G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,33

Global Botanicals?”

He puffed out his bottom lip in a miserable attempt at surprise. “Guess she’ll miss the conference. That’s too bad. It’s supposed to be a good one.”

I wagged a cautionary finger at him. “Before you go any farther, you better turn around and watch where you’re—”

Squish.

“—stepping.”

After helping Roger locate a restroom where he could clean his shoes off, I window-shopped my way up Main Street, tempted by boiled lollipops, soaps, spices, and fudge, but my mind kept drifting to the zero-one-four on Roger’s GPS. What did it signify? Was it a general marker for the national park, or was it more sinister? Could it mark the exact spot where Claire Bellows had died? If it did, what did that imply? Had Roger recorded the death of a competitor simply because it was a momentous event, or because he’d had a hand in her death?

Now there was a sobering thought. But let’s face it, there was so much rivalry between Global, Infinity, and GenerX, it wouldn’t surprise me if knocking off the competition was part of a new corporate strategy to increase market share.

I sighed as I trudged up the plank stairs to the next level of sidewalk. No way was I ready to throw accusations around yet. Before I started pointing fingers, I needed to find out if Roger had actually followed Claire out onto the cliff yesterday. If he’d stayed inside the visitor center to wait for the bus to be repaired, there was no way he could possibly be involved in anything suspicious. Unless—

I paused before a shop window.

Unless the waypoint he’d marked was the location of Nana’s plant. Could he have seen Nana’s photo, gone out searching, and found it himself? Was it possible that the plant wasn’t in Diana Squires’s backpack after all, but was simply camouflaged by all the undergrowth at Port Campbell? Could he be planning to return to the park after his conference to cash in on his find and deliver a knockout punch to the competition? Was it possible he could be involved with the angiosperms and not with Claire’s death?

With my brain twisted into more knots than a macrame rug, I stared at the merchandise in the window, perking up a little when I realized what I was looking at. Oooooh! Jewelry.

The name of the establishment was Rees and Benjamin Watch and Clockmakers, but the display in the window showcased more than antique timepieces. There were trinket boxes shaped like hearts, octagons, and coaches. An egg-shaped case lined in scarlet satin that held a dainty manicure set. Earrings and brooches in intricately carved jet. Lockets encrusted with tiny pearls. Gaudy Victorian necklaces set with amethysts that were big as quarters. And an elegant gold band in a lacy filigree pattern that was quite the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen.

I looked down at my fingers. I looked at the band again. I walked into the shop.

“Could I trouble you for a closer look at the gold ring in the window?” I asked the young woman behind the counter. She was dressed in a poufy pink gown trimmed with black piping and wore her hair pulled back into a tidy chignon that might have been the “in” thing at Tara.

“You’re from away,” the girl greeted me. “We’ve had news that the Charlotte made safe passage from England a fortnight ago. Were you aboard her?”

I stared at her dumbly. Oh! I got it. Since Sovereign Hill was a living history museum, all its employees were “living” in 1850, which meant, so was I. Okay, given my degree in theater arts from the University of Wisconsin and my brief stint on Broadway, I could play along; I could even embellish. “I’m recently arrived,” I said seriously, “but not aboard the Charlotte. I was traveling on a ship that wrecked near Port Campbell and if not for a perfect stranger who could dog paddle like a Labrador retriever, I would have drowned.” I winced as I thought about my previous trips abroad. “I don’t seem to have good karma with water.”

“We’ve suffered terrible wrecks along that stretch of coast, and few people have survived. I’m so happy you were one of the lucky ones.” She patted my hand before removing the ring from the window and placing it on a velvet cloth before me. “What ship were you on? News travels so slowly here. We’re often ignorant of naval disasters until months later.”

“It was the—” What had Guy Madelyn said? Mermaid? Meredith? I remembered