Since I’d forgotten to close the glass wall’s shutters before drifting off to sleep, I awoke to a sun-drenched room and a view that made my jaw drop as I sat up in bed. A moment later I was on the balcony, drinking in scenery that fulfilled every promise Aunt Dimity had made.
An intensely blue, sparkling bay lay before me, embraced by a broad expanse of golden dunes to the north and a lush green headland to the south. An emerald lawn ran down from the hotel to a flawless crescent of tawny sand at the water’s edge. A flock of gulls soared above waves frilled by an onshore breeze, and a host of tiny birds twittered in the branches of a solitary pohutukawa tree that grew not ten yards from where I stood. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
I was faintly puzzled by the presence of a small swimming pool in the deck area adjacent to the hotel’s main building. The pristine beach made a swimming pool seem redundant.
“The bay is called Hokianga Harbor,” said Cameron, poking his head around the wall that divided my balcony from his. “Not bad, eh? ”
“Not bad at all,” I agreed. “How did you know I was out here? ”
“I heard your glass door open,” he said. “I’ve been up for an hour.”
“Bully for you.” I wrinkled my nose at him, then nodded toward the deck area. “Why the pool? If I’d brought a bathing suit with me, I’d swim in the bay.”
“Not for long,” he said, with a wry smile. “Hokianga Harbor is a breeding ground for great white sharks.”
“Yikes,” I said, eyeing the sparkling waters with new respect. “It sure is pretty, though.”
“Yes, it is,” said Cameron. “Ready for breakfast?”
“Believe it or not, I am,” I told him. “See you in twenty.”
I paused for one last look at the dunes, the headland, and the shining bay, then raced inside to splash water on my face, slip into a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, and finish packing. I didn’t want to spoil my reputation as a twenty-minute wonder.
After plundering the hotel’s breakfast buffet and saying a final good-bye to Alison, we checked out of the hotel, climbed into Toko’s car, and drove south along State Highway 12, retracing the route we’d taken north the previous evening. While I craned my neck to take in the intensely green hills, the stunning seascapes, and the quirky holiday houses that had hitherto been obscured by rain, Cameron paid attention to Alison’s map.
We left the highway at the impossibly named village of Waiotemarama and turned onto a dirt road that felt as though it had last been graded in the early 1950s. Toko’s car developed an alarming number of new rattles as we juddered across the road’s washboard surface and zigzagged gingerly around its rain-filled potholes.
The dirt road took us into a kauri forest so dense that the canopy dimmed the bright sunlight. As we inched along, I heard bird calls I’d never heard before and saw flowers that would have been the pride of any greenhouse in England growing wild and in astonishing profusion. Finally, Cameron pulled off of the road and parked in the grassy, uphill driveway of a five-sided house on stilts.
The house’s roof was made of corrugated iron and its outer walls were covered in orange shingles. Three peacocks—one male and two females—perched on the wooden railing of its elevated front porch, and the clearing in which it stood looked as though it had been shorn by a flock of sheep. A tree dripping with bright yellow blossoms stood in the center of an octagonal picnic table that occupied the only piece of level ground I’d seen since we’d left the hotel.
“Looks like an artist’s house to me,” I commented.
“Very atmospheric,” Cameron agreed.
“And the guy with the paintbrush is a dead giveaway,” I concluded.
A man holding a slender paintbrush stood hunched over the picnic table. He was several inches shorter than Cameron and more slightly built. His features were pleasant, but not particularly memorable, and his short-cropped brown hair was touched with gray at the temples. He was dressed in a baggy gray sweater, faded jeans, and black flip-flops.
“I’d like to have the flip-flop concession in this country,” I murmured.
“We call them jandals,” Cameron murmured back. “It’s short for Japanese sandals. They’re a popular form of footwear in New Zealand.”
“I’ve noticed,” I said dryly.
We got out of the car. The paraphernalia on the picnic table suggested that the man was working on a watercolor. I was sorry to interrupt his creative flow, but he didn’t seem to mind. He dropped his brush into a water-filled jam jar and smiled amiably as we approached.
“Lost?” he asked.
“Not if you’re Daniel Rivers,” said Cameron.
“I am,” said the man, folding his arms. “So you must be in the right place. What can I do for you?”