Invitation to Murder

by Beth Prentice

  "We…we f…found Wes," I cried, using my jacket sleeve to wipe at my tears. Georgie paled.

  "Oh. Judging by how much you're shaking, it can't be good."

  I shook my head. "He fell. Outside…down the hill. Sam needs help. Georgie, Sam needs help."

  "Okay. Help. That's something we can do." She jumped up and used the PA to call Rachel.

  The second I'd entered the studio, shaking and stuttering, Dawn had stood to get me a hot drink. She was just returning as Georgie finished the PA announcement.

  "What's happened?" Dawn asked.

  Georgie quickly brought her up to date.

  "We have a first aid kit. I'll get it. I know the river is up, and no ambulance can get here, but hopefully we'll have enough to help him." Before I had the chance to correct her, she spun on her heel and made her way out of the studio.

  I turned to Georgie. "No…no…you don't understand," I stuttered. "Wes, he's…he's dead."

  Georgie sat heavily in the chair next to me, staring back at me. No words passed between us, but a thousand things were said. She slowly nodded her head as tears ran from behind her lashes.

  The studio door opened with a slam, and in stormed Rachel.

  "This better be important!" she yelled, walking toward us. She stopped in front of me, her hands on her hips.

  I brought her up to date.

  Rachel's assertive nature came in handy as she sprang to life, calling for Marty and his teammate, John, to meet her in the studio immediately.

  Whilst she waited, she moved to the bar and poured herself a very large glass of wine. She didn't talk to us—she just drank. That was fine by me. I didn't have anything to say anyway. My words seemed to have dried up.

  The silence in the room was broken as Dawn hurried back into the studio, closely followed by Marty and John. Georgie swiftly moved to her mum, ready for Dawn to hear the bad news.

  Rachel's voice was quiet as she filled the men in on what had happened and told them to follow me to wherever they were needed. I'd never seen Rachel soften, and the impact hit me hard.

  Marty and John's first instinct was not to believe what she'd said. This wasn't the first time tonight I'd found a dead body, but they silently followed me outside to where I'd left Sam.

  Thankfully, Sam efficiently took control of the situation, pointing Marty and John to the spot where he'd found Wes.

  "Alex, why don't you go back inside and wait?" said Sam. "There's nothing you can do to help out here."

  His look was compassionate in the limited light, and not for the first time, the selfish part of me wanted him to hold me tight until tonight was over. But he didn't. He turned his back and followed the men. As they disappeared from view, the cold night air crept through my jacket and chilled me to the bone.

  Strangling the sob in my throat, I made my way back inside, figuring alcohol would be the next best thing at this stage. If nothing else, it should warm me up.

  * * *

  It didn't take long for the news about Wes to get around. Dawn was panicking because Stuart still hadn't turned up, and now that Wes had, she was scared something bad had happened to him too.

  "Mum," said Georgie, "I'm sure Wes just slipped on the wet grass and fell. That wouldn't have happened to Dad because he knows better than to go too close to the edge in weather like this."

  I liked her thinking, but I figured Wes would have known that too.

  "Yes, I know that. But where is he?"

  I had no idea. To be honest, I was starting to panic about Stuart too. I just didn't want Georgie or Dawn to know that. So I downed glass number three of the really bad wine and hoped the alcohol would kick in quickly.

  It took another hour, but finally, the men helping Wes trickled into the studio. I was reorganizing my bag as Sam moved toward me. Only then did my anxiety drop slightly. Now that was something I would have to address later.

  Something about Sam drew me to him. I told myself it was his incredibly sexy ass. To be honest, though, it felt like something deeper. But then I remembered how he'd reacted when he'd thought Chloe had tried to set us up, and my heart flipped. He obviously enjoyed the flirtation but wanted nothing more intimate than that.

  "Did you get him okay?" I asked as he walked closer to me. I noted his wet, muddy clothing and swallowed the lump forming in my throat.

  He nodded. "Yeah, it took a couple of us to reach him. He'd slipped down the hill a bit."

