Deader Still: A Bridget Sway Novel (A Paranormal Ghost Cozy Mystery Series)

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  Lucy inclined her head to me with an added air of importance. “I am pleased to hear that apology but no, this is an intervention.”

  I glanced from the empty wardrobe back to my housemate jury. “About my disposal of the suit, right? I’ve apologised. I consider myself fully interventioned.”

  Pam cast Lucy a chastising look. “The suit was just Lucy. We’re interventioning about this.” Pam dragged my makeup bag from under the bed.

  Lucy folded her arms and arched an eyebrow at me. “I found it when I was hunting for your suit.”

  I frowned. “Why were you hunting under my bed? Why would I keep it under there?”

  Lucy brushed off the questions. “I looked everywhere. But that’s not the point. The point is you didn’t share this with us.”

  There was nothing I could really say that wouldn’t incriminate me. I narrowed my eyes at all three of them and walked to the bathroom. I checked behind the shower curtain and in the cabinet under the sink. Then in the chest of drawers. Underneath the dresser. Underneath the bed. I even opened the bedroom door and checked down the stairs.

  “What’s she doing?” Petal asked.

  “I’ve no idea.” Pam said.

  I pointed at them. “Has Oz put you up to this?”

  Collectively they sucked down a breath.

  Pam placed a finger on her lips and whispered, “We don’t usually say his name when we’re doing something a little hinky.”

  “What are we doing that’s hinky?” I asked.

  “You’re giving us makeovers with our stolen makeup.” Lucy rooted through my considerable collection as she spoke. She pulled out a Dior lipstick, removed the cap and twisted it up as if she was about to test it on her hand.

  I covered the distance to the bed in a panicked scurry and snatched it off her, capped it and tossed it into the bag. I picked up my collection and pressed it to my chest. “This isn’t stolen and it’s not ours. It’s mine.”

  “No, it was yours.” Pam got up from the bed and tried to tug the bag out of my hands. “Now you’ve stolen it, it’s ours.”

  “That way we all get to have some fun and we share the consequences.” Petal slapped my hands off the bag and Pam pulled it out of my hands and emptied it out onto the bed.

  Despite Petal’s assertion I was pretty sure when the consequences were being dished out, I would be taking the lion’s share.

  Lucy shoved a picture of a heavily Photoshopped model at me. “Make me look like this and I’ll tell you what I learned about Watson.”

  I examined the picture. “Plastic surgery couldn’t make you look like this.”

  “Don’t be mean,” Pam said as she opened up an Urban Decay eyeshadow palette and stuck her finger in every shade. I held up the picture for her to see and she frowned. “Oh. I see what you mean. You could do the eyes the same though,” she said and handed me a blusher brush.

  I stared at it for a long moment before I finally took it. I was working with amateurs. I pointed it at Lucy. “You better know some really good stuff.”

  “Yay. Girl’s night.” Petal bounced up and down on the bed. I got a brief flashback to my parents’ earlier bedroom antics. At least this would keep my mind occupied. Pam sat Petal on the floor in front of her so she could brush her hair while Petal scribbled on a notepad.

  “What are you writing?” I asked, digging through the bag to find the correct brushes for Lucy’s makeover. I expected Petal to say a diary or journal or that she was documenting our somewhat illegal activities in some way that Oz would later find and use against me.

  Petal glanced up from the pad. “I’m writing your essay for you.”

  “My essay?”

  “Uh-huh. The one that explains how attending your funeral has helped in your adjustment process.”

  I stared at her. “Why would you do that?”

  She frowned at me. An odd expression on her young face. “Because that’s what friends do. You’re good at makeup. Pam’s good at housey things. Lucy’s good at being mean to people. I’m good at academic stuff. We all help each other out.”

  My heart did a funny sideways lurch that made the room tilt. Apart from Sabrina, if the circumstances were truly diabolical, I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone who would have voluntarily done that for me. And definitely not before I died.

  “Thanks, Petal,” I said. I wasn’t really sure what the correct response for that was. “I appreciate it.”

