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

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  I twirled a finger around my ponytail. “Yeah, you should try living through it.”

  Sabrina shook her head as if she was trying to clear it. “Okay, first things first. Who’s the murderer? No. Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

  “Ok-ay,” I said in a singsong voice as we walked through the vestibule and headed for the refreshment table at the back of the hall as usual. “But you won’t get it.”

  “Jenny? Matthew? Gracie?” Sabrina guessed and I shook my head each time. “One of the guys from your assessment?”

  “What?” I waved away her all-encompassing guess. “You can’t guess thirty people at once.”

  “I don’t know their names so it’s not like I could list them individually, and it’s quicker this way.” Sabrina poured herself some coffee. “So, I’m right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Well, that was easy. Disappointing, but easy. You might as well tell me their name so I can check them out.” She put the jug down and frowned at her coffee. “Actually, there’s no point checking them out if you already have an eyewitness that says they did it. Are we sure they did it?”

  I poured myself some tea. “Oh, I’m fairly sure they didn’t.”

  Sabrina paused in loading her plate with biscuits. “You have an eyewitness that says they did it but you’re sure they didn’t?’

  I nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Who’s the eyewitness?”

  “Alex version 2.0.”

  Sabrina’s eyes darted around the room as though she were searching for a clue that would make that comment make sense. “I … don’t know what that means.”

  “He’s Alex’s replacement at the front desk,” I said as I stirred some sugar into my tea. “And he looks like a super handsome version of Alex.”

  Sabrina inclined her head in a half nod, just accepting the new information as we found our usual seats at the back of the hall. “So who did it?”

  “Apparently it was me.”

  Sabrina’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “You?”

  “Yes. According to Alex version 2.0 I laughed maniacally, a word I was impressed he knew, and then beat Watson over the head with a log.”

  Sabrina pulled her head back like a turtle retreating into its shell. “Why would you use a log?”

  “Yes, that’s the piece of information we need to be focusing on here.” I nodded, watching as Warren chatted to the shorter, chubbier blonde of the Alison and Debbie duo. I should really make an effort to find out who was who. “I’m starting to think you might be right and the bureau is putting something in our food or water to make us dumb.”

  “Yeah,” Sabrina agreed and sipped her coffee. “Or to make us change conversation topic randomly with no link whatsoever.”

  “I was just thinking I didn’t know whether that was Debbie or Alison.” I subtly nodded in their direction. “It’s been two weeks. I should know that by now, right?”

  “I don’t know which one’s which either,” Sabrina said with a shrug. “I like to think of them as Debbison.”

  “Debbison?”

  “Thought it sounded better than Alibie.”

  “I don’t know.” I rolled the name around my head. “Quite like Alibie myself.”

  “Really?”

  I shrugged. “It sounds a bit more fun.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not—” Sabrina screwed her eyes closed, pressed her lips together and clenched her right fist. She blew out a breath and opened her eyes. “How about we focus on the fact you’ve got a witness to you murdering someone?”

  “You ruin all my fun. In all seriousness though, I definitely think we should stop drinking the water because Alex version 2.0 thinks dragons are real and I muck out their stalls.”

  She frowned at me, biscuit halfway to her mouth. “Why does he think that?”

  “I might have told him that dragons were real and I mucked out their stalls.”

  “Why would you tell him that?”

  “Because he asked what I did.”

  “But he gives you your assignment sheet, right? Why’s he asking you what you do?”

  “Because I asked him for my assignment sheet.”

  “But if you’re—” Sabrina closed her eyes and pressed her lips together again. She held up her digestive in warning. “Stop it.”

  I grinned at her. “Told you they’re putting something in the water.”

  Sabrina held her hand over my mouth. “Just stop talking. So, Alex version 2.0 watched you murder Watson.”

  I took Sabrina’s hand from my mouth. “Apparently so.”

  “So, we’re looking for a ghost who can do that face changing thing like Edith.”

  I gave her a nod. “I appreciate your vote of confidence.”

