Murder Games (17 page)
Authors: Elisabeth Crabtree
Acting on a h
unch, Grace called that number. She wasn’t that surprised when she heard a recording of Austin Waverly’s voice. She decided not to leave a message and ended the call just as the phone flashed a message that it was almost out of battery power. Ignoring the warning, she scrolled down until she reached Belinda Forrest’s number. She hesitated for a second before hitting send.
She half expected it to go to
voicemail, or at the very least, to be picked up by a police officer who had it in an evidence bag at the police station. She absolutely did not expect someone to answer it and not say anything. Nor did she expect to hear Kyle’s voice in the background. Or Ivy’s. But she did. She listened for a second as they chatted about a gazebo and Captain Von Trapp before the call abruptly ended. She glanced at the screen wondering if it had chosen that moment to power down, but it appeared that whoever had been on the other end had hung up. With a shiver, Grace realized that the killer must have kept Belinda’s phone.
She was just about to dial the police when the phone rang.
Belinda Forrest’s name flashed on the screen. She debated answering the call for a few seconds, and just when she finally decided to answer, the ringing stopped.
Deciding to save what was left of th
e phone’s battery; she powered it down and stuffed it back into Erica’s purse, before opening the attic door. She then turned and raced down the back stairs and into the kitchen, accidentally bumping into Rupert as she dashed through the doors.
Muttering a sincere
, “sorry,” Grace reached out to steady the groundskeeper.
“Where’s the fire?” he asked in irritation.
“Do you know where Kyle is?” Grace asked.
Rupert grimaced. “I have no idea.
Everyone just up and disappeared. Have you seen what they’ve done to the library?”
Spotting a phone on the kitchen wall near the pantry, Grace stepped around Rupert and picked up the receiver. “No, I’ve been upstairs.”
“They tore up that whole room looking for that diary. Molly’s in there cleaning it up right now. It’s going to take days to get it back in order. Bunch of fools. I can’t find Ivy, either.”
She gestured to the window.
“I think she’s out in the maze.”
“The maze? What would
she be doing out there?”
“I
overheard her say something about Captain von Trapp and the
Sound of Music
. Maybe Ivy’s taking them on a tour of the glass gazebo.” She placed the phone to her ear. When she couldn’t hear a dial tone, she asked, “How do you dial out? I need to speak to the police.”
“
Dial eight. That’ll get you to the hotel operator.” Rupert swung open the kitchen door. He paused in the doorway. “Captain von Trapp? Why would Ivy take them out there? I usually do the tours.”
Grace was just about to answer that she didn’t know
, when the Crystal Palace switchboard operator answered the phone.
“Crystal Palace front desk. Hold, please.”
Grace leaned against the wall and waited as the synthesized version of Mozart’s
Overture
from the
Marriage of Figaro
played through the phone. Glancing out the window, she impatiently drummed her fingers along the countertop. Kyle is with a group of people, she silently reassured herself. He’s perfectly safe, she thought, twisting her fingers through the telephone cord.
Feeling like she was being watched, she glanced behind her
shoulder.
No one was there.
She turned back around and waited for the operator. She was just about to hang up and try again when the music stopped. “Hello,” she said into the phone.
When she didn’t get a
response, she tried again. “Hello? Is anyone there?” She tapped the receiver twice and dialed eight once again.
“
Crystal Palace, please hold,” the lady on the other end said just as the door hinges behind Grace squeaked.
Feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand up
, she reached for the butcher knife lying on the counter next to her. Her fingertips brushed along the tip of the handle just as a bag was thrust over her face.
CHAPTER sixteen
“Absolutely.” Ivy gracefully sat down on the bench
above Kyle’s head. She unwound her bright pink scarf from around her neck and waved a hand in front of her face. “Rupert needs to lower the heat in here,” she muttered to herself. To the others, she said, “There should be a door underneath one of these benches.”
Austin
crawled out from underneath a bench. Sitting back on his knees, he asked, “Which one?”
“Well, I’ve never actually seen it myself
.” Ivy sniffed. “We probably should have found Rupert. He knows where the trap door is.”
Laura
attempted to shove Kyle to the side, but he wouldn’t budge. She gave him a dirty look before crawling to the other side of the bench and lying down on the floor. “Maybe it’s not a trap door. Maybe it’s a hidden compartment. It doesn’t have to be that big. Just large enough to hold a diary.” Turning over, she wiggled herself backward until her head and shoulders were under the bench and looked up. Jerry, Caroline, and Austin, quickly followed suit and rolled onto their backs, each checking their own bench.
“There’s nothing here.” Caroline rose to her feet and sat down. She stared long and hard at the room. Other than the six
benches and the crystal chandelier above their heads, there was nothing to see but glass. “I just don’t see any place someone could hide anything.”
