A Party to Murder

by John Inman

  “We were just talking about that,” Derek answered. “After dinner, we should lock ourselves in our own rooms.”

  “Yes,” she said. It was all she needed to say. But then, just as quickly, she looked unsure of herself. Fear lit her eyes once again. “I guess I’ll go see what I can find in the kitchen for us to eat.”

  Jamie smiled up at her, more than aware of the terror she was trying to hide. “Maybe we should all go,” he said. “We can help you carry everything out.”

  The relief on her face was as evident as the flames on the grate. “Thank you,” she said. “I’d like that.”

  “So would we,” Derek kindly said, and ruffling Jamie’s hair, he pulled himself to his feet, then hoisted Jamie up as well.

  “Thank you,” she said again as they headed toward the kitchen single file.

  OLIVER BANYON looked like he’d been dragged behind a horse. His hair was sticking straight up off the top of his head, his usually impeccable clothes were somehow hanging askew on his body, and his chin was chafed as if he had been kissing a wolverine.

  Or quite possibly a young student named Tommy Stevens, who hadn’t shaved that morning. The tinge of dark stubble on his cheeks was evidence of that.

  Dinner was a disheartening affair of cold soup, apples, and tinned meat. The old couple who owned the house must have adhered to a simple diet. They found nothing in the larders that required extensive preparation, which was just as well since the power was out anyway. During the meal, Derek kept casting proud glances in Jamie’s direction. Through this whole horrible ordeal, Jamie had shown a hidden strength that pretty much amazed Derek. But Derek also knew it wasn’t easy for Jamie. Jamie was scared, as was he. As were they all. Still, Jamie was trying hard to hold it together, and Derek was proud of him for that.

  He nudged Jamie’s foot under the table and smiled when Jamie shot a surreptitious grin in his direction.

  Tearing his eyes from Jamie, he set about slicing an apple into quarters while speaking to the group as a whole.

  “Did any of you leave word where you would be? That you had answered an invitation to a house party and where they could find you if an emergency came up?”

  Tommy snorted back a laugh. “You mean leave a note on the door that we were off being murdered in the backcountry? No, it must have slipped my mind.”

  “You know what I meant,” Derek said, narrowing his eyes. He turned to Cleeta-Gayle. “Did you warn anyone that you’d be out of town?”

  She laid her fork across the edge of her plate and placed her hands in her lap. A blush rose to her cheeks, as if the question somehow embarrassed her. “There was no one to tell. I live alone. My friends are… few. No one would have cared if I left town or not.”

  “I’m sorry,” Derek sighed. “I don’t mean to ask personal questions. I’m just trying to figure out if anyone will be coming to look for us.” He turned his gaze on Banyon, sitting next to Tommy. “How about you?” Derek asked. Banyon still looked like he had just tumbled out of bed, which of course he had. Derek shot a quick glance at Jamie, knowing that if he and Derek hadn’t been an item, Banyon would have been the exact sort of man Jamie would be salivating over. Derek was pleased to see that Jamie’s eyes were only on him, and he nudged Jamie’s foot again beneath the table to let him know he liked it.

  Banyon cleared his throat. With his tousled hair and a drop of soup on his chin even Derek was tempted to lean across the table and lick away, Banyon seemed totally unaware of how handsome he was. He also seemed surprised by the question being aimed his way. He glanced quickly at Cleeta-Gayle before answering. Then his eyes drifted to Tommy for a second before settling on Derek at the end of the table.

  “I don’t have a lot of friends either,” he said cautiously. “I thought I would only be gone for the weekend, but that seems unlikely now, doesn’t it? There will be hell to pay when I don’t show up for my classes tomorrow, but there’s nothing to be done about it. When the truth comes out, I suppose the school will make allowances for my truancy.”

  He blinked as if suddenly hearing his own words. Collapsing back into his chair, he dropped his spoon in his bowl of soup and laughed. “Jesus! How pompous do I sound? We’re fighting for our lives here, and I’m worried about my job.” He reached out and took Tommy’s hand, redirecting his attention back to Derek. “The only person who knew I was coming here was Tommy.”

