Beyond Dead: A Bridget Sway Novel (A Paranormal Ghost Cozy Mystery Series)

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  I frowned then smoothed my expression out to minimise wrinkles, a habit from life. “If you’re so certain that we killed Bertha, what makes you think we won’t just shoot you and leave you here?”

  His head swivelled to face me, his expression darkening. “So you admit it?”

  “No!” Sabrina and I exclaimed in unified exasperation.

  “I had no reason to kill Bertha.” I gestured between Sabrina and me with the gun. “We had no reason to kill her.”

  “Do you mind terribly not pointing that at me?” Sabrina eyed the loaded gun I was so freely waving around.

  “Oh. Right.” I pointed it back at the gravel. “Sorry.”

  “Let’s say I believe you.” Everything about Alex’s demeanour said he didn’t. “Who did kill her?”

  I waved the gun between Sabrina and me. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  “Okay, give me the gun.” Sabrina motioned for me to hand it over and I realised I was gesturing with it again.

  “They’re lying,” a female voice countered calmly. A voice I recognised. I’d heard it on speakerphone with Jeremy enough times. Fenton’s friend, the girl with the bad attitude who applied her make up with a trowel, stood in the centre of the path, a gun pointed at us. “Back away from him.”

  “Hey now, this is a gravel path.” Sabrina stamped her feet in annoyance so we could all hear the small stones crunch together. “How the hell is everybody sneaking up on us? And where the bloody hell are you all getting these guns from?” Sabrina was gesticulating wildly as she spoke, addressing Alex and Fenton’s friend in turn as she moved back towards me. “What are you people? The Ghost Mafia?”

  I still had the gun, and since Alex was closest I kept it pointed at him, despite not having a clue how to work it and suspecting Jeremy’s accomplice was likely the more dangerous of the two.

  The girl’s lip curled up into a sneer. “Just because you prefer to bash someone’s skull in, doesn’t mean we all do.”

  “Because shooting someone is so much more civilised.” I waggled the gun in my hand slightly to emphasise my point.

  “How many times? We. Didn’t. Kill. Bertha. I can’t say it any simpler than that,” Sabrina said.

  “Emma saw you do it.” Alex jabbed his injured wrist at Fenton’s friend. “She saw you.”

  Sabrina and I stared at Emma. Her expression was defiant.

  “She did it,” Sabrina whispered to me in surprise and pointed to Emma. “She did it.”

  “Why would I kill Bertha?” Emma forced out a brittle laugh and spared a quick glance at Alex. Everything about her response said she’d done it, from the tightness in her shoulders to the assessing look she gave Alex.

  “Why would we kill Bertha?” Sabrina countered.

  “Who knows?” Emma shrugged. “But you did. I saw you. I saw them, Alex.”

  Alex nodded and moved closer to Emma, but a shadow of doubt clouded his expression. “Just like they killed Fenton.”

  “Yes.” A flash of emotion rippled through Emma’s eyes. “Just like they killed Fenton.”

  “We killed Fenton as well? Seriously? Is there anyone else’s murder you two imbeciles would like to pin on us?” Sabrina folded her arms over her chest and pursed her lips at them. “Jim, perhaps? Or maybe JR Ewing? How about Elvis? That was supposedly natural causes but, hey, might as well blame that on us too.”

  “I don’t get it.” I directed my comments to Emma since she seemed the more rational of the two. “What makes you think we murdered Fenton?”

  “You threatened him.” Emma’s voice was far too level for my liking. “He was a better facilitator than you. You were jealous.”

  “Is it me,” I said, chancing a glance at Sabrina before focusing back on Alex, “or does she sound like she’s setting up her story ready for the police?”

  “Yeah.” Sabrina backed up a step, her hand on my gun free arm, taking me with her. “She does.”

  “And everyone knows you killed Jim because he let you die,” said Emma. She affected a baby voice. “Such a poor pwincess.”

  “What?” Alex took a step back and turned to face Emma. I wasn’t sure if it was a trick to catch me off guard then charge me. I figured that credited him with far too much cunning, but to be safe I casually backed up another step as if I was just adjusting my stance.

