“We have to leave them on. You might start screaming again,” Kit Kat said.
Tweety nodded. “Yeah, that’s just as bad. ‘Help! I don’t want to d—’”
“Have I mentioned I hate you two?” I said, cutting her off. “Let’s just get started.”
“Got it,” she said, pulling a pair of gloves out of her pocket.
Her sister’s brow furrowed. “When did you get those?”
Tweety yanked a thumb at me. “I grabbed them from her mother’s hallstand when she was on the phone.”
“You said you were going to the washroom.”
“I did go to the washroom.” Tweety pulled the gloves onto her hands, purposely avoiding her sister’s glare. “Then I got the gloves.”
“Well, did you get any for me?” Kit Kat asked, planting her fists on her boulder-sized hips.
“There was only one pair,” she replied, finally looking into her sister’s indignant face. “Hey! Sometimes you got to look out for yourself.”
“We’re identical twins, moron! We have the same fingerprints!”
“No, that’s not true. They’re similar but not id—”
“This was a terrible idea,” I interrupted, rubbing a hand over my face. “Let’s just do this thing and get out.”
The women grumbled off in different directions.
I looked around the tiny living room, trying not to step on any of the magazines stuck to the floor. Other than a pretty nice gaming system, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
I turned back around to see Tweety lifting a pair of well-worn briefs off the kitchen floor, hooking them on the point of a pencil. I shot her a disgusted look. She shrugged and tipped the pencil, letting the underwear slide back into a heap on the floor.
Kit Kat had better luck.
“Hey! Come see this, you two.”
Tweety and I followed Kit Kat to the bedroom.
“Well, wouldn’t you know,” I said mainly to myself.
Lying on Tommy’s unmade bed was yet another suitcase, packed and ready to go. It wasn’t exactly damning evidence of wrongdoing, but it was something.
“It looks like somebody is getting ready to leave town.”
And he’s not the only one, I thought.
“Okay, let’s keep looking for anything that might tell us where he’s going or why.” I clapped my hands together. “Let’s spread out.”
I didn’t make it three steps back into the living room before car headlights beamed through the cottage’s front window, catching me in their glare.
I didn’t think. I hit the ground.
“Kit Kat! Tweety! We gotta go!”
The twins, nimble as elephants, stampeded toward the back door. I scuttled after them on my hands and knees.
One of the twins must have hit the lights because the room plunged back into darkness.
Beer cans skidded across the floor as I flailed in what I hoped was the right direction.
“Go! Go! Go!” one of the two yelled.
We jostled our way through the small door frame and thudded down the rear steps of the porch.
“Come on! Faster!” I cried, pushing on the women’s soft backs.
“We’re trying! Stop pushing! Somebody’s going to break a hip!”
I didn’t dare look back until we made it to the water. I turned just in time to see the screen door of the cottage bang open.
“Hurry!” I screamed, pushing the twins harder.
I shot another look behind.
A figure stood on the back porch, making no move to follow us.
“Holy crapfish,” Tweety said, whispering again as though that would help. “Is that Tommy?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered back.
“It can’t be,” Kit Kat added. “The Forrester boys aren’t the kind of people to sit back and watch. He’d be after us in a second.”
“Then who is it?” I asked, not at all enjoying the creeping my flesh was up to.
Neither twin answered.
With one final look, we all turned and walked slowly back toward our boat.
* * *
An hour or so later, I was lying on my bed, sheets clutched under my armpits.
Kit Kat and Tweety had dropped me off and gone straight home. I had run up the stairs to the retreat, and for the first time, I had kind of been hoping to find the women hanging out in the living room, but they had already gone to bed. I had even thought, briefly, about dragging Caesar into my room just so I wouldn’t be alone, but he seemed to be avoiding me, probably still mad about the tumble into the hydrangeas.
My eyes stared straight up at the ceiling, but all I could really see was the shadowy figure standing on Tommy’s back porch. Logic would dictate that it had been Tommy standing there, but I couldn’t be sure. It had been too dark. It could have been anyone.
I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but the glowing red numbers on my bedside clock told me it was a little after three when I woke up.
Three o’clock? Why was I awake?
Then I heard it. Quiet, but definite.
Something was moving around outside.
My hands balled into fists as my thoughts ran wild.
Silence.
Maybe I hadn’t heard anything.
I stopped breathing for several moments to listen.
There it was again!
Footsteps … on the porch.
I glanced toward the window near the foot of my bed. If I leaned forward, I’d be able to peek out.
I watched the flimsy curtains ripple in the breeze.
Maybe it was one of the women. Maybe they needed something. An extra blanket. A carob muffin.
I sat up a little in bed.
Another footstep!
My back hit the mattress.
Or it could be the murderer. It could definitely be the murderer.
But what if it was the murderer? Was I going to let him or her kill me in my bed?
And what about my mother? She slept like a log. Was I going to let her be murdered in her bed too?
My ears strained to pick up any sound from outside.