Jerry jumped on
one of the stone benches and glanced up at the rafters. “Let’s not give up yet. It could be on one of those support beams.”
Laura rose to her feet and jumped up onto the bench next to
Jerry.
“Erica would never have hidden anything up there,” Ivy said.
Pulling on his gloves, Kyle walked to the doorway and down the stairs. Once on the ground, he turned and looked back at the gazebo. “It’s at least three feet off the ground,” he called out. “We might be able to get to it from out here.” The others quickly followed him outside. They all walked around the gazebo until they discovered a small padlocked door.
Laura bent over and picked up the padlock. “It’s locked. What are we going to do?”
Standing, she roughly shoved the glasses that had started to fall down her nose back up, and stepped away from the door.
“Well, one of us will have to go back to the house and fetch Rupert,” Ivy said with a sigh. “He’ll have a key.”
Before Kyle could reach into the inside of his coat pocket for his lock picks, Austin knelt down in front of the lock. Within seconds, he was tossing the padlock on the ground next to their feet.
Wondering just how the p
rofessor removed the padlock, Kyle leaned forward, craning his neck to the side. Austin moved quickly, too quickly for Kyle to see what kind of tool he had used on the lock. No sooner had Austin removed the padlock, than he was using both of his hands to shove the snow and ice blocking the door to the side. Once he had cleared the snow away, he opened the door and practically dove through the opening.
Laura and Jerry struggled with each other in a bid to go next. Jerry let out a yelp as Laura stomped on his foot. A few
seconds later, she disappeared underneath the gazebo with Jerry crawling after her.
Kyle, Ivy
, and Caroline, stood at the door impatiently waiting as the other three searched. The only sounds were of Jerry and Laura arguing with one another.
“Would you move?” Laura asked
.
“There’s not enough room for all of us,” Jerry said.
“Ow!” Laura said. “Get off!”
“I was here first!
” Jerry yelled.
“Would you two shut up,”
Austin snapped.
A few seconds later
, Austin’s head appeared at the door. He crawled out and came to a stand. He slapped his hands along his long black winter coat and pants in an attempt to remove the dirt and grime clinging to his clothes.
“Find anything?” Kyle asked.
Austin shook his head. “There’s nothing down there.”
Laura
crawled out on all fours. She jumped to her feet and ran up to Austin. “How do we know that? You could have gotten to the diary before us and hidden it.”
Jerry stuck his head out. “She’s right. You had plenty of time to stick it in your pocket.”
Rolling his eyes, Austin opened his coat. “You two want to search me?” he asked with a sneer.
Laura looked at him for
a half a beat before roughly pushing him against the gazebo and running her hands along his body, practically removing his coat in the process.
She stepped back and crossed her arms
. “He’s clean,” she said in disgust.
“Thank you.”
Austin pulled his coat back up his shoulders. “It’s so gratifying to know I have your seal of approval.” He looked like he was about to say something else when something caught his eye. He walked over to one of the hedges.
“What’s wrong?” Kyle asked.
“I thought I saw something.” Austin bent over. Using his fingers, he pushed the leaves aside. “There’s a hole in the hedge here.”
“Did you find something?” Jerry asked.
He dropped to his knees in front of the hole. “It looks like a . . . graveyard?” He leaned his face into the hole. “Yep, I see a couple of tombstones.”
“A graveyard?” Austin asked. “Why is there a graveyard in the middle of the maze?”
“Oh, that’s the original owner’s family gravesite,” Ivy said. “The maze is sort of built around it.”
Jerry walked along the hedge before coming to a dead end and turning around. “How can we get to it?”
“No one can get to it,” Ivy said. “I told you the maze was built around it.”
Jerry
walked back to the hole. Using both hands, he widened it just enough to allow his head to pass through the opening.
“Do you see anything?”
Austin asked.
“No, j
ust tombstones.” Jerry stepped back.
“It’s not here.” Laura began walking back toward the Manor. “We’re wasting our time.”
“Hold up, Laura. Wait for us.” Jerry raced after her. He looked back over his shoulder. “Come on, sweetheart.”
Sighing
, Caroline and Ivy followed at a more leisurely pace. After buttoning up his coat, Austin began to follow, as well.
Kyle reached out a hand and pulled
Austin back. “Just out of curiosity, how did you get the padlock unlocked?”
“Oh, that’s nothing. My father was a locksmith. There’s not much that I can’t open.”
Kyle watched them all leave until they all disappeared from view. Once he could no longer see or hear them, he turned back around and entered the gazebo. Removing his gloves, he walked back to the stone bench he had been investigating and ran his hands along the seam where the bench met the floor. Nodding his head in satisfaction, he pushed the stone bench to the side, revealing a deep groove in the floor. Using his fingertips, he felt within the groove and a few seconds later, he was able to lift a small section of the floor. He peered into the hole. It wasn’t that large or that deep, but there was definitely something there. He felt along until his fingers brushed against leather. Smiling, he pulled out a small leather bound book.