  "What did you do with him?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know…his body." I felt weird just saying those words.

  "Oh. We've put him in the boardroom. We probably shouldn't have moved him at all, but it just didn't feel right leaving him there. I made sure everything was filmed so the police can see it all for themselves though."

  "Why shouldn't you have moved him?"

  "The police are a bit picky about people interfering with a crime scene."

  My heart missed a beat. "A crime scene?"

  Sam nodded in response to my question.

  "But didn't he just slip and hit his head?" I asked, panicking.

  "No. There was nothing to hit his head on, only long grass."

  "But why do you think it's a crime scene?"

  "Well, I'm no expert on forensics or anything, but he had a very big wound to the back of his head. My guess is he died from that."

  "You think someone hit him?"

  "Yeah, it looks like it."

  I took a minute to look around the room. The noise level had picked up as people nervously discussed what had happened to Wes, the fake murder of Rachel long forgotten.

  "Everyone thinks he died from an accident," I whispered.

  "Let's keep it that way for now."

  "Who do you think could have done it?" I was impressed by how steady my voice sounded. I definitely didn't feel steady. In fact, fear screamed its way to the top of the list of my emotions. This was the second time tonight someone had been hit on the head, and Sam's words about the serial killer rang in my ears.

  Sam shrugged. "I don't know. When I see Matt, I'll ask what he thinks. He's really good at solving things like this. I've always told him he should have been a detective instead of a journalist."

  "But how will the police get here if the river has the road cut off?"

  "We still have the helipad. Maybe they can get in that way. I think this will be a big enough crime for them to use it."

  I looked over at Faith, who now sat on a chair in the corner of the room, her eyes huge and innocent, and I wondered about her. Wes died when he went to call the police to find her. Did she stage her own disappearance to get rid of Wes? Surely not. She had no reason to disappear. If she wanted him dead, she could have lured him away without anyone noticing. And where was Jake? He still hadn't surfaced. At least that I knew of.

  I left Sam pouring himself a drink and made my way over to Faith. I stopped in front of her, looking down.

  "Have you found Jake yet?" I asked.

  "No. I haven't." She took a sip of the coffee she held. Her hand shook.

  "Have you looked?"

  "Yes, of course I have. Do you know where he is?" She looked at me challengingly.

  "No, Faith, I don't. There is not now, nor has there been for many a year, anything between Jake and me. Tonight is the first time I have seen him since we split up."

  Tears filled her eyes as she looked into her cup. I felt her surrender, so I sat on the vacant chair next to her. "I asked him earlier if there was anything between him and Rachel," she said quietly.

  "Did he answer you?"

  "He denied anything had ever happened."

  "Do you believe him?"

  Faith looked back at me. "Would you?"

  I thought about her question, and then I thought about the Jake I used to know. "How long have you known Jake?"

  "A long time," she answered quietly.

  "How long is that exactly?"

  Faith's face flushed with color. I should have been surprised, but
I had a feeling there was more to her relationship with Jake than I was supposed to know about.

  "Why is that even relevant?" she asked.

  "Hmmm… I'd guess you've known him for at least five years. Would I be right?" I asked, completely ignoring her question. "In fact, I reckon you knew Jake when he and I were together." I was guessing, jumping to conclusions, but I had a feeling I was spot on.

  Faith went quiet and looked down into her coffee cup.

  "Are you the reason he left me?" I asked. At one point in time, I would have been holding my breath waiting for her to answer, but now, I was strangely okay with it.

  I didn't think she was going to answer me, but finally, she replied. "Jake and I met through our parents. I'd known him for years before he met you. I always knew he was the man for me. I just needed to make him see that. But when he met you, he fell hard." She stopped, lost in her memories. "He really loved you. He still does."

  I stopped listening, stuck on her saying he still loved me.

  "I managed to seduce him one night when you were away visiting your grandparents. He felt really bad about it and told me it would never happen again, but I fell pregnant. That's when he ended it with you."

