Hector drove back to town, towards the hospital, hoping to get a fresh start, on a better footing, if you will, with the one and only Ms Dhungel. He expected to walk into the hospital and find the victim more compliant, more ready to assist him in assisting her. After all, this was to help her. Someone had obviously tried to murder her last night, somewhere out at sea. She'd be wanting to know who it was more than he'd be wanting to know what really pushed the person to plunge a ceremonial khukuri into her not-so-ceremonial back. He'd had to look that up, the knife, while he'd been at his mother's—apparently it was the national weapon of a feisty little country in Asia, called Nepal.

No wonder she's feisty too! He chuckled, trying not to look at the irony as he stepped out of his air-conditioned car into the sweltering afternoon. The thin layer of hair atop his head too fine to offer much protection against the scorching rays. Where is that knife anyway? Hector narrowed his eyes as the mirage from the hot asphalt floated before him. The last he'd seen it was still jutting out of the woman's shoulder, as Hilde and her assistant loaded her into the back of the van.

At the thought of Hilde, Hector felt a blush rush to his cheeks. It's the heat! He told himself, before admitting that he'd have to ask Hilde for it, and the next thing he knew, he was smiling like a geek who'd just learned that maybe, just maybe, he had a chance at talking with the most popular girl at school. Not that either of them was a hormonal teen, or still at school.

Hector tried not to look too excited. He still felt Hilde was definitely out of his league. Several leagues out of his reach, in fact. So as he closed the car door and locked it, he told himself, it is evidence, so naturally, I'll need it... to solve this case ... and the Chief will have to promote me... He could almost imagine shaking Chief Higgins' hand in confirmation. 'Well done, Hector. Here, I'm ready to give you a Sydney post!'

"Fuck. The Chief!" Hector's eyes widened. He'd forgotten about the Chief. He quickly pulled out his pen and wrote on the back of his hand: Talk to Chief about DD. Once he made that note – and stared at it as if it was fortune on a cookie – he beamed. "I'll get that promotion out of Mystery Cove for sure. I'll have to!" And for once, Hector Juan Martinez actually felt like a real cop, in a real town, handling a real crime. If he solved this, a high-priority crime once the Chief heard who the victim was, he'd have to promote him. After all, wasn't that what happened to his predecessor? The man had solved the old mystery that gave Mystery Cove its name in the eighties. That strange and mysterious case about the boat that appeared on their beach, devoid of the crew in the mid-century.

Brady's 'sensational' headline that week had read: MYSTERY COVE MYSTERY NO MORE. (Really original, Brady, really original!) But that stupid silly reporting about the solved mystery had made the former reporter somewhat of a celebrity among them. It turned out that the mystery was hardly sinister at all. The crew was simply thrown off their dingy-sized fishing boat in a stormy sea—idiots! —and the next morning, the 'ghostly' empty boat had beached on Abalone Bay's one and only semi-decent beach. The same beach that had spat out Devi Dhungel.

Abalone Bay? Some days Hector still couldn't believe that was the town's original name, for all the dang abalone people fished there. How original (much like Brady Moriarty's terrible headlines.)

Hector crossed the street, trying to replace that disturbing thought in his head with: Maybe Chief will transfer me to a bigger town, or put in a good word for me with his Sydney pals, or Melbourne. I could go there... I'm not picky.

The hospital's front doors flew open on their hinges with a mighty bang then, and Hector looked up from the pavement he was about to step onto. He shouldn't have.

As Brady Moriarty stumbled out, like a teen being thrown out of a nightclub when the bouncer caught wind of it, Hector too tripped on the sidewalk, his foot caught on the edge of the concrete. With a little more momentum, the two men would have tumbled into each other's arms like a scene from a romantic movie.

Hector found his balance just in time to save them from an awkward situation.

"That was entirely unnecessary, Lewis!" Brady steadied on his feet and threw a look at the bouncer-like male nurse standing with hands on his hips in front of the one-storey hospital's door.

Hector sighed, though seeing Brady get thrown out of somewhere wasn't a rare sight. I won't be missing Mystery Cove, that's for sure! He stood taller and walked—nay strutted—towards the building, glad neither man noticed his own stumble. It did not surprise him to see Lewis boot Brady out. The city man had little patience for cloyingly needy country folks he guessed. But neither did he blame Brady for shaking in his loafer. Lewis was a tank of a man, one who made even Hector feel rather like Hunter, twiggy and thin, like a leaf.

Of all the places to seek your better future, Lewis, why here? Hector smiled at the nurse. "What's going on here?" he asked, despite a voice in his head telling him not to. It would only open the can-of-worms that was Brady Moriatry's mouth. The man could wield his tongue as well as a teen could excise control over their sexual thoughts.

Brady straightened his shirt and ran a hand through his hair and sauntered towards Hector with a smile, his eyes practically twinkling like fairy lights. "I've been trying to interview that woman from the beach yesterday morning."

"She doesn't want to talk to him," Lewis grumbled behind the man, crossing his burly arms. "And I've already told Brady to go away and stop bothering her. Many times."

"But it's the scoop of the month!" Brady protested, snapping his attention back to Hector. "Tell him, Heck"—Hector hated the nickname Brady had given him since high school—"We rarely get a juicy washup on our shore, and she's oddly familiar, beneath all that bruising and swelling and broken limbs... I feel like I've seen her somewhere... and if she's a celebrity. OMG."

Hector wanted to groan and roll his eyes. Of course, Brady would know a famous writer if he saw her, even if she was bruised and broken. "You've been here all morning?"

"Well," Brady glanced at the ground. "I went home for lunch, and checked in at the printer to make sure they keep a column empty for an update on her news."

"Harassing a woman relentlessly when she's already said no to an interview is not news!" Lewis fired, standing there with his arms crossed across his wide chest, his biceps bulging out of his light-green scrubs.

Where did the bloke even work out? Their little slice of heaven didn't have a gym. Hector tried not to feel jealous of the muscle factory. "Well, I guess you'll have to wait till she feels up to it, Brady. I can't have you harassing a victim who's hurt, no matter how famous she may be."

The moment he said it, and the moment he saw Brady's eyes sparkle and his face glow, Hector knew, Shit, I shouldn't have said that!

(Chapter 5 continues!)