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

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  “Maybe no one. Maybe she did it.” I threw my hands up. “I just don’t know. I can’t see a motive for killing him, or the others, apart from someone being unhappy about the assessment. But then five minutes ago I would’ve said I was pretty sure we were the only four people here. If Nancy and Hannah have been here nearly the whole time and we’ve not seen them, anyone else could be here.”

  Sabrina rubbed her forehead as if it would stimulate her brain. “What are we working on as a motive? The assessment?”

  “If we’re using that as a motive then it has to be someone who stands to gain from the deaths of the leaders and that was really only the other leaders. But now they’re all dead.”

  Sabrina frowned. “It has to be someone being assessed though, right? Maybe someone emotionally unbalanced and resentful of the leaders. Who seemed unbalanced to you?”

  “Everyone but Tommy and Warren. I hope it’s Jessica. I would very much enjoy knocking her unconscious.” I sighed happily at the image of stunning her. Repeatedly.

  “I’ve just had a really horrible thought.” Sabrina was jabbing her neck with two fingers as if she were probing for a pulse.

  I waited but she didn’t elaborate. “Are you just going to keep it to yourself? Because I’m happy for you to do that.”

  “What if Matthew was faking? There was no wound I could see. He didn’t have a pulse but I can’t find a pulse on me either,” she said, still prodding her neck.

  I felt around my own neck. “I think you must be doing it wrong because I’ve got a pulse.”

  Sabrina knocked my hand away and felt my neck, then pressed her fingers back to her own neck in the same area. “How come you have a pulse and I don’t?”

  I arched an eyebrow at her. “Why do you keep asking me these things?”

  Sabrina cursed. Several times. “I goddamn hate this place.”

  “Well, if Matthew were faking I’m going to kick his arse because I’m pretty sure he copped a feel of my boob as he fell onto me.”

  Sabrina snorted a laugh. “A man’s a man even in—” Sabrina turned to me. “Wait. If you think he copped a feel then his hands must have been up.” I frowned at her and she raised her hands as though she were about to cop a feel of my boobs.

  I looked from her hands to her face. “You mean, like, up? Like I’m-faking-being-dead-slash-unconscious up?”

  “Yeah.” Sabrina briefly pressed her lips together in thought. “But I heard the thump when he hit the floor. It sounded pretty hard. It’s nigh on impossible to not try to save yourself when you’re falling if you’re conscious. It’s a reflex.”

  I frowned at her. “Okay, so to be clear, are we saying he was unconscious-slash-dead or not?”

  “We’re saying we should check.”

  “I thought we were hiding in wait for someone to come and kill us.”

  “Change of plan,” she said as she crouched to pick the lock on the classroom door and peeked out. “Warren’s gone. So have Nancy and Hannah.”

  “What?” I peered out over her shoulder along the empty corridor. “You think Matthew’s got them?”

  Sabrina shrugged. “Maybe they’re Matthew’s partners and they’re hunting us.”

  “Hope that wasn’t a reference to me.” Tommy spoke from the opposite side of the doorway, making us both jump back inside the classroom. “Sorry. I came down the back stairs looking for you two. Why are you hiding in a classroom?”

  “Have you seen the rest of them?” Sabrina asked.

  Tommy looked along the corridor and frowned. “No. Not since I went upstairs. There’s no way out up there that I can see. How about the doors?”

  “To be honest we didn’t try them. We were waiting for the murderer to come and try to kill us,” Sabrina said.

  “How did that work out for you?” Tommy asked.

  Sabrina gave him a small smile. “You turned up.”

  Tommy huffed a laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Come on. Let’s go and find the others. What’s the plan from here?”

  “I’m sure there was an emergency exit door in the backstage area,” Sabrina said as we left the safety of our classroom.

  “I didn’t see one,” Tommy said. “Apart from the one in the hall some idiot has bricked up.”

  “I think it was on the far wall in the costume room,” I added. I knew for certain there wasn’t an emergency exit in there but I assumed that was Sabrina’s ruse to explain going back to check Matthew was definitely dead. I also assumed she didn’t want to explain our suspicions to anyone, just in case Matthew had a partner. Or partners.

