Over the Edge: Murder Returns to the Caribbean

By Penny Goetjen

Wanted:
House-sitter for a sexy Caribbean villa.
Killer view. Ultimate privacy. Amenities to die for . . .

What seems like a sweet house-sitting gig in a palatial Virgin Islands villa turns into a nightmare. Before Olivia Benning can unpack her suitcase in the posh digs, she stumbles onto the owner’s body and becomes the prime suspect. Frantically digging for answers while trying to fly under the radar, she quickly finds she’s a wanted woman, pursued by an elusive foe. What really went on behind the gates at the end of the peninsula? Do the neighbors know more than they’ve told police? Can Olivia clear her name and find the real killer before she’s silenced for good?

See why critics and readers alike are raving about the suspense novels of multi national award-winning storyteller Penny Goetjen. If you like Carol Higgins Clark, you'll love her books.

If you love to read stories that are more about compelling plotlines, colorful locales, and intriguing characters than a gruesome crime, you 'll love her books. Click to add to your cart now.

“...excels at evoking a sense of place—for example, pristine beaches or seedy motels—as well as mood, like fear and desire.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Murder, missing persons, and a series of other misdeeds have photographer Olivia Benning desperately looking to bring focus to a very murky picture—one that finds her both a suspect and a target. But will this determination result in her salvation or her surrender? You’ll have to travel to the Caribbean to find out. Rest assured, it’s worth the trip, and the author is a most formidable tour guide.” —John B. Valeri

“Over the Edge is a well scripted murder mystery with deceptive characters and an unpredictable path. Enjoy your trip to St. Thomas courtesy of Penny Goetjen!”
—Suzy Approved Book Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penny Goetjen
• Release date: Nov 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733143936

Penny Goetjen

National award-winning writer Penny Goetjen is the author of six published mystery and suspense novels where the settings play as prominent a role as the engaging characters. A self-proclaimed eccentric known for writing late into the night by the allure of flickering candlelight, she often weaves a subtle, unexpected paranormal twist into her stories. When her husband is asked how he feels about his wife doing in innocent people with the written word, he answers with a wink, “I sleep with one eye open.”

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Thunderous winds had been blowing the rain sideways for hours, wrapping the small bungalow in a blanket of white, whistling through the eaves. Taking an occasional peek through the knothole in the slab of plywood protecting his front window, he could only make out blurs of muted colors emerging from the white. The power had gone out early on, which he’d expected. A battery-powered lantern on the coffee table vibrated with the wind and put out just enough light to create fuzzy shadows.

The front door rattled against its frame, threatening to burst open at any moment. Until now, he’d never understood why it had been installed to open out. It was such a nuisance to negotiate the small porch. Now he got it. A traditionally installed door would have blown in already. Even with a dead bolt, it would have been blasted off its hinges.

Plummeting air pressure and the incessant roar made his ears ache. The monstrous storm wasn’t just outside. It had moved in and filled the small structure like an obese, uninvited houseguest. It filled his head. There was no escape. There was no pushing it away. It was there to stay and occupied every crevice of the space, transforming it into a torture chamber.

Solitary confinement couldn’t be any worse. At least you’d have the quiet to do with what you wanted—recall a lyric from a favorite song, imagine a loved one’s gentle voice, or remember the call of the tree frogs at night. Instead, the howling roared through his head, leaving little room for anything else. He longed for something stronger than an ibuprofen to temper the chiseling going on in the back of his neck but didn’t dare stir from his perch on the couch. If he stayed riveted in place, the monster wouldn’t notice him and would keep going to find someone else to snatch.

Hurricanes had pummeled the island in the past and tested the limits of the antiquated power grid and less-than-adequate drainage system that grew overtaxed during an afternoon shower. But this was a barracuda of a storm. As it barreled toward the islands, meteorological experts warned of winds never seen before. Even the old-timers on the island—the ones who had weathered Hugo in ’89—were worried, though they tried not to show it.

The last forecast transmission before the airways went silent warned it was holding at a Category 5 with sustained winds pushing past 200 miles per hour. There was no Category 6. The wind speed associated with a Cat 5 was open ended—anything over 155 miles per hour.

With nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, he’d gathered food, brought inside anything that could turn into a projectile, and boarded up the windows with as many nails as he could find, hoping they would hold. He had stashed the boat he counted on to make a living in a shed on a friend’s property, throwing up a prayer and leaving it in God’s hands. He doubted there would be much left that would be recognizable if it didn’t get completely blown away. On the leeward side of the house, he’d cracked a window to allow the air inside to equalize with the outside.

In the hours before the storm, it grew eerily quiet. Seemingly prophetic, the birds had taken flight to find safer terra firma. Iguanas and mongoose scattered as their instincts guided them to take cover. Anyone with a shred of sense had to ask himself, What do they know that intelligent, educated humans with sophisticated equipment can’t accurately predict? In the throes of our inadequacies, we feel the need to attach labels and quantify what’s happening, as if that affords us some sort of control over Mother Nature.

The winds quieted as the eye of the storm crept over the island. It brought with it daylight, as if encouraging those still standing to hang tough for what was yet to hit. He scoffed, reading it as false hope, and wondered who would be foolish enough to wander too far from their shelter and get caught when the tail of the storm hit.

The pups, who’d been cowering at his feet, sensed the reprieve and nudged his hand. Anxious to get outside for a breath of fresh air and to survey the damage so far, he put the well-worn Bible he’d been clutching on the table next to the couch and headed for the door. The knob was wet. Under his feet were bits of leaves and palm fronds that had been pushed through the imperceptible opening underneath.

Hesitating for a moment to brace himself for what the aftermath of the first half of the storm would look like, he pushed on the door. The metal-on-metal scraping was new. The sound foretold of other, more catastrophic effects left behind in the storm’s wake.

All three froze once the door was fully open. The small porch had crumbled into a pile of splinters and the steps were missing—blown off and scattered to parts unknown. They had to jump down onto the yard. His canine companions stepped cautiously, recognizing their yard wasn’t the way they remembered it. Something heavy hung in the air—not the right-as-rain smell after a shower. Something organic. And raw.

A wall of clouds surrounded them, forming a circle of pale cerulean sky way above their heads, like they’d fallen into a deep well. The sun’s rays spilled in from the top, illuminating the sides, but there would be no climbing out of the abyss.

As far as the eye could see, trees had been stripped of their leaves, giving the appearance that a fire had ravaged the land. From high up on the hill above Hull Bay, he didn’t recognize the tropical oasis he’d called his home for nearly twenty years. A brown, muddy mass had replaced the serene turquoise water of the bay, and the sparkling white sands on the beach had been erased. Gone. Only a dirt crescent remained. Palms, once majestic and towering over the beach, lay scattered like matchsticks on a table.

Homes across the hillside were missing roofs or had been reduced to a pile of debris. Others were simply not there anymore. The couple who owned the modest house on the other side of the bougainvillea bushes from him had thrown their outdoor furniture into the pool and taken off for the mainland to watch the carnage from there on news coverage and social media. The roof was still attached but a couple of palms had crisscrossed and dropped through one side of the structure, slicing if off like the end of a loaf of bread. What was yet to come would surely suck out much of their belongings and drench the rest.

His yard was littered with palm fronds and tree limbs. The trunk of a palm had barely missed his Jeep parked next to the bungalow and blocked him from getting his car out. Doubting that would be the worst of his worries, he let it go to deal with it another time.

There was a stillness that crept inside him. What would be left after the storm had had its way with the people of the islands? How many would lose their lives? There was still the second half to endure, and it could be worse than the first. Would his house survive? Would he survive?

His eyes went to his metal roof. The edges were battered and looked to have separated from the rest of the structure in places. He prayed it would hold.

Before long, the winds began to pick up again, this time from the opposite direction. He whistled to the pups who lifted their heads, sniffed the air, and cast a wary eye toward the swaying bare branches of the flamboyant trees at the edge of the yard. They seemed to sense the fury wasn’t over yet and scampered toward the house, stepping gingerly around the debris.

