So Then There Were None

by Annie Adams

  “I hate to say it like this,” I said carefully, “but, since your sister knows she’s allergic to bees, it doesn’t seem to make sense that she would leave without her…wait a minute.”

  “What, what are you thinking, Boss?”

  “Regan wouldn’t go off without telling you, if she knew you were looking for her life-saving medicine.”

  “Maybe she went somewhere else to look for her Epipen,” Pam said. “I mean the one that she couldn’t find in here.” She pointed toward the drawers, in their disarray.

  “She wouldn’t just leave without telling me,” Megan said.

  K.C pointed at me. “Unless…she saw another bee, and ran out of the room to get away from it. In that case, she might have just gotten the heck out of Dodge. I know if I’d seen one killer, and then another one showed up, I would blow this Popsicle stand in less than a second.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Megan said.

  “It will be okay, Megan. You know what I really think?” Pam said. “I think she was the next victim in the mystery game.”

  “But how did she leave?” Megan asked. “Where did she go? I would have seen her going down the hall, at least I think I would.”

  “How have any of the victims gotten the word that it was their turn next?” I wondered out loud.

  “I don’t know,” Megan said, weariness evident in her voice.

  “I think we all need some sleep,” K.C. said. “Megan, I’m sorry to say it, but I do think Regan is the next victim in the game. Maybe after a little bit of rest, we’ll all be able to think more clearly and figure everything out.”

  “You’re probably right,” Megan said. “Thanks for your help, you guys. I think I’ll go to bed. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep, but I’ll try.”

  “Tell you what,” K.C. said. “You try to get some sleep, and we’ll meet up in the morning to wrangle up some breakfast, and talk through everything. Okay?”

  “Okay, that sounds good. Thanks.”

  We arranged a time and place, and waited until Megan went into her room and closed the door.

  “Uh—Pam, dear,” K.C. said quietly. “Who is with Kourtnee?”

  A wide-eyed, blank stare occupied Pam’s face. They both looked at each other for a frozen moment, then K.C. charged down the hall toward her room.

  “I’m sorry, K.C., I thought you were still in the bathroom when I left,” Pam said.

  “I had just gotten out, but it’s not your fault. I just came a runnin’ when I heard Megan scream. I didn’t think to let you know what I was doing.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be just f—” Pam stopped talking as K.C. turned and held her hand out.

  “You do have a key, don’t you?” K.C. said.

  “No,” Pam said. “It’s not my room.”

  K.C. reaffirmed the closure on the front of her robe and said, “Well, I don’t have any pockets in here. I didn’t think to pick up the key, I just—ran. What a mess.” She pounded on the door. “Kourtnee!” she yelled, and then Pam joined in.

  After a few seconds of knocking and shouting for Kourtnee, it was obvious she wasn’t going to answer the door.

  “What should we do?” K.C. asked.

  “Eva has a master key to all the rooms,” Pam said, her voice coated with a thin layer of jealousy, just like the film that develops over a pot of pudding, bubbling on the stove.

  “Okay,” K.C. said. “Since this was my fault, I will go track down Eva. Quincy, you come with me and you can ask her about…”

  I threw a look in K.C.’s direction, which she happened to notice.

  “About the thing, you wanted to ask her about.”

  Pam looked up at me with an interested sparkle in, her eye.

  “Pam, you stay here and see if you can get Kourtnee to let you in. We’ll come back as soon as we can.”

  “What do you need to ask about, Quincy?” Pam asked.

  “There’s no time,” K.C. said. “I’ve got to get back into that room in a jiffy. I’m going to be doing the hot coal dance if I can’t use the bathroom soon, if you catch my drift.”

  Pam looked at K.C., bewildered.

  “She has to go potty,” I whispered.

  When I turned, K.C. was already five steps ahead of me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  "What do you think really happened to Regan?" I asked K.C., as we hurried down the hall.

  "I think she's the next victim in what’s turning out to be an actual murder mystery game."

