Merciless games, p.19
Merciless Games, page 19
“I’ll be happy to escort you all to your rooms,” said Tetyana. “But your job will be to stay there till dawn.”
“That’s how Camilla died!” shouted Ratcliffe. “While she was in her room.”
“It’s not foolproof, but it’s your safest option.”
“You can’t make us do that,” said Sophia angrily, half rising from her chair. “You can’t make us do anything.”
“You want to go strolling around the island with a killer on the loose?”
Sophia sat down heavily and turned away.
“It’s up to you,” said Tetyana. “Stay safe in your rooms tonight or become the next body we find. Your call.”
It didn’t take long for us to get the guests into their rooms after that. I guessed they were all too frightened to put up a fight.
“I’m ready to do my part,” said Oliver, when Tetyana returned. “Tell me when you want me to go on vigil and I’ll do it.”
“I’m scared, Oliver,” said Mary, her lips quivering. “We can lock ourselves in our room for only so long.”
“We’re going to do our best,” I said, wishing I could promise more than mere words.
She rubbed her face. “This is a nightmare.”
Tetyana turned to Mary.
“Not to worry. I’ll escort you to your quarters.”
Tetyana’s words were polite, but I knew she was only making sure they were going to where they said they were.
Motioning us to stay in the dining hall, she followed Oliver and Mary out.
Katy was staring out the window now, her eyes on the burned logs on the lawn below us.
“This is the most psycho case ever,” she said. “And we don’t even have a way of letting the others know what’s going on.”
My stomach felt like it had been tied into an impossibly convoluted knot. I was stumped, but more than anything else, I was mad at myself.
The message on our bathroom glass wall kept spinning in my mind.
If you can figure out the motive, I might spare the remaining guests.
I’d been in many sticky situations, but I’d always found a clue, a nugget of information that pointed me in the right direction. Things had happened so fast, I’d hardly wrapped my head around the first incident, before the second happened, then the third.
Three people had died. And I was nowhere near knowing why or who the culprit was.
I tried to suppress the guilty feelings bubbling inside of me. They had died because I couldn’t figure out the solution fast enough.
“Maybe they’re right,” said Katy, turning to me. “It’s like a ghost has taken over the island and is doing these things. That, or everyone’s in this together. It can’t be just one person doing this.”
My mind flitted to Oliver and Mary, who’d sat at the end of the table.
They looked like the perfect, unassuming couple, the quintessential professionals, who were just doing their job. But I wondered if someone could have paid enough money to convince them to either pull off these gruesome killings themselves or help the true killer out.
I remembered how Oliver had locked the kitchen door, citing fear of the killer. Instead of locking them out, maybe it had been a ploy to lock us in, while the murderer did their thing outside, undisturbed.
“Help!”
A thundering crash followed the spine-chilling scream.
Katy and I whipped around.
Chapter Forty-six
We dashed out of the room.
My heart was hammering so loudly, I hardly heard Tetyana bound up the stairs.
“Javier!” cried Katy. “What happened?”
The poet was lying at the bottom of the steps on the second-floor landing. He was trying to raise himself with one arm, but his foot had twisted behind him.
We rushed toward him.
“What the frigging heck?”
I turned in relief to see Tetyana. Without a word, she jumped up to the third floor, taking three steps at a time.
I turned my attention back to Javier, who was grimacing in pain. I squatted next to him and examined his foot.
“Did you trip?” I asked.
He looked at me and moved his mouth but nothing came out.
Is he in shock?
He winced when Katy put a hand on his ankle.
“Sorry,” said Katy, pulling her hand back. “I was checking if you broke anything. You okay, hun?”
Still mute, Javier shook his head.
Upstairs, I could hear Tetyana banging on the doors. Soon the anxious voices of Ratcliffe, Sophia, and Elliot came down to us. Ratcliffe was denying he’d been outside in the corridor and Sophia was saying something about being in bed.
“He needs ice,” said Katy, getting up. “I’ll go check in the kitchen.”
As Katy dashed down to the kitchen, I turned to Javier.
“Just nod or shake your head, okay?” I said, watching him closely. “Did someone push you from behind?”
Javier didn’t reply with gestures or words.
He was hesitating.
I wondered why.
If someone had pushed him, wouldn’t it have been obvious? Wouldn’t he have felt a hand on his back?
“What are you hiding?” I asked, boring into his eyes.
Javier settled back against the railing, wincing as his foot moved.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said, looking at me unblinkingly for a few seconds.
I stared back, not wanting to be the first to look away.
I also knew that trick.
It was the hallmark of a skillful liar. All you had to do was speak the lie and maintain steady eye contact. It was a good way to convince someone you’re telling the truth, but the telltale sign was that unblinking stare.
Why would he lie about an incident that had handicapped him? An idea was forming in the back of my mind.
“Javier,” I said, taking a harder tone. “Who are you covering up for?”
He shook his head rapidly.
“No one.”
“Then, tell me what happened.”
