Murder Games (22 page)

Austin
glanced over Caroline’s shoulder at the diary. “She died a few days later.”

Caroline glanced back at him. “How?”

Austin stood up and stretched his shoulder. “Apparently, it was a family scandal. Very hush hush. According to the local historian I contacted, a group of teenagers—including the sisters—went on a picnic near the pond. At some point Annalise and Howard separated from the group. When the others caught up to them, they discovered them kissing behind a tree. Lucinda became enraged at her sister’s lack of decorum and there were harsh words spoken. Things calmed down and then someone suggested they all go boating. Why they put the two feuding sisters in the same rowboat is a mystery but they did. A Miss Mary Wilson reported that she saw Lucinda strike Annalise on the head with a paddle.”

Laura glanced over at
Sabrina. “She tried to kill her sister?”

“She tried
, but she didn’t succeed,” Austin said. “Annalise began struggling with Lucinda and they both fell over. Only Annalise survived. They recovered Lucinda’s body a few hours later.”

“How sad,”
Sabrina said.

“Whoa. Whoa.” Jerry held up his hands. “Am I the only one who just got chills?” He looked around at everyone’s blank faces. “Lucinda died in that pond near the hotel. The
same pond they fished a woman’s dead body out of yesterday?”

Caroline made a face. “Jerry, please. Have a little respect.”

“Sorry, sweetie.” Jerry stood up and addressed the others. “Does anyone else find that a little creepy?”

Laura
waved her hand. “It’s just a coincidence.”

“Really?” Jerry asked. “And it’s just a coincidence that
Belinda Forrest and Erica Powell were conspiring to steal Lucinda’s ruby; the same ruby that Lucinda stole from her sister right before she drowned? The same ruby she hid so well that it was over a hundred years before anyone found it?”

“What are you trying to imply? That Lucinda’s ghost wanted to make sure no one got their hands on her ruby?” Laura laughed. “Get serious.”

Jerry sat back down. “It’s creepy. That’s all I’m saying.”

Laura
rolled her eyes before holding out her hand. “Let me see the diary again. We need to find out who this Timmy was?”

Austin
sat down next to Molly who was still fast asleep. He spared a passing glance at her before addressing the others. “She had a brother named Timothy.”

Caroline frowned.
“Timothy Benedict Graves.”

Raising his eyebrow, Jerry looked at his wife. “You’ve heard of him?”

“Huh?” Caroline waved her hand around dismissively. “No, I just remember seeing a bust of his head in the sunroom.”

“S
he gave the treasure to her brother?” Rupert asked. “Well then, what did he do with them?”

Austin
shook his head. “She couldn’t have given it to him. Timothy Graves was Annalise and Lucinda’s older brother. He died twelve years before that entry that you just read was written.”

“Wonderful,” Caroline said sarcastically
, “this is hopeless.”

“It’s not hopeless. Erica found the ruby,” Laura said
, “and if she could find it, then I’m positive that I can, too.”

“According to that letter from Belinda, Erica was supposed to put the ruby back where she found it,”
Sabrina said. “There must be something in this diary that says where that is.”

“There’s not
,” Jerry said. “All it says is that she gave it to Timmy.”

“But he
was dead by then,” Caroline said.

Kyle stood up and
walked to the window. “Yes, he was, wasn’t he?”

Cocking his head to the side,
Austin stared at Kyle’s back curiously. “You don’t think . . .”

“Laura, what did you do with that shovel you had earlier?” Kyle asked.

*  *  *

“I can’t believe we’re actually robbing a grave,” Grace said
as she drew her coat closer to her. She wrapped her arms around herself for warmth and carefully stepped through the man shaped hole Jerry and Rupert had made through the hedge. She groaned when her boots sank into the snow, ankle deep.

Laura knocked against her in her rush to get into the graveyard.
“I know! This is the best vacation I’ve ever had.”

Grace moved to the side and watched as everyone scattered across the cemetery looking for Timothy’s grave. Only Ivy and Molly had stayed behind
at the Manor. Grace had tried to stay with them, but Kyle had insisted that she come along. So, Grace followed along, not exactly participating, but curious despite herself. She glanced at a statute of a stone angel in the center of the cemetery. The full moon and the gas lamps on the other side of the hedge cast a soft glow on the angel, and the name engraved underneath its feet. “Annalise Graves Kaplin.”

