So Then There Were None

by Annie Adams

  K.C. fixed a knowing look on me.

  “Had you been in the study very long before I got there?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered. “We had all arrived not too long before you did. Pam went to do…something. I don’t remember what. Regan and Audra had been messing around in the hallway, laughing. So people were out and about. I’m sure Eva noticed this door being ajar and shut it while she was here. She’s kind of in charge, isn’t she?”

  “I guess.”

  “What we really need to talk about is what happened between you and Alex.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, now don’t try to BS a BSer, chickadee. You’ve been trying to keep a brave face, but I read your cards, you know.”

  “I…why don’t we go outside first. I don’t want to talk in here.” I looked around suspiciously. “Too many possible ears listening in,” I whispered.

  "You've got a point there," she said.

  "So I guess we just open this alarmed door and assume it won't set something off?"

  "It obviously doesn't work. I think they just put those stickers on the door at the manufacturer or something. Let's go! You've got lots to tell me."

  My stomach immediately churned at the thought of the way Alex and I had parted ways. I might feel some relief if I talked about what had happened and, while K.C. wasn’t good at keeping secrets, she was a good listener. And she seemed to have more than one person's lifetime of experience to draw from when giving advice.

  But I was so anxious, so worried about the damage that had been done to my relationship with Alex, I didn't want to say the words out loud. If I said things out loud, I might just prove to myself how I had ruined us.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Somehow the moon wasn’t as pearly, and the stars, while still there, seemed rather dull on this second venture outside. I felt the need to rub my arms up and down, like you do when you’re shivering, but it wasn’t cold.

  K.C. clicked the button on the flashlight, illuminating a small circle-shaped area on the ground. "So, kiddo, the cards told me a lot, but I don't really even need those. Your downturned mouth and your red eyes told me that either you got into a fight with Alex, or you found yourself on the wrong end of a can of pepper spray. Either way, something tells me this was a rough one. What happened?"

  We followed the concrete walkway around to the side of the building.

  "We were having such a great time,” I told her. “It was so beautiful out here. And then we started talking about Kourtnee, and that led to talking about Audra, and that led to Eva. Anyway, now here I am and I have no idea where he is. I have a bad feeling. I think I drove him away.” A lump quickly formed in my throat and my breath hitched as I tried to talk. “I really don't think he would just disappear like this if he wasn't done with me." At that, the flood gates in my eyes opened once again.

  “Hey, now.” She gave me a quick sideways hug and squeezed my arm repeatedly. “Buck up, girl. We all go through those growing pains in a new relationship. You probably think Fred and I get along all the time just hunky-dory for days on end. Of course, we do have such a good time together, but there are those days when I'm ready to send him packing. And I'm sure he feels the same about me at times. That's what real marriage—heck—real life is all about. Getting through the rough patches."

  "Maybe so," I managed to say, my mouth trembling and hardly any air in my lungs.

  "I just wish they would teach about that kind of stuff in those high school classes. I've heard of them carrying around a sack of flour or an egg, or even a fancy doll to learn about the responsibilities of caring for a baby. But they sure don't teach about caring for your partner in those classes. Oh well, I'm just going on. I guess I've got the baby thing on my mind because one of my granddaughters had that class in school not too long ago."

  “Do you think I should go look for him and apologize?”

  "Give him some time to himself. I’m sure he feels just as miserable as you do—oh, look. I think that's my dress." She fixed the beam from the flashlight a few feet ahead of us. The pile that lay in the middle of the sidewalk sparkled and dazzled as K.C. hustled up toward it.

  "I'm so sorry, K.C. It's just not like me to leave your expensive dress just laying around like that.”

  “Hey, don’t sweat it. I’m the one who left it at the beach. I’m just glad to find it.”

  “It’s not okay. I just got really scared when I heard something in the bushes up there.”

  As if on cue, the same rustling of the bushes happened that had spooked me in the first place.