“I walked up to my room and locked the door,” he replied, speaking haltingly as if answering my questions hurt him as much as the twisted ankle itself. “But then I couldn’t find my glasses. Thought I left them in the dining hall.”
“So, you came out of your room?”
He nodded. “I opened the door and peeked out to make sure nobody was outside.”
“Did you see anyone?”
He shook his head.
“I thought it was safe to come out. But when I got to the top of the stairs, I….”
He paused.
He was lying again.
I suppressed the urge to shake him.
“Did you feel something on your back?”
He gave me a strange look. “No, I didn’t. Maybe it was Helen who came back to take revenge.”
I leaned away in exasperation.
This idea of Helen’s ghost running around and strangling people or pushing them down the stairs was annoying me. This was the work of a live human being with a serious motive to kill.
An earlier image of Javier floating underwater flashed into my mind, and that unsettling feeling came over me again. Something about Javier troubled me, but I couldn’t say exactly what it was.
I leaned toward him again.
“Why are you here, Javier? Why did you come to this retreat?”
“To write,” he answered.
“When we first met you at the pier near town—” I paused, wondering how to put this delicately. “Did you fall, or did you jump in?”
He gave me a startled look.
The thump of footsteps from above made me look up.
Tetyana was coming down with Sophia, Ratcliffe, and Elliot. The three writers looked down at their colleague with more curiosity than sympathy and gave Javier a wide berth.
“Where were you all when he fell just now?” I asked the group.
“I was in bed, for heaven’s sake,” said Sophia.
“I was in the toilet,” said Ratcliffe, his face dark.
“In my room,” spluttered Elliot. “Like you told us to.”
The idea in the back of my mind was strengthening.
Javier was protecting someone. He’d agreed to help one of them with the killings, but he had become a victim himself. He couldn’t speak out, lest he gave away his role in the game.
I turned to the poet.
“You could have broken your neck and died. This is serious. If you have something to say, say it now.”
“Leave the man alone,” said Elliot. “He nearly dies and you’re interrogating him like a suspect?”
I glanced up at Elliot.
“Where’s your weapon?” I asked.
He made a face and pointed at Tetyana. “She confiscated it.”
Tetyana nodded and held up the scissors.
Elliot stared at me. “You’re crazy if you think I pushed him. I’d never do anything like this.”
Footsteps coming up the stairs made us all turn. It was Katy climbing up with Mary and Oliver in tow. Mary had a bag of ice in her hands, and Oliver and Katy were bringing the stretcher.
I got up as they took over.
“I’m okay,” protested Javier as Mary stepped up to ice his ankle. “I just want to go to my room.”
“How are you going to climb upstairs?” asked Mary, pushing his hand away and reaching for his ankle.
A flash of pain went through Javier’s face as she deposited the ice bag on his foot. I could see he was gritting his teeth.
Was this an act? If it was, he was an excellent actor.
“You can’t climb up or down,” said Oliver, staring at the poet. “We have extra rooms on the first floor. We can move you down there.”
“No,” said Javier, “I just want to go to my room.”
But it seemed like Oliver had made up his mind.
“There’s an old wooden wheelchair, which the former lighthouse keeper used in his last years. It’s in the shed at the back. I can get it for you so you can get to the bathroom at least until the pain subsides. You’ll thank me when it starts swelling.”
Sophia, Ratcliffe, and Elliot returned to their rooms under Tetyana’s orders.
When she came down, she had all the room keys in her hand. I was surprised they hadn’t protested. Javier’s fall seemed to have shaken them, even Ratcliffe, who looked drained.
Mary and Katy stayed with Javier, while I went with Oliver to find the wheelchair.
In half an hour, we’d brought Javier down on the stretcher to an extra room below, next to Oliver and Mary’s bedroom.
After settling him in bed with the ice on his ankle and the wheelchair by his bed, we left, locking the door behind us.
Mary left a bottle of painkillers on his bedside table so he could take one if it got any worse.
“I’ll monitor him,” she said. “He’s right next to our bedroom and the kitchen. His door will always be in my sight. Don’t you worry about him.”
Oliver turned his eyes up to the ceiling.
“I think the people we need to be worried about are all on the third floor,” he said in a somber voice.
“Who do you think pushed him?” I asked.
Oliver hung his head.
“Damned if I know. I feel like we’re getting picked off one by one.”
Mary turned to us, her face ashen.
“Who’s next?” she whispered.
Chapter Forty-seven
“There’s a message here,” I said, pacing the carpet.
Tetyana and Katy were leaning against the bookshelf, watching me, arms crossed.
“It’s hidden in plain sight,” I said. “We’re just not seeing it.”
The library was the last place Tetyana wanted to be. While Katy loved this room for its interior decor, she cared little for the contents held in between the pages.
I’d dragged them up to the lighthouse library only moments ago, and they weren’t too happy about it.
“We need to think harder, girls,” I said. “Think.”
“I think you’re reading too much into these books,” said Katy.
“I think we need to be at the main building, keeping an eye on those crazies,” said Tetyana.
