“I’ve got you,” I said firmly, immediately gripping her hand. “No matter what happens now, I promise I’ll protect you. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
She nodded and looked up at me, her hazel eyes filled with trust and adoration. “I know.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Indi
I slipped on a jacket and glanced around nervously. Blake and I were back in our usual inn room, changing into fresh clothes while trying to digest the latest occurrence on the island of horrors.
The last few hours at the inn had been pure mayhem, with people screaming, crying and running around as the police tried to keep them calm while also dealing with the crime scene in the Blackthorne’s room. I couldn’t fault everyone for all the pandemonium. I felt like shit too. I thought I was scared yesterday, but now I was so terrified that I simply felt numb and exhausted.
“God, I don’t want to stay here anymore,” I said, sitting down on the bed with a sigh.
“I know, but the Candle Cove is the only guest accommodation on the island,” Blake replied, sitting next to me and slinging an arm around my shoulders. “Loretta and the other inn staff members are trying to get some locals to put us up in their houses until the weather breaks and transport is available again, but it’s going to take a while with all the phone lines down.”
“I know. I just can’t believe what’s happening. Three people dead in two days…it’s awful.” I chewed on my bottom lip, then looked at Blake. “If I haven’t already said this, I’m so sorry for convincing you to come here with me. This show has been nothing but a disaster.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t say it’s entirely been a disaster. We got together, didn’t we?”
I nodded and gave him a rueful smile. “Yes, but it might’ve been a tad more romantic if we didn’t get together on what has essentially become a killing field.”
“That’s true. But don’t worry. The weather will break soon, and the mainland cops will come and sort this out. Then we’ll be back in Seattle before we know it, and we can be together without all this shit.”
“I can’t wait. And god, I want to see my friends and family again.” I frowned. “Hold up, I just had a thought….”
Blake smiled. “I can actually see your brain ticking over from the look in your eyes. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Saying the word ‘family’ reminded me of something. Remember Stephen? The junior producer.”
“Ed’s son?”
I nodded. “Yeah. He left in the middle of the night during that camping trip. Sent Ed a text at something like three in the morning, claiming something came up and he had to leave the island to go back to LA. No one’s heard from him since then. I remember Ed was trying to call him but he wouldn’t answer.”
“So?”
“So what if there’s a family connection to these deaths?” I sprang up and began to pace around as my mind went wild. “Remember those weird noises we heard in the forest on the camping night? We assumed later that it was just the showrunners screwing with us.”
“But Ed said it wasn’t when we confronted him yesterday.” Blake finished my sentence with furrowed brows and a nod, obviously catching on to what I was saying.
“Exactly. So if those sounds were real and not faked by the showrunners… what if it was Stephen? What if someone hurt him out there, then took his phone and sent a text to Ed saying he was leaving? No one had any reason to doubt that he really left at the time.”
Blake nodded slowly. “Yeah, and Ed, Neil and Stephen are all related. Or were,” he said. Then he frowned. “Hold on, what about Mike? He’s not related to them, and he just got killed as well.”
“Yes, but he was with Neil in the same room when he died. Maybe the killer simply had to get him out of the way to get to Neil. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Shit, yeah. That makes sense. But why would someone want to kill off Ed and his relatives?”
I slumped back down on the bed. “I don’t know. I mean, for all I know Stephen is alive and well. It was just an idea.”
“No, it was a good idea,” Blake said slowly. “I just remembered—on the way over to the island all those weeks ago, I heard a bunch of crew members bitching about nepotism on the show. They were saying Stephen only got a junior producer position because he’s Ed’s son.”
I raised my brows. “Yes! And Neil only got the job as head of the lighting department because he was Ed’s cousin. Maybe one of the crew was angry enough about the obvious nepotism to kill them.”
“Yeah, maybe. Hey, we should start our own detective agency,” Blake said.
I rolled my eyes. “No, don’t be silly. We still don’t know if this theory holds any water. We need to tell Sheriff Irons. He can send someone out to the forest to look for Stephen, and if his body is out there, then we have to be right—there must be a family connection.”
“Let’s go and tell him, then.”
We left the room and headed down to the function room, where Irons had set up a temporary workspace for himself and the other police officers. He was in the middle of interviewing an inn staff member about her whereabouts during the murders, but when he was finished, he gave us a few minutes to outline our theory to him.
When we were done, he raised his brows. “Do you see how swamped we are?” he asked, gesturing around the room. “One body yesterday, and two more bodies today. Do you have any idea how busy we are dealing with all of this shit?”
“Of course. That’s why we’re trying to help,” I said.
He let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re not helping by running around acting like amateur detectives! You aren’t trained police officers. I am, and so are my men. You need to leave the work to us and stop coming to me with half-baked theories.”
“What do you mean?” Blake asked.
“I mean, look at how your little Mike Blackthorne theory turned out. The man is dead, for Christ’s sake, so that’s how good your intuition is,” Irons said with a deep frown. “Like I said, leave the police work to us.”
