A Beach House to Die For Read online

  A Beach House To Die For

  A Costa Rica Cozy Mystery

  K.C. Ames

  Copyright © 2019 by K.C. Ames. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, government organizations, business establishments, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  About This Book

  What could go wrong with starting over in a tropical paradise?

  Life in San Francisco was getting too expensive, too hectic, and too crowded for recently divorced Dana Kirkpatrick.

  When this big-city girl inherited a beach house in a coastal Costa Rica town, she took it as a sign and packed her bags.

  Dana imagined the small beach town would have its challenges, but she never could have predicted legal troubles, local wildlife, and being adopted by a stray cat. And now she's suspected of murder!

  It's not quite the fresh start she envisioned when she moved to the tropical paradise beach community of Mariposa Beach.

  If you love quirky characters, offbeat animals, and small beach town charm with a cozy mystery to solve, then you will love this new series!

  Although this is a series the books stand alone and you can read them in any order you like.

  Author’s Note

  Hello and welcome!

  If you love exotic animals, beaches, and food then I’m pretty sure you’re going to enjoy the fun ride ahead.

  A Beach House To Die For is just the first book of many adventures to come, so make sure you sign up for my newsletter so I can keep you in the know.

  By signing up you’ll have access to a lot of cool stuff like my Costa Rica Recipe Book, free!

  Subscribers will also have access to my personal pictures of some of the exotic animals I’ve encountered in Costa Rica (like sloths and monkeys) and pictures of my fearsome threesome (my Cavalier King Charles, Havanese, and Chihuahua).

  You’ll also have subscriber-only access to my works-in-progress, deleted scenes from my books, bonus giveaways, and a lot more fun stuff just for my inner circle of readers.

  You can sign up for my newsletter here:

  kcames.com/subscribe

  If you’re ready to dive into more Costa Rica Beach Cozy Mysteries, then you can pre-order the next books in the series right now by clicking below:

  A Book To Die For

  A Reality Show To Die For

  Are you ready to travel to the beautiful Pacific Coast of Costa Rica and solve some mysteries?

  Pura vida!

  K.C. Ames

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  What’s Next?

  Sneak Peek of A Book To Die For

  What’s After That?

  About K.C.

  One

  “You’re moving to Costa Rica?” Courtney Lowe asked, mouth agape.

  It was the reaction Dana Kirkpatrick expected after telling her best friend about her big decision.

  “I’ve been talking about it for months.”

  “Well, yeah, I just never figured you would go from talking to actually moving,” Courtney said, sounding incredulous.

  “It finally feels right,” she said, a thin smile poorly masking the nervousness of her decision.

  Dana’s stomach felt like it was Play-Doh being twisted and squeezed by an overactive child.

  “Dana, you’re my best friend, and I love you, but this…” she paused, and Dana could see her mulling over for the right words for a moment. Bless her heart, she didn’t want to insult or be dismissive about her decision. “...doesn’t it seem a bit too drastic of a move, so soon after Phil?”

  Dana felt that Courtney wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her out of whatever it was she felt that led her to make such a life-changing decision.

  “Oh, please, you know me better than that. I’m not running away because of Phil. That ship has long sailed away, and we’ve both moved on. It’s the magic of divorce.”

  Courtney held her hands up in surrender. “But why there? In another country?”

  “We’ve always talked about going to Costa Rica,” Dana replied innocently.

  Courtney rolled her eyes and tilted her head sideways and said, “Well, yeah, on vacation. For ten days, two weeks. Just enough time to enjoy the beaches, the tropical weather, do that jungle zip line thing, flirt with cute guys, and then come back home like good tourists do.”

  Dana tried to speak, but Courtney wasn’t finished. “Moving there is a whole other song and dance.”

  Dana shrugged and said, “Home is where the heart is, and no offense to Tony Bennett, but my heart is no longer in San Francisco.”

  “And your heart is in Costa Rica? Come on, sweetie. You’ve only been there a few times.”

  “Once, actually,” Dana replied.

  “Once, wow. I stand corrected. And how long ago was that?”

  “About ten years ago, but what does that matter?” Dana replied, becoming annoyed with the interrogation.

  “Sorry, but don’t you think it’s nutty to move down there permanently, especially to such a remote part of the country and to such a small town? It would be a little different if you were at least moving to the capital. But your uncle’s place is off the beaten path.”

  “That’s the part that appeals to me the most, plus it’s always warm and I would be right on the beach. Besides, San Francisco is too cold, too overcrowded, too expensive, downtown smells like a toilet, and for a bonus, I hate my job,” Dana said.

  “Don’t hold back now.”