Jerry clapped his hands together. “I found him.”

They all ran to where Jerry was standing.

“Hey, someone’s already been here before us,” Rupert cried.

They glanced down. Rupert was right. The ground above Timothy’s grave had been disturbed.

Kyle looked at Laura. “Just where did you go with that shovel this morning?”

Eyes wide, Laura took a step back. She pointed at the grave. “I didn’t do this.”

“Why were you carrying a shovel?”
Kyle asked.

“I was looking for clues. I thought Ivy’s diary might have been buried near the gate.”

“Why?” he asked.

“There’s a flower bed
on the other side of the hedge. Rupert said something after Ivy’s death about people dying on the vine. I thought he might have been giving us a clue that the diary was buried in the flower bed.”

Rupert snorted. “That clue was supposed to lead you to a particular bottle of wine hidden in the study.”

Laura flushed. She pointed to Jerry. “He was with me when I dug up the flower bed.”

“Well,” Jerry said, “
I lost you once we got into the maze, but before then . . . yes, she did search the flower bed.”

Jumping to her sister’s defense, Sabrina said,
“We don’t know how long ago this grave was dug. For all we know, Erica could have searched here first.”

Rupert snapped his fingers. “She’s right. Erica was asking me all sorts of questions about the graveyard a few weeks ago. I remember she took off with one of my shovels
, too. She went out into the maze every day for about a week with that shovel.”

Jerry asked, “Did you ask her what she was doing?”

Rupert shifted to his uninjured leg. “I didn’t think it was any of my business.”

“Well, in for a penny, in for a pound
.” Jerry stuck his shovel into the ground and then grimaced. “The ground is frozen solid. How are we going to do this?”

Rupert shifted the rifle he was carrying over to his other hand. Supposedly,
he held on to it to keep Grace and Kyle from running off and alerting the authorities, but with the way Rupert’s hands were shaking, Grace wondered if he hung on to it to protect himself from the others. “That’s why I brought this.” Rupert reached into his shabby coat and pulled out a small propane torch. He handed it to Jerry. “Once the ground is warm, it’ll be a cinch.”

Jerry looked at him doubtfully.

Grace walked over to a small stone bench in front of Annalise’s grave. She knocked the snow off and sat down, prepared to spend the next hour or so watching the macabre grave robbery unfold before her as Jerry, Austin and Kyle took turns digging up a hundred and twenty-six year old grave.

They took lots on who would go first.
Austin lost or won depending on ones’ point of view. He reluctantly took the propane torch and began to warm the ground. As soon as the snow had melted and the ground had warmed enough to begin, he took the shovel and stuck it into the ground.

Kyle sat down next to her.
He leaned over and whispered, “How are you doing?”

Grace wrapped her arms around her middle to conserve warmth. “Freezing.” She glanced at Laura who was back in her body swallowing puffy coat. She looked down at her own fashionable winter white woolen coat with
its beautiful silk lining. “If we get out of here, I’m going shopping for a new coat.”

He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her body to his.

“Aren’t you cold?” Grace asked, leaning into his warmth.

Kyle snorted. “I know how to dress for this weather.” He smiled. “
So, your great-great granddaddy—”

“Was an upstanding citizen.”

“He was a train robber.”

“That is a scurrilous rumor started by his enemies.”

“You mean the sheriff, and the jury?”

She nodded curtly.

“I thought that man in the picture hanging on the nursery wall looked familiar. That was him, wasn’t it?”

Grace bit her lip. She moved closer to him and whispered in his ear, “We’
re staying at Beelzebub’s homestead.”

Kyle chuckled.
“What?”

“That’s what he called it.” She turned worried eyes to him. “My grandpa told me stories about this place. We didn’t know where it was
, but this has got to be it. See, Jeptha was doing some prospecting up in the mountains.”

“Prospecting? Is that what they call it
?”

“Yes, prospecting. Would you let me finish the story,
please? He was up here prospecting when he got injured. He accidently fell off his horse.”

“After he was shot?”

“Do you want to hear the story or not?”

“Sorry
,” Kyle said with a chuckle.

“That’s it, I can’t do
any more,” Austin said.

“Wimp,” Jerry said.

Austin threw the shovel at Jerry’s feet. “I’ve spent the last two days in a drugged stupor. It’s your turn.”