  We checked inside each room as we made our way back along the corridor. Sabrina opened the door of the last classroom before the assembly hall and dodged as a chair came flying out.

  She moved to stand in the doorway, arms folded. “You done?”

  “I knew it was you!” Warren yelled from somewhere inside the classroom.

  Sabrina turned to me. “Can we just leave him here?”

  “Fine with me,” Tommy mumbled.

  I pursed my lips at them both and then poked my head around the doorframe to peer into the classroom. “Get out here, you idiot.”

  Warren’s head popped up from behind a table. “You’ve not come to kill me?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” I warned as Warren emerged from the classroom.

  He looked at each of us in turn. “So, no way out then?”

  Sabrina nodded. “Yes, we found a way out and are sitting in the nearest pub getting incredibly drunk in the beer garden. What you see before you are mere echoes of ourselves.”

  “There’s no need for the attitude, I was only asking,” Warren said. “So the plan now is …?”

  “I saw a fire exit door in the costume room.” Sabrina looked behind Warren into the classroom. “Where are the other two?”

  “Nancy took Hannah to the toilets to get cleaned up.” Warren shook his head. He stuck a finger in his ear and waggled it. “Man, that girl can cry.”

  “So much for ‘let’s not split up’,” Tommy mumbled.

  “We’ll get them,” Sabrina said.

  Sabrina and I walked back along the corridor to the toilets. I opened the outer door. Everything sounded peaceful on the inside front, which I was grateful for. I couldn’t take any more of Hannah’s wailing. Sabrina held the first door open for an easy escape, if necessary, as I pushed the second one ajar to peek inside. If they were having a weepy heart-to-heart I intended to close the door and call through it, so I wouldn’t get dragged into it. I paused in the doorway.

  “What’s up? Are they not in there?” Sabrina asked and I turned to her, resignation all over my face. She sighed. “Why do people keep killing our suspects?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nancy lay face down in the middle of the white tiled floor. Hannah lay face down next to her.

  “Blow to the head.” Sabrina crouched beside Nancy’s body and lifted some hair off her face and winced. “Right on the temple.”

  “Same here.” I couldn’t see much since Hannah’s hair was matted with blood, and to be honest I’d seen enough head wounds to last me a lifetime – I wasn’t about to go lifting up her hair and examining her scalp. “At least it wasn’t us,” I said.

  Sabrina grinned at me over the two dead women and clicked her tongue. “Always a silver lining.”

  “Do you think we’re becoming a little too desensitised to the whole people being murdered around us thing?” I asked.

  Sabrina shook her head as she stood. “Nah. I think we’re just adapting to our environment.”

  “You’d have rescued the puppy, right?”

  Sabrina snorted in disgust. “Who wouldn’t have rescued the puppy?”

  Since there wasn’t really much else we could do, we headed out of the toilets and back toward Tommy and Warren.

  Tommy held his hands up. “Where are they?”

  Sabrina shook her head. “They’re not coming.”

  “I’m not sure it’s wise to
leave those two on their own in here. If the killer is still here …” Tommy left the sentence hanging but we all got the implication.

  I gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “What do you mean?” Warren asked.

  Tommy’s eyebrows inched up. “Really?”

  “Really, what?” Warren looked between the three of us for answers.

  “They’re dead,” Sabrina said.

  “You ladies don’t mind if I just check, do you?” Tommy asked.

  I shook my head. “I’d be worried if you didn’t.”

  “And I was beginning to think it was Nancy as well,” Sabrina said as we waited for Tommy to get back.

  “Why?” Warren asked.

  Sabrina shrugged. “Mainly because I didn’t like her but also she was around when three out of four victims were murdered, and she was locked in here with us.”

  Tommy walked out of the toilets and shook his head. “We need to get out of here, we’re dropping like flies.”

  “Well, hi there, Mr States-the-Obvious,” Warren snapped.

  “We’re going to check the costume room for that exit before anyone else dies,” Sabrina said as we backed up and headed to the assembly hall.