  Petal looked up at me, gave me a full wattage smile and returned to her notepad. I stared at her for a moment a little confused by the situation. I glanced to Pam behind her who gave me a smaller version of Petal’s smile. This was all very strange. Did people do that sort of thing for each other all the time? Huh.

  “What do you want to know about Watson?” Lucy asked as she came back into the room after cleansing her face. I knew we were dead and all but still, that was no excuse to apply makeup to a dirty face. She sat down in my dressing table chair and patiently waited for me to make her look like her model picture.

  I shook my head to clear it. “Everything. Friends. Enemies. Problems at work.”

  “Pretty much everyone wanted her dead.” Her voice came out muffled as I applied a moisturiser to prime her skin before applying the actual primer. Applying makeup properly was a lot of work.

  “Everyone? Everyone who?” I asked. “And how many people is everyone? We’re looking for viable suspects here.”

  Lucy tried to move her mouth as little as possible while I applied the last of the moisturiser to her chin and jawline. “Then you’re pretty much looking at the whole academy.”

  I stopped. “And how many people is that?”

  “About eight hundred right now.”

  I stepped back. “Are you telling me that you spoke to all eight hundred people in a day and they all told you they hated Watson enough to kill her?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lucy said and motioned for me to carry on with her face. “We had a year group counselling session all day where people got to say how they felt. That’s two hundred people with motives to kill her. That’s a good start though, right?”

  I squeezed a small amount of primer onto the back of my hand and applied it with my foundation brush. I was beginning to think Lucy didn’t know how this suspect thing worked. “In this group everyone admitted they’d wanted to kill her? They admitted this in public?”

  “Uh-huh.” Lucy motioned to her face again because I kept stopping. Obviously I couldn’t complete a makeover and be shocked at the same time. “It’s a game called ‘kill, maim or forgive’.”

  “What?” I stepped back with my hands up. “It’s what? Just … what?”

  Petal nodded. “Oh, we used to play that in my first year at my GA group. I used to love it.”

  I stared at innocent little Petal. “What?”

  Lucy shook my arm to get my attention and pointed to her face again. “The point is that you explain why you want to kill or maim or forgive whoever. If you chose kill or maim then the group helps you see why you should forgive them.”

  “You’re telling me that two hundred people just volunteered reasons they wanted to kill Watson?”

  “Yep,” Lucy said.

  “Were the police or GBs there?”

  Lucy took the brush out of my hands and started blindly wiping it over her face in random strokes. “Yep, both.”

  I took the brush off her and tried to repair her damage. Maybe that meant neither believed I was a genuine suspect. Wouldn’t that be nice?

  Lucy grabbed my hand, her eyes wide in earnest. “I’ll try harder for more motives tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. I didn’t want her double death on my conscience. “The idea is to reduce your suspect pool not increase it, and I figure that anyone who publicly admits they wanted to kill her probably didn’t do it.”

  “But what if all eight hundred people have genuine motives?” Petal asked. “And maybe whoever killed her will admit to it in publi
c because they think that other people will think that only the true killer wouldn’t admit to it in public so they admit to it to prove they didn’t do it. Or maybe they admit to it because everyone else is admitting to it and they think that they have to admit to it to cover the fact they did it even though they know that by admitting to it makes them look like they might be admitting it to cover up their guilt they still have to do it because otherwise it’ll be obvious that they did it.”

  Pam nodded. “She has a point.”

  “You understood that?” I asked Pam.

  “It takes a while but you get the hang of it.” Lucy nodded. “The upshot of it was that the admittance of wishing Watson dead means nothing.”

  “Was that too few words for you, Petal?” I asked and she threw a pot of Barry M glitter eyeshadow at me. I dodged the eye glitter but not the feeling that I was still Johnson’s prime suspect, despite him being there to witness all these possible murderers admitting to their homicidal desires. But the GBs had been there too. Did that mean Officer Leonard had some leads at the academy or was he grasping at straws too? And did that make me better or worse off?