  “I love you and will miss you like crazy, but seriously, there is nothing to keep me here anymore.”

  “Just stick around a while. Let the ink dry on your divorce papers. If you want to do something drastic, lop off all your hair, get involved with a twenty-something-year-old. Isn’t that a post-divorce thing to do?”

  “I’ll be thirty-five in a few months and I’m not interested in becoming Mrs. Robinson. And you know how long I’ve been growing it out, so why should I take it out on my poor hair? My hair is innocent,” Dana said, running her hands through her brown hair. She started to laugh and Courtney joined in laughing, lightening the mood.

  “I know you’re worried about me and I appreciate it, but I feel now is the time to make a huge change in my life,” Dana said to Courtney, and to herself, continuing, “everything has lined up perfectly.” She counted down with her fingers, “The divorce is final, the house is sold and in escrow with fifty percent of that coming my way—thank you San Francisco tech bubble, part deux—then out of the blue, I find out I’m inheriting my uncle’s bea
ch house in Costa Rica, free and clear. I mean, come on, all signs point to go, now.” Dana wiggled her three fingers in the air, driving the points home.

  Courtney shrugged, then said, “Well, you’re going to get so bored in a little beach town in the middle of nowhere, way down in Central America. I doubt they have high-powered PR firms down there.”

  “Good, I’m done with public relations.”

  “I’m sure you can go back to work as a journalist for the newspaper.”

  “Back to that dying business? No thanks. Besides, news organizations don’t want journalists anymore. They want bloggers who can come up with clickbait headlines.”

  Courtney shrugged again. Dana smiled. She knew Courtney had lost that argument. But she loved how much her friends cared about her.

  “I’m excited about this, Court, and the time is right,” Dana said, psyching herself back up again about her decision.

  Courtney wrinkled her nose and twisted her mouth, reminding Dana of the McKayla Maroney I’m not impressed look.

  She laughed again.

  “It’s not like I’m leaving tomorrow. I have to stick around as the legal mumbo jumbo with my uncle’s estate and the sale of our house here gets sorted out. Besides, I’ll be just a plane ride away.”

  Two

  Three months later, Dana was sitting in the back of a nine-seat, single-engine airplane over the skies of Costa Rica.

  The turbulence made it bounce up and down in the air like it was a bingo ball bouncing around in a blower machine.

  Courtney was sitting next to her. She had convinced her to make the trip down to help her get settled in and keep her company for a couple weeks as she got the lay of the land down in the tropics.

  They sat elbow-to-elbow in the small airplane. Dana turned her head to see how Courtney was holding up from the bumpy ride. She couldn’t help but laugh as Courtney was shooting eye daggers back at her.

  Dana turned away and looked out the window. Below was the Costa Rican jungle, and on the horizon, like an oasis, the Pacific Ocean.

  The plane kept shaking and dipping. Courtney clamped down on her hand and squeezed hard. Dana turned to her to comfort her, but she just mouthed off I hate you, which caused Dana to break out laughing. Courtney joined in.

  The pilot, Walter Espinoza Jr., sat in the cockpit with both hands on the yoke, but he seemed as cool as a cucumber to Dana. That’s comforting, she thought.

  Captain Junior—“like Junior Soprano,” he had explained to the passengers before takeoff—was the owner and only pilot of Tropic Air, which flew customers from the capital city of San José down to the coastal beaches.

  He had handed out headsets to communicate during the flight.

  Dana heard her headset crackle to life with the radio voice of Captain Junior saying, “No worries, this is the rough part I warned you about. From now on, it’s all pura vida.”

  Dana had learned from her first trip to Costa Rica that “pura vida,” Spanish for “pure life,” was something of a national credo spoken by just about every Costa Rican man, woman, and child, regardless of age, economic standing, or background.

  They used pura vida as a verb, adjective, and noun, and Dana believed there must be some local legal requirement for every living citizen in Costa Rica to say pura vida at least once a day.

  “We’ll be landing in a few minutes,” Captain Junior said, much to their delight.

  As bumpy and scary as the flight had been, the pilot expertly landed the plane smooth as butter.

  “Welcome to Nosara,” he said, his voice a crackle in Dana’s headset.

  Dana and Courtney looked out the window. It was a one-runway municipal airport without a control tower, and the terminal looked more like a baseball dugout than an airport terminal.

  “Now that’s one small airport,” Dana said, removing the headset.

  “I really don’t care, I just want off this thing,” Courtney said. She removed her headset and began looking around impatiently until the plane finally stopped.

  Once Captain Junior opened the door, Dana, Courtney, and the two other passengers on the flight exited the airplane like Seabiscuit from the gate.