  “Whoa. What the heck was that?” K.C. didn’t hesitate for a second. She charged over to the bushes and ducked in behind them, next to the house.

  “Holy cats!” she shouted.

  I followed with trepidation. As I got closer, a moaning sound grew louder.

  “What is it?” I asked. I climbed behind the large Pfitzer bush, having to slide my back against the building to avoid getting scratched by the foliage. I squeezed in next to K.C. who held the flashlight so that it illuminated Kourtnee’s face.

  Kourtnee moaned and slowly blinked her eyes. It looked like she was trying to fall asleep. She mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Kourtnee!” both of us shouted at her. I didn’t dare shake her because I had no idea how she’d gotten into the bushes and didn’t know if she was injured.

  She finally came around—barely. “Wh…at are you guys doing here?”

  “What are you talking about, girl? What are you doing here?” K.C. asked.

  “This is my tent. There’s no room for you in here. Go away,” Kourtnee slurred.

  K.C. swung her flashlight into my face. “Wh…what the…Did you hear that?”

  I covered my hand over hers to push the light out of my eyes.

  “Kourtnee, come on, wake up.” I gently flicked her cheek bone with my middle finger.

  “Heyyyy,” Kourtnee moved her hand to her face. “Why did you do that?” she said with the drawl of someone still in the fog of deep sleep.

  “Kourtnee dear, you are not in your tent,” K.C. said sternly, but also gently as if speaking to a grandchild. “You are in the middle of a bush.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I decided Kourtnee couldn’t be too seriously injured, after she flailed her arms and legs around and kicked me in the gut, knocking the air out of me.

  Finally, she woke out of her stupor enough to agree to come out of her “tent.” After much coaxing and heavy lifting, Kourtnee was out of the bushes and on the ground.

  “We need to get her inside,” K.C. said. “If she stays out here, who knows what she’ll fall into. The lake isn’t that far away.”

  I agreed and braced myself, having a strong hunch that Kourtnee’s legs weren’t going to hold her weight enough to make it to the front of the lodge, despite being able to kick like a Clydesdale.

  My hunch proved to be correct. K.C. and I stood on either side of Kourtnee with one of her arms around each of our shoulders. We struggled, inch by inch, to move her dead weight all the way around to the front of the lodge.

  “What in the world kind of cuckoo-grass did this girl smoke?” K.C. wondered out loud, between heavy pants of breath.

  “I don’t know, ungh,” I grunted as Kourtnee looked at me and laughed, and leaned her weight over to my side. “I’m gonna have to take a break before we try to get her up the front steps.”

  “How do you suppose she got into those bushes?” K.C. asked. “Oh, come on, Kourtnee, help us out here.” Kourtnee had dug her feet into the ground and stopped our forward progress. “I could use a breather myself. I’m too damned old for this.”

  We scrambled to the foot of the steps at the main entrance of the house. Once we sat Kourtnee down, we sat down ourselves. Kourtnee flopped her arms onto me and leaned her head on my shoulder. “I love you, man,” she probably thought she whispered, into my ear. The accompanying spittle was a surprising and disgusting bonus.

&
nbsp; “I know this is going to sound crazy, but hear me out,” K.C. said. The light cast from underneath the portico was strong enough at the foot of the steps that I could see her face. She leaned forward to check on Kourtnee, who had begun to snore as she lay against me.

  “I worry about her overhearing,” K.C. said cautiously. “The power of suggestion, you know.”

  “What suggestion?”

  “I think she fell,” K.C. whispered and pointed up to the sky.

  “What, like an angel from heaven?” I said on a laugh.

  “No, I’m serious. The way she was entangled in that shrub, I don’t think it would look like that if she just fell in sideways from a standing position. Or even if she leapt on to it. That bush is really large, and she was on top of it—and kind of—within it.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes, but I used restraint even though she probably wouldn’t have been able to see it anyway. “How would she not be dead?”

  “She fell into the right kind of bush. Any of these other dogwoods or boxwoods and she’d be a goner. She’s just darn lucky she didn’t fall off of this front side.”

