G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,77
This is the worst hair day of my life!” Well, other than the day in Italy when it caught fire.
“Your hair looks fine. Hold that pose.” He checked his display screen. “Hey, I think we finally hit pay dirt.” He stood up and crossed the beach to me. “What do you think of this?”
My complexion glowed in the light. My hair looked casually windblown. My smile held mystery. My eyes sparkled with a “come hither” look. Good God, I looked sensational. “Wow.”
“Nice, huh? See? I told you all you had to do was relax.”
“Do you have a price list for your wedding photo packages?”
“On my website. Search Guy Madelyn, and that should get you there. Does this mean you’ve narrowed your field of eligible suitors to one?”
Did it? Had my heart made the decision without informing my brain? Did I know subconsciously? Had I always known?
Yeah, I think I had.
I smiled at the revelation. “I know the one.”
“Great. We do honeymoon packages, too. Have you discussed your wedding trip yet? Islands are the big thing. How about a destination wedding? You and a handful of friends and family could fly to Tahiti, or Bora Bora, or Moorea, and the most critical detail you’d have to worry about is making plans early enough to insure that everyone who doesn’t have a passport has plenty of time to apply for one.”
“Speaking of passports, I still have yours.” I swung my bag off my shoulder and poked through the jumbled contents, yanking out Nana’s bloomers and my plastic bag of wet clothing. “Somewhere. I need to get rid of some of this stuff. I think I’ve reached critical mass.”
“Would you like me to hold those for you?”
“That would be great. And while I have you here, would you sign the group card for Heath? I think your signature is the only one that’s missing, other than Jake’s. He had issues with the sympathy thing.” I dug out a pen. “Do you have enough hands?”
“No problem. I juggle more equipment than this when I’m on a job.” He shoved the clothing under his arm, then went down on one knee to sign the card. I grabbed a handful of passports, flipping them open one by one. Osmond Chelsvig. Margi Swanson.
“If your passport was pink, I could find it in a second.”
“Sorry. Same old navy blue as the States.”
Alice Tjarks. Lucille Rassmuson. Lucille was wearing her brooch with her late husband’s face on it. Wow, his cigar had come out really well. Dick Teig. Guy Madelyn. “Found it!” I angled the page away from the sun’s glare to regard his photo once again. “For a good-looking guy, you really do take a horrendous picture. This doesn’t look anything like you.” I eyed the dates on the right. “You were a St. Patrick’s Day baby! Oh, my God, you’re not going to believe this, but you and Nora Acres were born on the very same day: March 17, 1943. Small world, huh?”
“Anytime you get a group together, two or three people will always share the same birthday. It’s a statistically proven fact.”
The next line gave me pause. “You were born in England?”
“Yeah, my dad worked as a newspaper correspondent for a few years during the war. High risk, low pay. He and my mom didn’t stay long after I was born.”
“That’s such a coincidence.” I looked at him as if for the first time and frowned in disbelief. “Did you know Nora was born in England?”
“Really? I thought she was Australian through and through.” He stood up and handed me the card. “Trade you.”
I handed over his passport. “She was orphaned in England and transported to Australia for adoption. I guess that happened to a lot of children after the war.” I searched his face, unable to reconcile what I was thinking. “She lived a pretty hard life in the Outback. Maybe if she’d lived in Canada, she’d have had something to show for her fifty-seven years other than wrinkles. I can’t believe you’re fifty-seven. You look at least a decade or two younger.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He shook out Nana’s bloomers. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you struck me as more of a Victoria’s Secret kind of gal.”
I snatched the undies from him and glanced around the deserted beach. “I bet you wouldn’t be so cheeky if there were children around. Where are the kiddies, anyway? I thought this place was supposed to be their favorite haunt.”