So Then There Were None

by Annie Adams

  I had to take another peek down the hall, where Jill’s room was located, before making the turn toward our room. “Hey, what’s that?”

  I went down the hall and found a pack of cigarettes on the floor. “This is Kourtnee’s brand.”

  “She must have dropped them when she took her pack outside,” Alex said.

  “No. She didn’t. We walked down this hall after her, and I know they weren’t on the floor.” I was confident I would have seen them, had they been there before.

  K.C. inhaled dramatically. “Ooh, do you think she came back in after you left?”

  “She probably just came in to get some more stuff when we were in our room—uh, changing into our swimsuits,” Alex said.

  “You mean barneymugging,” K.C. said.

  “She didn’t drop them then if she did. I checked down this hallway after we came out of our room. Don’t you remember?”

  “No, I guess I had my mind on other things,” he said.

  “I bet you did,” K.C. quipped.

  “Kourtnee just told me, after we let her in the pool gate, that she’s been setting up her camp since she left. She’d worked up an appetite, she said.” I knew something was up.

  “Let’s keep a hold of those and see what we hear when we go downstairs,” Alex said. “Don’t tip your hand to anyone—they don’t need to know about this.”

  “Right. We’ll keep it on the DL,” K.C. said.

  “Is that on the list of 1920’s slang too?” I asked.

  “No, of course not,” she said. “I’m going to keep it on the down-low.”

  “Yeah, the DL,” Alex teased, as if I should have known.

  On the way back down our hallway K.C. said, “Hey, Boss, while you’re holding those, why don’t you butt me.”

  I looked over at Alex. He shrugged like he didn’t know what she was talking about either.

  “Huh?”

  “You know, the cigarettes. Butt me.”

  “You don’t smoke,” I said.

  “I know. I’m just trying to use all the lingo on the little guide they gave us before we leave tomorrow.”

  Alex laughed and shook his head.

  Thank goodness for K.C.

  Chapter Twelve

  A shriek pierced the air as we descended the grand staircase. Loud enough, it seemed, to shake the giant chandelier hanging from a medallion in the middle of the ceiling. The three of us glanced at each other for a brief moment in startled reaction and then rushed in the direction of the noise.

  Before we reached the room where the wedding reception had been held, a cacophony of women’s voices shouting over the top of each other echoed throughout the halls.

  Megan was screaming at Regan and Regan was screaming right back at her. As soon as we crossed the threshold, an object flew through the air right at nose level. Apparently we were caught in the crossfire.

  "You wore that on purpose, you spiteful bitch!" Megan yelled at her sister. Candee stood in front of Megan, doing her best to calm Megan down or at least contain her. It wasn't working very well.

  Regan went over to one of the giant floral columns and yanked out a stem of lilies, then threw it in the direction of her sister.

  "Not the flowers!" K.C. yelled.

  "What was that?" Regan re-directed her attention to K.C.

  "Do you know how much work those are?"

  "Who gives a crap about the stupid flowers?" Regan ripped out another handful and threw them at K.C.

  Audra, who had stood near Regan as her sister yelled at her, made a half-hearted effort at grabbing Regan's arm to keep her from throwing more.

  Everything after that seemed to unfold in slow motion.

  I put my hands on K.C.’s shoulder and she shook me off as if I had the weight of a mosquito. Then, she flung Alex off her other side. In his defense, he’d stepped toward Megan, and had to backtrack to try to grab K.C.'s arm.

  I was stunned—and entertained, if I'm honest—watching as K.C. charged at Regan like a Brahma bull at a rodeo clown.

  "You're my twin sister, Regan! What's wrong with you? How could you be so evil?"

  "You're just a sore loser," Regan said. "You’re a loser and you can't get over the fact that I'm the better twin."

  K.C. tapped Regan on the shoulder. "You stop this right now."

  Regan spun around. She stood with arms folded leaning her head back as if she were looking down her nose at K.C. "Who the hell are you to talk to me like that, old lady?"

  "Oh no," I said.

  “Uh oh,” Alex said at the same time.