* * *
Kyle opened the door to the manor. He shrugged his coat off and hung it up in the coat closet next to the door.
Laura stood
in the foyer, watching his every move. “You’ve been gone . . .” She glanced at her watch, “. . . exactly forty-eight minutes. Where have you been?”
“I got lost. Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “No.”
“Well, I did. Thanks for leaving me back there. Have you found Lucinda’s diary, yet?”
“Yes.”
Taken aback, Kyle said, “Really? Where is it?”
“I’d think you’d be more interested in the ruby than that old diary.” Laura walked past him toward the library. She opened the doors. “Would you like to see it?”
“Of course.” He followed her into the room. Caroline and Jerry were hard at work
putting the room back in order, while Rupert sat in one of the chairs supervising.
Laura led
Kyle to the desk. She picked up the ruby necklace laying there. It dangled between her fingers.
Kyle reached out and took the small pendant
, no bigger than the size of a pea, into his hand. “How did you find it?”
Laura dropped the necklace into his palm. “I told you. We found the diary
and it led us right to it.”
“Funny,” Kyle said
, holding the piece of red glass up to the light. “It doesn’t quite look like something a Prussian princess would wear.”
“Ha! Ha!” Jerry said sarcastically. “The joke’s on us.” He gave Rupert a dirty look. “Turns out
, it’s all just part of the game.”
Rupert smirked.
“Gets them every year.”
Laura raised her chin. “I wasn’t fooled. I knew all along it was part of the game. I was just playing along.”
“Sure, you were,” Jerry said.
Kyle dropped the necklace back onto the desk. “Where’s Grace?”
“Who?” Laura asked.
Kyle looked at Laura. “Grace.”
“I don’t know any Grace, Mr. Cheatum.”
“Oh, are we back to that?” Kyle asked.
“Fine, Doctor Nightshade. Where’s Rose?”
Laura gave him a look of concern. “I regret to inform you that she passed away. She died sometime before we arrived. I did my best to revive her
, but unfortunately, I was too late.”
Kyle knew that Laura was just playing the game
, but it didn’t stop his heart from seizing up for a few moments. “Rose is dead? How did that happen?”
“We think poison.” Jerry picked up another book and jammed
it between two others on the shelf. “We found her body in the kitchen.” He picked up another book and tried to force it between two others. “Ghastly.”
Kyle’s
heart, which refused to settle to a normal beat, began to beat even faster. He began to feel lightheaded. “Where is she?”
“
Heaven,” Rupert said solemnly.
“No,
don’t give me that,” Kyle snapped. “Where is Grace?”
Hearing the tension in his voice, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him.
Rupert sat up straighter. “Heaven’s what we call the hotel. Anyone who
dies
in the game ends up going back to the hotel until the reveal later tonight. Grace will be back here in a few hours.”
Eyes narrowing suspiciously, Kyle said,
“She wouldn’t have left without saying something to me.”
Wincing in pain, Rupert stood up
. He grunted as he limped toward the door.
“What happened to your leg?” Kyle asked.
Rupert rested a hand against one of the chairs. “I slipped on the ice outside.” Using the chair for support, he pushed himself toward the door. “I’ll call the hotel and see if they can’t get Grace on the phone for you.”
Caroline stood up and walked toward Kyle. “Kyle, everything’s fine. Grace is probably at the spa getting a massage right as we speak.” She looked over her shoulder at Laura and Jerry. “If
either of you is the
killer
, just know that I’m more than happy to volunteer to be the next victim.”
“Sweetie, why would
you want to leave all this fun?” Jerry asked as he picked up four books with one hand and shoved them onto another shelf.
* * *
Kyle stood at the bar watching the others milling about the room pretending that they weren’t watching him. It had been two hours since he had returned from the glass gazebo, and two hours since he had discovered Grace gone. In all that time, he had not heard from her, not one word. He left countless messages on her cell phone and all over the hotel for her to call him immediately, but there still was no answer from her.
Meanwhile, the game continued at Murder Manor
, but with one difference. Jerry and Laura no longer seemed that interested in solving Ivy’s murder. They still called each other by their character names, but that was the only thing they did. They no longer made wild accusations, plant false clues, or try to catch one another in a lie. In fact, they barely talked at all. Each one seemed focused on watching the other while surreptitiously searching the room.
Kyle was no fool. He knew they were still hunting for the ruby.
Just as he knew that whole scene in the library was staged for his benefit. They didn’t want to cut him in on the prize. He felt his breast pocket where Lucinda's diary was hidden. He would give it up in a heartbeat if it meant he could have Grace back. The only question that he had was which one was involved in her disappearance. Until he knew, he couldn’t say anything. As far as he knew, the diary might be his only bargaining chip. He dropped his hand back down on the bar.