Grace barely paid him any attention as she continued to tell her story. “
Jeptha told my great-granddaddy that this wealthy family took him in and nursed him back to health. They were evil, horribly cruel people. They kept him chained up in the cellar.”

“What do you
know? You and Jeptha have a lot in common.”

Grace shivered. “He barely escaped with his life. Several people died while he was there.
He said one of the older boys, by the name of Timothy, tried to kill him. He said there was evil up in this mountain that drove men mad. Made them money hungry.”

“From the stories your grandfather told me
, Jeptha was a little mad before he ever got to this mountain.”

“Yeah, but he was worse after 1889. Jeptha
said the whole family was crazy, even the children, especially the little girls.” She gasped. “He must have been talking about Annalise and Lucinda.”

“Kyle’s turn,” Jerry called
out.

“You just started,”
Austin said.

Kyle stood up just as Jerry tossed the shovel toward him. It dropped to the ground in front of Kyle’s feet.

“Nice throw.” Kyle picked up the shovel and walked to the grave.

Grace wrapped her coat tighter around
her body and watched as Kyle, then Austin, then Jerry, and then Kyle again worked to uncover Timothy Grave’s casket. From the amount of noise the men made and the amount of complaining they did, it clearly wasn’t an easy task, but they did eventually reach the coffin.

Kyle
pressed his scarf to his nose as he opened the casket.

“Eww.
” Grimacing in distaste, Sabrina pranced backwards as quickly as she could.

Caroline followed her. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Laura dropped to her knees next to the grave and peered down at Kyle. “Well, do you see the ruby?”

“Give me a second.
” Reluctantly, Kyle searched the grave. A few minutes later, he said, “It’s not here.”

Just then
, Caroline and Sabrina screamed. Caroline ran toward her husband, while Sabrina clamped a hand over her mouth and pointed at the snow.

Grace
ran over to where Sabrina was standing and looked down at the snow, and the hand that was sticking up out of the ground. She could just make out a pink and yellow butterfly tattoo on the corpse’s wrist.

Chapter twenty

Grace kept her
hands up as she marched back to the house. “This is ridiculous, Rupert. That was Erica buried back there, wasn’t it? We need to go to the police.”

Rupert pointed at Grace’s back. “Keep walking.”

Kyle, who was next to her, dropped back slightly and to the side, in an attempt to shield her from Rupert. “The game’s over. We lost. Let’s just count our losses and go home.”

Sabrina
wiped a few tears away from her face. “He’s right, Rupert. I’m done playing. I just want to go home.”

Rupert swung the rifle in her direction.
“Everyone can go home when I’ve found that ruby.”

Austin
looked over his shoulder at Rupert. “We have nowhere to look. It’s not in the casket, so unless you have another idea, I feel we ought to call it quits.”

Rupert jerked around
suddenly. “Where are you two going?” he asked pointing the rifle at Caroline and Jerry.

“We
. . . I was just . . .” Jerry stuttered.

“You two up in front.
I want everyone where I can see them. No false moves. I know how to use this.”

They
continued through the maze and finally passed the gate. Murder Manor lay in front of them. The only illumination came from the candles in the library and the Victorian lamps near the entrance to the maze. The outside of the house no longer looked cheerful or quaint. Instead, it looked as dark and foreboding as it did on the inside. Kyle glanced over his shoulder at Rupert.

Rupert stood at the gate. “All right everyone. Take out your cell phones and drop them in the snow in front of you. Come on now,” he said as they all began to grumble, “stop complaining.” He watched as Caroline, Jerry,
Sabrina and Laura tossed their phones onto the ground. He swung the rifle toward Grace and Kyle. “I’ve already got yours.” He turned toward Austin. “What about you, sleeping beauty?”

Austin
opened his coat. “Someone already liberated my cell phone from me while I was asleep.”

Rupert shook his head. “I want to see your pockets.”
He kept the rifle pointed at Austin’s chest until the other man showed the lining of his pockets. Once he was certain that Austin didn’t have a cell phone, he turned his attention to closing the gate. They all waited, huddled together as Rupert struggled.

“Need some help?” Kyle asked.