  “You’d have never put the body in your own locker. You’d have put it in Debbison’s locker.”

  “Alibie’s,” I corrected.

  “And let’s not even talk about the log. Who kills someone with a log? What’s that about?”

  “He also said Watson was rooting through my locker before I killed her.”

  Sabrina grimaced. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Yeah, that sounds way worse than me murdering her.”

  “Did he know what she was looking for?”

  “I couldn’t question him any further because Pete showed up to supervise me since I’m being assessed.”

  “Is he— wait. How did Alex version 2.0 supposedly see all this? X-ray glasses? What are you smirking about?”

  I shook my head. “Just thinking we spend too much time together. He needed to pee.”

  Sabrina’s mouth turned down at the corners. “He was peeing in our toilets?”

  “Yes, so right now he’s not going to the police with his eyewitness account because he doesn’t want to lose his job and muck out the dragon stalls with me—”

  “But he was happy to tell you he’d seen you murder someone and just assume that you’d feel secure about his silence because he didn't want to lose his job?”

  “Yes.”

  Sabrina shook her head and glanced around the hall, her eyes stretched wide in disbelief. “These people are all halfwits.”

  “I’m telling you, there’s something in the water,” I said before sipping my tea and temporarily blocking out my water-poisoning-bureau theory. The afterlife would simply not be worth living without tea.

  “I think this is the weirdest conversation we’ve ever had.” Sabrina pointed her digestive at me and then dunked it in her coffee. “But, we still need to work out an alibi for you, just in case.”

  “I was at my community service assignment.”

  “Okay, that’s pretty ironclad. Unfortunately it leaves us suspectless.” Sabrina glanced around the room, her eyes falling on Warren. “What do you think about Warren? I think he’s a pretty good suspect. This watching each other’s backs deal? Maybe he’s trying to get you to drop your guard and trust him so you’ll make an easier target.”

  “Well, he’s playing the wrong girl. I’ve not dropped my guard since I died.” I cast a furtive glance his way. “You think he’s a real suspect?”

  Sabrina sighed and shook her head as she frowned into her coffee.“I can’t really see a motive for it. Even if he’s in therapy, a transcript of the sessions would be in his file so killing Watson wouldn’t hide it. Nor would it help him pass the assessment. Framing you for killing Watson doesn’t benefit him in any way I can see. And is he experienced enough to morph into you? And why would he morph into you out of everybody? Where would he learn that from? And he had to have known Alex version 2.0 was watching, or why bother morphing at all?”

  “I’m assuming you’re not expecting me to answer those questions?”

  Sabrina shook her head. “We’ll check out his file in Watson’s office tonight as well as Jenny’s and go from there. Maybe have a snoop in other files to see if there’s any reference to morphing.” Sabrina turned to me. “Your friend is still meeting us later?”

 
“I assume so. Don’t know about Edith though.”

  “So …” Sabrina dragged the word out. “Why were you in a closet with Pete? And how did Oz find you? And how do you know there’s another level of the afterlife?”

  “Pete was yelling at me for something and Oz is trying to prove he pays attention to my emotions after not turning up at the assessment centre the other day, so he’s hyper aware.”

  “What was Pete yelling at you for?” Sabrina narrowed her eyes.

  “Remember our conversation about ghost invisibility? It turns out you have to remain on the afterlife plane to appear invisible to the livies, even mediums. I didn’t know this and Madame Zorina was at one of my assignments and she spoke to me.”

  “He told you off for that?”

  “No, he freaked out over that. But it got me thinking. What if the person who overheard the conversation at my funeral, the person we’re meeting later, what if he pulled himself onto the next level of the afterlife so the livies and us ghosts couldn’t see him?”

  Sabrina’s eyes focused passed me as she looked like she was working it through. “That would make a sort of sense. It’s not a particularly cheery thought though, is it?”

  I sipped my tea. “I know. And I was so looking forward to dying.”

  Sabrina snorted. “Tell me about it.” She went to sip her coffee and paused with the cup halfway to her mouth. “How do you know which plane you’re on? And how do you pull yourself onto another plane?”

