Meet Me in Hawaii by Georgia Toffolo (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📗

Zoe’s visit home last Christmas had come about after one of those video calls. It hadn’t been easy, going back to Hawke’s Cove. But Victoria had been struggling over a decision that might have torn her from the man she loved (her now-fiancé Oliver Russell) and so Zoe had sucked it up and joined Lily and Malie on a surprise visit to her, because for the big deals you needed to get tactile with your friends. They had a codename for those big deals—the scared-to-death and flying-high ones, the heartbreaks and exaltations, the ones that meant you dropped everything to be there: the Lost Hours.

Zoe was proud of the fact that she’d been the one to inspire that codename. They’d taken a trip to Ibiza to celebrate Victoria’s birthday and because V was the last of them to turn eighteen it was all-out-for-freedom that week. So all-out Zoe had managed to get lost at a foam party. One moment they’d been dancing as a group, the next the foam had gone right over Zoe’s head—she was the shortest, at just over five feet—and pandemonium had apparently ensued as Victoria, Malie and Lily had searched for her for the next three hours. They’d been scared out of their wits and checked her over as thoroughly as a doctor when she’d resurfaced, despite Zoe reassuring them that she hadn’t been kidnapped or drugged or conked on the head. Eventually they’d let the matter rest—perhaps reading the gleam of mischief in Zoe’s eyes that told them she was thrilled at having had a secret adventure.

It had been two months before the summer ball that would mark the end of school, and with the daring still racing through her blood Zoe had made the decision then and there that the ball would be a turning point, kick-starting a new life.

Careful what you wish for.

That night had certainly kick-started a new life. A new life for all of them. Just not in a way anyone could have anticipated.

Which she was not going to think about now.

She was going to think only positive thoughts.

As though by magic, her phone lit up.

Video call.

Lily.

Zoe smiled as she hit the button to accept. ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘It’s close to midnight over there! Do you miss me that much?’

Lily opened her mouth…then closed it.

‘Lily?’ Zoe said, alarmed at the distraught look on her friend’s face.

Lily opened her mouth again…and burst into tears.

‘Lily!’ Zoe clutched the phone so tightly in her hand she was in danger of cracking the case. ‘Tell me, tell me what it is!

‘Sorry, sorry!’ Lily wiped furiously at her eyes. ‘It’s just…Blake.’ A little sob escaped her, but Zoe could see her pulling it all together, the way she always, always did. ‘H-he’s d-dead.’

‘Oh Lily! Lils! I’m so, so sorry. Do you need me to come? I will, you know I will.’

Lily shook her head furiously. ‘You hate Hawke’s Cove.’

‘This isn’t about Hawke’s Cove, it’s about you.’

‘You’re on a job.’

‘I’m a fill-in, nothing more. It’s a junket. Like…blerrgh. You know I don’t do those.’

A ghost of a smile from Lily. ‘And yet there you are.’

‘Meh!’ Zoe tossed in nonchalantly. ‘I like the guy who asked me to do it, that’s the only reason.’

‘As in like?’

‘As in no! Geez! Rolf lives in Germany. It’s an online friendship, nothing more. Let’s leave the romance to V and Devil, shall we? On the subject of which, this is Lost Hours business. They’re joining us, right?’

And just like that, Lily was crying again. ‘I was going to dial them in but I…I mean, they’re both…you know, with Oliver and Todd. But Mum’s not here and I just…I feel kind of lost, and I knew you were in a time-friendly zone and…oh, I don’t know what to do!’

Okay, sound the alarm! Lily lost? Not knowing what to do? It. Did. Not. Com. Pute. ‘Okay, you just stay there, I’ll conference in V and Devil and we can all cry together.’

‘You never cry. And you wouldn’t have to even if you did. You barely knew him.’

‘I’ll cry for you like a professional mourner. And Malie will cry for real. You know she adored him almost as much as you.’ She started tapping at her phone.

‘Not V!’ Lily said suddenly. ‘I mean, the Hawkesbury estate!’

‘The estate? I don’t see what that has to do with V. Unless it’s a will thing? But how could that—? Okay, what am I not getting?’

‘Not a will thing, a wedding venue thing. Not that there’s going to be a problem, because I won’t let anything go wrong, but she might worry.’

‘Er…if you think the death of the richest man in Hawke’s Cove can be kept a secret for more than an hour you’re dreaming. Or is Mrs Whittaker dead too? Cos I’ll bet she’s already got the megaphone out.’

‘Oh. I just…I’m not thinking.’

‘Not thinking? You? You’re scaring me with that kind of talk! Anyway, Victoria isn’t going to give a damn about her wedding!’

‘Victoria certainly is going to give a damn about her wedding,’ Victoria said, laughing as she joined the call.

At which point Lily burst into tears again.

‘Or…maybe…not…?’ Victoria said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Blake Hawkesbury’s dead,’ Zoe explained.

‘WHAT?’ Mali said, announcing herself.

‘Today,’ Lily said, and kept on crying. ‘It happened today.’

‘And her mum’s out of town,’ Zoe said. Imbuing the phrase with as much meaning as she could. Subtext: someone has to get there fast!

‘Right, I’m coming,’ Malie said, and actually jumped to her feet.

‘What about Todd?’ Lily sniffled.

‘We’re not joined at the hip you know.’

Lily shook her head, adamant. ‘No, you can’t come, you’ve got another surf competition coming up.’

‘There’ll be other competitions,’ Malie said, and then abruptly started crying too. ‘But there was only one B-B…’ But she choked, and couldn’t continue.

She didn’t have to. Everyone knew Blake Hawkesbury had loaned Malie the money she’d needed to flee Hawke’s Cove after the accident. Maybe he’d done that out of a sense of responsibility—it had been his only son Henry’s girlfriend, Claudia, driving the car that