  Jamie leaned forward, his elbows on the table. He stared at Banyon and Tommy as if trying to figure them out. “Didn’t you guys think it strange that you both received the same invitation from the same anonymous person when you had never really socialized together before? It’s not like you had any mutual friends, right? It’s not like you even really knew each other very well.”

  Tommy answered. “We only knew each other from the classroom. We had nothing but a teacher-student relationship until I decided to get into the good professor’s pants.”

  Cleeta-Gayle blushed but then quickly forced herself to listen anyway. She eyed everyone around the table in turn before her gaze slid back to Tommy.

  Tommy stonily returned her stare as if daring her to start moralizing on what he’d said. When she didn’t, he turned back to Derek.

  “We talked about it, of course, Ollie and me. But we couldn’t figure it out. That’s what made the invitation intriguing enough to accept. It seemed like a cool mystery. Plus it afforded us some extra time together where I could worm my way into those pants I referred to earlier.”

  This time Banyon was the one who blushed, although he didn’t deny Tommy’s version of things. “And you two?” he asked Derek. “You didn’t have any idea who might have sent the invitations either?”

  “No,” Derek said. “Of course not. We would have already mentioned it if we knew.”

  A silence settled over the table, a silence only interrupted by the storm still battering the house outside. Shadows were already deepening as dusk approached. The flames on the grate painted wavering shadows on the dining room walls. The air was growing chillier as well. It would be a cold night.

  Gradually, the tinkle of cutlery continued as everyone resumed their dinner. Only Cleeta-Gayle sat motionless, her fork still resting at the edge of her plate. She lifted her eyes from her lap and gazed around the table. Derek noticed there were tears shimmering in her eyes. Her expression was so empty of hope, Derek’s heart ached to see it.

  “We’re all going to die here, aren’t we?” she asked.

  The only answer was a streak of lightning that seared the sky and erased the shadows from the room in a blinding flash of light. A moment later, a bark of thunder shook the house around their heads.

  Chapter Twelve

  WAS IT Jamie’s imagination, or on the way to their room that night, did they scurry a little quicker past the door to the suite belonging to the late Mr. and Mrs. Jupp? And was it any surprise if they did, considering the condition of the charbroiled woman who lay inside?

  Their bedroom had no fireplace. And with the power out, the minute they closed the door behind them, they were swallowed in icy darkness. But for intermittent flashes of lightning streaking past the two windows from outside, it was like standing in a tomb.

  “Should have brought a candle,” Jamie muttered.

  They pushed the curtains back, staring out at the storm.

  “This thing has to blow itself out sooner or later,” Derek said. “The minute it does, we’ll leave.”

  “And go where?” Jamie asked, seeking Derek’s hand in the dark and twining their fingers together.

  “Into the trees, Jamie. No matter what happens out there in the woods, it has to be better than what will happen to us if we stay here.”

  “In which direction will we go?”

  “In any direction but the one we came in. We’ll stay off the lane. We can’t get past the collapsed bridge or the swollen stream that way.”

  “So you really mean for us to go into the woods?”

  “Yes. We’re not in the Amazon
rain forest, for God’s sake. The trees have to end somewhere. And sooner or later we’re bound to run into a house or a highway or some other splotch of civilization where we can call the cops.”

  “Do we take anyone with us?”

  Jamie stood quietly while Derek hesitated. The grumble of thunder replaced their voices in the shadows. Derek’s silence lasted longer than Jamie expected. He finally asked again. “Derek? Do we take anyone with us?”

  In a particularly bright strobe of lightning that slashed across the sky like a flash of gunfire, Derek’s troubled eyes continued to stare past Jamie out at the storm. When Derek’s gaze shifted around to touch his face, the sadness was still there.

  “Dammit,” he said. “We can’t leave them, can we? It’s the same as it was before. Two of those people are innocent. Since we have no idea which two it is, we can’t leave them to their fate. Either we take them all, which might play right into the killer’s hands, or we have to stay. Maybe we can keep them safe until help comes.”

