Infidelity Inlet: A Liars Island Suspense

by Carol McMahon

  I quickly made my way through the rest of the rooms in the basement. There were four total. The main room with the pool table and refrigerated dead body, two spare bedrooms with beds and dressers, but that looked like they were used more for storage than anything. Then finally, a laundry room with no windows. When I had checked everything out, I headed back to where I started. I passed the pool table, and found the fridge, but when I got there Dave was gone.

  “Dave!” I whispered, but there was no response. I quietly moved through the room, hoping that maybe he was hiding behind a box and hadn’t heard me call his name, but he wasn’t there. I was just about to say his name again when I heard a loud bang in the stairwell. I jumped, then glanced over to the doorway in time to see a dark object fall onto the floor at the bottom of the stairs. I froze in place, waiting for what was coming next.

  If it had been Dave, he would have come out of the stairwell by now, probably tiptoeing in that exaggeratedly cartoonish way he did when he crossed the patio, but the entire house was still.

  After a full minute, I moved toward the object. I squatted down to examine it and realized it was a shoe. I picked it up and it hit me that it was the same one I had thrown from the entryway into the living room when Dave and I first entered the house. Whoever had come into the house was telling me that they knew we were here, and that I had fucked up royally by leaving the shoe out there for them to see.

  So they knew I was down here, and I knew that they knew … but what about Dave? Where the hell was he? I needed to find him, but there was no way I could go up those stairs. Whoever was up there would surely be waiting for me at the top.

  I was really regretting having gotten him involved in this whole crazy scheme. It was completely irresponsible for me to ask him to come along, not to mention allowing him to break into the house with me. I should have insisted that he go back to the car, or stay in the woods and keep watch. That way he would have stayed in relative safety, and would have been able to call for help if something went wrong.

  But there was no way I could have known I’d find a dead body in a fridge inside this house. It honestly didn’t occur to me that either of our lives would really be in danger. Blackmail is one thing, but murder?

  But regardless, there was no use beating myself up over things I should have done. I was in this up to my neck now, and I had to find a way to get out of this basement unnoticed so I could find my friend and get the hell out of here.

  I snuck back through the dark rooms on the other side of the house. I was headed to one of the rooms that faced out back where I had noticed a window that opened out next to the porch. I figured that would be a good place to crawl out. At least the porch wall would provide a little bit of cover.

  I listened to see if there was any noise coming from upstairs, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I couldn’t understand how Dave had disappeared without a sound. I just had to hope he was okay. That the worst thing that happened to him was he’d been knocked out cold.

  I found the window and unlocked it, then slid it open without making a sound. It wasn’t too high, only about four feet off the basement floor, and if I’d been in a swimming pool that jump would be no problem. But I knew I didn’t have the upper body strength to get my body up onto that ledge without a body of water underneath me. I needed a boost.

  None of the cardboard boxes around me looked strong enough to stand on, but when I went back out into the main room, I found a chair. Once I was up high enough, I tapped on the screen in a few places, but it didn’t budge. I knew it had to come out somehow, so I just kept working on it, and eventually it popped out.

  With my hands on the lower sill, I leaned forward, balanced my abdomen on the frame, then rocked my body out and down. The window was close to the ground, but I still had about a two-foot drop. There wasn’t really enough room to put my head down and roll out onto my back, like I had pictured myself doing in my head, so I stabilized myself by putting my hands on the ground. Then I just sort of let my body slide out through the window opening until I was lying there next to the house. It wasn’t the most sophisticated move I’d ever made, and I was really glad no one was watching, but it worked.

  I got up, but stayed crouched down as low as I could while I pulled my gun out of the holster, then kept close to the house while I circled around the side. I didn’t think it was a good idea to try the back door at the top of the stairway. I was sure it was locked, and it would take too much time to pick.

  What I needed to do was to assess the situation. Busting in the front or back door would only put Dave, and myself, in even more danger. So I did what I should’ve done in the first place—circle the perimeter of the house to get an idea of where everything was, and to see if I could spot any movement.

  Unfortunately, all the lights had been turned out. I couldn’t even see our friend, the life-sized sock puppet, in his favorite spot on the couch. I knew now that a decoy was exactly what that was. Whoever was in the house right now wanted to make it look like Robert was still alive.

  As I made my way to the front of the house, I passed a car, and I assumed it was the one that had pulled up earlier. Most cars looked alike these days, so at first glance, the black midsize SUV didn’t strike me as anything of interest. But then I noticed something strange. The car in the driveway had Olivia’s plates.

  I knew the numbers on that plate. I had them memorized. The second time we met, I followed her to a hotel room. She had that roommate who was always home, and since our meetings had to be clandestine, we had to find a spot where no one we knew would see us together, which was hard on a small island like this.

  Olivia offered to get the room. It felt weird having her pay, but she insisted. She told me she would go into the office alone, then park out front. I put my car in the overflow lot so it didn’t look like we had come together and I slipped into the room about five minutes after she did. I remember I had to run a red light when I was following her car, and the number on those plates was burned in my mind.