  “I didn’t see an exit in there.” Warren had his arms tightly wrapped around his torso as if he were hugging himself and followed us with small, quick steps.

  We walked back into the hall, across the stage, and into the costume room.

  “Er …” I pointed to the empty space on the floor where we had left Matthew’s double dead body. “I think we’re missing someone.”

  “Why would the killer come back for the body?” Warren slid costumes out of the way to check behind the rails. “Why would he do that?”

  “He didn’t.” Matthew spoke from the doorway, a wad of wet cloth pressed to the back of his head.

  “Oh my god. You were dead.” Warren ran over to him and grabbed him by the arm, helping him down the three steps into a seat. Warren glared at me. “Why didn’t you check his pulse? He could’ve died.”

  I shrugged. “Sabrina did. But apparently a pulse is no longer an accurate way to determine whether you’re alive or not.”

  “Why? Who has a pulse?” Tommy asked, his eyes jumping around the group.

  “What are you all doing here?” Matthew grimaced as he adjusted the cloth on the back of his head.

  “We can’t get out. The blocking is up.” Sabrina swirled her finger in a circle.

  “It shouldn’t be. I left it down so you could get out.” Matthew tilted his head like Oz did when he was listening to his emotional radar. “So it is. Maybe it came back up when I got knocked out.” Matthew frowned and focused his attention on the far wall. After a long moment he shook his head once and stopped, closing his eyes and blowing out an unsteady breath. “I’m a bit too woozy to do it just yet. Give me a few minutes and I’ll take it down.”

  “Sure.” Sabrina returned her hand casually to her pocket. “Don’t suppose you saw who attacked you?”

  “No. He caught me from behind.” Matthew winced again as he adjusted his cloth.

  “Really?” Tommy asked. “Because Hannah said she heard you arguing with someone in here.”

  Matthew gave one shake of his head and stopped with another wince. “I was talking to myself because you four ladies weren’t in here and I was annoyed I was going to have to track you down.”

  Tommy frowned at Matthew. “Why would you need to track them down if you specifically left the blocking down for them to leave?”

  “To make sure they had left before I left and sealed the place back up,” Matthew said.

  “But then why wouldn’t you have left the blocking in place so they’d have to find you before they left so you’d know they were gone?” Tommy asked, sparing me a quick glance.

  “Because ‘y’ is a crooked letter.” Matthew scanned the room slowly and stopped to close his eyes as if it hurt. His movements struck me as real. “Where are Hannah and Nancy?”

  “They’re in the ladies’ toilets,” Tommy said. “Dead. Did you kill them?”

  “Dead? What do you—” Matthew’s voice jumped in pitch, making him flinch.

  “Someone killed them.” Tommy watched Matthew’s face intently. Presumably, the resurrected Matthew was now Tommy’s main suspect. “Was it you?”

  Matthew pressed a hand over his eyes. Yes, I didn’t like him, but I was pretty sure Hannah had been his girlfriend at some point so it must be hard to find out she was dead. Especially in this type of situation.

  “That’s going to be so much paperwork.” Matthew sighed, taking his hand away from his eyes. “They’ll never let us use this building again.”

  Or maybe not.

  “And what are you two doing here?” Matthew asked Warren and Tommy.

  Warren gestured to Sabrina and me. “I stayed to help the ladies with the costumes.”

  “And you?” he asked Tommy.

  “I was filling out paperwork.”

  Matthew slowly turned his head to look at Tommy. “What paperwork?”

  Tommy shrugged. “Nancy took me to a classroom upstairs where everything was already laid out.”

  “You said Matthew took you to the classroom,” Sabrina reminded him.

  “Nancy took me, I assumed on Matthew’s direction.” Tommy shrugged again.

  Matthew pointed a finger at Tommy. “It was you. It’s been you all along.”

  Tommy held up his hands with a sigh. “It’s not me. I just—”

  Before Tommy could even frame a proper defence, Warren leapt at him. I don’t know which of us was more surprised. Tommy and Warren rolled around on the floor, knocking into a rail of costumes and toppling it on top of them. Not even that stopped them.

