So Then There Were None

by Annie Adams

  “Sure. Let's grab Alex and go on an adventure.” We made our way back to the front of the room as everyone passed us going the opposite direction.

  Alex was still speaking with Eva, so we waited out of earshot near the buffet table.

  “I might as well have another breadstick and keep it from going to waste,” K.C. said. “Want one?”

  “Sure,” I said. Who doesn’t need more bread in their life?

  “Well, I’ll be snookered.” She bent down, looking closely at something on the table.

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  “It’s one of those little charms for the bridesmaids.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “It’s a little martini glass with an olive. I think its Jill’s.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  K.C.’s eyes flashed as she inhaled sharply. "This is a clue."

  "Don’t you think someone just dropped it?" I asked.

  "I don't know. It's right here in front of this bowl. She must have dropped it last night, during the reception."

  "You’d think someone would have found it before now," I said. Everyone who had gone by the buffet table the night before would have passed right next to it. “It seems obvious now, but it’s very small, and the lights were turned down last night."

  "The lights sure aren't dimmed today. I can see every wrinkle and dimple on this old hide," she said while looking up at the chandeliers, then down at her arms.

  "If this is a clue, what do you think it’s telling us?"

  "It seems that Jill truly is the one who was supposed to disappear first. Maybe. Let's go ask Alex. Hopefully he and Eva are gonna wrap it up soon." She spiraled her finger in the air as she spoke.

  Good to know I wasn't the only one growing impatient while my fiancé chatted away with one of my fellow bridesmaids.

  We busied ourselves walking around and examining some of the flower arrangements in more detail now that the lights were up.

  "I really want to go exploring, but we've got to have time to dress for dinner," K.C. said.

  I made a not-so-involuntary groan. It’s not as if I wanted to wear my pajamas to dinner, but comfortable clothes were what I had in mind. Especially after the long hours in a form-fitting dress and heels the night before. Not to mention all the strange things that happened that all seemed to be related to those formal clothes and the wedding itself—the cigarette burn, the accidental wine stain and the weird voice I heard after I’d gotten my hair done. And oh yeah, the almost male dancer show at the bachelorette party starring Alex.

  "Oh, c'mon now. There's no room for wet blankets here. Take advantage of the setting. You're out on a weekend getaway with your guy. Live it up a little," K.C. said.

  "I originally thought I was here with Alex, but every time I turn around, it seems he’s occupied with someone else."

  We both looked over at my fiancé and Eva, who wasn’t just a bridesmaid, but one of the co-maids of honor. Alex smiled at her as he spoke, flexing his killer dimples. And then he said something that elicited a rosy glow from her cheeks. Was it something funny or charming or…I reminded myself to calm down. Maybe she just had the same auto-blush-on-overdrive problem that I had.

  "I'm tired of waiting, let's go get him," K.C. said. She marched over to where Alex and Eva stood and I followed behind, happy to let her take charge. That way it wasn't just me looking like the jealous girlfriend.

  "Hey, you two," K.C. said. "I’m sorry to insert myself into your conversation—but the boss and me wanted to go exploring. Alex, you wanna tag along?"

  Alex and Eva exchanged hesitant glances, as if we had interrupted something important.

  "There's a little problem with—I mean—not a problem—Alex…?”

  “Eva needs to show me something,” Alex said abruptly. He wore his serious cop expression that I’d only seen on rare occasions. One that said don’t ask for details. Every time I’d seen it before, it had been for his job. This wasn’t work related, but I knew to leave it alone. It wasn’t my business.

  "Okee dokee, we'll go out on our own then," K.C. said. She gave me a shove toward the door and we left.

  "Was he acting funny?" I said.

  "They both were. But we don't have time to worry about it. Let's get a move on. Where to first?"

  "Do you think there's a basement?" I said.

  K.C. looked at me, bewildered, but then shrugged. "I don't know, but we're exploring, so let's just go and find out.” She walked a few steps then stopped and turned back. “But if you don’t mind my asking, why the basement?"

  “I just had this weird idea. I’m wondering how Jill left the lodge without anyone noticing. I mean, maybe she could have just slipped out, but it seems like people were everywhere at that time of the day. So an image of our shop popped into my mind. There’s a door in our basement leading outside, but the exit is in a completely different place than you would ever expect.”

  “Interesting theory,” she said. “You know what we should do is go up to Jill’s room and go down that other staircase—see where it leads.”

  I nodded in agreement and we went. We climbed up the stairs of the grand staircase in the large main foyer of the lodge, and then went down the hallway where Jill and Kourtnee’s rooms were located. Then we went down the stairs that seemed to be tucked into the corner and hidden from view.

  We found a sort of closet door on the back side of the lodge, just around the corner from the hallway we would go down to find the kitchen.

  "I should have expected to find the stairwell in the broom closet," K.C. said sarcastically.

  "Now that I think about it, it's unlikely a building built in the middle of a lake would have a basement," I said. "It seems the water-table would be too high."

  "Well, this is a large island. I guess they wouldn't have dug it if they shouldn't."

