A Party to Murder

by John Inman

  “It’s Appalachian, I suppose,” she answered with a slight frown, swinging her gaze back to him. “People there have nothing else to offer their children, so they anchor them with impossible names for the rest of their lives.” If the comment was meant to be amusing, it didn’t show. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a crash of thunder pounded the sky overhead, making her slap her hand to her chest and cry out with a startled yelp. “Oh, this storm!” Her face was once more riddled with panic and no small amount of impotent fury.

  Feeling protective, Derek laid a gentle hand on her arm and said, “Wait here. I think you need a drink.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her expression softening in her first display of warmth. “That would be nice.”

  “Any preferences?”

  “Something strong.”

  She and Jamie should get along, Derek thought. Aloud he said, “Gotcha” and hustled off to the bar.

  He returned a minute later with a gin and tonic, wedge of lime and all. A lady’s drink, or so he hoped. He had bumped into Jamie at the bar, so he dragged him along as well. He introduced the two amid fears that Jamie would lecture the woman on hair care and the importance of follicle maintenance and a decent cut, but Jamie was well into his second or third drink already and obviously feeling expansive. He merely clicked his heels together and brushed his lips over the woman’s hand in greeting, making her blush. Clearly, Cleeta-Gayle Jones was smitten with Jamie from that moment on, which Derek understood completely. He was rather smitten with Jamie himself.

  The storm outside had not let up one little bit. If anything, it was bashing the house more brutally than it had before. Derek stared at the parlor windows and counted the seconds between lightning strikes and the ensuing booms of thunder. The time lapse was brief, since the storm was directly over their heads. The walls of the old house rattled around them. Inside the parlor where they were all milling around, the noises of the storm were augmented by the crackling of the large fire burning in the flagstone fireplace. Derek decided that without the fire and without the booze, there would have been a major shortage of good cheer to be had. He was pretty sure Jamie agreed.

  Cleeta-Gayle emptied her glass with two long swallows, and even with two ounces of gin under her belt, her eyes never lost their fear of the storm. Derek couldn’t help wondering if there was some sort of emotional trauma in her past that contributed to her terror. A beloved uncle beaned in the head with a bolt of lightning, maybe? A favorite brother blown away to a neighboring county and impaled on a fencepost while sitting in an Appalachian outhouse relieving himself in the middle of a storm such as this?

  Derek shook his head and stared down at the drink Jamie had mixed him. Jesus, his imagination was getting the better of him. Maybe he’d better pour the next round of drinks.

  “Why are you here?” Jamie asked the woman. When she looked startled by the question, he tried to clarify. “I mean, why were you one of the ones invited? Do you know any of these people?”

  Cleeta-Gayle cast her eyes about the room. Although clearly still unnerved by the storm, she also seemed to understand what Jamie was really asking. In fact, she appeared as determined as he was to find a reason for their presence there.

  “I’ve never seen any of these people before in my life. Have you?”

  “No.”

  They both took a moment to survey the room before their eyes found each other again. “Then why did you accept the invitation?” Jamie asked. “A single woman and all.”

  She let her gaze drift back to Derek. “Are you boys together?” she asked shyly.

  It was Jamie who answered, and Derek liked the words he chose. “We’re working on it,” he said, edging closer to Derek and taking his hand.

  Cleeta-Gayle gave them a quiet smile. “I—I hope it works out for you.”

  “Thank you,” Derek and Jamie said in unison. Jamie expanded on the sentiment. “Not everybody in this house would agree with you.”

  When she settled her gaze on Jamie, Derek was surprised to see such sadness in her eyes. She made a concerted effort to hold her emotions in check even as the words spilled from her lips. “There’s a lot of hate in the world. People should try to be kinder.”

  Derek and Jamie exchanged a glance, then just as quickly turned their attention back to her. As carefully as he could, Derek asked, “Why did you come here? Why did you accept the invitation if you didn’t know who had sent it?”