  I thought I was ready for her answer, but I was unprepared for her to tell me about the pregnancy.

  "You…you had a baby?" I asked, shock causing my throat to close and ringing to start in my ears.

  "No. I lost it. And Jake."

  "What?"

  "He left me. He wanted to get back with you. To make you forgive him, but Georgie told him you were with someone else. Eventually, I managed to make him see we were right for each other. It took him another four years to marry me, though."

  I did hear what Faith said, about how long it took Jake to ask her to marry him, but my mind was stuck on what she'd said about Georgie. Georgie was my best friend. She'd never mentioned to me that Jake had been looking for me and wanted to get back together. Best friends are supposed to tell each other things like that.

  "I guess Georgie never told you about that?"

  I shook my head, stunned at her words.

  "Would it have changed anything if she had?"

  I thought about that question, and back to when Jake and I split up. At the time, I thought he might have met someone else, but I never thought he'd slept with her. I never thought Jake was that kind of guy.

  "I suppose I'd ask you if he was capable of having an affair with you then do you think he's capable of having one with Rachel?"

  Faith's eyes filled with tears once again. "Where is Rachel?"

  "I have no idea. I haven't seen her since she left to find Kelly and give her the bad news."

  Personally, I didn't think Jake would have slept with Rachel, but I obviously didn't know him very well. I stood and looked down at Faith. "I'm sorry, Faith. I hope for your sake he's not with her, but karma's only a bitch if you are." I stood, turned my back on her, and walked away.

  By the time I had crossed the room to the bar, my knees were knocking so badly, I thought they might just give out.

  I pulled up a seat next to Sam and asked him to pour me a drink. He took one look at me, frowned, and poured me a full glass of very bad wine. I thanked him and downed it in one go.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  I shook my head, pulling a face at the bitter taste. "I don't know. I just found out Jake cheated on me."

  "How do you feel about that?"

  "I don't know. I guess if I think about it, I always knew something was off. He never did give me a real reason for wanting to end things, but I never picked him to be a cheater."

  "How did you find that out?"

  "Faith told me. She was the one he cheated with."

  "Are you still worried about where he is?"

  "No. Not really. Let her worry about him. They deserve each other. Personally, I think she's a bit nutso, completely obsessed with her stupid jealousy. What have you got there?" I asked him, referring to a book he was holding.

  "It's a book on the history of Westport."

  I raised my eyebrows.

  "It's actually really interesting. The land the station is built on was originally purchased for sugar cane farming, but turns out that sugar cane didn't grow too well up here, so they changed to cattle farming. And did you know that the mayor who built the old house was a bit eccentric? He was particularly wealthy for the time, owning three thousand acres of the land surrounding us, but he was a bit of a conspiracist. Always thinking people were trying to take his money. He did a lot for Westport, getting the first bank here. Not sure if he kept his money in it. Rumor says he used to bury it somewhere. Rumor also has it that after the First World War, he was obsessed with Westport being invaded, so he installed an early-day safe room."

  I raised my eyebrows quizzically.

  "You know," continued Sam, "a bit like the old priest holes they had in ancient houses where the occupants could hide the priests from the bad guys. Only this one was bigger and made to hide the occupants of the house, not priests."

  "Really? Where in that house would you hide a room like that? It's not big enough."

  Sam shrugged. "Traditionally, those types of rooms weren't that big, and this book doesn't actually specify how big it was. In fact, it says that the room is only a rumor since no one has ever found it. But, that's not the odd thing I found. This is." He handed me a photo. It was a photo of me at the beach on my twenty-first birthday.

  "I don't get it."

  "Neither do I. I found it stuck between the pages of this old book."

  Okay, that gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  I opened my mouth to say more, but I put it all on hold as Matt walked across the room and pulled up the chair next to me. He looked wet, muddy, and beat.

  As it was now well after midnight, I figured I probably didn't look any better.

  "You've been gone a long time," commented Sam. "I was starting to worry about you."