  We were very familiar with this part of the landscaping after our previous search for the “smoking gun,” also known as the bloody rock.

  “How do you even get on the roof from here? You would have to have a ladder, and I don’t see one anywhere. And besides, Alex and I saw her sitting down on the rocks near where they found Sydnee’s body.”

  “Well she’s over here now, isn’t she?”

  “So…?”

  “Did you see her before or after the two of you did the dirty on the lawn?”

  I sucked in my breath. “K.C.!”

  “You thought I wasn’t paying attention, didn’t you? I caught that juicy little detail. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, dear. It’s kind of inspiring, really. A rollick and tumble on the lawn at the water’s edge.”

  “First of all, eww. And we didn’t do…that. We just made out. And anyway, that’s not the point. What is the point? I forgot what you asked.”

  “When did you see Smoky the Bandit, here? Before or after—you know,” she said suggestively.

  I sighed and decided it best just to move the conversation along. “We saw her before.”

  “Well, unless you two are doing it wrong, she should have had plenty of time to get over here and on to that roof.”

  “We didn’t do—oh, forget it.”

  “Now, we just need to figure out how to get on the roof…”

  Kourtnee stirred and mumbled quietly on my shoulder.

  “She’s getting heavy, it’s time to wake her up and get moving.”

  “What was she doing when you saw her?”

  I thought back to the happier portion of my walk with Alex. “Um…she said she didn’t go skinny dipping at the pool because she had other plans.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yep.”

  “He pushed me,” Kourtnee said in a distant, sad voice.

  “What?” I looked down at her head on my shoulder and it seemed like she was still asleep.

  “What did she say?” K.C. asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders just enough to rouse her. “Who pushed you?”

  “He pushed me,” Kourtnee said again, in a whiny, cry-baby whisper.

  “Well, I’ll be double-dipped,” K.C. said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  We couldn’t get anything else out of Kourtnee. Whatever she was on had her behaving incredibly sleepy, yet I wasn’t letting my guard down, I knew she could kick out at any minute.

  It turned out the front door was unlocked. Instead of dragging Kourtnee up the steps ourselves, I had gone inside to find help. The first person I saw was Pam. She was coming up the hallway from the direction of the kitchen.

  Of course, when I saw her, I figured she wouldn’t be a ton of help, given her small stature. But she amazed both me and K.C. when she put one of Kourtnee’s knees over each of her shoulders and hefted Kourtnee’s limp lower body up the stairs with us. It made it possible to get her up the grand staircase and down the halls and all the way into Jill’s bed.

  "We should stay here with her and make sure she keeps breathing," I said.

  "That shouldn't be a problem, I'm staying in the adjoining room,” K.C. said. “I'll get ready for bed if you'll stay here with her for that long, and then I'll come in and watch her for a while."

  "Do you need me to stay?" Pam asked. "I'd be more than happy to."

  "Only if you'd like," K.C. said. "But if you had other plans, I'm just fine on my own."

  A massive yawn overtook me. "What time is it?"

  "I'm not sure, but it's got to be after midnight, I would guess," K.C. said.

  "You should go to bed, Quincy. You look tired," Pam said in her annoying, stating the obvious, kind of way. "I'll stay here while K.C. gets ready for bed, and then she and I can keep each other company. That way you can go to bed with Alex. Isn't he already in your room?"

  Did she know something I didn’t? Whatever the answer, I wouldn’t be giving her the satisfaction of indicating I wasn’t sure. "Yeah, I’ll go and join him if you don't mind, K.C." I glanced at her and she winked at me before Pam turned to stare at her.

  The next problem was that I was going to have to go and find Eva unless...I hoped more than anything I had ever hoped for, that Alex had returned to our room. I rushed down the hall, turned the corner and went down the next. My heart pounded, mostly from the anticipation, and probably somewhat from lack of sleep and fatigue. I would usually have been asleep for two or three hours by now.

