Murder Games (2 page)

A
smiling young man with light brown hair and glasses was standing nearest to them, playfully wrestling with a strikingly beautiful young woman in a powder blue, double-breasted tweed coat. Her long black hair was pulled back away from her face by a rhinestone-studded headband. Despite being a few inches shorter than the young lady, the man easily lifted her up and twirled her around. The two fell to the ground in giggles.

A round-faced young woman stood next
to them. A dark knit cap covered her short auburn hair, which curled around her neck. She was wearing a black, puffy, down coat that seemed to swallow her whole. The sleeves of the coat covered her hands, while the hem reaching down to her ankles. Only her face was visible. She attempted to cross her arms several times, but was prevented by the thickness of the material surrounding her body. After an abortive attempt at planting her hands on her hips, she dropped her arms to her side and glared down at the man and woman disapprovingly, clearly unhappy with the other two.

Further away
, another woman stood off to the side, talking on her cell phone. She wore an expensive designer coat and boots, and her blonde pageboy hair was framed stylishly around an attractive face with large blue eyes. She was slightly older than the other two women were, and quite a bit taller, reaching nearly six feet in height by Grace’s guess. Even though she kept glancing back to the others, she didn’t appear to be related to them. She kicked at the snow lightly with her boot as she turned away from the little group.

Noticing Grace, Kyle
, and Molly approaching, the man broke off from the others and greeted them enthusiastically, despite the deep dark circles under his eyes and the slightly dazed expression that said he’d slept very little the night before. “Hello, I’m Jerry Knight,” he said with a grin. “Are you all here for the mystery weekend?” At their nods, he smiled and clapped his hands together. “Excellent.” He glanced at his watch. “I hope it’s not going to be much longer. I’ve been waiting for this for months.”

The blond
e woman with the pageboy haircut approached. She wrapped an arm through Jerry’s and introduced herself as his wife, Caroline. She towered over her husband by a good four inches.

Grace glanced at the woman he had been twirling around in the snow a few seconds before. Shrugging off
her surprise, she reached out her hand and introduced herself. Kyle and Molly quickly added their introductions, as well.

“Oh, are you all together?” Jerry grinned. “Not fair. You’ve come en masse. I call that
an unfair advantage.”

“We just met,” Molly said quickly. “What about all of you? Are you all together?” she asked
, indicating the other two women with a nod.

Caroline shook her head. “No, we met them last night at the party.” She glanced at her husband out the corner of her eye. “I was so surprised to see them here today. Weren’t you, dear?”

Obviously
oblivious to Caroline’s sarcasm, Jerry nodded happily. “The young lady in blue is Sabrina Sawyer. She’s a flight attendant from California. She wants to become an actress someday, and the other young lady is her older sister, um...” Frowning, he pursed his lips together. “Louise, that’s it, Louise Sawyer,” he said as they came up close to the two sisters.

“Laura,” the former Louise corrected with an irritated shake of her head.
She attempted to reach up and pull her knit cap down around her ears, but gave up when her coat once again, prevented her elbows from bending.

Nonplussed, Jerry nodded.
“Right, Laura. Laura’s a... a… oh wait, don’t tell me.”

Laura ignored his order.
“I’m a college student.”

“
That’s right.” Jerry snapped his fingers. “She’s studying to be a lawyer.”

“A criminal justice major,
” Laura said with a scowl.

Caroline shook her head
. “I think you should stop while you’re ahead, darling.”

Grace introduced herself and Kyle before adding, “I took a class in that
once. It was supposedly taught by the expert in the field.”

“Really?” Laura asked. “Wh
o?”

Before Grace could
answer, Jerry interrupted. “Are you all mystery buffs, too? I love mysteries. There’s nothing like a good old fashioned murder—”

“Poor taste,
darling,” Caroline admonished.

“Well, honey, I understand
, but there’s really no reason for it to put a damper on things.”

“I agree with Jerry,”
Laura said quickly. “I mean, it’s sad and all, but no one here knew the woman. Besides, we don’t know that she was murdered.”

Grace and Kyle exchanged confused glances.
“Wait,” Grace said, looking from one to the other, “what are you all talking about?”

Drawing closer to her husband, Caroline wrapped her arms around her middle and shivered as a gust of wind blew her hair forward. She made an ineffectual stab at pulling her hair back out of her face before saying
, in a hushed tone, “They found a woman’s body under the ice at the pond an hour ago.”

“They’re trying to keep it all hush
-hush, but there’s already a rumor going around that she was murdered,” Jerry said.

“Does anyone know who she was?” Kyle asked.

“Not yet,” Laura said. “I spoke to the guy who found her and pulled her out of the water. According to him, she didn’t have any identification on her. It doesn’t matter, I’m sure someone will identify her soon enough.”

Jerry shook his head.
“I don’t think so. I heard—”

Caroline grabbed her husband’s arm.
“I don’t want to hear this again.” She looked nervously over her shoulder. “Let’s just forget all about this.”

Jerry snapped his mouth shut
, before leaning back out of his wife’s eyesight and mouthing the words,
serial killer
.

Laura rolled her eyes. “
If
she was murdered, it’s statistically more likely that the killer is someone she knew. Probably her boyfriend or husband,” she said with a bored tone of voice.

Sabrina
groaned. “Can we please stop talking about this?”

Jerry nodded in agreement before saying, “I heard it was pretty gruesome—” He sucked in a breath as his wife turned to glare at him.

Sabrina let out a nervous little laugh. “How do we even know this is for real? Yesterday kicked off the murder mystery weekend this hotel puts on every year. It’s probably just part of the show.” A worried look crossed her face. “Right? They would cancel everything if someone was truly murdered.”