  “That could be days,” Jamie said. “And that’s if help comes at all. I’m not entirely sure that anyone on the face of the planet actually knows we’re here. Or cares.”

  “Wait here,” Derek whispered, and slipping from Jamie’s side, he treaded lightly toward the door and quickly yanked it open. Despite instructions to the contrary, Jamie had stayed with him every step of the way. Now they both poked their heads out into the hall and scoped it out in both directions. Amid the lightning flashes, which were coming a little less frequently now, they were able to see with reasonable certainty there was no one there.

  “I thought I heard something,” Derek said.

  “You’re scaring me,” Jamie answered.

  At that, Derek gently latched the door, pulled a spindly legged chair from the corner, and propped it under the doorknob.

  “There,” Derek said. “If anyone tries to get in, they’ll have to work at it.”

  With the door secured, Derek walked into Jamie’s arms. “You’re shivering,” he said.

  Jamie nodded, resting his chin on Derek’s shoulder. “It’s cold. I miss the fire. I miss the light.”

  Rain lashed the windows. Somewhere off in the distance, that same damned shutter started banging against the side of the house with renewed frenzy. Jamie wished the wind would rip the fucker off and get it over with. He was tired of listening to the racket.

  Derek gripped his shoulders and pushed him to arm’s length. “You’re right. It’s too cold to stay here. Let’s go down to the dining room and make a bed in front of the fireplace. Grab the blankets and pillows off the bed.”

  Jamie didn’t have to be asked twice. He immediately hustled across the room, pulled all the bedding from the mattress, and stuffed it under his arms. Derek grabbed the pillows, and together, they kicked the chair from under the doorknob and slipped out into the hall.

  They quietly descended the stairs. But for the fury of the storm, the house was quiet around them. Someone had banked the fire in the dining room for the night, and now only the glow of a few embers showed it was still lit at all. It was a matter of moments before Derek restacked firewood onto the grate and, leaning close, blew the embers back into flames. The fire snapped and caught at the firewood, and the light and the heat drew them closer. Together, they spread their blankets on the hearth. Still fully dressed, they slipped beneath them, fluffing the pillows under their heads.

  Derek immediately pulled Jamie into a hug.

  “Better?”

  Jamie nodded, pressing his lips into the vee of warm flesh at the base of Derek’s throat. “This is much better,” he murmured, his arms at Derek’s back, their stockinged feet playing toesies near the fire. “If it wasn’t for the weather and the serial killer and the fact that we haven’t had a decent meal in two days, it would be perfect.”

  “Gripe, gripe, gripe,” Derek tsked. “Why is it you never look on the bright side?”

  Jamie reared back and glowered. “There’s a bright side?”

  Derek laughed. “Well, maybe it’s not exactly bright.”

  In the light of the fire, Jamie snuggled deeper into Derek’s arms. Together they stared into the flames and listened to the storm batter the world outside the dining room windows. A cold wind slipped in through the planks that covered the one broken window, but the flames kept the chill away for now.

  When Derek began to speak, he did it so quietly Jamie had to hold his breath to listen. Derek’s voice was as warm and heartening as the flames that caressed their skin. Derek’s fingertips touched his cheek; they were a perfect accompaniment, Jamie thought, to the romantic light in Derek’s eyes, to the romantic timbre in his voice.

  “I can’t believe how easy it was to fall in love with you. I can’t believe how simple it was to take that one little step.”

  “What step?” Jamie asked, breathless, entranced by the loving lilt in Derek’s words.

  “The step from friendship to love, Jamie. It’s like love was always there in front of us, but neither of us ever saw it coming until it knocked us on our butts.”

  Jamie slipped his fingers under Derek’s shirt and caressed the soft matting of hair on his chest. Beneath his hand he imagined Derek’s heart pumping away like a piston engine. Pumping out love. Pumping out truth.

  “It just happened,” Jamie whispered. “Isn’t that right? In spite of everything we did, or in spite of not doing anything, it just happened.”