  "You know what?” K.C. said. “A comment like that deserves a swift kick in the rump."

  Regan laughed arrogantly. "Oh, good one," she said, with full-on sarcasm.

  "That's it." K.C.’s arm shot out as if it were spring loaded. She grabbed Regan, spun her around, and before the younger woman even seemed to know what was happening, K.C. kicked her right in the behind.

  "You can be grateful I wore my old lady shoes today, missy. I almost wore my cowboy boots. Now, the both of you, stop behaving like two year olds and work this out. You're sisters for criminy sakes."

  Regan’s eyes were as round as the moon. The haughty attitude was gone and now she looked more like a reprimanded child than the diva I’d become accustomed to. I think I even saw her bottom lip begin to quiver.

  K.C. wasn’t finished. "You're right, Miss Regan, I am older than you, and that makes me smarter and craftier than most sweet young things like yourself. AND right now, I'm getting hungry, AND when I get hungry I get cranky. Trust me when I say you do not want to see Karma Clackerton get cranky.”

  Alex looked at me. “No one wants to see that,” he whispered.

  “And if I catch you or anyone else acting like springtime jackasses for the rest of this weekend, and especially if I see anyone tearing apart these beautiful floral arrangements, there'll be a lot more than a kick in the fanny to worry about. Is that understood?"

  All the women including Candee and Audra nodded, their attention laser-focused on K.C.

  "Good. Now, for crying out loud, could we eat lunch already?"

  "Wow," Alex said.

  The catering staff scurried in and out of the room as they set up for lunch. The linens and centerpieces from the reception the night before remained at each table. The floral centerpieces would have been difficult and time-consuming to move, and they were so magnificent, I was glad it had been decided to leave them out. Those arrangements deserved to be viewed for as long as possible.

  The scent of gardenias—heavenly, sweet, and thick—lingered throughout the room. The fragrance was one I hadn’t gone nose-blind to. Generally I didn’t notice the scent of flowers anymore, because of working with them all day, every day, but gardenias are an exception.

  K.C. and I sat with Alex at one table while waiting for our turn at the buffet.

  “You showed some pretty advanced evasive moves in the other room, K.C.,” Alex said. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Ah, shucks,” she said as she gave a dismissive wave. “I’ve picked a few things up over the years. When you spend a year with a Ninja master, you can’t help it if things happen to rub off on you.”

  Alex had been holding my hand under the table. He gave it a little squeeze and I looked up at him. He nodded almost imperceptibly and glanced at the entrance. Candee had just slipped in. Her steps were measured, almost prancing. I looked back at Alex to see if he noticed too. I realized she was trying to tiptoe, so as not to draw any attention. Since that portion of the room was carpeted, there was no point to her sneaky walk and she just ended up looking like a character in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. She hadn’t changed out of her swimsuit yet and she wore a gauzy shirt for a cover-up. It didn’t really cover anything. And, something about it looked not quite right.

  “Well, well, well, what mischief has our sweet Candee been up to?” K.C. intoned. “Someone really should tell her that the back of her bikini isn’t fastened.”

  Can
dee hurriedly sat down next to Audra, who still looked stunning. She wore a mini skirt and an un-buttoned, button-down shirt over her bikini top. Candee must have asked for help, the two of them quietly sorted out Candee’s problem.

  The rest of the group were divided with Eva and Regan at one table, and Kourtnee, Megan and Pam at another.

  A pasta and grilled chicken luncheon had been set out on a long table at the front of the room, and each of us filled our plates before returning to sit with our own factions. There were many downcast eyes at that buffet table—except for K.C. She hummed a happy tune and went along as if nothing strange had ever happened in the other room, just a few minutes before.

  "This pasta is delicious! I bet this is better than what they have in Italy,” K.C. said.

  I whispered to Alex, “I think you should talk to everyone about Jill soon."

  After we’d finished eating, Alex went to the front and called for everyone's attention. He was so good at commanding the room. I caught myself feeling a little glow of pride seeing him up there leading the group.