  With an impatient flick of her hand, she scoffed at his wondering. “I could probably ask the same question of you.” She glanced about the room, at the faces of all the strangers around them. “I suppose I was bored,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I accepted that silly invitation. I simply wanted to get away.”

  “And you know absolutely no one here,” Jamie ventured yet again.

  She gave him a shrug. “No. I don’t. But I’ve talked to everyone. Not one guest knows who sent the invitations or why the seven of us were on the list.” Her gaze flickered back to Derek. “Why did you two come?”

  Derek hooked a thumb at Jamie. “The brilliant one here thought it would be a lark.”

  “Plus I wanted the two of us to go somewhere on our own,” Jamie added. “Away from our friends and families. Off somewhere different, where we could get to know each other better.”

  Derek sidled closer to Jamie and bumped him gently with a shoulder. “What a lovely thought.”

  With a shuddering intake of breath, Cleeta-Gayle focused her attention on each of them in turn, visibly pushing her own troubles away to do it. For the first time since meeting her, Derek began to suspect the woman was stronger than she initially appeared to be.

  “So you’ve only been together a short while,” she said, gracefully turning the conversation back to them.

  Jamie chortled. “We’ve been together since we were ten years old. It’s only in the biblical sense that we’re new to each other.”

  Her gaze drifted from their faces and centered once again on the storm outside the parlor window. “I wasn’t always alone,” she muttered quietly. “I had a child once. A boy.”

  “Oh. How old was he when he….?” Jamie faltered midquestion as if unsure how to proceed.

  She didn’t appear to mind the question. “I lost him when he was a baby. His life had barely begun.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. Her chin trembled. “If only….”

  “If only… what?” Derek softly asked.

  But whatever the thought was that touched her at that moment, it was too much for her to share. Or quite possibly even bear herself. She shoved her empty glass into Derek’s hands and offered a hurried apology. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I’ll go to my room now.” Following a final glance at the storm outside, she gave a quiet gasp, quickly turned away, and hurried toward the stairs.

  Derek and Jamie stood side by side, watching her go.

  “Poor woman,” Jamie whispered. He clutched his empty glass and shuddered.

  “Yes,” Derek agreed. “It must be hard to lose a child like that.”

  “Actually,” Jamie said, “I was talking about her hair.”

  Derek took his arm. “No, you weren’t. You were thinking the same thing I was. You don’t always have to be a hardass, you know.”

  Jamie looked surprised. “I thought I did.”

  Derek shook his head. “On my account? No. I like you even when you’re gooey and soft and sweet.”

  Jamie’s smile slipped away. His dimple evaporated from view. “Really?”

  “Really,” Derek said.

  Jamie opened his mouth to speak but quickly closed it again, leaving his thoughts unspoken.

  For a moment, Derek wondered what Jamie had been about to say. And if it had anything to do with the two of them. As a couple. Or whatever it was the two of them were working toward becoming.

  He slipped his hand over Jamie’s. “You’re cold,” he said. “Let’s move closer to the fire.”

  Jamie’s breath stilled. His
eyes widened as he studied Derek’s face. It was almost as if he had suddenly figured something out he had only been wondering about before. “You take care of me,” he said around a gentle smile.

  Derek blushed. His heart did a pattering soft-shoe inside his chest, taking him by surprise. “Well, somebody has to do it,” he stammered.

  SOMETHING HAD been bothering Jamie for a while now as he stood with Derek near the fire. It wasn’t the fact that none of the people knew each other, or that they all seemed so impotently mystified by the fact that they’d suddenly found themselves in this spooky old house with a bunch of strangers. In truth, Jamie didn’t quite know what it was that bothered him so, but whatever it was, it kept pecking away inside his brainpan like a pestering woodpecker, trying to get out.

  He shook his head and tried to push it all away, more intent on drawing comfort from Derek, who was standing silently at his side. Jamie had noticed moments like this creeping up on him lately. Moments when the quiet times he spent with Derek were almost as emotionally satisfying as the livelier, sexier, more intimate times.