  "I'm sure you're right," I said, just as I came to the bottom step. "We just need to find some light down here. Can you find a switch anywhere?" I groped along the wall around the corner. Nothing. I shuffled to my left, swinging my arm out in a wide swath in front of me, hoping to feel a pull-chain.

  "Oh, maybe this is it," K.C. said from behind my left shoulder.

  "Ow!" I’d bumped my forehead on a low hanging beam just as the lights came on.

  "What was that noise? Oh, Boss. Are you alright?"

  I couldn't reply for a few moments. I had to wait for that special rage you only get after hitting your head, to dissipate before I could talk.

  "I guess the basement isn't very deep," I said after my powers of speech returned.

  "Would you look at all of this stuff," K.C. said. “It’s like we’re Ali Baba and we’ve found the cave full of treasure. I just hope there aren’t forty thieves to worry about.”

  She went into a partitioned area where I couldn’t see her.

  "Ooh, come look over here. It's a spinning wheel, and a butter churn. Oh, and this pie safe. Have you ever seen such a beautiful thing?"

  "What's a pie safe?"

  "It's a piece of furniture, like a cabinet or book case, but you can see the doors have these tin fronts with pin pricks in them. And I bet…" she slid between the safe and a stack of banquet chairs, "yep, it's got a cut-out on the back, and on the side here too, with the same holes for ventilation. My grandmother had one of these—her mother brought it across the plains when they settled here. My aunt Margene inherited it and now I have no idea where it's got to."

  "It's beautiful. I wonder why they have all these antiques down here and not on display upstairs."

  K.C. looked at me, her face alight with curiosity. "What do you think is inside of it? Probably not any pies." She did a full face wink and then reached for the latch that folded over the knobs to keep the doors shut. At the same moment, I shivered and rubbed my arms.

  "It's cold in here," I said under my breath.

  "Well it is a basement," she said over her shoulder. She pulled on the knob of one of the doors, but it didn't open
immediately. "It's stuck."

  Of course, something like that would never stop K.C. She set her jaw and pushed against the cabinet with one hand and yanked on the door with the other.

  "Get out."

  I grabbed K.C. She looked up at me, her eyes huge and her mouth open like she was about to scream.

  Neither of us said anything. I turned and ran with K.C. pushing at my back. I looked back to make sure she was still following just as the back of my head met up with the other side of the beam, but I was too scared to pay attention to how much it hurt.

  We ran up the stairs, into the hall, and out the back door where we had delivered the flowers the day before.

  After a few moments where I crouched down and held my aching head, I said through gulps of breath, "That just happened, right?"

  K.C. was bent over, hands on her knees. She held up her index finger as she breathed in and out in hard, rapid, bursts.

  "What...was...it?" she finally managed to say.

  "The voice," I said, relieved than someone else knew about the voice I'd been hearing almost since we'd arrived.

  "Well I don't know about a voice, but you scared the bejeebers out of me." She stood up and looked around. "They sure could do with a taco truck out here or one of those concessions trailers they have at the ballpark. I'm thirsty as a jackrabbit in a windstorm."

  "Wait, you didn't hear it?"

  "I didn't hear anything. You grabbed me and I assumed you saw something creepy-crawly, so I burned rubber and got out of there. Sorry about your noggin,' by the way. I heard that crack like a thunder bolt.”

  "There was a voice telling us to leave. I've heard it more than once since we've been here."

  "Get outta town," she yelled, more than said. "Just because I didn't hear it, doesn't mean I don't believe it. I'm telling you, this place is haunted."

  "Do you think it could be some kind of trick?"

  "No way. I saw those newspaper clippings—the real story—not what you and Alex saw later on. I thought they were trying to tell us their story so we would tell the world. But now they're telling us to get out. These ghosts need to get their stories straight."

  "I wonder if...never mind, it sounds so stupid," I said.

  "It's okay, spill it. I won't judge. I'm open to all ideas in this big old world of ours. Who is to say what is and what isn't? Not me."

  I took a deep breath. This was going to sound crazy, but the thought had popped into my head after the second time I heard the voice. “Do you think...?”

  “Out with it, girlie.”

  “When we first got here and Alex had been hit on the head with part of the statue—do you think it could have been—”

  “A SNaP?” she said, her eyes sparkling with barely contained excitement.

  “A what?”

  “Supernatural phenomenon,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s possible, sure. But I’m not getting an object throwing vibe from these ghosts.”

  “You’re getting specific vibes?”

  “Of course. This isn’t my first haunted house. I was a member of P.I.S. before we moved up here.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought you said—”

  “That’s how everyone reacts at first, that’s why I don’t usually bring it up. People have such vulgar minds.”

  I gave her a look.

  She made a sharp, stabbing sigh. “It stands for Paranormal Investigators Society. Perhaps they could have thought through the name a little more before they kept it. Anyway, I think these are friendly spirits.”

  I felt really silly having a conversation about ghosts as if they were a real thing, especially with an ability to cause actual physical harm. Maybe I was making up the voices. I’d been so stressed lately, with work and pressure from Alex’s family and mine. Maybe my subconscious had been creating the voices to protect me from getting upset. After all, this weekend certainly hadn’t turned out how I had thought it would.

