Murder Games (25 page)

Grace pressed the phone to her heart before turning it on. “Thank God, Rupert didn’t realize her phone wasn’t in her purse when he threw it in the fireplace.” Ignoring the warning message flashing
low battery
, she called the police. As soon as the operator answered, Grace poured out the whole story in a rush. Once she was done and she had been assured that help was on the way, she asked to speak to the deputy Kyle had spoken to earlier that day.

She
fidgeted restlessly, anxiously waiting for Deputy Rhodes to answer. Noticing the others watching her, she walked out of the library and over to the study. She shut and locked the door behind her and waited. As soon as Deputy Rhodes said, “Hello,” Grace blurted out, “Has Kyle Drake called you?”

“Kyle Drake? Oh,
the guy from Murder Manor? I haven’t spoken to him since this afternoon.”

Grace felt her knees begin to give way. She leaned against the desk.

“Who am I speaking to?” the deputy- asked.

Grace quickly identified herself.

Deputy Rhodes laughed. “I figured you would show up tonight. I tried to tell him not to worry.”

“Deputy
, there’s plenty to be worried about. One of the guests has been shot, another one murdered, and we believe the person who killed her and the woman in the pond is here with us at the house. Kyle left over an hour ago to get help. He should have made it there by now. I have to know . . . I heard you found another body in the pond this afternoon. Is that true?”

The deputy didn’t answer.

“Yes,” he admitted hesitantly, “why do you ask?”

“Do you have any idea who it is?”

“Neither body has been identified.”

“Was it a man’s body or a woman’s?” When the deputy hesitated once again, Grace said, “Please, I must know.”

“We pulled out a man’s body today.”

Grace sighed
in relief, “I’m assuming it’s Drew Yates’ body.”

“You’d
assume wrong.”

Grace’s heart began to race. “What?”

“The man we pulled out of the pond today was in his late sixties
. . . He does not fit Drew Yates’ description,” he said reluctantly, clearly adverse to giving out too much information.

Grace sighed.
“I think I know who they are and I know who killed them.” Angry with herself, she shook her head. She was probably too late. If only she had this information an hour ago, she thought as everything finally fell into place. She was just about to tell the deputy what she knew when the phone suddenly powered down. Groaning in frustration, she stuck the phone in her pocket and reached for the study door, as an unexpected scream pierced the silence. She wrenched the door open just as Laura raced up the stairs. Molly stood in the center of the foyer alone.

“What happened?” Grace
asked, as she walked determinedly to the front door. She pulled her knit hat out of her pocket and placed it on her head.

“
Austin’s escaped,” Molly said matter-of-factly. “Ivy saw him standing on the landing, screamed, and ran into the kitchen.”

“He’s upstairs?” At Molly’s nod, Grace
added a quiet, “Good,” as she reached for the door and walked out into the freezing cold.

“Wait for me,” Molly cried after her.

Chapter
twenty-two

Grace swung the
gate open. “We should have brought a flashlight.”

“It won’t be necessary. The lamps in the maze are still working. They’re on a different line than the one to the house.” Molly wrapped her scarf around her throat and tied it into a knot. “I can show you a shortcut to the hotel.”

“I want to take the route Kyle took.”

A sharp bang rang out and a giant green firework li
t up the night sky.

“Must be midnight,” Molly said.

Grace nervously followed Molly through the hedge maze, pausing every so often to glance over her shoulder. Every few seconds, she could hear the sound of a boot stomping through the snow behind her.

She hurried up her footsteps
, pushing Molly forward.

“Don’t worry, Grace. Lots of people become lost in here
, but they eventually make their way out just fine.”

“I’m not worried about Kyle getting lost. I’m worried about the killer catching up to him.
We may be too late already,” Grace said with a catch in her voice.

“But everyone’s back at the house.” Molly shook her head.
“You don’t think Austin got out of the shed, went into the maze and killed Kyle before coming back to the manor, do you? Why would he? He’s after that ruby. I doubt he even knows Kyle had left. None of us told him and I sincerely don’t think we have to worry about Austin. I hate to say it, but I think Rupert’s the killer.”

“
Rupert’s not the killer,” Grace said.

Molly looked at her in surprise. “
You saw how he was acting in the library earlier.”

Grace
looked up as a couple of sparkling white fireworks went off in the night sky. “He’s still not the killer.”

Molly
grabbed Grace’s elbow bringing her to a full stop. “Why do you think that?”

“
Only four people knew about the Prussian Blood Ruby: Erica, Austin, Belinda, and Drew,” she said, continuing through the maze. “See, Austin figured out that the ruby was hidden in the manor during the last Murder Manor game. His mistake was in letting Erica know what he was looking for. After he left, Erica had plenty of time to search for the ruby between then and New Year’s, and once she found it, she wasn’t about to hand it over to him. Instead, she told her cousin, Belinda, who in turn told Drew Yates.”