  They stood with their backs to the fire. At their feet the burning logs popped and crackled in the grate. The heat of the flames caressed the back of his legs. It felt good.

  Before he knew he was going to speak, he heard the single familiar word slip from his lips. “Derek?”

  Derek turned to him with a lazy smile on his face. He had that dreamy look he always got after drinking a couple of Jamie’s stiff cocktails. Derek never had been much of a drinker. “Hmm?”

  “I like being with you.”

  Derek’s smile widened. “I like being with you too.”

  Before coming downstairs, Derek had donned a cardigan sweater, since the house was chilly in spots. Jamie reached out now and slipped his hand inside one of the sweater’s broad pockets, not because he was cold, but because it brought him closer to Derek.

  “You’re beautiful, you know,” Jamie said. Derek’s dark-eyed gaze settled on him. Jamie’s breath gave a hitch; he almost squirmed under the look. He stood absorbing the heat from those luscious brown eyes and the sweep of the long black lashes encircling them. A smile still played at Derek’s mouth, but there was a touch more warmth in it now. Sexy warmth. Like the warmth radiating from the fire at their feet. It caused Jamie’s cock to shift as veins began to fill. He thought back on the close moments they had shared during the last few weeks of their burgeoning affair. The wonderful discovery of it all. The newness. The need he felt to simply touch Derek at odd times during the course of each day.

  “You’re the one who’s beautiful,” Derek said. “In fact, those are exactly the words I say inside my head every time we make love.”

  Jamie edged closer. “Make love…,” he murmured as his cock shifted again. “I like the sound of that.”

  His words were almost drowned out by a sudden surge of violence in the storm outside. A clattering of hail peppered the windows, halting conversation and causing the four remaining in the room to turn toward the sound. A mournful, wolflike howling crept in through the walls of the old house as the exploring winds tore under the eaves as if seeking a way in. The flames in the fireplace sputtered and stirred when a foraging finger of that wind swept down the chimney, gleefully scattering ashes and sparks. Everyone jumped when a limb, torn by the gale from a nearby tree, struck one of the automobiles outside, setting off the car alarm. They all ran to the nearest window to see which car had been struck, but the slanting rain and hail made it impossible to see past the house’s front porch. Then Derek and Oliver pressed the buttons on their key chains, and the screeching car alarm fell silent. It was Derek’s car or Oliver’s, then, and not one of the others, but they were left none the wiser about which of their alarms had been responsible for the racket.

  Through it all, Jamie’s probing blue eyes had not left Derek’s face for an instant.

  And now, being forced to break that connection was proving to be one of the hardest things Jamie had ever done. But he’d had a thought. A realization, really. About the predicament they were in. And about the house that both protected them from this rampaging storm—and held them captive at the same time.

  “Pictures,” Jamie said. “Of people.”

  Derek blinked. “What?”

  “There aren’t any,” Jamie explained. “Look around. If someone lives here, shouldn’t there be pictures? Family photos? Framed snapshots sprinkled here and there?”

  Derek blinked again and finally tore his eyes from Jamie’s face. He did as Jamie asked. He looked around. At the tabletops. There were knickknacks galore. Fussy little ceramic doodads and statues. Dusty books lined up on shelves. Cloth doilies pinned to chair arms and artificial flowers, as dusty as the books, poking up from pots and vases—each bouquet looking as if it hadn’t been moved or cleaned in months. Cheap store-bought landscapes decorated the walls, but none of the pictures showed actual people.

  Jamie pointed to the wall opposite the fireplace. “Look there,” he said.

  Derek trailed his gaze to where Jamie pointed and saw immediately what Jamie was trying to tell him. What he didn’t understand was why he hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Certain pictures have been taken down,” he said.

  “Yes,” Jamie answered. “And quite recently, I’d say.”

