"Look what the cat dragged in!" Devi Dhungel eyed Inspector Martinez as if she were eyeing another roach she'd love to squash. First being the town gossip columnists who'd decided ambushing her while the nurse was checking her catheter was a brilliant fucking plan! The damn thing was uncomfortable as it was and to be seen in that position by a nosy-nobody stranger demanding she give him the 'scoop' was outrageous! Outrageous enough that she was going to kill him—in her next book, that is. She was going to base the next victim on him, Brady-whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was, and enjoy doing it creatively.

Like a hawk eyeing its prey, she watched Hector pull at his collar and clear his throat—not that she wanted to kill him. Yet. She'd have to wait and see about this one. So far, he was heading down victimville too, what with his utter uselessness as a cop.

"How are you doing since I saw you this morning, Ms Dhungel?" Hector asked, his voice a nervous squeak.

"Did you tell that numbskull to ask me for the scoop—from the horse's mouth itself, was it?" Devi could have sliced the young thing in half with the look she threw him. She snarled, "Are you stupid or something? Someone tried to kill me, mate. I don't know if you know what that feels like, but I'm a little concerned that you are the worst police officer I've ever met, sending in a journo..."

"I'm–I'm really sorry, Ms Dhungel. I didn't think–"

"That's right, you didn't think! Who else knows about me? About who I am?"

She enjoyed the ruddy colour the inspector turned instantly. It reminded her of her heirloom tomatoes in the tiny garden out on her balcony she'd kept alive—the only thing that had thrived in her life over the years. "Well?" she barked, irritated with the whole situation.

Hector Juan Martinez jumped in fright. Behind him, Lewis chuckled softly and turned back around to watch the door. Devi seemed to have a handle on things, anyway.

"Uh, no one... well, no one really..."

Devi shook her head. "Who?"

Hector looked like a fish out of the water, pouting wordlessly.

"WHO?" She wasn't sure if she enjoyed it when he jumped again. He reminded her of her younger self suddenly, every time she'd done something wrong, her dad would yell at her the same way. She knew what it felt like, to stand in that young man's shoes. "Please. I need to know who else knows about me, Inspector."

He shook his head. "Ju—just my mother. Just my mother. That's all... She helped me look you up, that's why..."

"Humph." Devi squinted at the stammering young man, who had moments earlier strode her way with his head held high, though his gaze had been as confident as a virgin on her first night. "So? Am I real enough for you to take this seriously then?"

Hector glanced at the few hospital staff eyeing him from afar, behind receptions, and anything else that might shield him against the irate woman. Except for Lewis. Lewis wasn't scared of the woman. "Mrs Dhungel—"

"Ms! I'm not married, remember?" She sighed—rather melodramatic as if she were on a stage. She was tired of acting tough. Didn't they understand? Didn't anyone in this god-forsaken town understand? She almost died. She needed a moment to herself for crying out loud—to cry. God, she wanted to cry. She wanted to yell at the so-called spirits and gods until all her rage died down. Instead, she was practically surrounded by hillbillies. A handsome hillbilly! She eyed Hector from head to toe; realising there was something about the young man that wasn't hillbilly at all. Perhaps it was the sharp cut of his jaw or his manly wide shoulders—shoulders were her weaknesses. Give her wide shoulders anytime and all she could imagine doing was digging her nails in.

Devi suppressed a quiet moan. This was not a moment for those thoughts. She cleared her throat instead and asked, "What do you want?" after feeling rather sorry for the guy.

She watched his Adam's apple bob as Hector swallowed and said, "Ms Dhungel," sounding purposeful in how he said her name. Why shouldn't he? He had gone to great lengths to learn how to pronounce her last name before he'd left his mum's.

"That is better." Devi considered the 'boy' with new interest. Was he finally willing to listen to her? She would have crossed her arms and harrumphed in victory if she was able-bodied. Alas, she wasn't. Not today. The knife wound in her shoulder throbbed despite painkillers, and it was perhaps the better of all her injuries.

"Mind if we start afresh?" Hector asked. "I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier, the both of us; me not believing you, and you—"

"Thinking you're the shittiest cop I've ever met?" She watched as he pulled the flimsy curtain closed, which wasn't saying much as the rail was old and half the curtain was already hanging onto it for dear life. It reminded Devi of her own life, hanging onto happiness while shit fell apart—no matter how much she tried to hold it together.

Hector nodded, though he could not look her in the eyes.

"So what next? Now that you finally know I'm not a nobody, you're ready to listen without your prejudices?"

Hector nodded again, eyeing the rail of the hospital bed. "So... could we start again... from the beginning?"