  I stood there for a few seconds, wondering what the hell her car was doing there when the driver’s side door opened up. I was startled because I hadn’t even noticed anyone was inside. Then I watched as Olivia got out of the car. I couldn’t believe this. She shouldn’t be here, not with what was going on inside. I was glad I’d caught her before she went to the door and wound up disappearing like Dave.

  “Jerry,” she said with surprise in her voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”

  “I just thought I’d come and talk to Robert myself. I wanted to see if there was any way I could get him to forget this crazy plan of his. I guess I wanted to protect you,” she said with an innocent smile, then glanced down at my hand. “Wait, Jerry, is that a gun?”

  This was crazy. Whoever was inside was surely watching the two of us. We were out in the open, completely vulnerable. I didn’t want to scare Olivia, but I needed to get her to safety. “Look, there’s something going on here. You need to leave.” I lowered the gun and moved toward her, intending to open the car door so I could get her away from this house as quickly as possible, but she just stood there.

  “Why did you bring a gun here?”

  “Olivia, please. This isn’t the time. You really need to get out of here, now.”

  “What’s going on, Jerry? You’re scaring me.”

  Olivia wasn’t moving, and I was sure the killer inside the house was going to start picking us off at any second. I decided to try another tactic. “Look, sweetie,” I said with a calm voice. “There’s nothing to be worried about. I brought the gun for protection. Just in case. You get that, don’t you? Everything’s fine. I think it’s best if you just go home and let me take care of Robert. You know, man to man.”

  “But you weren’t going to talk to him tonight. That’s what you told me, Jerry. You said you weren’t going to go into the house.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, I … well, that’s not ex
actly what I said. I said I was going to check things out. But that doesn’t matter.” I was getting impatient. “Olivia, please just go home and let me take care of this.”

  “But you have a gun. You’re scaring me, Jerry. If there’s nothing to be worried about then will you please put it away. You can put it here in my car.”

  I was exasperated. I didn’t know what to do or say to get Olivia to leave, and laying down my gun wasn’t an option. She seemed insistent on standing there in that driveway, and she was staring at me with a strange look on her face. I stood there for a moment, taking in those crystal blue eyes of hers, and what seemed like an eerily crooked smile.

  I wanted to believe her, that she had just come to talk to Robert, but something felt off. It might have just been the way the moonlight hit only half of her face, but I could swear she was hiding something.

  As I stood there and looked into her eyes, questions that had never occurred to me flooded my brain. What was she really doing here? Could she have actually been in on the whole blackmail thing with Robert? Had they planned all this out from the beginning to get money out of me? Money I didn’t even have?

  “Wait,” I said, glancing down the gravel driveway. “Did you just drive up?”

  “Yes, I did. Why?” Olivia took a step toward me, then stopped. “What’s the matter, Jerry? Please tell me what’s going on.”

  When my eyes met hers again, my heart melted a bit. Olivia couldn’t be involved in this. She was too sweet. Too innocent. But everything from the moment she stepped out of the car just felt so off. “It’s nothing. I just … did you pass another car on the way up here?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Olivia glanced around at the forest and the vast expanse of grass, then at the long driveway before she looked back at me. “Jerry, will you please put that gun away?”

  I sighed. It went against everything I felt in my gut, but if it was the only way I could get her to leave, I had to do it. I reached behind my back and put the gun in my waistband. “Okay,” I said, putting my hands up in the air. “I put the gun away. Now will you please go home?”

  Olivia stared at me for a long moment before speaking. And when she did, it didn’t sound like the sweet Olivia I’d known this last month, or even the slightly off Olivia I’d been talking to these last few minutes. She sounded like someone else entirely. Her voice was flat, almost without any emotion whatsoever, and I knew in that moment I’d made a huge mistake.

  “You shouldn’t have come here, Jerry. I didn’t want to have to do this,” she said, pulling a gun out of her jacket pocket.

  “Olivia, what are you doing?”

  “Get back inside the house, Jerry. I don’t want to do this out here.”

  “Back inside?” I asked. “That was you in the house earlier?”

  “I didn’t want to have to kill your friend. I had no choice. This is your fault, you know. You told me you weren’t going to go inside. You said you were going to do research. That’s what you said, Jerry.”

  Olivia’s eyes were getting crazier by the second. I had no idea what to do to get out of this. My stomach sank at the thought of my friend Dave dead inside that house, and I knew if I didn’t think quick, I was going to be next.

  Chapter 10

  Casey

  I hadn’t planned on killing anyone. That was never my intention when I came to find Jerry. Well, it was actually Fred then, back when I first came to Liar’s Island. It took me a while to get used to calling him that, but eventually I did. In my heart, and in my mind, he truly is Jerry now.

  Anyway, I really didn’t want Robert to die. He was incredibly good-looking, for an older guy. And the few times we made love, he always made sure I was happy in the end, which was a rare quality in men, from my experience, anyway. To be honest, he brought all this on himself. He could have had regular sex and every meal cooked for him, but he chose to make me leave. He made his bed, so to speak. Not to mention, he shouldn’t have tried to take the knife from me. Everyone knows you don’t grab the blade. That’s just silly.

