Seductive Suspect

“You give me far too much credit.” Victor chuckled, then frowned. He gestured toward the streaks of dirt on my sweatshirt. “I’m sorry about the mud and the mess. I’m afraid we both look a little worse for wear right now.”

I tried to keep my voice light. “If we do manage to escape this place, I will be thrilled to do a load of laundry. Thrilled, I tell you.”

I succeeded in getting another small laugh out of him. “Indeed.”

Another low boom of thunder echoed through the sky, this one closer than the last. “I think finding a signal out here is hopeless by this point,” I said. “And I don’t really want to get rained on. Should we start heading back?”

“Yes, good idea.” Holding the branches aside for me again, he let me pass, and we started retracing our path back to the lodge.

The first heavy drops splattered on the top of my head when we arrived at our parked cars. I yanked my hood up over my hair and spotted Adam and Paul approaching from the opposite direction. I raised my arm to wave, but something odd between us caught my attention.

Two long legs culminating in a pair of stiletto heels dangled from the rim of the fountain, grazing the cobblestones. A head and torso bobbed along the water’s surface, floating lifelessly as the rain pelted their back. Across the driveway, Paul broke into a run.

I met him at the fountain with Victor and Adam close behind. Though it lay face down, there was no mistaking Brittany’s body in the water. Lifting my gaze, I looked at each of them, silently imploring one of them to tell me I was dreaming, or we weren’t too late to save her. Without bothering to check for a pulse, Paul shook his head. I swallowed back the dread bubbling up in the back of my throat.

The killer had struck again.

Chapter Seven

“All right. I put her in her room like we did with the others.” Paul peeled his damp shirt, which had been made wetter when he’d slung Brittany’s sodden corpse over one shoulder, away from his body and tried to air it out. “So tell me, those of you who’ve managed to stay dry, how the hell did this happen?”

“What are you talking about?” Laura placed her hands on her hips and raised one eyebrow. For a moment, I thought she was going to reprimand him for speaking too loud in her library. “How can you be so sure one of us killed her? For all I know, you came back and dragged her outside.”

“Well, I didn’t!”

She shook her head. “Like you’re going to say otherwise?”

“Fine, then.” Paul turned away from her to face the others. “But you have to admit it’s more likely one of you in the lodge at least would have heard something.”

Isabel dropped her gaze to the floor, while Dylan offered a casual shrug for a response.

Shoulders slumped, he let out a long sigh. “Of course not.”

I shared in his disappointment, though I didn’t say so out loud.

“Now, wait,” Victor said. “If we all settle down and talk this through, maybe we’ll be able to glean some pertinent information.” Despite his rumpled, muddy appearance, he remained a voice of reason. “We’ll start with your search of the building. Tell us more about what went on here.”

Laura ignored his request for calm. “Heis completely useless,” she snapped, pointing at Dylan. “All he did was sit around, playing games on his phone.”

“I already told you what I thought about your stupid idea to look for someone who doesn’t exist. So why does it matter how Idecided to waste my time?” A smug expression crossed his face. “And if that’s all I did, then by your logic, I didn’t kill her. Right?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m sure you could have slipped out for a couple minutes without us noticing.”

“Okay, it’s a start,” Victor said. “Where were you two ladies while he wasn’t participating?”

Isabel’s lips puffed out. She exhaled and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “We thought we’d be able to cover more ground if we split up, and we swore we’d be careful. Like, if something bad happened, the others would hear it, or we’d be alert enough to avoid an attack, or…” Her frown deepened, and she shook her head. “Clearly, we were wrong. And now Brittany’s dead, and it’s all our fault.”

“Especially if you were the one to drown her,” Dylan said.

“Oh, fuck off already.” Laura’s cheeks grew darker with anger, their hue matching the vibrant color of her hair. “If you’re not actually going to be helpful, why don’t you just shut up and let the rest of us try to figure things out?”

“Yeah, since you’ve been doing such a great job so far.”

“At least some of us are trying!” She waved him off with one hand. “Go back to your little games, Senseless Sniper, or whoever you are, while the adults here get stuff done.”

He snorted. “Keep throwing your hissy fit. It’s really making you come across as so much more mature than me.”

“Enough!” Victor shouted. “We don’t need to be best friends here, but all this bickering does nothing more than distract us from the important issues and weaken us. If we’re going to survive this, we need to be willing to work together, and that goes for everyone in this room.” He looked back and forth between Dylan and Laura. “Get out of this alive, and the two of you never have to speak to each other ever again. Until then, if you can’t say anything constructive, say nothing at all. No one else wants to hear it.”