  Chapter Ten

  “And how did you sleep?” Sabrina asked as she sat next to me at breakfast with her honeyed toast and coffee. “Any vivid images keep you awake?”

  “Yes. One where I was locked in the basement of our house as Oz performed electroshock treatment on me while I wrote ‘the bureau owns me’ ten thousand times on a chalkboard,” I said before taking a sip of my tea.

  Sabrina arched an eyebrow at me. “Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I’m more of a feathers and silk ties kind of girl, myself. How did you expect to fit ten thousand ‘the bureau owns me’s on a regular sized chalkboard? Or was it an extra large one? Or a dream one that kept rotating more with blank space?”

  “Really? That’s your concern here? The size of the chalkboard?”

  “What should my concern be?” Sabrina asked, sipping her coffee.

  “I have a list. It’s a long list. You can pick any concern you like.”

  Sabrina angled her head and gave me an indulgent smile. “Did you and Oz argue again?”

  “That’s like asking ‘did the sun come up this morning?’.” I mumbled into my mug.

  Sabrina nibbled at her toast. “It’s all the tension. You just need to get to diddling each other and it’ll all be okay.”

  “As an adult woman, did you really just use the word ‘diddling’ as a euphemism for having sex?”

  Sabrina shrugged. “It’s politer at the breakfast table and it doesn’t make it any less of a valid point.”

  “Yes. Because ‘diddling’ never complicates anything.”

  “How much more complicated can your relationship get?”

  “It’s not complicated.”

  “Sure it’s not.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not. He thinks he’s the boss of me and I think he’s not. That’s not complicated.”

  Sabrina leaned closer and whispered. “He is the boss of you but you can’t accept that, and that’s where the complication lies.”

  I squinted at her. “Shut up.”

  “You used to be much better at comebacks.” Sabrina cast a glance my way in between examining the crusts of her piece of toast. “Something else wrong?”

  “You know how you wanted to induct Lucy into our investigation?”

  “Not induct, per se.”

  “Well, she’s in. And next time you can sift through all her information.”

  Sabrina’s eyes lit up. “Did she have anything good?”

  “Do you know what I had to do to get this information?”

  Sabrina’s eyes darted around the room as though she were trying to find the answer somewhere. “No.”

  “I had to do four hours—” I held up my hand, fingers spaced out and counted them off. “One. Two. Three. Four. Four hours of makeovers last night. With my makeup. Which, because I reclaimed it, my housemates consider a shared makeup cache. Which it’s totally not.”

  “That’s terrible. I feel just awful for you.” Sabrina patted my hand in faux concern.

  “What do you feel awful about?” Pete asked around a huge piece of toast as he sat down at our table.

  “Morning, ladies.” Charlie smiled at us, sitting next to Pete and sipping his coffee.

  “Everything.” Sabrina shrugged, picked up her honeyed toast again and nibbled at the corner.

  “What have you done?” Pete’s eyes darted between us.

  Sabrina pointed a corner of her toast in Pete’s direction. “We’re not accountable to you, Pete. And even if we were, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You couldn’t have just said ‘nothing’?”

  “He never believes us anyway.” Sabrina shrugged.

  “That’s because you two are always up to something,” Pete said as he jabbed the butter knife at each of us in turn

  “How are the assessments going?” Charlie chimed in before Pete and Sabrina could get into it.

  “Pretty badly actually, Charlie, but thanks for asking.”

  “How come?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Honestly, I don’t even know where to start.”

  “But at least you haven’t found any more dead bodies,” Charlie offered, obviously trying for positivity.

  I glanced between him and Pete. “What is wrong with you people?”

  “I would just like to point out for when you find the next body that it was Charlie who jinxed you this time,” Sabrina said to me then tutted at Charlie. He stared back at her, his mouth slightly ajar and a hint of panic in his eyes.

  I picked up my tray. “And on that note, I’m off to fail my assessment.” I headed to dispose of my tray, Sabrina on my heels.

  “That’s it, Bridge,” Pete called after me. “Positive mental attitude.”