  I frowned at her. “Why do you keep asking me these questions like you expect me to have an answer?”

  “Didn’t you ask Pete?”

  “Oz turned up before I could.”

  “Okay, well, I kinda think that’s probably something we should find out about,” Sabrina said, nibbling the edge of her biscuit. “But we need to ask someone in a way that won’t draw attention to the fact we don’t already know. And in a way that, if we’re not supposed to know about the other afterlife planes, it won’t give away that we do.” Sabrina tapped her chin with her biscuit, oblivious to the fact she was dropping crumbs all over herself.

  “Or we could just ask Edith,” I suggested.

  Sabrina frowned at me. “Why didn’t that occur to me?”

  I peered into her coffee cup. “Obviously coffee doesn’t negate the effects of the dumbing down drug the way tea does. You should switch.”

  “Give up coffee?” Sabrina’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Think I’d rather be dumb.”

  “Good evening, everyone.” Eleanor clapped her hands to get out attention. “I know most of you are comfortable with tunnelling and misting now—”

  Sabrina waved her half eaten digestive in the air to get Eleanor’s attention before speaking. “I wouldn’t say ‘comfortable’ was exactly the right word.”

  Eleanor smiled and patted down Sabrina’s raised biscuit. “And I know that some of you are still struggling. Because of that I thought we’d take a break and just play some fun team games this evening.”

  “Er, Eleanor?” I felt the familiar tug of the assessment centre and waved my hand in the air. The last thing I needed was to have a note that I’d ditched a mandatory GA meeting on my record. Or for me to have to explain this to Oz.

  She must have seen me flicker. “Don’t worry. It’s a surprise assessment. I know all about it. You can let them take you.” She looked for Warren but he had already gone. “Good luck,” she said and waved as I disappeared.

  I arrived extremely close to Warren. As much as a millimetre closer and our forearms would’ve merged.

  He jumped back from me and dusted off his arm. “Watch where you’re going.”

  “It wasn’t me, you twit.” I glanced around and found Jenny smirking at me at the front on the group.

  Jenny raised her voice over the low hum of chatter. “Tonight is an unscheduled assessment. We’ll be doing it in here for the blackout curtains.” Jenny gestured around the drama studio. It was the size of an average classroom but was free of desks and chairs. The walls were black and bare.

  My stomach clenched at that. If you needed blackout curtains then you’d be doing something in the dark. I did not want to be in the dark with a whole bunch of possible murderers.

  Jenny spoke louder to make herself heard over the chatter. It seemed I wasn’t the only one with reservations. “So, tonight we’ll be playing murder in the dark—”

  “Is that appropriate?” I found myself saying before I’d really thought it through.

  “Not everyone in this room is as adept at finding dead bodies as you, Bridget.” Jenny glanced around the room to ensure her comment had the desired effect. Everyone was staring at me so I guess it had.

  “It’s not really her fault, though.” Warren spoke up to my surprise. The enemy of my enemy and all, I suppose. “Someone does keep shoving them in her locker.” Warren flashed me a grin. So not the enemy of my enemy then. Just a troublemaking idiot.

  And that was when people began slowly backing away from me, whispering and nudging each other. The outcome was a two metre empty space around me which, considering I suspected pretty much any one of them of being the murderer, I felt was a positive outcome.

  Gracie handed me a folded slip of paper before moving back to the front of the room as Jenny clapped her hands to get the attention back on her.

  “All of you have a piece of paper. Open them up without showing anyone else. If you have the paper that has an ‘x’ on it, that makes you the murderer.”

  I looked at the folded piece of paper in my hand. If mine had the “x” I was going home. I’d stop off at a department store to steal some bubble bath, a face mask and a bottle of wine and then I would tunnel home and lock myself in my bathroom. I might even steal two bottles of wine. I opened the paper to find it blank. And suddenly I felt a little disappointed about that. I really wanted a bubble bath.