If the incident on the train ride up to the hotel didn’t make any sort of dent in the festivities,
Grace doubted this would either. Despite her doubts, Grace nodded reassuringly.

Laura
shook her head. “They have a lot of money tied up in these events, and I for one, would be incredibly angry if they cancelled this game. I’ve been waiting to do this for a whole year.”

“
I don’t think they would cancel,” Jerry said. “Someone had a heart attack and died at last year’s mystery event after getting lost in the maze and it’s still standing. We all signed waivers, remember?”

“
That didn’t happen during the murder mystery weekend,” Molly said. “That happened during the summer, and the guy survived. I’m sure everything is fine. If there was any danger to any of us, they would tell us.”

Laura looked at Jerry derisively and snorted. “Serial killer,” she said under her breath.

“Okay, maybe not a serial killer, but just think about it,” Jerry said with a worried look, “there are ten different murder mystery games going on at this hotel. Everyone is running around planting false clues, evidence, pretending to murder people, pretending to die. Someone might decide to take it too far.”

“They put these games on every year, all around the country,” Molly said. “I’ve never heard of someone taking it too seriously. It was probably just an accident.”

“How did she die?” Grace asked.

“Drowned,” Laura said.

Jerry shook his head. “That’s not what I heard. I heard that the left side of her head was bashed in.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean she was murdered,” Grace pointed out. “She could have hit her head on the ice
when she fell through.”

All but Jerry nodded their head. “I think—”

Sabrina clapped her hands. “I think we should change the subject. We’re all on vacation and I would much prefer to think of happy things.”

Caroline reached into her pocket and
pulled out her phone. “I agree.”

Grace
felt Kyle’s hand at the small of her back pushing her forward. He nodded his head back toward the gate. A heavy mist had appeared behind the gate, and within the mist, Grace could just make out the form of a man. She and Kyle turned around and faced the gate. She watched in fascination as the mist began to clear, revealing a tall, thin man, wearing a shabby gray overcoat over what appeared to be an even shabbier tuxedo. His salt and pepper gray hair stuck out in several directions framing a weathered gray face with a heavy five o’clock shadow, and a pair of sunken eyes. He sneered at each person in turn, before laying his black leather satchel on top of the banquet table a few feet behind him.

Realizing that something had caught Grace and Kyle’s attention,
Sabrina looked over her shoulder and let out a little scream in surprise. Laura spared a moment to throw her sister an exasperated look, before turning around and facing the gate.

Sabrina
promptly dissolved into giggles, which set off a responding set of giggles from Jerry. Obviously sensing they were in the presence of like minds, Sabrina and Jerry came closer together, as they both dissolved into peals of laughter. A sharp poke in the ribs by Caroline’s elbow caused Jerry to double over slightly. He gave her an apologetic look before looking back at Sabrina, and holding up his finger to his lips. He let out another giggle before quickly taking a step back away from his wife.

Their little group formed a semi-circle in front of the gate
, as the heavy gate creaked and groaned, as it swung open slowly.

Clearing his throat
, the man behind the gate took a step forward. “I am Rupert, the butler,” he said in a bad imitation of an English accent. “Miss Ivy is throwing a party tonight and requests the horror—excuse me; I mean the
honor
, of your attendance. As close family, treasured friends, and loyal employees, you each have received a special invitation to Miss Ivy’s post New Year’s Eve bash. We will ring in 1955 in style tonight at Murdock Manor.”

“Oh, the fifties.
” Jerry rubbed his gloved hands together in excitement, “I love the fifties.”

“I thought it was M
urder Manor,” Laura said loudly.

Rupert looked at h
er with disdain. “Naturally, we do not refer to it as Murder Manor or Mystery Manor or what have you. I believe the locals came up with those names. I have no idea why. Just because of a few pesky deaths have occurred here, people suddenly jump to all sorts of suspicions. I assure you, there is no mystery here. Nine generations of Murdocks have lived here without—”

“Isn’t the manor a Victorian?” Laura asked with an irritated shake of her head. “Nine generations couldn’t have lived here.”

Rupert smiled. He opened his mouth to say something, but Caroline cut him off before he could get very far. “I think you may be taking this a bit too seriously.”

“She’s always like that,”
Sabrina said, “just ignore her.”

Laura looked ready to argue
, but decided to glare at Rupert instead.

“As I was saying, many generations have lived here without incident.
You have nothing to fear. Miss Ivy has many activities prepared tonight for everyone’s entertainment. As you all are well aware, Miss Ivy does so enjoy playing games, so I hope you all came prepared to play.”

Jerry raised his hand. “I’m re
ady. When do we find out who our characters are?”

A petite blonde woman suddenly appeared around the corner of the hedge maze. With a headset and a
clipboard, she came to stand next to Rupert. “Hello, I’m Becky, the game coordinator for the hotel. Each of you will receive an invitation with your character’s name and basic facts. Once you arrive at the manor, you will get a more complete biography of your character. The instructions are very simple. Read your biographies and only tell the others the basic information about your character. Their name, occupation, family ties. Things like that. You’ll have a list of secrets, and a list of secrets your character knows about the others. Oh, and one lucky person will have a list of victims that they must get alone and knock off without any other player suspecting. If you are that person, I suggest you keep that to yourself, or the game will be over before you know it. There will be prizes at the end for the best sleuth, and for the murderer, if he or she lasts to the end without being caught.”

Molly raised her hand.
“What happens if we are killed?”