  "But her bee allergy," I said. "I don't think Megan is lying about that, do you?"

  "I think there is no way, that if Regan were stung by a bee, she would've gone anywhere."

  "Okay, let's say she wasn't stung. Where did she go? Megan said she didn't see her in the hallway when she came out to look for her," I said.

  We arrived at Eva's room, and K.C. whispered, "If she wasn't really stung, she could have left real quick—either run down the hall or hid in another room. Don't forget, someone in this place is in charge of the game. And, whoever it is, must have given Regan her marching orders."

  The sound of a turning deadbolt stopped our conversation.

  "Hi, guys." The voice that came from behind the door was familiar, but strange at the same time. The face that appeared wasn’t familiar at all—it was covered in green mud.

  K.C. let out an “Oh!” and leaned away. After a slight hesitation, she got back to it. "We're in a bit of a pickle. Hoping you can help us out with something."

  "Sure," Eva said without moving her lips. “Sorry,” she pointed at her face, “this mud is really tight.” Only it sounded like, sigh, dis mud ree chite. “What’s wrong?” Eva asked us.

  I understood well enough. "It's nothing serious," I said.

  K.C. made a show of drawing the flaps of her robe together. "It's just that I’m locked outside of my room. I was wondering if you might have a master key?"

  It looked as if Eva was going to say no. Her head was already starting to shake that way, but then I looked at her with one of my mother’s patented interrogation specials. The kind of look that could elicit any confession, as it did on many occasions during my childhood. They should really hire my mother to work for the CIA.

  Eva’s green expression became a lot more cooperative and her head shake turned into a nod. It’s funny how a person’s eyes can say so much about what they’re thinking. “I do. I'm not supposed to let people know, but in these circumstances I think it will be okay. Hang on, just a second, I'll get it for you." At least, that’s what I interpreted, what with the mud mask and all. She may have just rattled off her grocery list, but she disappeared behind the door without slamming it in our faces.

  "She darn well better have a room key after all that nonsense with her coming into your room. Can you believe she hesitated at all?" K.C. said.

  Eva returned quickly and handed the key to K.C.

  "We'll bring that right back to you. We're ever so grateful you've got this master key. It sure has come in handy," K.C. said to her. "You enjoy the rest of this evening. Actually, I guess it's more like this morning probably, isn't it?" K.C. and I quickly made our way back to K.C.'s room.

  "She's the one. She's got to be," I said.

  "You mean the murderer? I don't know if you're interested in an alternate theory…"

  I lifted my eyebrows. I still hadn’t mastered the dramatic, one eyebrow lift. "Sure, I'm open to any theory you have. I want to win the money and get out of here."

  "Well, I think we have a suspect, she just presented herself to us."

  "You mean Eva? I thought you said somebody new."

  "No, think about it. Who told us the entire story, just now about Regan?"

  I stared at her for a moment. "Oh. Megan."

  "Now you’re on the trolley."

  "Nice, sweet Megan?"

  "Were there any other corroborating witnesses to her story?"

  "Well…no."

  “Do you think someone with allergies, like Regan
, would misplace their life saving—nay—life-dependent medication?”

  Nay? I rolled my eyes, but she was too entrenched in her speech to notice. “Especially in a small hotel room? I don't think so. I think maybe Megan could be the one pulling the strings."

  "You could be right. On one hand, that's really exciting, but on the other, it's depressing," I said.

  "Why?"

  "Because it takes us back, almost to square one. Now I really don't know who the culprit is. I thought it was Eva for sure. And I don't know how it works, but I thought that once I figured it out, I would announce it in front of everyone, present my case, and that—I guess the murderer would have to fess up. Then a boat would magically appear.

  “K.C., I need to get off this island by the end of this day. No. I will be off of this island by the end of the day."

  “I understand, kid. By the way, did you happen to notice that the bee still had a stinger?"

  "No," I said. "I didn't even think to look. Didn’t you say something about the stinger being gone when we were in the room?"