“And all three of them are dead,” Molly said softly.

Grace glanced at Molly out of the
corner of her eye. “What makes you think that?”

“You said they found another body in the pond.
It has to be Drew’s body.”

Grace
looked up as a giant blue firework exploded in the sky. “That’s what I thought too. All three of them obviously had a plan to take the ruby and make a run for it on New Year’s Eve. But see, there was a problem. Austin also knew about the ruby and he wasn’t about to give up. Everything came to a head that night when Belinda decided to cut her partner out of the deal. Why split a fortune three ways when you can split it two . . . or not split it at all. She convinced Erica to lie to Drew and Austin. To tell them that the hotel had discovered the ruby and that it was all over. Only Austin and Drew didn’t believe a word she was saying.”

“I’ve seen her act. That’s not entirely surprising.”

“Austin knew, or suspected that Erica was going to double cross him, so he followed her to the gazebo in order to convince her to give him the ruby. It didn’t work and he left empty handed but with an assurance that if he came up with enough money, she’d hand over the jewel the next day.”

“But she wasn’t sincere. She had already planned everything out with Belinda.”

Grace shrugged. “Who knows what she was going to do? She may have been sincere, but she never had the chance to keep her word since she was murdered shortly after her meeting in the gazebo with Austin. It was rather stupid of Drew to kill her. Especially since, he didn’t have the ruby, yet. I think he followed her back to the manor after she put on the little performance Belinda and she planned, and then killed her up in the attic.”

They
continued in silence as they turned another corner of the maze. Every couple of steps, Grace could hear the sound of someone behind them. She paused and turned around, when she heard the sound of a firecracker explode. She waited for the firework to light up the maze and show her who was following them, only the light didn’t come. Maybe it fizzled out, she thought, racing to catch back up to Molly. She glanced over her shoulder nervously before continuing on her way.

Molly stared down at the snow.
“So, when Drew figured out that Erica and Belinda planned to take off with the ruby, he decided to kill them both. He must have killed Belinda first.”

“
No, Belinda wasn’t killed first. Drew didn’t actually find out about her betrayal until a few hours ago, when I read the letter out loud.”

Molly grabbed Grace’s arm pulling her to a stop. “
What do you mean? Belinda was dead long before that. They found her body in the pond.”

“
No, Belinda was alive and well when we started playing the game. I didn’t figure it out until just a few hours ago. Earlier today, I called her phone and when someone answered, I just assumed it was the killer, but then, when I saw those two notes side by side . . . that’s when I realized that she was still alive. She had to have been in order to leave that note for Austin. Erica certainly didn’t leave it for Austin to find. She was already dead by that point. We know from the handwriting that the person who left the note luring Austin to the cellar was the same person wrote the letter cutting Drew out of the deal. That meant that Belinda was alive. She was the one who answered her own phone when I called. So, that meant she had to have been pretending to be someone else. She had to have been either Sabrina, Laura, Caroline, Ivy, or you. And if Belinda was here, then I was pretty certain Drew was, as well.”

“
So, both of them were here pretending to be someone else,” Molly said, resuming her walk through the maze.

Grace nodded.
“They had to. They couldn’t come as their selves; they didn’t have invitations. I discounted Ivy immediately. She wouldn’t need an excuse to be at the hotel. And if I could discount her, then I could do the same for Rupert—” Grace looked up. It seemed the further they went into the maze the darker it became until the only light came from the fireworks bursting above their heads. It wasn’t until a series of gigantic red, green and white fireworks went off in quick succession, did she spot a broken lamppost off to the side and bits and pieces of shattered glass scattered on the snow around its base.

Molly smiled. “So, by that logic, I can’t be Belinda, either.”

Grace nodded. “That leaves us with Laura, Sabrina, and Caroline.”

“And the two people they found in the water? If they weren’t Drew and Belinda
, then who were they?”

“I
nnocent bystanders who were killed for their tickets to Murder Manor. Drew and Belinda needed time to search the manor and the mystery game gave them a perfect excuse. They probably didn’t have time to search it effectively before Ivy and Rupert returned at one o’clock that morning. They had just enough time to hide Erica’s body someplace and run back to the hotel. Then they spent the rest of the night trying to get their hands on tickets to the Murder Manor. I figure they located a couple with the tickets—a couple they could easily impersonate—and when they couldn’t convince them to part with them, Drew and Belinda killed them and threw their bodies into the pond. Rupert’s friend Billy witnessed a couple harassing someone near the pond about Haunted Theater tickets at about three o’clock that night.”

