Which one speaks to you the most?
Rocky Bluff has all of them and more, wrapped up in a deliciously deceptive murder-mystery that asks the question:
Who killed Nora, the costume lady, on opening night?
Early Praise for Rocky Bluff:
"Hornsby mixes the obvious with the impossible for a terrific blend of interest. The supernatural doesn't escape her pen as she brilliantly includes yet another twist in her story."
~Henz - 5 star Review
"So how do you investigate a murder that happened on stage during a Halloween play? Who do you suspect? The whole cast?"
~Anna L. Walls, Author of Speed of Dreams - 5 Star Review
"Author Hornsby has another winner here! We get our favorite cast of characters from the Lei Texeira novels and we meet new and intriguing ones as well."
~Marie M. Amazon Reviewer - 5 Star
" If you think you know what's going to happen in this story, read on. It only gets better as you rush through the pages to get to the end."
~Pontonjeri Amazon Reviewer - 5 Star
*****************
If you've ever been to Maui, done the Time Warp, or watched Dateline NBC, you'll love the newest Kindle Worlds sure-to-be- bestseller-- Rocky Bluff.
Description:
Detective Lei Texeira has just moved to Maui from Kauai with Michael Stevens when they witness a tragic death during a theatrical rendition of The Rocky Horror Show at Maui's Iao Theater. After a prop falls from the rafters killing one of Frank-N-Furter's Transylvanians, tampering and murder is suspected. Stevens is assigned the case but Lei can't keep her nose and her theories out of his investigation. Especially when she realizes that her new running partner and friend, Kali, might have been the target. To unravel the mystery, Lei goes undercover in the bizarre theatrical rendition of a narcissistic transsexual scientist and his band of weirdos. Following clues from both Kali and a mysterious resident of the Iao Theater, Lei and Stevens struggle to apprehend this killer before another life is taken. But the murderer keeps one step ahead of the cops, taunting Lei and Kali in this game of terror.
Written for Kindle Worlds/Toby Neal's Lei Crime Series - Rocky Bluff uses the beloved characters Lei Texeira and Michael Stevens in this whodunnit at the haunted Iao Theater on Maui's east side.
For fans of Blood Orchid, Torch Ginger and other Lei Crime Novels:
Rocky Bluff takes place between the Lei Crime Novels TORCH GINGER and BLACK JASMINE.
From the author, Kim Hornsby:
I'm very grateful to Toby Neal to have the opportunity to use her characters and write for this highly successful series. It's not necessary to read her set first but you might want to after you read Rocky Bluff!
Here is the first chapter of Rocky Bluff:
Chapter 1
Lei Texeira stood
on stage of Maui’s Iao Theater among the costumed actors and stared at the dead
body. She’d seen the whole ugly mess. It looked like a freak accident, but all
her police training told her to keep the crowd back for now, not to touch
anything. Sirens wailed outside, getting louder, closer. One minute the fantasy
of the Rocky Horror Show was in full theatrical swing on stage and the next
minute, a woman was dead and the strangely-clad actors stood frozen in shock.
Lei’s once fiancé,
now simply her live-in boyfriend, Michael Stevens, had taken charge from the
moment he flew out of his seat in the audience. He and Lei were both detectives
with Maui Police Department, but only one of them didn’t have PTSD from being
abused as a kid. Lei hadn’t reacted like a cop, something she wasn’t proud of,
but would have to revisit later. Never having seen this bizarre play before,
she’d almost believed it was part of the script. Strange things had been
happening onstage for the last hour and a half, unlike anything she’d ever seen
before, not that she went to the theater on a regular basis. But this particular
play was bizarre, and Lei had long ago turned off her cop warning signal to
simply enjoy the spectacle of The Rocky Horror Show. Apparently it was normal
for the crowd to yell “Asshole” every time one of the characters said his name,
and to have flashlights waving and rice being thrown. Most audience members
seemed to know when and how to perform each ritual.