  With his hand still tucked cozily in the pocket of Derek’s cardigan, Jamie stood motionless, staring at three squares of fresh color on the parlor wall where pictures had been removed, pictures that had hung there long enough to protect the wallpaper from fading.

  “Who do you suppose those pictures were of?” Jamie wondered out loud.

  It was Derek who tossed another log onto the fire of mystery. “And who do you suppose removed them before the lot of us arrived?”

  “And why?” Jamie added.

  They stood quietly pondering that question as the flames sputtered at their feet and the storm raged over their heads.

  Chapter Four

  “FOLLOW ME,” Jamie whispered.

  With a plateful of sandwiches and fresh drinks, they ducked out of the parlor and parked themselves halfway up the staircase leading to the second floor. They wiggled their butts around to get comfortable, then set their drinks aside and lit into the little sandwiches Mrs. Jupp had prepared. It was nothing fancy. Tuna salad. Ham and cheese. Jellied triangles of toast. But they were hungry. They scarfed it all down without saying a word.

  While they ate, Jamie pondered their situation. Half a dozen strangers—not counting Derek, of course—wondering, perhaps, how the hell they had allowed themselves to be lured to this drafty old house, then managed to be trapped here with a bunch of people they had never seen before in their lives and wouldn’t much care to see again.

  Jamie covered a delicate burp with his fist and scooched closer to Derek on the stair. With a delicious groan, he stretched his legs out in front of him. His muscles still felt cramped from the long car ride. He spoke softly, not because he didn’t want to be overheard but because he was feeling lazy and relaxed and he didn’t have the energy for grand oration.

  “Next time I accept an invitation from someone I don’t know, for reasons I can’t explain, to a place with only one escape route and it’s blocked by a fallen bridge, just shoot me, will you?”

  Derek leaned in to press his lips to Jamie’s neck. When Jamie gasped a little laugh, then ducked his head to meet those lips with his own, he was gratified to feel Derek’s smile in the kiss.

  “If I shoot you,” Derek mumbled, “it won’t be until I’m done with you.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I’m not sure. Hmm. You taste like raspberries.”

  “It’s the jam. I think it was homemade.”

  “Do you suppose there are still door prizes?”

  Jamie’s groan was a little less delicious this time. “Oh, do shut up.”

  Jamie watched Derek ease himself away. Their lips separated and Jamie missed Derek’s kiss already. They settled c
omfortably against each other on the stair, shoulders touching, hands clasped. Derek found his drink and took a sip. Jamie did the same.

  “Why do you suppose the pictures were taken off the walls?” Jamie asked, twisting his head around to stare at another square of clean wall space that had been recently exposed at the side of the staircase.

  “And if our host lives here, why wasn’t he already in the house, waiting to welcome us?”

  “I don’t think he does live here,” Jamie said.

  Derek gave him a sidelong grin. “I don’t think so either.” He cocked his head. “Say, is that Twilight Zone music I hear?”

  Jamie kicked him in the foot. “Stop it. I’m a nervous wreck already. Don’t make it worse.”

  A not unpleasant calm settled over them. Jamie cleared his throat and edged a little closer, even though he was practically in Derek’s lap already. “Derek?”

  “Hmm?”

  “If we get out of this alive and actually find ourselves back in the city in one piece, can we keep seeing each other? I mean, the way we’re seeing each other now?”

  Derek’s warm eyes reflected the light from the sconces on the wall that followed the staircase upward. In their amber glow, the brown in Derek’s eyes had deepened. Their color was like chocolate now. Luscious, melted chocolate. Jamie thought he wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life staring into those eyes. Or was that being a bit too romantic for the circumstances? And while he was on the subject, what exactly were the circumstances? What the hell were they doing, he and Derek? How the hell did they think this was all going to end?

  There had been humor in Derek’s expression before, but it suddenly evaporated. One second it was there, the next second it was gone. Suddenly, Jamie was sorry he asked that last question.