  “He was her guardian angel and he let her die.” Emma’s expression softened as she turned to him. “She was furious at him, Alex. She’s in counselling for it. You should’ve seen the way she would rip into Fenton when he tried to help her control that temper.”

  “Uh-huh.” I made a clicking sound with my tongue. Yep, she was going to kill us and set Alex up for it. “So why did I kill Bertha?”

  “Bertha was smart, and beautiful and a natural redhead until you shamed her into dying it.” Emma played to Alex’s emotions. “She was everything you aren’t,” she said to me, “and she suspected you. You had to get rid of her.”

  “Wow.” I exhaled and nodded to Sabrina. “She’s almost got me convinced I killed them.”

  “Yeah, me too.” She spared me a glance. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  I gave her a flat stare. “How about ‘shut up’?”

  She flashed me a grin. We had a gun pointed at us. We were about to be shuffled onto the next plane of existence and she was joking. Yes, because I was the one who needed counselling for my adjustment issues.

  “Wait.” I glanced at Emma. “How did I shame her into dying her hair? I liked her hair.” I didn’t really like her all that much, but I was somewhat envious of her thick, pale auburn hair.

  Emma jabbed her gun at me. “All of your snide comments took a toll on her.”

  “What comments?” I threw my hands up, gun pointing briefly to the sky.

  She shook her head at me. “Don’t try and deny it.”

  “Oh my god.” I shook my head at her. “You’re delusional.”

  “You worked it out yet?” Sabrina asked me, pointing her finger between Alex and Emma.

  “Yeah, I think so.” I had about pieced it together. It was supposition and there was no way she was admitting it. “Alex.” I waved him over with my free hand and pointed the gun at Emma. “You might want to come and stand over here with us.”

  “Right.” He spat the word at me. “So you can beat me to death too?”

  “Alex.” I held my free hand out to the side to highlight my much, much smaller frame. “Your wrist is bigger than my bicep. How am I going to beat you to death?”

  “You managed just fine with Fenton,” Alex pointed out.

  “Okay. Whatever.” I shrugged. I was past reasoning with crazy people. “Let her frame you for five murders. See if we care.”

  “Five murders!” He pressed his hands to the sides of his head as if to stop it exploding. “Who else have you killed?”

  “Wow.” Sabrina whistled. “He is really dumb.”

  “Alex.” I snapped my fingers to break his murderous stare at Sabrina and get his attention focused. “Emma is going to kill us. Like she killed Jim, Fenton and Bertha. And blame it on you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alex’s attention pinged around all three of us. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was grief that made him so easily confused. He jabbed his finger at me. “You killed Bertha.”

  “Emma’s passing info to a psychic. Jim found out. She killed him. Fenton found out. She killed him. Bertha found out. She killed her.” It was the most basic explanation, but I didn’t think Alex could handle anything more complex at this point. Maybe at any point.

  “No.” He looked at Emma and then back to us. “You killed Bertha. She saw you.”

  “Yep.” I blew out a long breath and adjusted my fringe with my free hand. “No intelligent life there.”

  “But it’s such a beautiful house, I don’t understand why they’re having so much trouble selling it.” The older lady’s voice preceded her around the corner as the two women returned from w
herever they had been.

  “Well, Sarah thinks – and don’t laugh,” the younger of the ladies warned the other as they came around the corner into view. “Sarah thinks it’s haunted.”

  “Really?” The older lady laughed anyway and shook her head, patting her daughter’s arm. “That girl has some strange ideas.”

  “Don’t move,” Emma warned, keeping her gun trained on us as the ladies slowly approached.

  “She’s even thinking of getting a psychic or medium in to try to communicate with it.”

  “Nooooo.” The older lady pulled them to a stop almost directly in front of us. “I don’t believe it.”

  Seizing the moment, Sabrina gave a small tug on my arm. We turned and hightailed it into the trees while the visitors blocked us from Emma’s sight. I heard a gunshot ring out behind us, but since all my limbs still worked I kept trampling through the undergrowth. I grabbed Oz’s whistle as we stumbled through and blew as hard as possible.

  “And she always seemed like such a sensible—” The older lady paused. “Was that a car backfiring?”