  “Yes.” Jamie could hear the wonder in Derek’s voice when he said it. “It was like an invisible force plowing forward under its own steam. Our love didn’t wait for us to figure it out, it didn’t wait for us to see it for what it was, it settled over us anyway. Sort of like the warmth coming off that fire. Like the waves of rain washing over the house. It was an outside force that we never purposely created at all. It just happened. It swept around us and through us and tossed us together like two sticks of driftwood on a beach.”

  Jamie closed his eyes. “Two sticks of driftwood on a beach. I like that picture.”

  “And now,” Derek said, his voice darkening, “a tsunami is threatening to wash it all away.”

  Reluctantly, Jamie opened his eyes. “You mean the killer.”

  “Yes. The killer. We have to stop him. We can’t leave, Jamie. We have to stay here and stop him.”

  “I know.”

  “If we don’t, we’ll never be together, and I can’t let that happen.”

  “I know.”

  “I love you too much.”

  A lump formed in Jamie’s throat. Once again he nestled his lips into the satin softness at Derek’s throat. The heat there comforted him. The teeny pulse he could feel against his chin, Derek’s pulse, made him happy. Made him feel connected.

  “I know,” Jamie murmured. “I know you love me. I can feel it in you right now. I can taste it on your skin.”

  Derek relaxed in his arms, as if Jamie’s words had somehow soothed him. He spoke no more. Together they lay close to the fire, absorbing the heat, listening to the storm outside the windows, hearing the firewood snap and pop as it was eaten by the flames.

  Six feet away from the grate, the darkness lay waiting like some sort of stalking, lightless beast. Jamie could feel it lurking, slipping a little closer every time the flames flickered, then pulling back again when the fire took hold once more to shed a splash of light across the room.

  Above their heads Jamie heard footsteps. Someone moving around inside one of the bedrooms. Either Tommy or Banyon or Cleeta-Gayle, for other than themselves, those were the only souls still living inside the house.

  Jamie wondered sadly how many would still be living at this time tomorrow.

  Pulling Derek closer, he stared into the fire until sleep took him down into a dreamless pit.

  When he awoke two hours later, something was wrong.

  Derek lay tense at his side. Jamie knew instinctively that Derek sensed danger too.

  It took them long seconds to finally realize what it was.<
br />
  “THE FRONT door is open!” Derek whispered.

  “Why is it open?” Jamie hissed.

  “I don’t know, but the storm is blowing in. We have to close it.”

  Jamie clutched his arm. “No, Derek. Don’t go out in the hall. Don’t move away from the fire, away from the light. Maybe that’s what someone wants you to do.”

  “You mean the killer.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I guess we’d better find out for sure,” Derek sighed. With a grunt of stiffness, he eased himself from Jamie’s grasp, flung the blankets aside, and stumbled to his feet. He didn’t have to wait for Jamie to join him. Jamie rose the same moment he did.

  “Stay close,” Derek whispered.

  “Well, duh,” Jamie groused, as if he had already made that decision for himself and sure as hell didn’t need reminding. He hooked a finger through one of the back belt loops on Derek’s pants, latching himself to him like a barnacle.

  “Close enough.” Derek almost smiled as they tiptoed out into the hall.

  They didn’t have their coats, and when they stood at the front door, carefully peeking past the shattered front porch to the storm beyond, the cold air bit into their skin like acid. Jamie pushed himself closer to Derek’s back, and Derek reached around to take a fistful of Jamie’s shirt to hold him there.

  They froze, listening. Somewhere out in the storm, in the darkness, in the rain, Derek heard a voice on the wind. A human voice. It wove in and out amid the storm’s fury, riding along on the gales one moment, then lost among the thrashing of the trees the next. In one brief lull, when the storm seemed to retreat and the wind and thunder fell hushed for the space of a heartbeat, Derek heard a single angry word screamed out among the trees.

  “Murderer!”

  And on the heels of that one angry bellow, barely audible in the distance, the lightning and thunder awoke, and the wind once again almost knocked Derek off his feet. He tugged Jamie back away from the doorway to escape the cold and wet, but he still cocked his head, trying to hear that voice again.