  "Brent decided we should drive down and check the river. Just in case Wes went for a drive. Only Brent didn't stick to the road and drove too close to the riverbank. We got bogged in the mud. We only just got ourselves out."

  Matt didn't look very happy about that. Not that I blamed him.

  "What have I missed?"

  Sam filled him in on how he found Wes, as Matt also downed a glass of wine. When Sam had finished, he put his empty glass back on the bar.

  "Did you check Wes's body for any butterflies?" asked Matt, his jaw tense. My stomach flipped at his words.

  Sam shook his head.

  "Why would he do that?" I asked, my heart fluttering as I spoke.

  "Westport doesn't have a huge crime rate. It's rare for people to be murdered. And the last two casualties died from a hit to the head. That's not a coincidence."

  "But are we sure he didn't just fall? Maybe there was a rock nearby he hit his head on."

  "I think I need to have a closer look at Wes."

  "Rachel said we all had to stay in the studio until we knew what was happening," I said.

  "Well, where is Rachel?"

  I shrugged. "She left to find Kelly."

  "If I see her, I'll tell her what I'm doing. Sam, will you come with me? You can witness that I'm not removing any evidence. If I find anything, I'll document it and leave it for the police. In the meantime, if there is a killer amongst us—and I think there is—we should do whatever we can to figure out who it is."

  I felt the weight of Matt's words sit heavily in my stomach. I really hoped he was wrong, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Shit.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Waiting for Matt and Sam to return felt like an eternity. I sat on a stool, propping up the makeshift bar and drank another glass of wine. I flicked through the book Sam had left and crowd-watched. Sitting still doing nothing was killing me.

  I looked back at the photo—the one Sam had found inside the book. I actually remembered the day it was taken really well. It was my twenty-first bi
rthday, and my friends and I were celebrating at the beach. It was the day I got my tattoo, which turned out to be a really bad decision, as apparently you shouldn't get into salt water after getting a tattoo. Who knew? So I sat on the sand and sweltered as they poured bottled tap water over my head to cool me down.

  I had no idea why this photo was found in a book about Westport. Maybe whoever was reading the book had used it as a bookmark. But whom did I know well enough to do that? I knew it wasn't a book I'd ever read, and even if I had, I wouldn't have left a photo of myself inside it.

  I picked up the book and flicked through the pages once more, wondering where, exactly, the photo had been. As I did, something caught my eye. I stopped flicking and worked my way backward through the pages until I found what I'd seen.

  A small piece of paper was neatly folded and pushed within the pages, close to the spine of the book. I carefully retrieved and unfolded it. It was a sketch, drawn by hand with colored pencil, of a purple butterfly bouncing on a spring, glued to a sparkly pink headband.

  I felt the roll of nausea in my stomach as I put all these pieces of information together. Sam had told me that both Stacey and Dean had butterflies on them. That was a drawing of my headband. It was found inside a book with one of my old photos. Could it all be connected to me? No, surely not. I was overreacting, imagining things that weren't real. Yes, I knew Stacey and Dean, but my relationship with them definitely wasn't close. And as far as I knew, they didn't know each other, so it must have been a coincidence. But Matt said there was no such thing as a coincidence.

  I reached into my handbag and pulled out the notepad and pen I'd received with tonight's invitation. Turning to the first clean page, I started to make a list. I suddenly understood why Matt made so many notes.

  I wrote Murder Mystery and underlined it with two lines. Under that, I wrote Stacey's name and how a butterfly had been drawn on her wrist. I then wrote Dean's name and how he had a butterfly in his pocket. I also wrote a list of everything I could remember that had been taken from my apartment that day.

  That in itself was a strange list. Nothing of value had gone missing, only personal stuff that meant something to me. Like my favorite gray sweater, my old jeans with the hole in the knee, my old WTN T-shirt, a photo album, and a really ugly necklace my grandma had given me. Oh, and some makeup and tampons, of all things. I couldn't see how any of that was related to Stacey and Dean.