  But what was done was done. Luckily, the knife went into him in the kitchen which has a linoleum floor, so all I needed was a mop to clean up the blood. Getting rid of the body was the trickiest part. I found a huge sheet of plastic in the garage and used it to slide his body down the stairs to the basement, where I found another full-sized refrigerator. All I had to do was take out a few dozen bottles of wine, as well as the shelves, then heave his body inside for safe-keeping.

  With that out of the way, I was free to tackle my plan at my leisure. I found all of Robert’s passwords, financial information, and legal documents on his computer, which was conveniently not password protected. So I was able to check his account balances, which probably had more in checking than I made in my entire life, and ten times that in his savings. I knew Robert was rich by the way he was dressed, and by the looks of his house, obviously. But seeing it in black and white was still a surprise. This guy was seriously loaded.

  He was also incredibly responsible and somewhat tech savvy for an older guy. He had all of his bills on auto-pay and coming out of his checking, multiple direct deposits going into both accounts, and a bunch of household items that were delivered to the house regularly on a subscription, that also came out of his checking.

  So most of my daily expenses were taken care of, and anything else I needed could be ordered and delivered right to the front porch. I bought myself an entirely new wardrobe, one that made me feel older and more sophisticated. I was tired of looking like a Then I ordered soaps, shampoos, and lotions in all kinds of deliciously fruity scents from independent boutique shops online. I treated myself like a queen, like I’d always wanted the men in my life to treat me.

  I came to find out that Robert also had multiple security cameras set up inside the house. The thought of being watched creeped me out a little, but I knew they would probably come in handy, especially if anyone came around looking for Robert, so I left them on and installed an app on my phone so I could keep an eye on things. At the time, I had no idea how handy those cameras would eventually be.

  When I saw how well I was set up, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I could not have picked a better place for my home base. It was like the prayers I made in my childhood were finally being answered. I felt safe, and was finally being taken care of. And all by an older man, who kind of even me of my dad. How ironic was that?

  Now all I needed was Fred.

  The way I found out about him living here on Liar’s Island was a total fluke. In one of my many nights out, hopping from one bar or club to the next, I met a nice guy who took me back to his house. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t in the habit of having sex with every single man I met. I was still very much in love with Fred. I was spending all my nights searching for him, after all. But I was lonely. I needed to feel wanted.

  In the morning, when he was in the bathroom, I looked through his wallet. I wasn’t planning on taking much. I just needed some money for food and essentials for the next week. I was sure he would have given it to me if I would have asked, but that felt weird after the night we’d had together.

  He had a bunch of twenties in there, so I knew he wouldn’t miss a couple of them. But when I was looking through his credit cards and photographs, I found a business card that made me stop dead in my tracks.

  It was someone named Jerry Greene who had a security business. But it was the picture on the card that caught my attention. It was of Fred. I knew it was him. There was no mistaking those kind eyes and perfect lips. I’d dreamt about them so many nights. And even though I didn’t believe in prayers anymore, I prayed for him to come back to me.

  This card was a sign. It was the universe telling me that I was on the right track. It was God himself telling me that I was finally ready for the man of my dreams … for Jerry to return to me.

  So from that point onward, I spent all my energy figuring out how to get to Liar’s Island. Stacy had been right, this place was full of rich people. I m
ean, there were plenty of regular, working-class folks here too, but for the most part it was hoity-toity all the way.

  When I went to bars and clubs, I chose more upscale ones and honed in on older men. Not because I actually wanted to date men who reminded me of my dad, but because I knew they were most likely to have a considerable amount of money socked away. And when I met Robert, I hit the jackpot. Only back then I didn’t realize just how lucky I was. I had no idea the kind of place I’d be living in, or the resources I’d have at my disposal.

  I could have lived here by myself for a very long time. I had everything I needed. But I wanted Jerry with me. Finding out he was married, and had three daughters, was a real blow. But I knew it couldn’t be a very happy marriage, or he would have never made love to me the way he did.

  What I decided to do first was figure out his schedule. I used Robert’s car and followed Jerry everywhere, which was easy since he was always out after dark. When I had his work routine down, I visited all of the places I’d followed him to, just so I could see what they were like during the day. I knew I needed a job so I could fit into the community, but I wasn’t sure what I would be qualified for.

  The most obvious option was The Dish, a retro diner that was open twenty-four hours a day, and a place where Jerry took his break almost every single night. Coffee with cream and sugar and pie was his usual order, and sour cream cherry was his favorite. At least that’s what it looked like when I blew the pics up on the computer, anyway.

  I didn’t want to apply as Casey Samuelson, though. So I decided to come up with a whole new identity. It was something I researched on Robert’s computer, and I knew I could do it. New clothes, new makeup, new hair color … new life. It actually sounded like a lot of fun.