  I didn’t acknowledge that since my mother taught me that if you have nothing nice to say …

  Sabrina pushed her tray through the hatch after mine. “So, while you had your little sleepover, what did Lucy say about Watson?”

  “Just that they have a game called ‘kill, maim or forgive’. And when Dr Watson was the subject of the game, guess which option all two hundred of Lucy’s fellow students chose.”

  Sabrina’s eyebrows inched up in surprise. “All two hundred?”

  “And that’s just in Lucy’s year.”

  “Well, at least we have plenty of suspects to work with. And that sounds like a weird-ass game to me.”

  “Because this place is usually oh-so-normal. Anyway, she said she was going to ask around for me. I told her not to. Then she said if I didn’t let her help, she was going to tell Oz about the makeup.”

  Sabrina frowned. “So, she blackmailed herself into helping?”

  “Yes,” I said with a nod. “These are my housemates.”

  “Huh.”

  ∞

  I found my seat in the hall while Gracie and Matthew summoned the last few members of the group.

  “Planning any more mutinies today?” Warren asked as he walked past me to his seat.

  I turned to him. “Planning on killing someone and stuffing them in my locker today?”

  “Now I know you know I didn’t do that.” He drummed on the desk with both hands.

  I arched an eyebrow. “Do I?”

  “Yeah. Just like I know you didn’t do it.” He leaned forward, his face serious. I read his lips more than heard what he said. “Watch each other’s backs?”

  I frowned at him. “Why do you need someone to watch your back?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being prepared,” he said with a shrug and quickly glanced around the room. “And I don't trust these newly deads. They’re unpredictable.”

  “Y’know, technically, you're newly dead?”

  “Yeah, but do I look as shifty as crazy-eyes over there?” Warren jerked his head in the direction of a twenty something girl talking to her fingernails. I recoiled
slightly and averted my eyes as if looking at her would draw her attention. Warren nodded at my reaction. “Exactly. One of these loonies bumped Watson off for sure.”

  I watched Warren scan the room again. “Why are you so sure I didn’t do it?”

  “Just am,” he said with another shrug.

  “And why would I need you to watch my back since you didn’t have it yesterday?”

  “You didn’t need my help yesterday.”

  “What makes you think I do today?”

  He pointed over my shoulder. My head snapped around but no one was there. I turned back to him with a frown. His voice was quiet. “Your shadow's darker again.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”

  “Your shadow. It’s gotten darker again, like the last time someone tried to kill you.”

  “Since when? My death shroud? You can see it? Since when can you see it? Why have you never mentioned this before?” My forehead hurt I was frowning so hard. “And what do you mean ‘darker’?”

  He shrugged. “As in the opposite to lighter.”

  “I know what darker means you idiot!” I snapped. “But in this context since ‘darker’ implies that I already had it.”

  He shrugged again. “You did already have it. And now it's darker.”

  “What? What?” I pressed my hand to my forehead to smooth out my frown lines and stop my brain from exploding.

  “Hey, I didn’t have to tell you at all.” He held his arms out to the side and gave another wide shrug. Did he have no other gesture?

  “If it was around me yesterday, how did you know I didn’t need your help?”

  He made a point of sighing loudly. “It’s a different type of shadow. It’s always there, more like a cloud over you than an actual shadow, but when the bodies start dropping around you it gets darker. Like a cloak.”

  “So yesterday I had a cloud, and now I have a cloak?” That just did not bode well.

  “Morning, everyone. Let’s get started.” Jenny strolled from the back of the assembly hall, Nancy in tow, and stood in the centre of the block of chairs to the far side of the hall.

  “Well?” I hissed at Warren.

  “Bridget. I’d appreciate your attention,” Jenny snapped. I turned to face her, more because she called my name than that anything else. “Thank you. Everyone please move your chairs into a circle.” Jenny drew a circle in the air. Because obviously no one knew what a circle looked like. “Today’s assessment—” Jenny stopped when she realised no one was listening to her over the scraping of the chairs.