  I stood in front of the door to our room, and reached out to knock, but stopped myself. I didn't know if I could bear the results if I knocked and Alex didn't answer.

  I took a deep breath and poised my wrist and my knuckles.

  A frantic scream pierced the quiet in the halls.

  I ran toward the sound and found Megan in her sister's room.

  "Megan, what is it?"

  "It's Regan...she's...I think she could be dead.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Regan’s room could have been used as the set of a disaster movie. The sheets and comforter had been peeled from the bed and lay strewn to the side. Clothes hung off open drawers and dotted the floor in piles. Who packs that much stuff for a weekend stay? Apparently, Regan did.

  "What’s happened, Megan?" I asked.

  The color had drained from her face. Her eyes, red-rimmed, blinked away tears. "I found a bee," she said in a quiet voice.

  "What is it? What's wrong?" K.C. asked as she charged into the room, out of breath and clutching the front panels of her bathrobe to keep them closed.

  "It's Regan, she's not here and I found a bee." Megan’s words came faster and louder now.

  "Slow down there, cowgirl. Take us from the beginning," K.C. said.

  Megan closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. "I got a feeling I should check on her. I don't know why, it just came to me. When I got here, the door was already open. She had it propped just like it is now."

  I glanced toward the door just as Pam walked in.

  "Okay," K.C. said, "and then what?"

  "She was looking for her EpiPen. She said she'd seen a bee in the room."

  "Is she allergic to them?" Pam asked.

  K.C. whipped around to see who the new voice belonged to.

  "Yes," Megan said, with uncharacteristic harshness. "Everyone who knows her knows that. She freaks out anytime she sees one."

  "So, did she find the peppy pen?" K.C. asked.

  Megan didn’t flinch at the K.C.ism. "No. We looked through all of her stuff but we couldn't find it."

  That explained the state of the room.

  "So then what happened?" K.C. asked Megan.

  "I asked her if she had been stung, and she said no. So I wasn't too worried, but I told her I would go get the EpiPen from the bag in my room."

  "Are you allergic too?" Pam asked.

  "No, but I carry a
n extra one for her. She's so allergic, she'll stop breathing right away if she gets stung. I've always carried an extra for her."

  "But if you're identical twins, why aren't you allergic?" Pam persisted in asking.

  "I—"

  K.C. interrupted. "Let's stick to Regan for right now. So, Megan, you got your EpiPen and then came back here?"

  "Yes, and she was gone."

  "That fast?" I said.

  "Yes!" Megan said.

  "Honey, it sounds like she's the next victim in the mystery game," K.C. said.

  "Megan, when I came into the room, you said you thought she was dead. Why did you say that?" I asked.

  "I didn't think about the mystery. At first, I just thought she'd run into the bathroom or something. But I looked everywhere. I looked back into the hallway, but she couldn't have disappeared that quickly, I'm right across the hall, and I knew right where to find her extra pen. I even looked for her under the bed and in the closet."

  "Why did that make you say she was dead?" Pam asked.

  What a strange way to ask that question. Pam's tone wasn't sympathetic at all. In fact, it seemed fairly aggressive, almost accusatory.

  "I found this."

  She stood in front of the dresser and on top of it was a box.

  "That's her necklace box," Pam said.

  It was a black box with a velvety interior, imprinted in exactly the same shape as Regan's infamous necklace.

  "I don't understand, dear," K.C. said. "Why would that box lead you to think your sister died? Is it because her necklace isn't there?"

  "No, look." Megan lifted the box off of the dresser and moved it closer to the three of us. "See that?"

  She pointed to a tiny, crumpled up, yellow ball.

  "It's a bee," Pam said.

  "Yes." Megan said pointedly.

  "Ah, and it's dead…now I see," K.C. said.

  "What do you see?" Pam asked.

  "A honey bee loses its stinger when it stings someone, and then it dies. Since this one is dead, it might mean that it stung...someone," K.C. explained.