Rupert swung around. He fumbled with the rifle a bit in his haste, as the cold temperature and the injury to his leg caused him to be a little less than graceful as he attempted to lock the gate. “I’m fine. You all just stay where you are.” He turned back to the gate and awkwardly balanced the rifle over his shoulder as he weaved the chain through the iron bars. Seeing a chance to disarm the old caretaker, Kyle dropped his arms slightly. He was just about to take off when Austin grabbed his arm. Austin shook his head slightly and gave him a warning look.

Sensing
movement behind him, Rupert suddenly swiveled around and aimed the rifle back at the others. “All of you go stand next to the fountain.”

They all obediently wa
lked to the fountain and waited for Rupert to finish his task.

Sabrina
sat down on the edge of the fountain. “I’ve never seen a dead body before.” She shuddered. “How do you think she died?”

“
It looked like she was shot in the forehead,” Laura said.

Grace
watched as Austin slowly began to back toward the house. She quickly caught up to him. “Going somewhere?”

He jerked back in surprise. “He’s gone mad. O
ur odds of surviving are better if one of us can get away and go for help. One of us needs to distract him.”

Kyle came up behind them. “I could have disarmed him, you know.”

Austin gave him a disbelieving look. “He was too far away. You would never have made it.”

They all flinched as a loud crack sounded through the air. They turned to see Rupert picking up the rifle that had fallen against the gate. He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m still watching you all. Just stay where you are.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “That’s it. I’m going back to the house.” She grabbed her sister by the arm and dragged her to the front steps.

The padlock slipped from Rupert’s fingers. “Just stay
where you are!” He bent down, accidentally dropping his weapon as he frantically dug through the snow searching for the padlock. “Don’t anyone move!”

Ignoring him, Caroline and Jerry ran to the house.

Grace turned back to Austin. “Who were you arguing with in the gazebo on New Year’s Eve?”

He flinched in surprise.
“How do you know about that?”

“Was it Erica?” she asked
, ignoring his question.

Austin
nodded reluctantly. “I was trying to convince her to give me the ruby.” He shook his head. “I ran into her at the hotel and followed her into the maze at about thirty to midnight. She must have seen me because she stopped in the gazebo and waited for me. Once there, she told me that the ruby was gone and that the hotel had it.” Austin smirked. “I knew she was lying. She was a horrible actress. Anyway, after a while, she finally admitted that the hotel didn’t know, but then she said she had put the ruby back and that there was no way she was going to be able to get to it until after the murder game was over.”

Kyle,
who was still watching as Rupert dug through the snow once again searching for the padlock he had dropped, looked back at him in irritation. “Why did you lie to us? You told us you arrived on New Year’s Day. Your train was late, remember?”

“
I didn’t lie . . . Well, not really. Before I left, I told Erica that if she double-crossed me, I would go to the hotel and tell them everything that I knew. I convinced her that she’d be arrested and that I’d probably be offered a reward. It scared her enough to start trying to make a deal with me. Finally, we settled on an amount. I left on the first train out of here the next morning. It took me awhile, but I got the cash together, jumped on the express train again and went straight to the manor.”

“You have the money here?” Kyle asked.

Austin made a face. “I did, but someone took off with that while I was asleep, as well.”

“Why did you stay?” Grace asked.

“Beg your pardon?” Austin asked.

“I would have assumed Erica had betrayed me and taken off with the ruby
, but you stayed. You must have known that the ruby was still here. How?”

He looked down at Grace. “I know what you’re thinking
, but I didn’t kill Erica. When I left her at the gazebo, she was alive and well. When I heard about the body that was found in the lake, my first thought was that it was Erica. I knew I wasn’t the only one after the ruby. She admitted that others were interested and would be very angry if she didn’t give them the jewel. When I heard about the body . . . to be honest, I assumed it was her. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to stick around and look just in case my competition hadn’t already absconded with the ruby.”

“Do you know Belinda Powell?” Kyle asked
, carefully watching the other man’s reaction.

Austin shook his head. “I never heard of her before this morning at breakfast.
Rupert told us he thought the woman in the pond was Belinda Powell, but that he had new information and that it wasn’t. He assured us it was some skater and that it was an accident.”

Rupert having finally secured the
gate limped toward them. He stooped down and picked up each cell phone. When he hand pocketed the last one, he said, “All right, on your way,” as he gestured to the manor with his rifle.

*  *  *

“What happened?” Ivy asked, wringing her hands.