  "I wanted to—I don’t want to yell, can everyone come sit here at this table?” He waited while everyone slowly migrated to an area near the front. Slitty-eyed death rays were exchanged by a few of them, but they managed to sit within a fairly close radius without attacking each other.

  "So, I assume most of you heard Kourtnee this morning,” he said. “I wanted to tell you what I found when we went upstairs. I strongly suspect that Jill is the subject of our mystery plot. I'm not sure exactly what part of the mystery is to be solved. I'm hoping more will be revealed to us soon."

  "So how is Jill involved?" Megan asked.

  "Besides that she's missing?" her sister asked in a condescending, know-it-all voice.

  "Ahem," K.C. said. Regan relaxed her aggressive posture and took the sneer off her face.

  "I don't really know," Alex said. "All I do know is that there are certain things that make me believe she’s not in any physical harm. Since you are all privy to the prize money, I will share with you what Kourtnee and I have found so far. Okay Kourtnee?"

  "Whatever. I don't really care. I'm not trying to win anything. I'll just be here for the meals that I paid for, and then I'll be sleeping outside in my tent."

  "Okay. Jill is not upstairs. In fact, I don't know where she is," he continued. "Does anyone here know where Jill is?"

  His question was met with silence.

  "So, I'm guessing we need to discover what happened to Jill. Maybe the person or people who figure that out win the money. I really don't know, so that's what I'm going with. Since we all deserve a fair shot we need to stick together as much as possible. If anyone finds evidence, I suppose they don't have to share it, but they shouldn't tamper with it. Let everyone have the same chance to solve it. Does everyone agree? Show of hands—who agrees to let the clues lie where they are?" Slowly, everyone but Kourtnee and Audra raised their hands.

  "If we don't all agree, it's not fair," Eva said. "We may as well not do it at all."

  She fixed her gaze upon Audra.

  "I just don't want to participate," Audra said. She recoiled as all eyes turned to her. "What? I don't need the money." She seemed strangely defensive.

  "Well neither do I," Candee replied immediately. I thought it was interesting that she piped up so quickly given what I'd heard from K.C. "But we might as well participate while we're here. And even if you're not going to participate, you can leave the clues alone for those who do want to try."

  "Yeah, whatever, I'll leave them alone," Audra said without much emotion.

  "Kourtnee?" Alex said.

  "Yeah, I won't be here for much, anyway. I won't mess with anything."

  "Okay, great. So here's what I know. Jill is gone, her stuff is gone, her flask is full of water, and I don't think any pills were consumed. There is one boat outside which was there before she left. And she didn't leave with the other guys this morning for the hike. Oh—” he snapped his fingers and grimaced, “that reminds me. We happened to pass by the kitchen earlier and caught the phone ringing. Sid was calling to say that the guys won't be coming back. Some of them got sick on the hike. They don't know if it's food poisoning or the flu, but apparently some of them were really sick."

  I heard a few worried sighs.

  "He told me to tell everyone not to worry, that they were at the hospital and despite a couple of guys being sicker than the others, they are going to be okay. Once we get home I can find out more details and I will let you all know."

  "Oh my gosh, what about Steve?" Candee asked.

  "I didn't find out who was sick and who wasn't—sorry," Alex said

  I leaned over to K.C. and whispered, “Who is Steve?”

  She gave me her exasperated look and held her finger up to her lips.

  I looked at her cross-eyed and stuck my tongue out at her.

  "Well, what should we do now?" Pam asked.

  "Are there anymore activities planned for this afternoon?” I said.

  "No," Eva said. "It's free time."

  Thank goodness. The sanity gods were finally paying attention.

  "Why don't we all meet in the parlor about a half hour before dinner," K.C. said. "We can sit around and chat and get to know each other in this beautiful setting before we go into dinner."

  "Sounds good," Pam said.

  "You guys, where is Sydnee?" Candee asked.

  "I thought she was with you, Audra," Eva said.

  "No, she went with Regan while we were all at the pool."