After securing the front door, he returned to his spot on the couch in the shadows of the lantern with the pups at his feet and the Bible nestled in his lap. The winds quickly swelled into howling again—an all too familiar sound that pierced his skull. The roar grew deafening. If another person had been sharing the couch with him, he would have had to yell to be heard. This time, there was much more debris hitting the exterior walls. It went on for what seemed like hours. The lantern flickered from time to time, threatening to go out. A loud bang from a projectile striking the front window startled them. Shards of glass rained onto the floor. The pups nestled closer to his feet. With no barrier to block it, the rain penetrated the peep hole. There was no sense trying to patch it. He was no match for the strength of the monster.

When he thought the battering couldn’t get any worse, the walls themselves began to rattle. He looked up to see the ceiling fan swaying from side to side. He could hear the roof starting to peel away and flap in the wind.

Had he made a fatal error by thinking he could ride out the storm in place?

When it sunk in the walls weren’t going to hold, he bolted for his bedroom with the pups close behind. He threw off the bedding, grabbed his guitar, and pulled the mattress toward his bathroom, the only interior room in the structure. It took some coaxing to get the terrified dogs into the tub. Once he convinced them to lie down, he climbed in clutching his six-string and pulled the mattress over them, just before the walls of his home were swatted away.

CHAPTER TWO

As the plane banked over Puerto Rico, Olivia pressed her face against the window to get a glimpse, but they were too high for her to see the devastation below. In the short months that had passed, Mother Nature had painted a luscious shade of green across the island, giving the false appearance of a verdant tropical paradise. Yet the people who called it home had a long road ahead of them to rebuild their lives. Olivia’s heart had broken when she pored over post-hurricane photos of Caribbean homes and businesses that stood empty with the roofs peeled off and their contents sucked out and scattered about. Uprooted trees and toppled power lines littering the roads made them difficult to traverse or simply impassable, initially thwarting rescue efforts and later the rebuilding process. No island had been spared in the destructive path, her beloved St. Thomas included.

What was Olivia returning to? Her mother’s bungalow had been destroyed in a fire during her last visit—arson. Although the investigation was inconclusive, she knew it was. Perhaps it wasn’t realistic to think she could begin rebuilding when the entire island had suffered such catastrophic damage. Drawn there by her love of the territory and its people, she had to find a way to make it work.

The Piper turned back over the water, heading east toward St. Thomas. The calm open ocean sparkling with sunlight down below seemed to belie the ravages of the storm that lay ahead. A cargo ship with its wake behind it steamed in the direction they were moving. She prayed it was bringing much-needed supplies to the island.

After a few minutes the plane banked again and then leveled out on approach, lining up with the runway. Since the storm, fewer of the larger jets were making regular stops to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Although the airstrip had sustained little damage, tourists weren’t clamoring to spend time where fresh water was a hot commodity and beaches were peppered with the carcasses of boats that had been tossed about by the storm surge like a child’s toys. Estimates ranged not in weeks or months, but in years as to how long it would take to recover from such a massive hurricane. It had only been nine months.

Would she be able to find Colton? Did he survive the storm? The tingle in her stomach made her squirm. She knew he had. He was a tough, resilient man. If anyone could make it through such extreme adversity, he could.

Truth be told, they’d been out of touch. She could read that as his disinterest or simply him giving her space while she was away. He did tend to exist off the grid for the most part. But she’d also been preoccupied, working at her photography apprenticeship in Boston, which had turned out to be more challenging than expected—competitive beyond her imagination as each intern vied for the ultimate prize of earning a coveted spot on the Abigail Adams Studio payroll. Olivia knew she had performed to the best of her abilities, but she hadn’t made the final cut.

Disappointed but resolute to venture off on her own, her desire was to pick up where her mother had left off and start her own photography business on the island. For the time being, during the rebuilding period, she might have to delay pursuing her dream and take whatever work she could get. Tourists tended to be the ones who purchased artwork, and they were scarce at the moment—scared off by the hurricane and the devastation left behind. It dawned on her, her mother had supplemented her income by working freelance for the local paper. Olivia momentarily tried on the possibility for herself. But then, that was how her mother had gotten tangled in an illegal gambling ring that ultimately cost her her life.

Rubber connecting with concrete jolted Olivia from her thoughts to the heartbreaking scene slipping past her oval window. The tiny terminal looked battered from a heavyweight fight. Large sheets of plywood served as Band-Aids for the windows that overlooked the runway where passengers used to watch planes take off and land while they waited for their flights. The sign for Cyril E. King Airport was missing a few letters.