Molly
pointed toward a corner of the maze. “The glass gazebo is right around the next hedge.” She sighed. “Do you know who they were pretending to be?”

Grace nodded.
“I spoke to a deputy who told me they found a man’s body in the pond today. Besides Kyle and me, there were only two other couples playing the game: Laura and Sabrina Sawyer, and Jerry and Caroline Knight. Since they pulled a man and woman’s body out of the water and not two women that narrows our list of suspects down quite a bit, doesn’t it?”

Grace took a step forward
, but stopped. Someone was behind her. She could hear the sound of his boots hitting the hard snow. A blue firework lit up the sky long enough for her to identify Austin walking toward them. “I thought it might be you.”

Suddenly, Grace was thrown to the ground just as a shot rang through the air. She felt someone pull her against their body and begin to roll them both to the side. Once they reached the relatively safety of the hedge, Grace opened her eyes. “Where have you been?”

“Hunting.” Kyle grinned. “Somehow, I figured you would show up.” He slid off of her and helped Molly pull Austin back toward the hedge.

Austin
, wincing in pain, held his arm tightly.

Molly kneeled over him. “Are you okay?”

Austin smiled weakly before reaching up and caressing her cheek.

Kyle opened
Austin’s coat. Red was already staining the front of his shirt. “How bad is it?”

Austin
grimaced. “I think it just grazed my shoulder. Hurts though.” He reached up and grabbed Kyle’s coat, pulling himself into a sitting position. He looked around. “Where did the shot come from?”

“B
ehind the gazebo. I’ve been hiding in the graveyard. Follow me.” Kyle slid forward on his stomach and disappeared underneath the hedge. Grace was the next through the opening. As soon as she cleared the hedge, Kyle pulled her forward and behind a headstone.

Grace brushed the snow
off her coat as Kyle helped Molly and Austin slip through the opening. “Oh good. We’re back in the cemetery,” she said as a green firework cast a brief eerie green glow over the headstones. They all crouched down behind various headstones and waited. She looked over at Kyle lying next to her. “You scared me half to death.”

“
Are you okay?” Kyle asked.

“
Fine. You?”

“
Never better. Jerry’s been hunting me ever since I left.” He shook his head. “As soon as Ivy left him, he must have run down the stairs off his balcony and took off after me.”

Grace snapped her fingers.
The balcony stairs. Of course, that’s how they were able to do it, she thought ruefully, remembering that Caroline’s room was the one next to the large balcony over the sunroom. The one she pretended to be so worried about. “How much you want to bet that’s how they were able to hide Erica’s body outside and then appear upstairs in their bedroom doorway when I started screaming, last night? They could have dropped her in the snow in the backyard and then went up the outside stairs, through their balcony doors and out into the upstairs hallway.”

Kyle grimaced. “When we were searching for the body outside, Jerry volunteered to search the area near the sunroom.”

“Why didn’t they just carry Erica’s body out through their room and then outside?” Molly asked. “You would never had seen them.”

Grace shrugged. “I have a feeling
Erica had been hidden in the attic since they killed her. After everyone went to bed, they probably just dragged her body down the attic steps and just kept going, thinking everyone was sound asleep in their rooms. The back stair case was closer to the attic then their room was. They probably thought it was safer.” She ducked as a bullet hit the tombstone she was hiding behind.

Kyle
sighed. “I should have come back to the manor when I realized something was wrong. You know, I thought I saw someone running from the house when I looked back from the front gate. I waited, but when no one appeared, I went out into the maze. A few minutes later I heard him tromping through the snow behind me. He didn’t take a shot at me until I reached the front gate and tried to unlock it, though.” He spared a second to look over at her. “He must have been awake when we were talking in the library.”

Grace
looked up as a red firework went off above them. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t realize until I spoke to Deputy Rhodes that Jerry was actually Drew Yates until then I had suspected that Drew was dead.”

They flinched as a bullet struck the statute behind them. Molly let out a little scream as she threw her hands over her head.

Austin inched closer to Molly. He drew her toward his chest and held her close. He looked over her head at Grace. “If Jerry is Drew then . . .”

“Caroline was Belinda,” Grace confirmed.
“I had no idea when I was reading that letter out loud that I was signing her death warrant.” She shook her head in disgust. “Jerry, or rather Drew, was standing right there listening to every word. No wonder she got that scared look on her face when we started talking about Belinda’s betrayal.”

Molly smiled
at Austin. “I’m just so happy you aren’t the killer. I have to admit, I was pretty worried there. For a few seconds, I began to doubt you were even a professor.”