"And you're truly going to help me?" she asked, her throat tightening unexpectedly. Damn it. Even her eyes stung and she batted her eyelids, desperate not to shed tears in front of the young man. Devi Dhungel did not cry, not if she could help it.

She cleared her throat and nodded towards the stool straight out of the bygone eras that stood behind the Inspector. Somebody call the fifties and tell them diner look is out. "Sit."

She watched as Hector scrambled to pull the stool forward and plonk himself down on it like a good little boy. Next, he fetched a notepad and a pen from his lapel pocket and finally met her gaze. "I promise you, Ms Dhungel, I am trying to help you. I'll try my best, and I know my best may not be what you're used to, but truly, let me at least try. As you said, few people know about you right now, and we should keep it that way, at least until we figure out who tried to harm you and I can hand them over to authorities you respect."

Devi turned away from the boy briefly, looking down at her swollen, bruised fingers poking out the end of the cast. Don't you dare cry, she chided to herself. "Well, first thing's first." She cleared her throat again, trying to rid herself of the knot. "Call me Devi or DD. You seem to have a mouthful whenever you say Ms Dhungel." She chuckled softly, for once, feeling light in her chest. The vice grip that had her heart in a chokehold since she opened her eyes on the darn shore loosened up a little more.

Hector gave her a faint smile and nodded. "Of course."

"And get me the hell out of here. That weird, little reporter guy of yours has promised to hound me every day until he gets my"—she air-quoted awkwardly with one broken arm in a cast and the other still bound to the bed—"story."

When she got a blank look from Hector, she shook her head gently. And he was doing well for a while.

"Let me put it this way. People pay to interview me, and this guy just waltzes in here like he owns the place ... and for what? A gossip paper he's gonna tack onto the community noticeboard tomorrow morning?" Devi sounded utterly miffed. "I'm not expecting a SMH journalist out here already, tracking me down to get my harrowing tale ... but he's not even the Daily Mail. It's so demeaning. Gossip paper ... printed on any Tom, Dick, and Harry's home printer ... "

It was then that Inspector Hector had to scratch his head in confusion. For a moment, he'd thought the woman was worried about the thing that Lewis had mentioned, that her safety depended on secrecy at present, at least until they could identify the culprit. But no, here was Ms Dhungel, worried about how it would look that some local town tattler was the first to break her big story.

"Uh... His family actually owns the place—" Hector looked as miserable as a depressed goat. "Like that guy in Proposal, where his family practically owns the whole town." It was another reason Hector wanted to leave Mystery Cove. There was no mystery in it. It was the same old, same old, every frigging day, like eating toast every morning, for the rest of your life.

"What?" Devi gawked at him as if he's said something shocking.

"The hospital." Hector smiled faintly. "The post, the bakery, the cafe, the library... the community hall, if you can call it that... pretty much half the town."

"Gee... how small-town are you guys?" Devi's brows knitted together as she eyed the half-drawn curtains around her bed. "Though that explains why the nurses ignored my calls to get rid of him until the big guy stepped in ... "

"Yeah, Lewis is not from around here." Hector smiled. "So where do you suggest we start, Ms Dhungel... uh, I mean, Devi... uh... DD?"

Devi turned from the curtain she was busily trying to set on fire with her gaze, that, and then the nurses, except Lewis. How dare they not warn her about Brady-what's-his-name? She wriggled in the bed. "I need you to call my lawyer."

"Absolutely not." Hector shook his head.

"Excuse me? Am I a prisoner?" She held up the cuffs tying her to the bed. It jingled as if to make a point. "I'll have you know, I'm the victim here, and you just said you want to help me. So help me! I demand you put me in touch with my lawyer ... before genuine media gets a whiff of what's happened to me and swarms your little town. Or the world thinks I'm truly dead! Or worse, the person who tried to off-with-my-head comes here to try finish what they started."

She couldn't quite read the expression that morphed like jello being smacked across the young Inspector's face. "What? What is it?"

Hector slammed his little black notebook on his palm twice before he met her eyes.

Devi held her breath. Damn, the kid has pretty eyes. Shooing that ill-timed thought out of her mind, and blaming it on the fact that her ramped libido must be because of her near-death experience, she glared at him as well as she could through her swollen eyelids. "WHAT? Will you speak? I can't read your mind, mate. I'm fabulous but I'm not that fabulous."

Hector cleared his throat, leaned in, and lowered his voice conspiratorially, "Was your lawyer on the boat with you?"

Devi narrowed her eyes. For once, he asked a question she hadn't dared to entertain. Of all the eight guests on the boat, bar the three staff, she had thought her lawyer would be the last person of interest. He was the one she'd never suspect. The only one.