  “I don’t know,” the younger of the two replied. “But it—did you just see that gravel move?”

  “Now, now.” The older lady laughed, their voices fading away in the distance. “Don’t you start with all that nonsense.”

  We sprinted through the trees, moving further into the darkness. We’d not been out of the woods more than ten minutes but the gloom already seemed a lot thicker than before. I glanced back over my shoulder. I couldn’t see much with the heavy canopy of greenery blocking the fading rays of the sun but I was sure there was no one behind us. I pulled Sabrina to a stop behind a tight group of trees and tried to quietly catch my breath, listening for sounds of pursuit and to give my battered feet a brief respite. Running for your afterlife through undergrowth in flip-flops was not a pleasant, or easy, task.

  “Which way takes us back to the road?” Sabrina whispered, keeping her breathing shallow and quiet more effectively than I was. “Good call,” she added when she saw the whistle hanging outside of my clothes. “But he’ll only be able to tunnel to outside the grounds.”

  I’d forgotten that. “Surely this would be one of the places that wouldn’t be blocked to him?” Suddenly I regretted blowing the whistle at all. Oz would have no clue what he was walking into.

  “He’s a smart guy.” Sabrina flashed me a smile and checked back towards the path. “He’ll be fine.”

  There was nothing I could do about that now, so I focused on the task in hand: escaping the crazy people. “Do you think they’ve split up?” I tilted my head to listen for the sound of twigs snapping beneath hurried footsteps but heard nothing. “Maybe try to flank us?”

  Sabrina nodded. “Maybe. So our best bet is to head back to the path while they bumble around in here.” Sabrina’s head swivelled in all directions, looking for any hint of movement. Shafts of the evening sunlight eased through gaps in the canopy, bathing patches of undergrowth in a muted glow. A shadow passed through one of the soft beams of light. I clutched at Sabrina’s arm and pointed. She didn’t need me to explain. We crept around to the other side of our tree cover.

  I peered through the darkness in the direction I thought we’d come, but I couldn’t see any hint of the path. Maybe we’d gotten turned around. Or maybe we’d covered a lot more ground in the short burst than I’d realised. All I could see were trees, shadows and more darkness.

  “That way’s the quickest, I think.” I pointed to the left. I just wanted to be back in what was left of the daylight. If someone was going to kill me, I wanted to be able to see it coming.

  “You think?” Sabrina’s eyebrow rose. “I thought you knew this place like the back of your hand.” Sabrina peeked around our bank of trees again, looking for any movement.

  “Yeah, if I have a starting point.” I turned in a circle to try to get my bearings. “I don’t know where we are.”

  “Okay, well, how big can this graveyard be?” Sabrina shrugged casually, like a gun toting murderer and her crazy scapegoat weren’t chasing us. “We’ll just keep going until we reach somewhere we can tunnel.”

  “And try not to get shot,” I added.

  “Exactly.” Sabrina peeked between the trees to make sure no one was behind us. “Let’s go.”

  Before I could move, a hand covered my mouth. An arm wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides. I must have managed a stifled scream because Sabrina turned back, her eyes widening in surprise. I stamped on the bridge of my attacker’s foot. His grip on me loosened and I managed to scramble out of the way just in time as Sabrina clocked him over the head with her cudgel.

  The man crumpled to the ground, out cold. I nudged the body onto his back so I could see his face.

  Chapter Twenty

  I stared down at Pete’s unconscious face, imagining I could see a lump forming on his forehead already from Sabrina’s overenthusiastic wallop. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Damn sure I’m not waiting around for him to wake up and ask.” Sabrina unlaced both of his shoes. “Help me. Quickly,” she hissed as I stood by and watched her.

  With one of the laces in her hand, she rolled Pete onto his side and began to tie his hands together behind his back.

  “Whoa, what are you doing?” I hissed back as I scanned the darkness for movement. I didn’t know if my eyes had adjusted or the trees had thinned above us but I could see better. Further.

  “Tying up his hands and feet.” Sabrina tapped his chest with her open palm. “Bad guy.”

  I crouched down beside her, facing the opposite way to keep all directions covered. “You know that for certain?”