  “Maybe it wasn’t ghosts. Maybe it was a person who dropped the piece of the statue on Alex.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” K.C. asked me.

  “I don’t know for sure. I have a couple of ideas, though.”

  “Hey, no one ever showed us the chunk of whatever hit him. Did you see it?”

  “No, I didn’t really think of that, I was just worried about him,” I said.

  “Of course you were, dear. I’m just wondering if it might still be out in front. Why don’t we go take a look while you tell me about your list of suspects.”

  “There’s not really a list…”

  K.C. grimaced as she looked toward the path we would take. “It’s a long way around to the front of the building and I’m worn out from running up those stairs.”

  “We can go back inside,” I said.

  “Or…we can drive.” She pointed as she walked toward the parking area for the golf carts we’d seen the staff using to transport things between the dock and the building. She sat down in one of the two carts. “Should we see if we can start her up?”

  Was there really any question as to whether or not she would give it a try?

  “I wonder where the other golf cart is,” K.C. shouted over the whir of the motor of the cart as she drove. I held on tight to the bar attached to the dash board with one hand, and to the frame supporting the roof with the other.

  I don’t know what the top speed for a golf cart is, but I’m sure we hit it. We drove on the sidewalk encircling the building and it only took a few seconds to arrive at the steps leading to the front door.

  “Now look up,” K.C. said. “Can you see a missing toe on one of these gargoyles?”

  I craned my neck and squinted to try and see anything. The sun was in the worst spot. “I can’t see anything, the sun’s right there.”

  “Maybe we should look on the ground, underneath each statue.”

  There were six gargoyles evenly spaced across the top of the lodge. We went in opposite directions and started at the corners of the building, working our way to the center.

  The concrete of the walk extended all the way to the front of the building, joining up with the foundation. Squares were cut out of the concrete at the same interval as each gargoyle, with juniper bushes planted within each square. Anything that wasn’t concrete or juniper would have stood out. I walked carefully, looking all around the area, but didn’t find anything.

  “Eureka!” K.C. called out.

  She held something up in the air. I rushed over to take a look.

  “That doesn’t look like a gargoyle claw or toe,” I said.

  “I don’t think it’s even the same material as those gargoyles. It’s a different color.”

  She turned the object over.

  “Is that blood?” I asked.

  “I think so.” She walked over to the golf cart.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I think I know where this came from. Get in.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  We parked near the beach where Alex and I had walked earlier and immediately heard shouting. Chad stood across the beach at the main boat dock. He was facing the lake.

  “Is he yelling at the water?” K.C. asked.

  “No, step over here and you can see.”

  From my angle, a boat was in view, headed toward the mainland.

  “Is that…oh, it’s those girls that are working here at the house.”

  “We should go see if something’s wrong,” I said.

  “Okay, but just let me look at something…aha! See down there in that rocky area, next to where the woods start? I think that’s where our bloody rock came from.”

  “It’s definitely not a piece of statue,” I said.

  “Those ghosts are serious. Flinging rocks all the way from the waterfront to the front of the house.”

  I laughed as I walked back to the cart.

  “What?”

  “The ghost has quite an arm, and x-ray vision. The rock would have had to arch over the top of the lodge and land on Alex whil
e he stood directly under the gargoyle. Otherwise, people wouldn’t have blamed it on the falling statue.”

  “Ghosts can do things we can’t. Plus, they can travel through time and space. But I don’t think it was them, simply for the fact that Alex is a nice guy. Why would they pick on him out of all those people?”

  I thought I’d play along with her delusion. “Maybe they missed the person they were really aiming for and hit Alex by mistake.”

  “Ghosts wouldn’t miss. They would know exactly where it would land. No, this time, I think it was a person who threw it.”

  I realized how out of touch with reality this discussion had become, but I tried very hard to resist expressing that to K.C. It seemed more times than not, I was always the killjoy to her fantastical ideas. “Maybe it was Pam.”

  “Why would she hurt Alex? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Unless…she’s got that disorder where people do things to make their loved ones sick, so that the loved ones need the person who is hurting them to take care of them. It’s all a vicious cycle. Pam threw the rock when no one was looking and then rushed to take care of him.”

  “You’re making fun of me right now, aren’t you?”

  “Who, me?” I said in mock innocence.

  “You might not be too far off, actually. We should ask Alex where everyone was as they returned from the hike.”

  We drove up near the back entrance of the main building just as Chad was coming up from the dock. His face was red and he looked upset.

  “Hey there, big guy,” K.C. said. “What’s all the hubbub?”

  Chad looked at K.C. as if he couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked, translating.

  “Ashlyn and Brecklyn just left.”

  “Are they picking up more supplies?” K.C. asked.

  “No, they like, left, left.”

  “You mean—they’re not coming back,” I said.

  He threw his hands in the air. “Probably not. Ashlyn is mad at me.”

  We waited a couple of beats for him to say something more but he didn’t.