  “All part of the show,” she said.

  Pam stood outside the room, arms folded, toe tapping, making sure it was known that she was unhappy about having to wait.

  K.C. rushed to the door, slid the key in, and opened it. "Kourtnee!"

  I followed K.C. into the room, across the bathroom and into Jill's former room. Kourtnee wasn't there.

  "Check in the closet, and under the beds, and in the bathroom," K.C. said.

  "She's not here," Pam said.

  "Of course not." K.C. went back to her room, her voice trailing as she said, "Let me put some clothes on, and then we have to go outside and look for her."

  "I'll stay here," Pam said. "Just in case she comes back."

  K.C. and I went downstairs, looking for traces of Kourtnee along the way. We ended up in the big foyer, at the foot of the grand staircase.

  "I think we should go back to where we found Kourtnee," K.C. said.

  "Do we need a flashlight?" I asked.

  "Why didn't I think of that?"

  "I think I saw some in the kitchen when I was in there with Alex," I said. "I'll just get them, if you wait here."

  "Oh, my good hell!" K.C. held a key card. "We forgot this too."

  "She'll have to wait to get her master key back,” I said as I set out to the kitchen. “It'll keep her out of my bedroom."

  "Good one, Boss."

  Once at the kitchen, I flipped on the light, and opened the drawer where I had seen the flashlights in an earlier search for utensils. I thought to test the emergency door, just for fun, and found it ajar. Interesting.

  K.C. waited for me near the front doors. At this point, it had to be around two or three in the morning. The tired burrowed around my eyes and into my joints.

  I’m not good without sleep, logical thought checks out of my brain hotel after midnight. But here I was, wandering around a strange place in the wee hours of the morning, looking for a stranger who had gotten high, and put herself in danger. Why was I here again? Right, the wedding for Alex’s friends. I hoped my attempts to solve the mystery and to find Kourtnee would soften Alex’s anger with me.

  We reached the area outside the building where we’d found Kourtnee in the bushes. "What is this?" K.C. said. She wiggled the center of her flashlight beam just underneath the bushes, where something metal reflected the light.

  I bent down to pick up the object. "It's a charm."

  "Look at that, it's a little pair of hiking boots."

  I couldn’t remember who had pulled the hiking boots out of the cake, but it seemed to me that if anyone were to get hiking boots as a symbol of what they were like or what they did for work, it would be Kourtnee.

  "Do you think that's Kourtnee's?" K.C. asked.

  "That's what I’m thinking. Why would she have it…do you think she carried it around with her?"

  "Beats me. You never know. Look over there." We both slid behind the bushes against the wall of the lodge, trying to avoid being scratched by the branches, to reach whatever it was K.C. had found with the flashlight.

  “It’s the poster with the poem on it,” K.C. said.

  "What's that doing back here?"

  "Well, if we could find out what Kourtnee was doing, that would help us figure things out toot sweet.”

  “You mean, tout de suite?” I asked.

  “No, toot sweet. It means immediately. It’s French.”

  “Oh.” Good thing it was dark, she couldn’t see me smiling.

  “Anyways, like I was saying, if she was carrying this, it changes everything."

  “How does it change things?”

  “If she’s the one who removed it, she could be the murderer.”

  “How do you figure that?” I asked.

  “Because the people who said they were playing the game agreed not to move any clues. That poster was the biggest clue of all, and it must have been placed by the murderer. Maybe Kourtnee’s the one who placed it and the one who removed it.”

  “Didn’t you find some evidence and then move it, right after we had said we wouldn’t?”

  “Well…that’s different. My motives were pure.”

  “I know they were. I just wonder how it would benefit Kourtnee to move that poem, especially if she wasn’t playing.”

  “You’re right, she probably isn’t the murderer. She’s probably been playing the game the whole time—and cheating. Maybe the person who pushed her off of the roof was the murderer—but for real.”