“Found Erica’s body.” Rupert closed the library door behind him. He counted each person in the room making sure everyone was accounted for before painfully making his way toward the fire. He handed
the rifle to Ivy and reached into his pockets, pulling out the cell phones.

Grace tugged off her gloves and placed them in her coat pocket. Next, she unwrapped her scarf and laid it on the sofa.
“Rupert, if I promise not to make a call would you let me see the phones?” While outside, Grace had made sure to watch as each person brought out their phones and threw them into the snow. Luckily, they each had different types, or at least, different covers that helped her in remembering which phone belong to which person. With any luck, she would find Belinda’s phone and her killer.

“No
,” Rupert said as he tossed each phone into the fireplace.

Shocked and appalled, Jerry stood up. He took a few steps toward the fireplace, gasping for air. “Dear
God, that was a smart phone.”

Frustrated
, Grace sat down next to Molly who was just starting to wake up.

“What’s going o
n?” Molly asked as she pushed her hair back away from her face.

Grace quickly filled her in on the situation. Molly turned disbelieving eyes toward Rupert and Ivy.

Catching Molly’s look, Ivy bit her lip and glanced at Rupert. “Rupert,” she whispered, “I think this may be getting a little out of hand.”

“Wh
ere’s your tablet?” Rupert asked.

Ivy walked over to the end table and picked up the tablet. “Why do you want it?” she asked as she
hesitantly handed it to him.

Rupert took the
tablet and tossed it into the fire before taking the rifle out of Ivy’s suddenly limp hands. She pressed a hand to her heart. “Wh . . . I . . . wh . . .” She made a deep guttural sound in her throat as she laid her hand against the fireplace mantle.

Rupert
walked over took the desk drawer. He pulled what was left of Erica’s purse, wallet, and compact bag out and tossed them into the fire, as well. “Once we find the ruby, everyone can go home. We just need to start thinking.”

“That’s not what we should be thinking about,” Grace said. “One of us is a murderer
, and unless we figure out who it is, we could all be their next victim.”

“Grace is right,” Kyle said. “Before we could pretend—or turn a blind eye to what was happening around us. We could console ourselves that anything suspicious we saw was just part of the game; that the body in the pond was just an unfortunate accident; that—”

“That Grace was a crazy drama queen who just wanted attention,” Laura added matter-of-factly with a nod of her head.

Suppressing the urge to smile
at Grace’s outraged expression, Kyle diplomatically said, “That Grace had a nightmare, but not anymore, because that was a dead body we found out there. We can’t ignore this. We have to figure out who killed her.”

Sabrina
threw up her hands. “How are we going to do that?”

“Obviously, through logic and deduction,” Laura said, giving everyone
, including her sister, a suspicious look.

Grace nodded. “
And that’s why we’re all here, correct? All of us wanted to solve a murder. We wanted to pit our instincts and intelligence against one another. So, here’s our chance.”

“I just wanted to solve a pretend murder,” Jerry said quietly.

Sabrina nodded her head sadly.

Grace sighed. She turned toward
Austin. “How old was Timothy Graves when he died?”

“
He was about nineteen.”

Grace nodded. “
And Annalise and Lucinda, how old were they when he died?”

“
Annalise was born in 1880, so she would have been about two or three years old and Lucinda was a year younger than her. Why?”

“It’s strange that Lucinda would be referring to him at all.
” Kyle leaned his hip against the desk and crossed his arms. “She was so young when he died.”

Grace frowned
. “Maybe she wasn’t referring to her brother, but something else.”

Caroline gasp
ed suddenly.

“What’s wrong?”
Rupert asked.

“Nothing,
” Caroline said quickly. “I just . . . thought I saw something behind you. The firelight is casting shadows against the wall and I guess one of them looked . . . Sorry, it was just my imagination.”

Jerry stood up. “I’ve got it.
” He pointed toward Rupert. “It was you. You killed Belinda Forrest and Erica Powell.”

With rifle still in hand, Rupert immediately began protesting his innocence. “
I didn’t even know Belinda Forrest. Why would I kill her or Erica?”

Jerry
said, “Obviously for the ruby. Erica tricked you and hid them before you could take them from her and then you lured us all here to help you search for them.”

“
But I didn’t know anything about the jewel,” Rupert argued. “I never heard of it until Austin told us about it in the dining room.”