"I take it from your silence he was another guest on board that night." Hector scribbled something in his notebook.

"You suspect my lawyer?" Devi asked, perplexed.

"I suspect everyone on board. Now, tell me, Ms Dhungel" —she glared at him— "Devi... ugh... DD, who else was on the boat with you? Names and relations; let's start there."

Devi chewed her bottom lip deep in thought before she spoke again, jingling her cuffed wrist. Her brows arched deceptively high, and she grinned. "You want me to talk? Then you get me out of here. Better yet, you get me out of this shithole you call a town, get me a competent nurse—maybe the big guy—and then, and only then will I answer your questions."

"Are you negotiating with me on how I solve your case?"

"Dear boy, there is no I. You barely look like you've taken off your training wheels. You're not equipped to handle any case, let alone mine." Devi laughed. "Not by yourself, so I'll have to help you."

"Excuse me!" Hector scoffed, indignant. "I'll have you know I'm a qualified—"

"Yeah, yeah!" She waved him off. "You're a qualified detective—"

"—that's not what I was gonna say?" Hector fumbled. Of course, he was no detective. Just a simple constable, whom for some reason she kept calling Inspector—which he liked the sound of that—posted to a simple town. His.

"Have you solved any murders before?" Devi glared at him.

He shook his head.

It didn't surprise Devi.

"Have you solved any violent cases?" She asked. He shook his head. "Have you solved any crime capers?" Head shake. "Any grand larceny? Any NARC cases? Any DVs? DUIs? Heck, have you ever solved a parking ticket?"

"We don't have parking meters," he replied quietly.

Devi burst out laughing. "Oh my god, you're a virgin. Don't tell me I'm your first?"

Hector turned a lovely shade of tomato. "Fir–first?"

"Case," Devi said in between her laughter. "Unless you really are a virgin, 'and this teeny-tiny town is really just one big happy family."

"I'm–I'm not a vir–virgin, thank you! I–I–I've had sex." Hector breathed in shock.

Devi calmed herself down and bit down her lips to keep from laughing further. She watched Hector shift in the chair and pull at his collar uncomfortably. Whatever, virgin. I can't believe I'm your first. "Nothing against you, but does this town even have any crime, Inspector Martinez?"

Hector shuffled on his stool. "We occasionally have the kids causing a scene."

Devi Dhungel laughed again. She couldn't have suppressed it, even if she tried. "And what a catch you made. This must be your lucky day."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Devi beckoned Hector close. When he stepped up to the foot of her bed, she beckoned him with the curl of her finger. "Closer."

He sidled up the side of the bed.

She smiled and curled her index finger still. Closer, Inspector.

There was no more room for Hector to step, not without moving machines out of the way, so he swallowed nervously and leaned in.

Devi grabbed a fistful of his shirt in her cast hand and pulled him closer still. She felt him stiffen a little as if he were terrified she was about to smooch him. I wish I could. She briefly glanced at his full lips before whispering, "Someone tried to kill me last night, Inspector Martinez, and if you're the best I can get in this tiny little shithole, then so be it. But—" She let him go, and spoke with grit— "Get me the hell out of this shitty little place you call the hospital. Get me a decent bed and this fucking thing off." She rattled her cuffed hands aggressively despite the whole thing sending sharp pain up her one intact limb. "And get me somewhere safe—since you so happily tell me I can't trust the closest people in my life right now ... "

Devi heaved in short, restless breaths, her broken ribs sent stabbing pain in her chest from the effort. She quickly grabbed the buzzer to call the nurse. She needed more morphine to cull the pain, and then, she continued. "If what you say is true, that I truly can't trust my own, then please, get me somewhere safe, Inspector Martinez. Then ask me anything you fucking want. The world finds out I'm alive, this person may go underground, or worse, come after me, here in the middle of nowhere Shitsville, and then you'll truly have a murder on your hands. I don't think you want that."

Hector shook his head, gawking at her. "No."

"That's what I thought." She dropped her head back on the pillow, sinking heavily into the lumpish support as Lewis drew the curtain open. "Morphine," she mouthed.

A moment later, Lewis injected a shot of the painkiller she needed and her discomfort eased a little. But that squeeze that had gripped her heart since the sharp kiss of the knife on the yacht tightened yet again in fear. What if they already know I'm still alive? Or worse, what if that stupid guy knows who I am and tells the entire world before I'm ready?

"Inspector?" Devi reached out for Hector as her eyelids got heavy.

She felt a soft, barely there caress as he must have taken her outstretched hand. "I'm here, Devi. I'm here."

"Please. Get me ... somewhere ... sa ... " safe ... I need to feel ... safe ...