he was planning to develop his own resort on the island?”
    “I heard that. It seems he had a couple of partners and planned to develop the land east of Dolphin Bay.”
    “Cole seemed genuinely excited about the project, but Mr. Brown, the customer who comped Kevin and me in Mexico, told me that he thought the whole thing was a scam.”
    I frowned. “A scam? What do you mean by that?”
    “Brown told me that he’d looked into developing that piece of land himself a while back, but there were a number of issues that prevented it from being a good candidate for such a large project. He said any developer worth their salt would have pulled the history of the property prior to buying it and would have known that project wasn’t going anywhere. It was Brown’s opinion that Cole used the project to scam his investors out of their money.”
    If that was true it certainly provided a motive for someone to kill the man. The question was, who were the investors and which of them killed him?
    I was contemplating the idea of calling Luke and asking him to make a run at his father again in the hope of learning the identity of at least