So, no, Lei hadn’t
reacted when the giant moon crashed to the stage, crushing a cast member. It
was ten seconds before she pulled herself together, ran down the aisle and joined
Stevens on stage.
Lei’s friend, Kali,
who played the tap dancing groupie, Columbia, stood near the feet of the dead
woman looking horrified. Her hands covered her mouth as if to keep from
screaming, or crying. Nora, the victim, had been a favorite with the cast. That
much Lei knew.
The murder weapon,
a large quarter moon prop, that until ten minutes ago had held Frank-N-Furter
as he descended from the theater’s rafters, lay on its side beside Nora, like a
dog who won’t leave their dead owner. When the prop broke free, the main
character, a transvestite scientist, had been seated on the curve of the moon singing
“Don’t Dream It, Be It,” in full spotlight. Thanks to quick thinking, he’d jumped
to a level spot at the top of a staircase while the moon continued its path to
hit Nora on her head. Lei attributed Derek’s fortunate landing to his dance
training. He looked flustered.
“You okay?” Lei
asked him.
He nodded, but Lei
knew no one was really okay.
Although Stevens
had taken the victim’s pulse immediately and feeling nothing, shook his head,
one of the cast ignored the pronouncement and was now doing CPR.
Lei stared at the
grim scene on stage. From one angle it looked like Nora lay on the stage floor
like she’d decided to take a nap. From another angle you could see that the
amount of blood pooled by the woman’s left ear had to indicate a fatal injury.
Lei fingered the smooth stone in her jacket pocket, her reminder to not let the
darkness take over at horrific moments like this. Dissociation was a bitch
sometimes. Somehow, the stone helped.
The theatre stage
door flew open and paramedics burst into the once gorgeous, but now charmingly decrepit
theater. Audience members had scattered, some going home, many spilling into
the aisles talking and maybe still hoping. Lei knew this woman was dead, never
to be revived by any amount of CPR. “Let’s move over here,” she said, directing
the cast to the back of the stage. “Make room for the paramedics.” She wasn’t
wearing her police detective badge, Stevens either, but the cast of twenty
actors and crew did as they were told. No one on stage looked vindicated like
this death was what they’d been hoping for. Lei noticed things like that.
Both wires that
had held the moon prop led to a carabiner-type loop that connected them to one
central line that now dangled uselessly. She bent over the wire, took a photo
with her phone, just in case it got moved before the police photographer
arrived, and wondered how a wire simply gives out. Someone would have to go up
in the rafters to investigate. The break looked too clean for fraying. Tonight’s tragedy might not have been a horrible
accident after all. It might have been a murder.
When the theater
cleared, and the cleaning crew had swept up the rice and other props the audience
left behind, Lei offered to drive Kali home to Lahaina. That was the type of thing
friends did and Kali was Lei’s new friend. Although Lei was coming to this
friendship table kind of late in life, she was learning what friends did for
each other by using her Aunty Rosario as an example. Driving Kali home would be
the type of thing her aunt would offer to do. Even after the paramedics took Nora’s
body away and the theater started to clear, Kali continued to cry into a
growing pile of Kleenex as the man who played Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror
stood close by, comforting her.
Having met Kali
Baker only a month ago, most would say Lei didn’t know her well. But their
friendship had blossomed fast, strangely similar to love at first sight. Unlike
Lei, Kali was an emotional person. She hugged everyone, blurted out compliments,
and was able to show exactly what she felt at any given time. Normally, such a
demonstrative person would have had Lei rolling her eyes and walking away, but
not Kali. They had loads in common deep down, below the surface, beyond what
the average person ever saw.
Kali looked like an eighteen-year-old petite
Barbie doll, but was actually Lei’s age—late twenties. Where Lei was Hawaiian,
Portuguese, and Filipino, Kali was pure white bread. Where Lei had short brown
curls, Kali had long blonde hair. To the naked eye they didn’t appear similar. Not
physically, anyhow. They’d met while running with their dogs. That day something
in Lei had fallen away to include this energetic dynamo. In the last month,
they’d spent a lot of time together, especially because Kali left her dog at
Lei and Stevens’ house when she rehearsed at the Iao Theater down the road.
