He rolled his eyes and sighed, waving his hand to usher me further inside the condo. NB barreled toward us from the open living room, and I grabbed him before his nails did permanent damage to my knees.

"Thank you for watching him," I said, snuggling my face into his fury neck.

Barbie followed him at a slower pace. "You missed a doozy of a show today. That rake Nick Cherry took Tanya to lunch, and Reba was in the other room with her girlfriends. The producers cannot keep this storyline going. The ladies on Twitter are ready to revolt."

I chucked. "Is Tanya the original girlfriend or the cheater?"

"The cheater," Barbie said, as if the woman committed murder. I didn't like cheaters either, but it was a daytime soap set to cause drama and bring in viewers. You had to expect it.

"Don't tell me you're into that nonsense too," Bert said, wandering into the kitchen.

"Mind yourself, Bert." Barbie scowled at him. "Don't listen to my husband. He thinks he's the most important thing on the planet. I blame his mother."

I bit my lips. That was her husband? He had to be at least twenty years older than Barbie.

She nodded as if she read my mind. "I was his secretary. Bert said he'd never settle down, but I tamed him." She slapped his ass as he walked past us.

Bert shook his head. "Regret it every day. Now stop hogging her time. We need to talk."

"Of course. I'll get out of your way. You two seem busy." I snatched NB's leash from the long table by the door and set him on the ground.

Barbie stopped me. "Not me. He wants to talk to you."

I stood with an awkward jolt. "Me?"

Bert leaned on the arm of their white couch-did everyone have a white couch in this building-and twirled a dark brown liquid in his short glass. Whiskey. "Yes, you. I've heard things about you, and I need help."

"Me?" What had he heard about me? We'd only been on the island for a few days. I hadn't even gotten into any trouble yet.

He did a little twirl of his glass, the liquid coming dangerously close to the top. "I need you to investigate someone for me."

I backed up a step. "Me?"

"Yes, you." His tone had a hint of annoyance. "We know you're a private investigator, and I need someone investigated."

"Discreetly, of course," Barbie chimed in.

I raised my hand, not holding NB's leash. "I'm not a PI here."

Even though I did that research on Melissa's listings and questioned the woman a bit ago.

But that was a one-off.

It wouldn't happen again because I was very much not a private investigator here.

"It's not a big case, but it's very serious," Bert said and then continued talking right over Barbie's quick snort. "My friend Harold has to be cheating at his golf game."

"Harold? I think I met him?"

Bert's eyes widened at me for interrupting him. "Short guy who looks like a golf cheater."

I opened my mouth to answer but then closed it with a little bob to the left and right. What did a golf cheater look like? "Maybe?"

"I knew it." He snapped his fingers. "Harold hasn't won a game of golf against me in fifteen years-unless I let him win out of pity."

"That's very nice of you." NB scratched at their door, probably wondering why we weren't leaving yet, and I picked him up. His next technique normally involved peeing on something.

"I'm a nice guy," Bert said, and Barbie gave another snort. "That SOB has beaten me twice in the last three weeks."

"You're old, Bert. You're losing your touch," Barbie hollered, as she found a spot on the second couch. The one in front of the television.

Bert puffed up his chest and turned toward her. "I'm as healthy as the day we met. He's up to something, and I want to find out what. He's cheating. There's no other way."

I nodded like I agreed with him because if the vein in his forehead pulsed anymore, it might explode. "It does sound fishy."

"Exactly. I'm telling you he's cheating. Harold doesn't have it in him to win at golf. He's got flabby arms." By the grace of God, my gaze did not fall to check him for scrawny arms. Did it take a lot of muscle to swing a golf club? "That's why I need a PI to sniff out what he's doing."

NB and I took another step toward the door. "I'm not a PI."

"That's not what everyone on the island is saying about you."

"People are talking about me?" I asked him. Who? And where? And when?

He nodded. "Everyone. I stopped in the post office, and they said you're the number one investigator in Maine."

I smiled. If he wanted to flatter me, he was driving down the correct road. "I'm not sure I'd go that far." If he wanted to, I wouldn't stop him, but I wouldn't say such things myself. "I don't have a license to be a private investigator in Florida."

His face scrunched until I lost sight of his eyes. "No one here cares about a license. The government doesn't get to tell me what I can and can't do with my hard-earned money."