As the plane turned to taxi back to the terminal, she glanced up to the college on the hill. Her heart sank. It looked like it had taken the brunt of the storm. The University of the Virgin Islands buildings looked war-torn, with sections of roofs missing and windows blown out. She wondered how many students would be affected by the damage. She hoped none had sustained any serious injuries.

It didn’t take long for the thirteen-seater to pull up to the assigned gate. Once the forward door was opened and the stairs pushed out to the tarmac, warm humid air permeated the small craft. It took Olivia back to her last visit when she’d arrived during steamy August when most sensible tourists stayed away from the Caribbean until the climate tempered a bit. Her last visit hadn’t been for pleasure. This one wouldn’t be either—at least, not at first.

The taxi driver had been reluctant to drop her off at the charred remains in her mother’s yard. Seeing it for the first time since she’d left hit her hard. Memories of that night—seeing the glow from the distance, not being able to get close because of the first responders’ vehicles, abandoning her Jeep and running down the road, collapsing next to the mailbox at the top of the driveway, watching the flames consume her mother’s home—she couldn’t push the images away.

Acknowledging the driver’s concern, Olivia assured him she’d be okay, all the while trying to convince herself of the same. Her intent was to take a look around and then, when she was ready, walk to the taxi stand down the road.

She scanned the debris pile of Serenity Villa, which hadn’t changed much since her last visit in spite of the intense winds of the storm. Part of her wished it had all blown away, so she could focus on starting anew, rebuilding on a blank easel. Black scorched timbers lay in a haphazard pile where the quaint bungalow once stood. None of the bright colors her mother had painted the house could be discerned. Sizing up the rubble, she thought perhaps a section or two were missing after all, taken by the hurricane and deposited in some far-flung place. It was hard to tell. What remained was in stark contrast with re-burgeoning greenery nearby.

A splash of color sticking out from the vestiges of the bungalow caught her eye. Stepping around jagged timbers, she made her way to what she imagined used to be the kitchen, the scorched refrigerator still resting on its side. Olivia yanked on a small board that slid out easily. It was blackened on one side like the rest of the pile. But when she turned it over, she was startled to see a familiar blue sign that read:

Serenity Villa

Olivia hugged it to her chest. How had it survived the fire? And the hurricane? No matter. It would have its place next to the front door when the new bungalow was built.

At the far end of the property, tucked against a small grove of tamarind trees, was a black tarp covering something—something she hadn’t left there. It was an odd rectangular shape. A generator? She was sure that was wishful thinking. Whatever it was, it was doubtful it was there before the storm. The tarp would be nowhere in sight.

Olivia crossed the yard, puzzled as to who would have stored something in the yard—a neighbor?—dropping the wooden sign into her mother’s turquoise Adirondack chair. A sizable gash was etched across one arm. As she got closer to the tarp, she could make out a couple of tires poking out from underneath. If it had been there before the storm, the top must have been smashed in by a tree or some other projectile.

Grabbing on to the edge, she gave the tarp a good yank and released enough of it to pull it up over the hood. The grill of a Jeep Wrangler. She drew in a breath. Could it be? Pulling at the tarp again, she kept going until she revealed the entire car. Colton’s deep-metallic-blue Jeep. It had looked like the top was missing under the tarp because it was a soft top, and he must have removed it before covering the vehicle.

But why was it there? Had it suffered damage that required costly repairs he couldn’t afford? Had he bought another car and was storing this one here until he could sell it? Few people would have extra money to buy a car if they were repairing their homes. Maybe he was waiting it out until he could get decent money for it. Hopefully he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed it for a while—that was, if it ran.

A cursory walk around the vehicle revealed minor scratches that looked new and one good-sized dent on the passenger side she didn’t remember being there.

The driver’s side door creaked when she pulled it open, as if complaining of its aches and pains and sharing its woes. As Olivia scooted onto the seat, the heat from the fabric permeated the back of her capris. Groping around inside the glove box, she got her fingers on the familiar key fob from Izzie’s Beach Bar where Colton and his band often performed.