“I’ll take you
home,” Lei told her. “Just leave your car here tonight.”
Kali was a mess,
trying to talk through her sobs. “Nora always wanted to be onstage with us.
Mike thought this would be fun instead of always helping backstage. After years
of sewing and helping with costume changes, she got to join us.” Kali still
wore the stage makeup that had transformed her into Columbia--a red bow tie,
sequined tails, and a sparkly top hat. But by now Kali’s face was a swirl of
clownish color and tears. A false eyelash had come off with the mopping of tears
and was stuck to Kali’s jawline like a giant cane spider hanging on. Lei
reached for it. “Eyelash,” she said handing it over. They walked out the theater’s
side door to Lei’s new silver Tacoma truck.
Stevens would stay
behind with a crime kit. He’d manage the investigation. The Iao Theater was inside
his jurisdiction, not hers. Being present when the moon fell didn’t count
except to make Lei a witness. Damn.
She and Stevens had
just moved to Maui from Kauai six weeks earlier. They’d been ready for
something new. Stevens was offered a promotion as Detective Sergeant, a
position with Kahului Station, headquarters for MPD. As luck had it, the timing
was right and Lei joined her old partner from the Big Island, Pono, who was now
working at Haiku Station on Maui.
This was Stevens’
case if the death turned out to be murder. Playing second fiddle to Stevens
wasn’t a role she relished, but her job was to stay with Kali tonight, ask some
questions, and maybe even come up with a lead.
The director, lighting
director, costumer director, and prop mistress for the play remained with
Stevens for questioning. Two officers from the Kahului Station, Hensley, and
his rookie partner, Sakamoto, would help. Not her. She’d get in trouble for
sticking her nose into another station’s investigation, and that wouldn’t be
good because Lei was terrified of her boss at Haiku Station, Lieutenant Omura.
And because of that, Lei wanted to do everything by the book. Not piss off the
Steel Butterfly again. Weeks ago, when she reported in to Haiku for the first
time, Omura had barely looked at her, saying, “There’s no room for publicity
hounds at my station.” That had been her welcome to Maui.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Lei
said.
That same day, she
and Stevens had found a perfect little cane cottage in the Iao Valley and were
now officially living together. Thinking of their home just down the road, Lei
had an idea.
“How about you
stay with us tonight? You’re upset.” Kali sat slumped against the door. “I’ll
bring you back to your car in the morning. Stripe can have a sleepover with
Keiki,” Lei threw in for good measure. Her Rottweiler, Keiki, loved Kali’s dog,
Stripe. The two dogs had spent a lot of evenings together while Kali rehearsed this
show and were currently in Lei’s fenced yard. Double protection, as Lei saw it.
Which was good any way you looked at it. She was kind of OCD about protection from
bad guys. With good reason. Having a Rotty and a Rhodesian Ridgeback in her
yard on weekend nights for Halloween month, was a plan that benefitted
everyone.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Kali sniffed. “I
don’t want to be alone.” She looked out the window miserably. “Was it an
accident, do you think?”
“Not sure, but
maybe.”
“Who would want Nora
dead?” Kali began to sob again.
Lei didn’t have an answer.
Her place in the Iao Valley wasn’t far from
the historic theater. As they drove in to the valley, Lei hoped that once she
settled Kali in, she could return to the crime scene. Stevens had told her to
ask Kali a few questions about Nora and the rest of the cast. See if Nora had
any enemies. Fish for motive. But on the drive to the house, Kali had nothing
to tell. Everyone was good friends, no bad feelings between anyone, least of
all Nora. Lei wracked her brain for what else she might do to help Kali. She
could make her a cup of tea. Sit and listen to her cry. But that was hard for
Lei to pretend she didn’t want to speed back to the theater to help. She was a
better detective than friend. In past cases, she liked to get right in the
center of a crime, get messy, and work her way out, not sit on the sidelines
with a friend, wondering what was going on. She wanted in to the eye of the
hurricane.