  "No she didn't," Regan said. "I was going to go upstairs to grab my catalog, but I decided not to."

  At the mention of the catalog, Megan made a growling, almost primal noise deep in her throat.

  "Well, one of us should go find her and tell her she’s about to miss lunch completely," Eva said. "I can't believe none of us thought to do that earlier."

  "I'll go," Regan said. It would probably do her well to get away from everyone for a few minutes, I thought.

  Most everyone dispersed. Some hadn't changed out of their swimwear yet and said they were going to change and some said they would take a nap. Eva asked Alex if she could speak to him for a moment, and as everyone shuffled out, K.C. tapped Pam on the shoulder.

  "Pam, my friend. Could I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  "Now, I'm only asking this out of concern. I had to break up a nasty fight just a few moments ago."

  "Yeah, I heard. I wish I'd seen it. Regan had it coming."

  "Nevertheless," K.C. beamed with pride, although she did make an attempt—albeit unsuccessful—to stifle it, "I only did what had to be done. But, I'm just curious, what in the world would have made Megan scream like she did? She said something about ‘How could you?’ to Regan, and I just wondered what that meant. Do you have any inside info?"

  "Well," she sighed and looked around, "I hate to gossip—"

  "Oh, I know dear, and believe me, this isn't gossip. I just want to prevent more cat fights from happening."

  We sat at a nearby table.

  "Regan is a jewelry designer and she's become kind of a big deal. She can't even tell us who most of her clients are because they are so famous. But it was Megan who first got into designing jewelry. Regan kind of picked it up after Megan. She’s done that their whole lives."

  "Ah, sibling rivalry to the max," K.C. said.

  "That necklace that Regan is wearing is what put her on the map in the design world. The problem is, according to Megan, she stole the design outright. Megan had shown it to her before she was going to submit it to some big company that would have made the jewelry, and then when Megan took her design in the company accused her of stealing it. Regan had taken the same design to the same company. She just beat Megan to the punch."

  "Oh, that’s awful. Downright underhanded and mean. That girl deserves more than a kick in the pants."

  "It's worse because Regan stole Megan's boyfriend, too."

  "How can you just
steal a boyfriend?" I don't think K.C. asked because she didn't know all the many ways that it could be done, I was pretty sure she was just reaching for more gossip.

  "She did all the things a girl does to attract a man…" I noticed Pam's eyes traveling toward my fiancé as she spoke, and then they landed on me. "She slept with him." She said that bit with a note of disgust, and her eyes grew very serious, as they seemed to bore right through me. “And then she slept with him again, and here we are.”

  K.C. continued on, seemingly oblivious to the way Pam had visually dissected me. “Is that the man that Regan was paired with at the wedding?”

  "Dan? Is that his name?” I asked.

  "Yes," Pam said.

  K.C. looked at me with surprise.

  "Well, I've got to go. I told the caterers I would look in on their helpers and see if they needed anything.” Pam got up and left abruptly.

  “You can't remember the name of the girls you spent all day with, but you can remember Regan's boyfriend's name?” K.C. said.

  "Yeah, go figure,” I said. “I heard them arguing about him at the bachelorette party. I guess it left an impression."

  "I guess so. Well, no wonder they’re at each other all the time. If I were Megan I would feel justifiably angry with my sister—and a twin sister at that. I'll have to keep my eye on that Regan."

  I would have to keep my eye on that Pam. I didn't like getting those looks from her, or having her act so possessive of Alex. I hadn't "stolen" him away from her like Regan did to her sister.

  “I think it’s interesting that Regan didn’t act the least bit concerned when Alex said the guys had gotten sick. You’d think she’d be at least somewhat interested that her boyfriend might have had food poisoning and ended up in the hospital,” I said.

  “Maybe that’s why she acted so ornery and snapped at her sister even after I kicked her patootie. Maybe she’s one of those people who don’t show their emotions in the same way as the rest of us.”

  “Maybe so,” I said. “What do you say we take a look around this house now that we have the time?” I laughed casually. "Maybe we'll find Jill while we're at it."