Money? That word drew more of my interest.

"I'll start you out at five hundred dollars an hour for your time and a thousand-dollar bonus when you show me how he's cheating and bring me the device."

"Deal."

Oops.

I'd opened my mouth to refuse the offer, but that was so much money. No one turned down that much money. With that much cash flow coming in, I could afford to buy a pair of Barbie's stretchy pants.

We shook hands, and Barbie promised she'd text me information on how to find Harold when I wanted to start my search for his cheating operation.

A few minutes later, NB and I walked into our room at the resort to find Broadrick stretched out on the bed watching television. It was still so weird to see him relaxing that I stopped a few feet away and stared. It also didn't hurt that he had one hell of a great stomach. His black polo shirt covered it at the time, but I let myself imagine the six-pack hidden underneath.

"How was your day?" he asked, apparently not noticing my appraising gaze.

I unhooked NB, and he ran right for Broadrick. My day had many emotions, but I didn't want to tell him any of them because then he'd ask questions. And I certainly would not tell him about the golfing investigation or my strike-out at the morgue.

"Nick took Tanya to lunch and almost ran into his other girlfriend." He stared at me silently, so I continued, "She was there with a girlfriend to have lunch, too. How he keeps pulling this off, Barbie and I have no idea."

Broadrick narrowed his eyes. "I have good news."

"Barbie says they'll milk this drama for all they can." He already had me on a roll, so I had to finish the rest of the story. "It's going to be wild when Reba finds out."

"Who?" Broadrick asked, his eyebrows furrowed at their maximum furrow. "Who's Reba?"

"The woman dating Nick. She's the OG girlfriend. Tayna is the cheater, but I don't think Tanya knows about Reba. So, really, the only bad one in this case is Nick."

"Do these people live on the island?" Broadrick asked.

He was so behind. "No. Barbie told me about them."

"Are we talking about real people?" Broadrick asked, sitting up on the bed and leaning toward me when NB tried to lick his face.

I stuck my hand on my hip. Had he not been paying attention at all? "No. They're characters from Barbie's favorite soap."

"It's Sunday, Vonnie." He shook his head twice.

I dropped NB's leash on the floor by the door, where we had a small pile of shoes. "She records the shows she can watch the recaps over the weekends."

It's like he didn't listen to a single thing I told him about people on the island.

"And you left this woman in charge of our dog for the afternoon?"

That part he figured out? I rolled my eyes. If we kept on this part of the conversation, he'd eventually ask me where I was, and I wasn't ready to confess.

"What's your good news?" I asked him to steer the conversation away from me.

Broadrick grinned, and his eyes widened in excitement. He stood up, leaving NB in his spot on the bed. "The seller accepted our offer."

My eyes widened, too. "We get to buy murder condo?"

The corners of Broadrick's lips turned down. "You're not going to call it murder condo forever. Are you?"

I patted him on the shoulder. We both knew the answer to that. You didn't buy a murder condo and not tell everyone you met that you owned a murder condo. I didn't make the rules, but I definitely had to follow them.

"Do you think Larken could kill someone?" I asked, slipping out of my shoes and adding them to the pile.

"Everyone is capable of great destruction under the right conditions," he said. "Since they ruled Melissa's death an accident, we're free to occupy the condo once they finish with crime scene cleanup."

I sat on the bed in a huff. "We both know it wasn't an accident."

Was Broadrick really okay with a murderer just running loose on the island? What if they came back to the condo and killed us in our sleep? What if the condo had an extensive system of tunnels the killer used to get in and out of condos? When he wasn't murdering people, he used the entrances to steal food and dogs. I glanced at NB. We couldn't let him be dognapped.

Broadrick stood in front of me and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. "Do you want this condo?"

"Yes."

"Then it was an accident," he said, as if that made everything perfect. "The seller agreed to let us rent the condo while we wait the forty-five days to close. We can get out of this hotel."

"That's great. This place is getting a little cramped." Together, our gazes scanned the room, each of us stopping at different piles of items. Most of them mine.

Broadrick clapped his hands. "I guess you better get to packing again."

"Oh, no can do. Sorry." I feigned being super sad as I stood up. "It's Sunday night and I have to meet the girls for Stitch and Bitch night."

But first I had to find my bag of materials and nonexistent scarf.