The footsteps had stopped.
Silence.
Crap. Now was the time. I had to do something.
I inched my way back up, staying away from the window, and slowly swiveled to put my feet on the floor.
My eyes shot over to the dresser, searching for my phone. Not there. I had left it charging in the kitchen.
Okay. Now what?
A weapon!
I looked around the room. My eyes landed on the decorative canoe paddle mounted on the wall. Perfect.
I got to my feet just as the footsteps on the porch started up again. Whoever was outside was moving quickly now, purposefully.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
I tiptoed as quickly as I could over to the paddle. I wrapped my hands around the smooth wood and yanked.
Nothing. Not a budge.
The footsteps were coming closer—rounding the corner from the front of the lodge to my side.
My eyes stayed glued to the window as I yanked harder.
“Come on!”
The footsteps were almost at my window.
I yanked again. Finally the paddle gave.
Armed, I spun around, right as a dark silhouette glided in front of my window.
“Get away from my room, you murdering psycho freak!” I jabbed the air in front of me with the oar. “You think you want some of this? You don’t want this! You can’t handle this!”
The figure’s shadowy arm shot up in the air.
What the hell was that?
The hand held something long and straight. A tire iron? A machete?
“You stay back!” I warned, now wildly swinging. I barely registered the sound of my mother running down the hall.
I knew I should run, but I was too afraid to take my eyes off the window.
The figure’s arm suddenly swung down hard.
Thunk!
I screamed and t
urned to run for the door just as my mother came flying in.
“Erica! What’s going on?”
I pointed at the window with my oar, and watched as my mother turned her head. I cringed, waiting for the horror to come over her face … any second now … lots of horror.
But it never came.
In fact, she just looked confused.
I glanced over to the window.
Nothing … but the curtains gently floating in the breeze.
“Someone was there!” I shouted. “The murderer!”
“What murderer?”
“The murderer was here,” I said, grabbing her arms. “Dickie, Harry…”
“What are you talking about?” my mother asked, shaking her arms free and stepping toward the window.
“Don’t!” I yelled.
“Erica, honey, there’s nothing here,” my mom said, holding the curtains back. “There’s … uh-oh.”
“What? What?” I rushed over to join her.
“Is that a—”
Right underneath the window, a long piece of metal jutted up from the planks of the porch floor.
“—weenie skewer?”
Chapter Eight
“Rhonda,” I said, trying to keep the frustration from showing on my face, “if I had killed Dickie, why—”
“I never said you killed Dickie.” She looked up from her notepad. “Are you saying you killed Dickie?”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten.
Rhonda had pulled up in her cop boat right as the sun had begun to peek over the horizon. Now, as we stood on the porch, the sun was sitting just above the trees.
Any residual fear I had left long ago. I was tired, hungry, and in desperate need of a shower.
“No, Rhonda, I am not saying that I killed Dickie. Please feel free to write that part down.” Her pen didn’t move. “I was going to say, if I had killed Dickie, why would I call the police to give them the murder weapon?”
“What makes you think it’s the murder weapon?”
I pressed my lips together and focused all my effort on scraping a bit of dirt off the porch with my shoe. Maybe if I focused on the dirt, I wouldn’t kick an officer of the law. “I’m assuming it’s the murder weapon because I was the only witness to the weenie skewer sticking out of Dickie’s body, and now there’s a weenie skewer rammed into the porch right in front of my bedroom window. Seems a bit of a coincidence.” Especially after I had been sneaking around both Laurie’s and Tommy’s the day before. Rhonda didn’t need to know that last part though.
“So you think the murderer planted it there.”
“Don’t you?”
“You’ll know what I think when I think you need to know what I think,” she said, raising one of her ginger eyebrows. “So assuming you’re not the murderer—”
“Thank you.”
“Why would the real murderer leave the skewer with you?”
I blew out some breath noisily. “I don’t know.”
I couldn’t help but think the most logical explanation was that it was a message—trying to scare me off from snooping around. That and it kept the cops focused on me.
But it also had a third effect.
Something the murderer hadn’t counted on.
Call me sleep deprived and delusional, but last night had changed things. Whoever that was on my porch had scared me while I was sleeping in my own bed—I mean my old bed. I did not like to be terrorized. Originally, I had started looking into what had happened because I wanted to go home, and, well, as a related point, I didn’t want to be charged with murder. Plus, there was the fact that I really liked Harry, and, as for Dickie, well, maybe I didn’t like Dickie, but he certainly didn’t deserve to die. And all those reasons still stood.
But now this was personal.
“Rhonda, am I under arrest?”
“Not yet,” she said.
“Then I’m going to ask you to leave.” I had to ramp up my investigation pronto.
“Whoa, settle down there, missy.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m serious.”
Rhonda didn’t move.
“I mean it.”
Rhonda said nothing.
Then something horrifying happened.