They parked and
got out of the truck, the air fresh from recent rain in this valley. Keiki and
Stripe wagged their tails and jumped around to see the women approach the fence.
“See anything tonight, Baby,” Lei opened the gate and patted Keiki’s back. The
serial killer case on Kauai that she and Stevens cracked wide open had been
crazy-weird enough for Lei to have new appreciation for her guard dog. She and
Stevens had moved from Kauai to get away from all the publicity after cracking
that one, and because they needed a fresh start somewhere new. Probably that’s
what Omura meant when she called Lei a publicity hound.
After settling
Kali on the couch with both dogs lying nearby, Lei made her a cup of tea.
“You’re so sweet,
Lei,” Kali’s tears had subsided but the box of tissues was still within reach. Handing
her the mug, Lei noticed Kali’s makeup had smeared enough to make her look like
a dead person herself.
“Feel free to take
a shower,” Lei said from the edge of the living room chair.
“I might do that.”
Kali set the mug on the coffee table.
“While you shower,
are you okay if I head back to the theater for a bit to take a look?”
Kali glanced to the
bathroom door. “Sure. I’ve got Stripe to keep me safe.”
Kali depended on
her dog the same way Lei did. Protection was important, especially as a single female.
One of the first conversations Lei ever had with Kali was about how a large dog
made them feel safe in the world. Able to relax. She and Kali had gone for
smoothies after that and talked for another hour about their dogs.
“Is my makeup all
over my face? I’m sure I look terrible.” Kali smiled.
Kali was very pretty
by All American cheerleader standards. Lei smiled back. “Even more terrible
than usual.”
When Lei walked through
the stage door of the Iao Theater, Stevens was up in the rafters with the lighting
director, Keven. Several tearful cast members, still in costume and makeup,
were sitting in the front row talking, watching; probably waiting to hear if Nora’s
death had been an accident. After fielding questions Lei wasn’t at liberty to
answer, the actors stood to leave. Hensley and his rookie partner, Sakamoto,
had told them they could go. They’d moved to the stage to estimate the
trajectory fall of the prop. Hensley stood by the bloodstain on the stage
floor. His partner, who everyone called “Saki,” hung on every word from his
mentor. From the rafters, Stevens and Keven spoke in hushed tones.
Lei approached
Hensley. “What do you think? Accident or murder?” she asked.
Hensley knew who
Lei was. Sort of. When she and Stevens arrived on Maui, they’d bumped into him
in Takamiya Market and the near-retirement cop had zipped his lips shut when he
saw the couple together. It wasn’t against policy to date, but Hensley probably
sensed they liked their privacy.
Hensley looked to
the rafters. “Could’ve been an accident, but Stevens says there’s room for
doubt.” He shook his closely-shorn head.
“You knew the
victim?” Saki asked Lei.
“I knew of her. One
of the cast members is my running partner.” She could still smell the blood
even though it had been cleaned from the stage floor.
Stevens descended
the ladder in the wings and Lei walked over to meet him. The only people in the
theater now were the caretaker, Mack, the lighting director, Keven, the show’s
director, a man named Mike, the set designer, Dan, and the four cops. Everyone
else had been asked to leave. Keven was upset, tears rolling down his plentiful
cheeks and Lei knew it didn’t look good.
The four cops
circled near the stage’s stairs and in whispered tones discussed what Stevens
had seen. “It looks like the main wire holding everything was cut. The wire
cutters are missing from the theater toolbox. The prop was checked two hours
before the show started so it was cut after that. Keven insists the prop’s
lines were fine.” Stevens motioned to where the actors had been seated in the
front row. “Apparently Nora was out of place on stage. Too early in the script
to be where she ended up, so I’m thinking it wasn’t necessarily meant for her.
Still, looks like we have a murder on our hands.” No one batted an eye. Everyone
knew what this meant. The investigation had begun.