  “Now the murderer knows who they are. They will tap you on the shoulder three times to signify you’re a victim. The lights will be off for thirty seconds to give them time to do their thing.”

  “You're turning the lights off?” I asked.

  “Yes, Bridget,” Jenny said with exaggerated patience. “The clue is in the name.”

  “I know what the game is called, Jenny, but if the lights are off isn’t everyone going to be bumping into everyone else?”

  “Then I guess you should be careful how you step,” Jenny gave me a tight lipped smile that had nothing to do with happiness.

  “And what exactly are we being assessed on here?” I gestured around the room. “I don’t see how this is relevant. To anything.”

  Jenny held my gaze, as though if she stared at me hard enough I’d spontaneously combust. She moved towards the light, her hand hovering over the switch. “Team work.”

  “Hang on,” I called quickly before she could plunge us in to blackness. “How will our team work be assessed? We’re all going to suspect everyone else is the murderer. Unless we’re the murderer.”

  Jenny flashed her teeth at me but it was nothing on Edith’s mother shark smile. “Exactly.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Tommy shouted up. “We’re being assessed on how well we work with a group of people we suspect of murder?”

  “Yep. Guess you should ace this one, Bridget.” Jenny didn’t wait for any more questions. She flipped the switch and extinguished the light. “Thirty seconds,” she called into the darkness.

  I hit the deck in a crouch. My plan was to scuttle to the side of the room and wait it out. I did not want to be a murder victim in the game or in real life. Or afterlife. It’s true that time passes much more slowly in the dark, but even then it could only have been less than five seconds before a scream ripped through the room. High pitched and panicked, it raised the hairs on my arms. Before that scream had faded, another joined in. Then another. Then another. The whole female population of the room must have been screaming by the time Jenny flicked the lights back on.

  I quickly stood and turned ba
ck to face the room so not to give my tactic away to anyone who might want to cave my head in with a log.

  Jenny stood by the light switch, arms folded and hip cocked. “What’s the problem?”

  “Someone touched me.” Everyone had bunched into the centre of the room so I couldn’t see who had spoken.

  Jenny narrowed her eyes into the crowd. “Did they touch you on the shoulder three times?” No one spoke but I assumed whoever it was nodded. “Then that means you’re dead.”

  There was a high-pitched whine, which I’d learned from my community service preceded a hefty crying fit. Somehow in life, I’d never noticed.

  “But I don’t want to be dead,” the faux murder victim whined.

  “Who does? It doesn’t seem like a whole lot of fun,” Tommy mumbled to me, attracting Jenny’s attention.

  “It’s really not,” I said.

  “You. Come down here.” Jenny motioned Tommy to where the majority of the group had congregated. I didn’t know if I should be relieved by that or worried that she’d left me isolated at the back. “Okay. Let’s try this again. If someone taps you three times on the shoulder, don’t scream, just fall to the ground.”

  “Is that safe?” I couldn’t help questioning her. She was just so stupid. “If someone’s tapped on the shoulder in the first five seconds and everyone is still moving around then they’re likely to be stepped on or tripped over.”

  “Okay. When the lights go out, nobody move,” Jenny ground out with exaggerated calm.

  “But then whoever is standing around the killer when they stop moving will know who it is,” Tommy called out from the middle of the throng. And once again Jenny threw me a dirty look. I was pretty sure at this point if it rained tomorrow that would be my fault.

  “He’s got a point,” Warren agreed. “We should all move about then, when the lights come back on, whoever has been tapped can drop dead. We don’t want any injuries or easy victories, do we?”

  Jenny sucked a deep breath in and exhaled it slowly. “Let’s do that.”

  “I wasn’t tapped on the shoulder. But someone touched my hip. Does that mean I’m maimed in some way?” a twenty-something guy asked.

  “No. It does not. Thirty people are moving around in the dark. That’s going to happen.” Jenny’s voice had an edge of forced calm that said she was ready to murderer us all. Whether the lights were off or not. “Now, is everyone clear on the rules?” Everyone nodded. “Okay. Let’s try again.”