“Oh my God, Rhonda.” I watched her face crumple, and then something that glistened an awful lot like a tear appeared at the corner of her eye. “Are you okay? You’re not … are you…”
“I’m fine,” Rhonda said, retrieving a tissue from her pocket. “It’s just that I thought we were friends.”
“What?” I asked. “I mean, we are!”
She gave her nose a hard blow. “You never showed up at the Dawg.”
“I’ve been busy!”
“Doing what?” she asked, clicking her pen. “Murder?”
“Rhonda, are you good-cop/bad-copping me right now?”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “Maybe.”
“You know you’re supposed to have at least two cops for that to work, right?”
“Budget cuts.”
I took another steadying breath. “Look, I really have to go. It’s the last day of the retreat, and I have to help my mom send all the women on their way.”
“Okay,” Rhonda said, flipping her notepad shut. “But if anything else murder-related mysteriously turns up on your porch, you call me.”
“Will do,” I said with a little salute.
“Or if you remember anything else,” she said, walking toward the steps that led down to the dock.
“Got it.”
“Oh, and Erica?” she said, turning one last time.
“Yeah?”
“In case no one else has told you, don’t leave town.”
* * *
Thankfully my mother decided she didn’t need any help discharging the women and sent me to bed. That was one good thing. No more insurance fraud. Now I could focus. I was more resolved than ever to find out who had killed Dickie and tried to kill Harry … but after a nap.
I woke up in the late afternoon with another pounding headache and a dry mouth. I stumbled out of bed and headed for the kitchen. I made it halfway down the hall before I froze in my tracks.
My head turned slowly toward the common room.
Women … Maria, Susan, Lydia, no-name lady divorcing man with robot porn addiction … all the others too.
They were all still here.
I tried to smile, but it probably looked as nauseous as I felt.
“Hi, ladies,” I said slowly. “What are you all still doing here?”
“Isn’t it wonderful, Erica,” my mother said, swooping forward in yet another caftan. “They’ve all decided to stay a few extra days!”
“There’s so much going on around your little lake,” one woman said.
Maria laughed. “They want to see if you’re going to be arrested.”
My mother spun on her. “No one is going to arrest my daughter.”
Maria nodded and motioned for my mother to sit down. Surprisingly she did. “I want to see what happens between you and the hot sheriff. Even if he is a bastard.”
“Nothing is going to happen between me and the hot sheriff.” I pressed my thumbs into my temples.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. That man looks at you the way a starving dog looks at a plate of sausage.” I rolled my eyes.
“Anyway,” Lydia said, still wearing the neck brace. “Both you and your mother have come to mean so much to us, and…”
I did not like where this was going.
“… we were thinking maybe we could help? You know, do a little amateur sleuthing. Ask some questions around town. Look for clues.” She suddenly made a little wiggle with her hips. “Shake down some suspects.”
I looked around the room at all the women with their hopeful faces.
“Wow,” I said. “Wow.”
“We’re going to start with Laurie,” someone in the back piped up. “She knows more than she’s saying.”
I chuckled painfully and mu
ttered, “Kind of thought the same thing myself,” before quickly adding, “Wait, has she been back?”
“No,” my mother said. “She hasn’t called either. It’s not like her.”
All the women nodded knowingly at this. “And of course we’ll need to question you,” another woman chimed in.
“Of course.” I heard my voice speaking, but my brain had left the building. Then an escape hatch popped into view. “Oh, but the police warned me not to talk to anyone about the case.” I made a frowny face.
“What? Did the sheriff tell you that?” a woman asked.
“And you’re going to trust him?” Maria added.
“Oh, that’s really disappointing,” Lydia said, running her hand over her neck brace. “I was so excited by the idea I had almost forgotten all about the accident. Well, if you can call it that. My coworkers would probably call it negligence.”
I looked over to my mother.
She smiled and fiddled with her hands.
I silenced a growl forming low in my throat. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you guys the basics.”
“And we’ll need to know everything that happened between you and the sheriff,” Maria added. “Every intimate detail.”
“Right.”
“Oh, this could take all night,” someone in flannel jammies said. “We should make some popcorn.”
“I’ve got vegan butter!” My mother grabbed my arm and rushed me toward the kitchen.
I broke away from her in the hallway and made for the front door.
“Where are you going?” my mother called after me.
“I’ll be right back,” I muttered.
“But where are you going?”
“To jump in the lake.”
* * *
I did jump in the lake. Clothes and all.
The sun had gone down, and the shock of the cold water managed to slow the crazy thoughts swirling in my brain.
On the one hand, it was kind of sweet that the women wanted to help. On the other, I didn’t really believe they cared all that much about me. My guess was that they were enjoying the murder-mystery twist the retreat had taken.
It made me question what Freddie and I were doing. Were we really any better than the women at investigating homicides? It was hard to actually believe that I was in real trouble, but it was also getting harder to ignore the reality of this bizarro nightmare.
To think, Grady Forrester might actually arrest me.
Skinny Dipping with Murder Page 10