Hensley and Saki went
downstairs to take a look in the dressing rooms. Lei stayed with Stevens. “Someone
wanted that moon to fall.”
Stevens glanced at
the production group gathered by the stage door. “But why? No one was supposed
to be on that side of the stage.”
Lei inwardly
cringed. This friendly community theater production of The Rocky Horror Show
was now living up to its name. At least the horror part.
It was almost dawn
when Lei and Stevens pulled in the driveway of their home. They both favored
this type of house even though now that they were living together they could
afford something bigger, newer. The place they’d found to rent was a small
cottage, painted green with white trim and a rust-colored tin roof. The sight
of it made Lei happy every time she drove up. It was a perfect place for Keiki
to hang out while they worked. Even though they were only a few miles from the
heart of downtown Wailuku, Lei could imagine they were in the most remote part
of Maui, back in the folds of the West Maui Mountains, beyond Kahakuloa, where
the wild boar lived.
The Iao Valley State
Park was tropical rainforest at its finest, with every shade of green imaginable.
From their house, they couldn’t see the Iao Needle, the famous tourist
attraction, but evidence it was there was reflected in the daily traffic on the
road when the gates to the park were open. The Needle resembling a breaching
humpback whale, stood guard to the remote part of the valley.
Lei opened the
cottage door carefully, trying to be quiet. Kali was probably sound asleep,
unaware that tonight’s accident had become a murder case. No one had been charged.
Stevens didn’t see motive from the director, the caretaker, or any of the crew.
By all accounts, no one was supposed to be standing under the moon at the time
of its fall. Maybe the killer had the wrong victim. Maybe the killer hadn’t
anticipated Derek jumping clear the way he did. Even if he’d fallen with the
moon, he wouldn’t have died, maybe not even been seriously injured.
Keiki lay beside Stripe
on the floor and when Lei and Stevens walked through the living room on the
creaky wooden floor, both dogs raised their heads. It was time to get a few hours’
sleep then head back to the station. Lei would help work the case today seeing Saturday
was her day off, the one day she and Stevens had off work together. Usually. Trails
got cold fast in the islands and clues faded away if you didn’t get some
answers in the first forty-eight.
“We can hit this in a few hours,” Stevens
whispered as they entered the cottage’s bedroom.
Keiki settled on
the floor by Lei’s King-sized bed, a monstrosity that she’d moved from the Big Island
to Kauai and now to Maui. Stevens pulled off his collared shirt and chinos, and
slipped into bed beside her. His body was warm and comforting in a very
boyfriend way. She nuzzled into him, one of her favorite positions—tucked into
his shoulder, top arm flung across his well-muscled abdomen. Stevens always
seemed so big to her, so elegantly long, especially in bed. Tonight the thought
of getting frisky was completely vetoed by their exhaustion. “Think it was
Keven?” she asked, her words barely audible.
He sighed wearily.
“I’m gonna say no.”
She closed her
eyes. “That moon wasn’t meant for Nora,” she mumbled.
“I agree. But
who?” Stevens sounded on the edge of consciousness.
“Me,” Kali said
from the open bedroom doorway. “I think the moon was meant to kill me.”
To Be Continued ... ROCKY BLUFF
Kim Hornsby is an Award-Winning Seattle novelist who loves to write about women in strange lands so she can travel and call it research. Two of her novels are Amazon Bestsellers, having reached the #1 spot in Romantic Suspense and Paranormal Romance. She's proud to have shared the top 5 spot with the likes of Stephen King, Dean Koontz and J.D. Robb.
Kim writes daily, blogs weekly, and is published by The Wild Rose Press, Cajun Flair Publishing and her own publishing house, Top Ten Press. Suspense, Romance, and the Supernatural are themes threaded throughout her fictional work.
A mother, a wife, a messy housekeeper, a dog lover, and a voracious reader, Kim was born in Belleville, Canada, then lived in Vancouver, Maui, Whistler, Taipei and now makes Seattle her home. Instead of clothes and jewelry, she spends her mad money on travel. Plane tickets can usually be found on her desk.
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