After leaving Javier in his room with Oliver and Mary promising to watch him, I’d asked my friends to follow me to the lighthouse.
Other than the missing whale-bone knife on the first-floor wall, nothing else seemed out of place in the tower.
Knowing the killer had snuck onto the ground floor and stolen the knife sent shivers down my spine. They could have even come in while we were sleeping.
But the lighthouse door couldn’t be secured.
The door to the tower never had a lock as far as Oliver and Mary could remember. Fast and easy access to the lantern room had been a necessity in the olden days, and that tradition had continued even though the light was out of commission.
Tetyana, Katy, and I were now standing around the library coffee table on which the guests’ books sat neatly arranged.
“This is all part of the game.”
I looked up at my friends who were staring at me, skepticism on their faces.
“The owner, whoever they are, placed these here for us to see them. There’s one book by each of the writers. The question is, why these books? What’s their significance?”
With a resigned sigh, Tetyana kneeled down and picked up the nearest book. It was written by Camilla and had been lying facedown on the table. I wondered if she knew what she’d just selected.
“So, you think these books will lead us to the killer?” asked Katy, settling down on the carpet and pulling Jason’s graphic novel toward her.
“I think they will give us a clue to the connection between these writers and why they’re being killed,” I replied. “If they can also tell us who the killer is, that would be a bonus.”
“But what does all this have to do with that photograph of Zimmerman on the beach?” asked Katy.
“That could have been a warning of what was about to happen here,” I said. “Murder by the ocean?”
“Except Helen Jenkins had it on her too,” said Katy. “It was with her unpublished manuscript.”
“Didn’t Ratcliffe say he was publishing unauthorized biographies of famous people?” I said. “Maybe that’s what Helen was writing, an unauthorized bio on Zimmerman.”
“What do you think?” asked Katy, turning to Tetyana.
Tetyana was leaning back against the nearest armchair, her nose buried deep in Camilla’s book.
The eye-catching cover had a half-naked male model with a lingerie-clad woman straddling his hips. A dog collar and chain clasped the man’s throat, and his hands were wrapped dangerously around the woman’s skinny neck.
“Tetyana?” I said.
No answer.
Katy and I exchanged a glance.
“Yoo hoo,” called out Katy, waving her hand in front of our friend’s face.
Tetyana raised her head and blinked at us.
“Can’t believe you like that crap,” said Katy, making a face.
“I was looking for parallels to the murder,” said Tetyana, a pink flush creeping up her neck. It wasn’t often I saw my friend flustered.
Tetyana’s romantic life was a secret even to us. She had many contacts in the martial arts and military communities and some who worked underground too, but we never knew if any were more than just friends.
“I’d never bring that book into my house,” said Katy with a sniff.
“Don’t be such a snob,” said Tetyana, throwing Camilla’s erotica on the table. “It’s a quick read, and I was looking for clues.”
“Different strokes and all that. Not up to us to judge,” I said, picking up the novella, trying to stop the argument that was brewing. “Camilla made a chunk of change with these.”
I flipped through the pages.
Tetyana was right. The chapters were short. The paragraphs were only a couple of sentences in length and the writing was at a second-grade level. I scanned the book.
It was when I turned to the last chapter that it dawned on me.
I looked up at Tetyana.
“Oh, my gosh,” I said. “You’re right.”
“I always am,” she said, her face stoic.
“What is it?” asked Katy.
“How did Camilla die?” I asked.
“Strangled,” said Katy, “with Sophia’s scarf.”
“With that gas leak to confuse us,” added Tetyana.
I pushed Camilla’s book in front of them. “Read this para,” I said, pointing at the last chapter.
With a sigh, Katy scanned the page.
“Death by asphyxiation,” she whispered finally, her face clearing. “Oh, my gosh.”
We stared at each other for a half a moment, as it sunk in.
Katy had Jason’s book spread in front of her.
“Jason!” I said, a sense of urgency coming over me. “Check the last chapter.”
Katy sat up and flipped to the back. His book was even easier to read, as it was in graphic cartoon format with few words.
“Martian Knife Hunter by Jason Taylor,” said Tetyana as she read the title on the top of the open pages.
“Oh no,” said Katy, turning the book toward us. “Look at this.”
We stared.
If nothing else, Jason had had a weird imagination.
Images of humanoid-like beings lying half-naked in various poses filled the two pages of the book. They had all been stabbed to death with an elaborately decorated knife.
But it was the drawing at the bottom of the last page that drew our attention the most.
An androgynous body lay on their back next to a burning spaceship with an ivory knife stuck in their chest.
“This is so creepy,” whispered Katy.
Tetyana grabbed Javier’s poetry book from the table.
“Time to get reading, people,” she said.
I reached for Ratcliffe’s unpublished screenplay and read the title. Something about it made me turn to the table.
Camilla’s paperback stared back at me, with the two adults in the front cover carrying on unabashedly.
Take My Breath Away.
What a title, I thought.