  Sabrina reached for Matthew. “Let’s get you out of here quickly.”

  “Okay.” He extended his arm out to her.

  In a blur of movement she pulled her hand from her pocket and jabbed her stun gun into his ribs and shocked him. He twitched, then dropped to the floor, cracking the side of his head on the makeup counter. I grimaced for him as he went down, out cold. Two blows to the head in the same hour? That would either kill him or knock some intelligence loose.

  Sabrina popped a new cartridge in the gun and aimed it at the two curtain covered men. Two little pointy things shot out on wires and the curtain covered mass stopped moving. “Help me,” she instructed before she pulled the curtain off the now stationary men.

  Sabrina fisted her hand in the back of Warren’s jumpsuit and I grabbed his arm. Together we pulled him off Tommy and dropped him to the floor, his head resting on Matthew’s stomach. Sabrina popped a third cartridge in her gun, returned it to her pocket, and handed me a length of ribbon. She didn’t even need to tell me what to do. I hogtied a gasping Warren, quietly muttering an apology to him. I still didn’t think he was the killer but, on the off chance he was and he got loose, hopefully he’d remember I’d been very apologetic about the whole getting stunned thing.

  “Thanks,” Tommy panted when he managed to drag the curtain off his face. He stared at the two unconscious figures. “What the hell just happened? They were in it together? I didn’t see that coming.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think they were.”

  Sabrina moved towards Tommy, pointing to his bloody lip. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said gingerly touching his lip. “He just caught me off guard. That won’t happen again.”

  “Good.” Sabrina patted him on the shoulder, quickly pulled the stun gun from her pocket and shot two more little pointy things on wires in Tommy’s ribs. She let his paralysed form drop to the floor with the other two and turned to me. “Figured it was best to be on the safe side.”

  “No, you figured he was another GB plant.” I eyed the stun gun with trepidation. “You know I’m not, right?”

  Sabrina bent down to tie him up. “I just find it offensive they keep doing that, don’t you? I mean, it’s like they don’
t trust us.”

  “You just stun gunned a man for no reason. I think that’s good motivation for them to not trust us.”

  Sabrina pulled Tommy’s legs up behind him and continued her hogtying. “No, I stun gunned him because I was worried about our safety. There was nothing vindictive in it at all.”

  “I liked him, though,” I said, and it came out a little whiny.

  She stood and dusted off her hands now he was secured. “I know. Shame he was a lying member of law enforcement. Come on.”

  “Are we just going to leave them here like this?” I asked, looking at the three men, none of whom I really thought was the killer.

  “Do you know for certain one of them isn’t the killer?” Sabrina asked, eyebrow arched. “For certain.”

  I sighed. “No. But what if they’re not and the real killer comes back to finish them off?”

  “Okay, so what do you want to do?” Sabrina motioned to the three heavy-looking men on the floor. “Lug them behind us like a chain gang?”

  I dragged the word out. “No …”

  “You’re going to get us both killed.” Sabrina covered her eyes with her hand. “We can’t take them with us.”

  “We could lock them in here, from the outside,” I suggested. “The killer would assume the room was empty.”

  Sabrina frowned at me. “Why would the killer assume the room was empty?”

  I gestured around the room. “Because why would someone lock themselves in here?”

  “Okay, but I’m not undoing their bindings,” Sabrina warned.

  “How about just their legs?” I asked.

  “Oh my god, Bridge!” Sabrina shook her head at me. “You do remember you have—no, we have death shrouds?”

  “It’s the same chance we gave Charlie and Pete,” I reasoned.

  “So, you ladies do this a lot, then?” Tommy asked, his voice a little rougher than normal.

  “Only when we’re being hunted down by a crazed murderer,” Sabrina said, handing me her knife, unicorn handle first, so I could cut their legs free. “Which is about once a week.”

  With their legs free I handed the knife back to Sabrina and turned to the men on the floor. “You guys stay here and stay quiet. We’ll be back to get you soon.”