“But Stephen Kramer could be out there,” I insisted. “No one’s heard from him since he supposedly left, and if he’s dead, then that means there’s a family connection to these deaths. Surely that could help narrow your list of sus—”
The sheriff cut me off. “Please stop! Look, I’ll follow up on Stephen Kramer’s alleged ‘disappearance’ as soon as communications are back up. My bet is he’s sunning himself somewhere back in California, where he said he was going. But I’ll follow up on it anyway, when I have time. Got it?”
“When are you going to have time?”
Irons looked like he was about to throttle us. “I don’t know. When the mainland cops are able to get here to help, most likely.”
“But with the weather, that might not be for another three days! I understand how busy you are, but I really think…” I began to speak, but he glared at me so hard that my words dried up. “Thank you for your time, Sheriff,” I finished lamely.
Blake grabbed my hand and pulled me away. “He’s not going to listen to us,” he said. “But I have an idea. Remember the cop who brought us dinner in the holding cell last night? Bennett. He was nice. He listened to us and believed us. Maybe he’ll come out to the forest with us to see if Stephen’s body is really out there.”
I nodded. “Good idea. He’s right over there.”
I pointed at the other side of the room, and we headed over to the nice officer. Unfortunately, he was about as much help as Irons.
“I’m sorry. You might be right about Stephen’s disappearance and this whole family connection, but we just don’t have the time or resources to look into anything other than solid evidence right now,” he said. “That camping spot is an hour-long hike from here. I can’t take two hours off to go there and back for something that might very well be a wild goose chase.”
“I understand,” I said with a sigh. At least he was nice about it. “What if we went out there and looked fo
r him by ourselves?”
“You’d be risking your own neck,” Bennett said. “We don’t suggest anyone goes anywhere on the island right now. You need to remain here at the inn.”
“All right.”
“Stay safe, you hear me?”
“We will.”
We stepped away, and I looked up at Blake with a determined expression. “We’re totally going to the forest to look for Stephen, aren’t we?”
“Hell yeah we are,” he said, gritting his teeth. “They won’t listen to us, so we need to make them listen. Like that guy said, it’s only an hour there and back. We’ll be fine. We just need to grab some stuff to protect ourselves with, just in case.”
“Okay.”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “I’ll keep you safe, Indi, don’t worry about that. I just don’t want to leave you alone here at the inn. Not for a second.”
I smiled. “I know. I get it. Wherever you go, I’m going with you.”
We sneaked into the inn’s large kitchen to look for things to defend ourselves with if necessary. Blake slipped a knife into his back pocket, and I grabbed a heavy crystal decanter.
Blake raised his brows at me. “You’re taking that?”
“I can’t take a knife. I’m so clumsy, I’d probably drop it and slice one of my toes off,” I said. “Besides, if we run into any crazy murderers outside, I’ll be able to knock them out with this thing.”
He shook his head and smiled. “I feel like we’ve said this a lot lately, but if things weren’t so serious right now, I’d actually laugh.”
I sighed. “Me too, Blake. Me too….”
We slipped out a side entrance and headed down a track on the edge of the Candle Cove estate. It was the same one we’d taken to get to the campsite a few weeks ago.
Blake was an experienced hiker/camper, and he said he still remembered the way without a map. He was right—an hour later, we were standing in a familiar clearing. The charred remnants of our camping night bonfire were still visible on the ground, and Blake frowned and headed slightly north.
“Our tent was around here,” he said, motioning to the ground where he stood. “Do you remember where you went to pee in the middle of the night?”
I nodded and caught up to him. “I think I walked over to that tree line,” I said, pointing. “About fifty yards or so. There was a tiny clearing there.”
We headed in that direction, and we eventually reached a crescent-shaped clearing within the trees. “I think this was it,” I said, glancing around. “Hard to tell, but that tree looks like the one I hid behind when I first heard the sounds.”
“And where did they come from?” Blake asked. “To me, they sounded like they were from over there.”
He pointed, and I nodded. “That’s right. And I saw someone too. I mean, I thought I did.”
Blake frowned. “Height? Weight?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t tell from where I was crouched. It was just a silhouette in the distance.”
“Damn.”
We headed in the direction the creepy sounds had come from all those weeks ago in the middle of the night, and pretty soon, a horrible stench filled our nostrils.
“Stay back,” Blake said, a grim expression on his face. “I’ll check it out.”
“It could just be a dead animal,” I replied. Honestly, I hoped it was. I hoped we were wrong about all of this, and that Stephen was happily back in LA like everyone else thought he was.
“It could be, but if it’s not, I don’t want you seeing it,” Blake said. He took a few slow steps forward, then looked back over his shoulder. “I won’t be out of your sight. It’s okay.”
I nodded and stayed where I was, shuffling nervously as he headed farther and farther towards the source of the awful smell. He returned two minutes later, one hand over his nose and mouth.
“What did you find?” I asked anxiously.
