If I’d married Roger, she mused, I wouldn’t be living in depressing, soggy Hudville. If I were vacationing with Roger in Hawaii, we’d be out on the beach with a mai tai in our hands instead of sitting in the hotel room thinking about ridiculous ways to liven up other people’s lives. Roger and I would have paid for the trip ourselves instead of having to win a lottery to get here. If only…

How had she stood thirty years with boring Bob? It was impossible to believe. He’d had the same menial job for twenty-eight years in a store that sold drain pipes. Business was brisk in Hudville. The book publisher had spotted the store when he was driving through town, and the rest, as they say, was history.

Now Bob put his hand on her thigh. Inwardly she cringed.

“Itsy Bitsy?” he whispered softly, using his nickname for her.

“What?”

“It’s important that we write this chapter.”

“Why?”

“It’ll make our lives more exciting. When the book is published, we’ll travel with the other couples in the book. It could change our lives. But most important, it’s a gift for our children.”

“Our children?” Betsy’s voice went up an octave. “How is it a gift for our children?”

“Our children are wonderful, but they’re a little dull. I don’t know how they got that way. I just don’t understand it. They’ll need this guidebook. They are both married, thank God, but if they don’t liven up, I’m afraid their spouses will leave them.”

He must be on drugs, Betsy thought. That’s the only answer. “Jeffrey and Celeste are wonderful people,” she cried indignantly.

“You never hear a peep out of them.”

“Yes, but they have deep thoughts.”

“Deep thoughts don’t get you anywhere unless you share them.” Bob patted her thigh again. “Now, I was thinking. Little Joy says there are problems going on around the hotel. Why don’t we walk around the hotel today and pretend we’re the criminals? Let’s just see what trouble we might be able to find.”

“Around the hotel?”

“Yes. The hotel is having problems. If we think like criminals, maybe we’ll figure out what’s going on. It’s called role-playing. Who knows? We could end up being heroes. It’s just a little game.”

At this point Betsy felt it was useless to protest. “All right,” she relented. “But only if we start at the bar.”

R egan passed the sign for the Princess Ball, with Princess Kaiulani dressed in native garb smiling down on the hotel guests, then went over to the house phone and dialed her room. There was no answer. She then pulled out her cell phone and called Kit’s cell. Kit answered after three rings.

“Regan, I’m out on a boat!”

“Where?”

“In back of the hotel. I met some people after breakfast who were going out for a quick sail. I’ll be back in a little while. Steve is coming over at lunchtime. Let’s meet in the bar by the big pool at noon.”

“Sounds good.”

Regan walked out to the smallest of the Waters’ five pools and took a seat in the shade of a large striped umbrella. Elvis was crooning “Blue Hawaii” from poolside speakers. Regan pulled out the newsletters from the envelope Janet had given her and retrieved the notebook from her purse.

Well, it was clear enough that Dorinda Dawes could make enemies. Regan couldn’t believe that even her mother had an unpleasant experience with her. Regan clicked her pen and started jotting down a few notes.

Dorinda had started working at the hotel in mid October. The problems at the hotel had started around that time. I’m sure Dorinda would have loved to expose the culprit on the front page of the newsletter, Regan thought. She unfolded a sheet of legal paper that was behind the newsletters. It was a handwritten list of the hotel’s problems.

Regan’s eyes scanned the offenses. Leaky pipes. Toilets overflowing caused by foreign objects not meant to be flushed, such as full tubes of suntan lotion. Oversalting of food. Complaints from guests that small convenience items were missing from their rooms: toothpaste, body lotion, the coffeemaker. A faucet turned on in an empty room that caused a flood. Jars of bugs opened and left in guests’ rooms. Complaints from numerous guests that one of their sandals or sneakers went missing from their room.

A thief who steals one shoe. Regan pondered what that meant, if anything. The Waikiki Waters had a phantom who was clearly out to annoy.

How does someone get away with this for three months without being discovered? Regan wondered. Maybe there’s more than one phantom. This could be the work of several people.

A tan young waitress in a short, flowered shift approached Regan. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“An iced tea, please.”

“Certainly.”

Could Dorinda Dawes have stumbled onto something? Regan wondered. Did someone murder her because she found out who was causing trouble at the hotel? It was certainly possible.

The big Princess Ball was tomorrow night. If someone was trying to tarnish the reputation of the hotel, the Princess Ball was a perfect target. With all the press that would be there, as well as more than five hundred people from all over Hawaii, anything negative that happened would be written about, discussed, and rehashed for days.

She picked up the Waikiki Waters newsletter that had been published in early January, the last one Dorinda had worked on. Pictures of parties held at the hotel in the month of December filled the pages. The men looked great, but the pictures of most of the women were very unflattering. Everything from wide-open mouths to messy hair to clothing somehow out of place. One photo in particular caught Regan’s eye. A woman was laughing with her head thrown back. The camera seemed to have been pointed up her nose. She was standing next to Will. Regan read the name below.

It was Kim, Will’s wife.

The newsletter had been printed when Will was on vacation, Regan realized. Dorinda’s photo captions included descriptions like “only twice divorced,” “recently slim,” and “planning marriage number four.” She glanced through the rest of the newsletters, and they all seemed fairly tame-obviously Will’s influence.

Oh, Dorinda, Regan thought. It does seem that you had a talent for striking a nerve-a lot of nerves. But did you get someone upset enough to kill you?

Every instinct told Regan that the answer was yes. But who? And what did the shell lei around Dorinda’s neck signify?

J azzy awoke in one of the downstairs guest rooms at Steve’s house. It was ten-thirty. She and Steve had stayed up until nearly four o’clock shooting the breeze. She got out of bed, wrapped herself in a luxurious white terrycloth bathrobe, and went into the spacious marble bathroom that was bigger than many people’s bedrooms.

First she brushed her teeth with the toothbrush she now left in residence at Steve’s house, and then splashed water on her face. “That helps,” she murmured as she patted her face dry with an Egyptian cotton towel. Staring at herself in the mirror, she again analyzed her cute, almost tomboyish reflection. She knew that guys didn’t feel threatened by her and were comfortable having her around. Work it, baby, she told herself.

Her cell phone rang in the bedroom. She hurried over and checked the caller ID. It was her employer, Claude Mott.

“Good morning!” she answered.

“Where are you?” Claude asked. Jazzy could picture Claude with his wispy goatee and head of thinning gray and black hair. He was slight in stature but had been a powerhouse at buying and selling companies. Now he wanted to stretch the left side of his brain by designing Hawaiian shirts, bathing suits, and muumuus. His first line would debut in the gift bags at the “Be a Princess” Ball, the ball that Claude Mott Enterprises had helped to underwrite.

“I’m at Steve’s house. I stayed here last night, and today I’m going over to the Waikiki Waters to do some work on the gift bags. How’s everything in San Francisco?”