  “He had you pinned and your mouth covered. He wasn’t inviting you out for afternoon tea.”

  “Maybe he was trying to help and didn’t want to startle me.”

  “Maybe he was trying to incapacitate you so he could kill you at his leisure.”

  “Compromise?” I glanced over my shoulder at her and Sabrina paused in the middle of tying a very complicated knot. “We only bind his hands. If he’s a bad guy and we tie his hands and feet, the other two will just cut him free anyway, but if he’s a good guy they might kill him. We leave his legs untied and if he’s a good guy then we give him a fighting chance to run.”

  “Fine.” Sabrina sighed after a long moment and finished her knot. “But if he escapes and kills us, you and I are going to have a long talk about your survival instincts.”

  “Fair enough.” I nodded, stood up and checked around us again when Sabrina was happy with her knot. “This way.”

  I’d taken two scurried steps when a gunshot splintered the darkness. I hit the ground, burying my face in the earthy scrub, waiting for the impact of a gunshot wound to register and set my pain receptors alight. At first I felt nothing. Then a tingling started in my wrist. Tiny needles jabbed at the inside of my forearm. Quickly the sensation travelled up to my elbow and I gritted my teeth against the utter agony. Sabrina grunted behind me. Had the bullet ripped through me and into her?

  “Goddamn nettles,” she hissed.

  Nettle stings? I rose up on my elbows. Surely enough I was lying in a sea of the stinging plants. I pushed up to a crouch and tentatively ran my fingers over the inside of my forearm. Small raised bumps, but no bullet sized holes. The fact that I would likely live through the nettle damage made the agony fade. Unhappily, the teeth-itching stinging remained, though.

  “I don’t think they were shooting at us,” Sabrina whispered as she moved up and crouched next to me. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  “Who were they shooting at then?” I rolled my sleeves down as we scurried through the darkness. “Who else is out here?”

  “Maybe Oz has come rushing to your rescue,” Sabrina whispered from behind me.

  “If he has and they’ve shot him I will not be pleased.” Especially if they’d shot him in the chest. Or the arm. Or the shoulder. The leg I could deal with since my assessment of him somehow never managed
to make it lower than his waist. Probably for the best.

  I led the way, in what I hoped was parallel to the path, crouching low as we picked our way through the undergrowth. The echo from every twig I snapped underfoot sounded like a cannon firing. The rustle from every shrub I brushed up against sounded like a football clacker. My eyes darted from left to right at the slightest hint of movement as we trundled along. No more gunshots ripped through the trees. I was just beginning to think we might make it out with our ghostly backsides intact when a shadowy figure loomed up in front of me.

  I darted left, only just missing its grasp and landing heavily on my hip with all the finesse of a felled tree. Sabrina stayed on track, clocking the figure on the side of the head with her cudgel. With a grunt, the shadow crumpled like a sack of potatoes. She stood over the lump of unconscious human, looking remarkably proud of herself.

  I pushed to a kneeling position, rubbed my hip and rolled the motionless shape over. Charlie. Sabrina raised a satisfied eyebrow at me, swung her cudgel in a circle and slipped it back into her pocket in one smooth motion like a gunslinger in the Wild West. She knelt down beside me, making herself a smaller target for the gun toting murderer still roaming the woods.

  “What’s up with you and that club?” I whispered. “I don’t know if I should thank you or send you for anger management sessions.”

  “You should definitely thank me.” Sabrina bent down, rolled Charlie back onto his side and tied his arms behind his back with one of Pete’s laces. “The only way they could have known we were here is if they were in cahoots with Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber.”

  Assuming she meant Emma and Alex, I nodded slowly and wagged my finger at her. “That’s a good point.”

  Sabrina checked behind us. “How far do you reckon until we’re out of here?”

  “Can’t be that much further.”

  It already felt like we’d run twice the distance it should’ve been to the gates. I wasn’t going to mention that I’d really taken a stab in the dark about our direction. Sabrina’s hand darted out and grasped my nettle stung arm. I hissed out a breath at the contact but Sabrina pressed her finger to her lips then pointed directly ahead of us.