  A long silence passed between us. I wasn’t finished working out her logic, and I didn’t think either of us wanted to face the fact that if someone really had pushed Kourtnee off of the roof, they weren’t playing games.

  "We’re going to have to keep looking for her," K.C. said.

  We called her name as we walked down to the beach which brought back all too recent memories. All the emotions welled up inside again, and then, I stuffed them all down again. I was getting good at stuffing. Actually, I was already pretty good at stuffing, thanks to my bra size in junior high school, but that was a different kind of stuffing.

  We went over to the rocks where Alex and I had seen Kourtnee sitting, and a picture flashed in my mind. When we saw her, she had shifted and adjusted something behind her back. Maybe she’d been sitting there, ready to meet someone and for some reason she had that poem with her and didn't want me or Alex to see it.

  I didn't know how to piece it together, but Kourtnee had to be involved with the murder, whether she said so or not. If she wasn't playing the game to win, maybe she was playing a part in its production.

  "I just don't think she's out here," K.C. said.

  "I suppose we could try and find her campsite.”

  “I'm not too sure I want to be rustling out in the bushes and this time of night with only these two flashlights. I’ve never seen her campsite before. Have you?”

  “No.”

  She pointed the beam of her flashlight toward the trees. “I suppose it’s over there. What if there's a giant trench to fall into, or snakes, or who knows what? I think we've done our due diligence here," K.C. said.

  I agreed and we went back toward the lodge.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I pushed open one of the massive front doors to the lodge and K.C. followed me in.

  “You know, something else has been bothering me,” K.C. said.

  “What’s that?”

  "Kourtnee said, 'he pushed me,' when we asked her what had happened."

  "So, you think that whoever pushed Kourtnee was a he?"

  "Yes—" K.C. cringed as her voice echoed through the cavernous foyer. "Yes," she whispered, "I think it is a “he.” Why else would she say that?"

  "I don't know that I trust anything she says. When we found her in the bushes, she thought we were trying to get into her tent, which she thought she was already in. But let's say that she was lucid for a moment, and that she saw who pushed her, allegedly, off the roof.
Which he do you think she was talking about?"

  I could tell K.C. was reluctant to reply.

  "You think it's Alex?"

  "Now, don't get your bloomers in a twist. It's just a thought. He did disappear—and Kourtnee must have fallen off of the roof around the same time. Maybe just around the time that you guys had your...spat."

  I stared at her, unable to form the words to describe to her how shocked and hurt I felt, knowing that she could think such a thing. "Uh…we both know Alex well enough that we wouldn’t ever imagine him pushing someone off of a roof."

  She thunked her forehead with the heel of her hand. "You're so right. What am I saying? I think I'm just a little bit loopy. It's been a long time since I danced the night away, so to speak." She touched my arm with her hand. "I'm awful sorry, Boss. That was a ridiculous thing for me to say.”

  Of course, I knew all too well what the lack of sleep was doing to my brain. The both of us really needed to go to bed.

  “There are other men on this island. If you want to call them that. I'd say they're more like boys."

  "Yes, like Chad or Johnny," K.C. said, still trying to back-pedal.

  "So, here's what I'm thinking. I don't want to create even the remotest possibility that I will run into Pam again tonight," I said.

  "Okay…"

  "I'll carry this poster, and I'll go up the back stairs. You go up the front stairs, and head Pam off in your room. You should get there before I do. You can get rid of her, and I'll wait around the corner until you come and get me. Is that okay?"

  "Okey-doke."

  We set out on our new routes. I knew I was probably being childish, but I didn't care. Pam was nosy. And I was grouchy, and tired. It was best that I not be there to hear her asking, yet again, where Alex was or what he was doing.

  I trudged up the stairs, trying to keep myself from getting spooked. There wasn’t much light in this back staircase that no one ever used. It’s where my body would remain, after the ax-murderer got me, unnoticed, until the cleaning crew came by and wondered about “that strange smell.” That strange smell would be me.