Chapter One #2
Priscilla, at least, seems to hear him. She levels her gaze at Millie and asks, in a slow, clear voice. “Are you sure you saw Jaxon push Malcolm?”
“No, she’s not,” snaps Jaxon. But that only earns him a sea of scornful looks from everyone but Millie, who’s now looking at the floor.
“I mean, it happened so fast. But I’m pretty sure . . .”
Jaxon can’t take it. “Look, believe women and all that—I’m a feminist—but this is total bullshit.
I didn’t push Malcolm off the cliff, so first of all, fuck you guys for even thinking that’s something I would do.
Truly, fuck you to the moon and back. And secondly, fuck one of you in particular because one of you saw what really happened. ”
Millie’s head jerks up, but he seems to be the only one that catches her surprise.
Kenzo frowns. “What do you mean?”
He jabs a finger at the ceiling. “One of you was in that room upstairs, the one at the very top.” He looks from Kenzo, to Cate, to Priscilla. “And whoever it was, I saw you. Which means you saw us. So you know I was trying to save Malcolm, not push him over the edge.”
“The room at the top?” asks Priscilla, looking around.
It’s Kenzo who answers. “Fletch’s room. But I doubt anyone was up there.”
“Oh yeah?” sneers Jaxon. “Why’s that?”
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IT’S LOCKED?”
Jaxon runs his hand over the hidden door, pushing to see if it will bounce open like those fancy kitchen cabinets that don’t have any handles. But the door doesn’t give.
“How did you know it was here?” asks Cate.
“Yeah,” echoes Jaxon, thinking it’s about time someone looked at Kenzo instead of him. The question is almost enough to wipe that smug, self-righteous look off Kenzo’s face.
“I saw it on the model, in the library.” His face darkens. “I showed Sienna, too.”
“How convenient,” mutters Jaxon. He turns back to the group. Millie’s hanging behind the others, still avoiding his gaze at every opportunity. “Well, I know what I saw. Someone was up there.”
“Are you sure?” asks Priscilla. “It could have been a trick of light—”
“Someone was standing in that window. And since Millie and I were outside, and Malcolm was . . .” He swallows, changing tack. “Well, it had to have been one of you.” He looks at Kenzo, Cate, and Priscilla. “My money’s on Kenzo.”
The horror writer rolls his eyes.
“But whoever it is,” Jaxon presses on, “they seem to be fine with people accusing an innocent man of murder. So that’s nice.”
“We’re not accusing you of murder—” starts Priscilla.
“Well, Millie is,” offers Kenzo.
“—but,” continues Priscilla with a warning look, “given everything that’s happened, I think for now, it would be best, Jaxon, if you stayed in your room.”
Jaxon flinches. “Is that really necessary?” He scans the group, which is, admittedly, smaller than it was two days ago.
“I think I would feel safer,” whispers Millie, refusing to meet Jaxon’s gaze. “If he was locked in.”
Jaxon tries to back away, but there’s nowhere to go. Not with them all blocking the stairs. “But I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Kenzo rubs his neck. “Look, one body is an accident. Two is a pattern.”
“Three,” adds Cate, “if you count the editor going AWOL.”
Jaxon snaps his fingers. “Maybe Rufus killed Sienna before he took off with the boat. Has anyone considered that?”
But no one’s listening, at least not to him.
Priscilla lets out a world-weary sigh. “It’s nothing personal, Jaxon, but—”
“Like hell it’s not,” he says. “You can’t just lock me in.”
Kenzo flexes his fingers on the ax, and the next thing Jaxon knows, he’s being corralled down the hall, toward his door. “Come on, Mill,” he says, but she’s turning away, letting Cate lead her down the hall.
“In you go,” says Kenzo when Jaxon stops outside his room.
Jaxon looks to Priscilla, who at least has the decency to seem conflicted about all this. “You’re seriously going to lock me up? Because of something Millie might have seen?”
She rubs the furrow between her brows. “It’s not forever. But until we get to the bottom of this . . .”
“Okay, but there’s no bottom, because it was an accident. Think about it. Why would I push him?”
“You didn’t exactly get along,” says Kenzo.
“I don’t get along with you either,” he snaps, “but I haven’t tried to kill you.”
“Yet,” says Kenzo. “As for motive, well, he took that potshot at you yesterday. Maybe you wanted to finish what he started. Or maybe you just thought you’d tip the odds further in your favor.”
Jaxon shakes his head. “You’re wrong.”
Kenzo shrugs. “Better wrong than dead.”
He prods Jaxon with the blunt side of the ax, and Jaxon grits his teeth as he shuffles back across the threshold into the room. He spots the key jutting out of the lock and lunges for it, but Kenzo gets there first. “Cool old doors,” he says. “They lock from either side.”
Jaxon looks to Priscilla. “Someone’s lying, and it’s not me.” But it’s no use. Her expression is now set. His stomach growls. “What about food?”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll send something up.”
“Look at it this way,” adds Kenzo, one hand on the door. “Maybe you’ll finally get some work done.”
He’s about to close the door when Jaxon says, “Wait.”
Kenzo hesitates.
“The Galactic Trials,” says Jaxon. “You read it, didn’t you?”
The corner of Kenzo’s mouth twitches up in an unmistakable smile.
Jaxon’s heart quickens. “What did you think?”
“I think you’re a great writer.” He nods toward the typewriter. “So write.”
With that, the door swings shut.
Jaxon feels a moment of happiness, relief.
But as the silence settles, his heart, like his head, begins to turn on him.
He rattles the handle, but there’s no point.
It’s already locked.