  They stood on the runway for a moment and sucked in the warm tropical air.

  “Oh, that feels so good,” Courtney said.

  “The nice tropical air?” Dana asked.

  “No, good old asphalt under my feet. I’m about to get on my knees like the Pope and kiss the ground. Next time, we drive.”

  “Saved us five hours in traffic, and believe me, Costa Rican driving is just as scary as that airplane.”

  Dana and Courtney made their way to the parking lot area with their rolling suitcases. They waved off a couple of taxi drivers as they walked towards a handsome man that was standing in front of a white Toyota Land Cruiser, waving at Dana.

  Dana waved back. They had talked a lot over the phone and video chat the last couple months, but it was the first time they were meeting in person. Dana felt her heart pounding in her chest like a cartoon character.

  Three

  His name was Benny Campos. He was Dana’s Costa Rican lawyer, and he was handsome and a charmer to boot.

  “Oh, my,” Courtney whispered to Dana when she first laid eyes on him.

  “Down, girl,” Dana whispered back.

  Thanks to video chat, she already knew how good-looking he was, but she hadn’t shared that little nugget with Courtney, who had become bedazzled by the lawyer. Dana chuckled inwardly.

  He was in his mid-thirties and had olive skin, with brown hair worn short and neatly styled. His eyes were also brown, with an amber hue to them.

  “It’s so nice to finally meet in person, Dana,” Benny said as they shook hands. It was a professional, firm, all-business handshake.

  “Likewise. We’ve spoken so much over Skype, I forgot we hadn’t met in person.”

  There was an awkward silence for a second or two.

  “I’m Courtney Lowe.”

  Dana blushed. “I’m sorry, how rude of me. This is my best friend; she’ll be staying with me for a couple weeks.”

  “Excellent, it’s good that you’ll have a friend around to help you get settled in,” Benny said. “How was the flight?” he quickly added.

  “It was fine, with some scary parts here and there,” Dana said.

  “Hmm, it made me recall the safe travel prayer from my youth,” Courtney said with a grin.

  “I wish you would have let me pick you up at the airport in San José. I would have been more than happy to drive you both down to Casa Verde,” Benny said.

  “Casa Verde?” Courtney asked.

  “It’s a common thing in a lot of Latin American countries to give your home a name. Casa Verde is Spanish for Green House. When you see it, you’ll see it’s a most appropriate name, since the property is located in a lush tropical forest near the beach. And it’s the name Blake Kirkpatrick gave to Dana’s place,” Benny explained.

  Dana’s place. She let those words sink it. It sounded surreal.

  “Earth to Dana,” Courtney said after another awkward silence.

  Again, Dana was blushing. “Sorry, when you said Dana’s place…I’m just not used to it yet, especially with all the weird legal drama going on.”

  Benny smiled. “Real estate is a full-contact sport in Costa Rica.” He grabbed their suitcases and popped them in the back of his SUV.

  Benny drove west from Nosara, turning into a tour guide.

  “Nosara is the big town around these parts—population of around five thousand,” he explained with a smile.

  “Look, Dana, a yoga studio,” Courtney said, pointing out the window at a sign written in English that was advertising Yoga and Spiritual Healing.

  “Believe it or not, Nosara has become a major yoga hub worldwide. It has always been known as a first-class surf destination, but in the last couple decades, the yogis have taken over. Yoga teachers come from all over the world to learn from the gurus out here. There are also som
e great restaurants, coffee shops, even an organic market in town. The expats that have settled here are trying to turn it into a mini tropical Berkeley,” Benny said, smiling.

  “You’ve been to Berkeley, Benny?” Courtney asked.

  “He went to law school at Hastings,” Dana answered for him.

  “Oh, you never told me that,” Courtney said, sounding surprised.

  “UC Tenderloin,” Benny said, grinning. He was referring to his alma mater by its nickname for being in the nefarious, rough-and-tumble San Francisco neighborhood known as the Tenderloin.

  “Small world,” Courtney said.

  “Dana’s uncle wanted a local lawyer that also knew about California law. I’m a member of the Costa Rican and California bar. There aren’t too many of us around.”

  “That explains why you speak English so well,” Courtney said.

  “My parents made sure I learned English at a very young age. They sent me to a bilingual school in San José to make sure I learned English well, since it’s a very beneficial language to know from a business perspective. It comes in very handy now, since most of my clients are Americans and Canadians. And even the European clients all speak English, so that’s the default language for communicating with most of the clients.”

  “So, what’s Benny short for? Benjamin? Bernard?” Courtney asked.

  Dana could see it in Benny’s face that it was a question that had been asked a lot and that he still found it a tad bit embarrassing to answer.