“We were right,” he said grimly, lowering his hand. “It’s Stephen. Looks like someone killed him and left his body here to rot. His phone is right next to him. So whoever the killer is…they did text Ed pretending to be Stephen with some bullshit excuse about leaving.”
“Shit,” I said softly. “We need to get back and tell the sheriff.”
He nodded. “Yep. He didn’t wanna listen, but you were right—there’s probably a family connection to these killings. Mike was just an unlucky bastard who got in the way.”
“But who’s doing it? And why?” I asked. “Do you really think one of the crew members would get that angry about nepotism in the industry? I mean, yeah, it sucks, but stabbing a bunch of people to death doesn’t help anything.”
Blake shrugged. “I don’t know. But with the way these cops are acting, they aren’t gonna find out anytime soon, and with all transport and communications shut off for the time being, no one else is coming to help.”
My forehead wrinkled. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying we need to tell the cops what we’ve found out here, but we also need to keep looking into this ourselves if we want to feel safe anytime soon,” he said, one hand curling into a determined fist by his side. “We’re gonna find out what the fuck is going on here, and we’re going to do it now.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Blake
This was bullshit.
The cops on this island were so busy interviewing everyone and doing things their way that they barely even bothered considering the fact that Indi and I might be right about our theory. Whoever was carrying out these murders very likely had a problem with Ed Kramer and his family, and the murders were a statement to that effect.
Surely that made it easier for them to narrow down the suspect pool. But no, apparently we needed to be ignored simply because we weren’t professionals, even if we thought we were seriously on to something.
And guess what? We were right.
Right now, Indi was sitting cross-legged on the bed in our room, which we’d just returned to after filling in Sheriff Irons on what we’d found out in the woods. He was surprised to hear that we’d actually been correct about Stephen, but the man actually managed to muster up a mumbled ‘thank you’ before heading out with his deputy to check out the scene in the forest.
“What should we do first?” Indi asked, looking up at me with wide eyes.
“While Irons is out recovering Stephen’s body, we should see if we can figure out who might’ve had a problem with Ed Kramer and his family. I’d say the idea we had about nepotism is probably somewhere close to the truth.”
“So let’s go talk to people. I think most of the crew are hanging out in the bar and trying to drown their fears with beer,” she said. “We could quietly ask a couple of people who they think was the most upset about Neil and Stephen getting gigs on the show via Ed. They might be more willing to open up to us when they’re drunk.”
“Yeah, that could work.”
“Actually… do you remember which crew members you heard complaining about the nepotism?” she asked.
I frowned. “It was weeks ago. But I think one of them was a blonde woman with a tattoo, and the other was a skinny guy with black hair.”
“Oh, they’re from the hair and makeup team. Anna Marris and Glenn Cooper,” Indi said. “They’re part of the crew whose full names I actually remember. I Googled them on your iPad back when the internet was still working; when you were off talking to Keenan.”
“What did you find?” I asked, fishing around in my suitcase for the iPad.
She shook her head. “Nothing, other than that they’re both from LA. But of course they are—all of the crew are from there.”
“You sure there wasn’t anything else?”
“Pretty sure. But we can check. I mean, the internet isn’t working, but everything we looked at is still saved in the cache, so we can access it offline.”
“True,” I said, turning the tablet on. “There might be something we glossed over last time. Here.”
I handed
her the iPad, and she scrunched her face up in thought as she tapped through page after page of information. Then her expression lit up.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s nothing about the crew,” she said. “I was just looking at the list we made of the contestants and where they’re from.”
“And?”
“Do you remember before we got on the boat in Vancouver, and Ed made that big speech about where he was from and where he ended up?”
“Yeah, I thought it made him sound like a fucking douchebag.”
“It did. But do you remember the name of the town? As in the supposedly ‘tiny, shitty little place in the middle of nowhere’?”
“Nope.”
“He said Haplin, South Dakota. When he asked if anyone had heard of it, almost everyone said no. But a couple of people said yes. Dean included. He lives in Sioux City with Amy now, but his Facebook profile said his hometown was Haplin. As in the same Haplin that Ed mentioned. I noticed it when I made the list, but I didn’t put two and two together until now.”
“So he’s from Haplin…so what?”
She jumped up, an impatient glimmer in her eyes. “So what are the odds that someone just so happens to be from Ed’s tiny little hometown from the middle of nowhere in South Dakota? Out of just twenty contestants. And then Ed and his family members wind up dead.”
I frowned. “I guess it’s a bit weird. But where’s the motive? Dean doesn’t seem like he’d hurt a fly. And he didn’t seem to have any issue with Ed or the others.”
“A lot of crazy people seem totally normal,” she said. “But maybe his family had some sort of serious problem with Ed and his family a long time ago?”
“What, and Dean just decided to track him down to a reality show years later to murder him and his family members for revenge?” I said with a disbelieving lift of my brows. “Seems like a stretch, to be honest. And the last time we thought someone might be dodgy, they turned out to be completely innocent. Remember Keenan’s arrest record? There was a valid reason for that. I don’t want to accuse another innocent person.”
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