19 Suzy
Suzy
Magdelena had put out a spread of eggs, potatoes, bagels, lox, flavored cream cheeses, fruit salad, and coffee while the group was distracted. The second Suzy smelled the coffee, her stomach grumbled. She hadn’t even thought about food all morning, but now she was ravenous.
When Marshall and Marley reentered the room, she was sitting at the end of the long dining table farthest from their intruder, Cole, who had made himself a plate worthy of a king and was shoveling potatoes into his mouth as if he’d never eaten before.
Suzy sipped black coffee, gnawed on a strawberry, and tried not to meet anyone’s eye.
Grant, Gemma, Sean, and Juliet had each taken something to eat as well, but it was like they all felt guilty for it.
They chewed slowly, methodically, and quietly, and did not speak.
The twins were on the couch, whispering in low tones, their heads bent close together as they sipped coffees.
Wintour was happily curled up in Vienna’s lap.
Slowly, Suzy observed each of these people, wondering if any one of them could have possibly committed murder. But how? Juliet was too earth mother. Gemma was too mothering. Grant was too goofy. Sean was too wishy-washy. Hazel was too in love.
Could it have been Hazel, though? Didn’t they always look at the husband or the wife first?
Or maybe it was one of the staff. Though she hated to think that way.
Lincoln and Lily had always paid them well, and Lincoln was not one to strike up personal relationships—good or bad—with the people who worked for him.
Sean was different—they’d been friends before they worked together.
Aside from him, Lincoln kept his professional and personal lives separate.
Which again begged the question . . . What were Grant and Gemma doing here?
The silence was too much for her to bear. She was about to ask Grant how he and Lincoln had connected in the first place, just to have something to say, but then Marshall stormed in, and she snapped her mouth shut.
“I want everyone who is in this house in this room, right now,” he announced, his nostrils flaring in a very un-Marshall like way. “Juliet, go get Hazel and Tini. Not the kids.” Marley cleared her throat. “Please,” he added.
Juliet got up and, without a word, ran upstairs.
“Marls, can you see if you can find Trevor and Candice?”
“Sure. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll get Magdelena,” Sean offered and shoved back from the table. He seemed energized, as if he was glad to have an assignment.
“What’s going on?” Grant said, standing.
Marshall cut a suspicious look at him that made Suzy’s stomach turn. “I’d rather not say until everyone’s here.”
Soon, they were all gathered in the great room, either sitting or standing around the table.
Trevor and Candice, both wearing fresh, dry uniforms, stood near the wall behind the table with Magdelena, away from the guests, as was their way.
Everyone else except for Marshall and Marley sat at the long table.
Hazel and Tini were the last to arrive, followed by Juliet.
They hovered just to the right of Suzy’s chair.
“Nothing like being summoned to the living room of your own house,” Hazel said sarcastically.
But it didn’t have much bite. Her eyes were red and raw, and she wavered a bit on her feet, like she’d just woken up from a deep sleep, which she probably had.
Suzy didn’t know what she’d taken to get herself to calm down after finding Lincoln, but whatever it was must have been strong.
“Does Tini really need to be here? We can’t leave the kids alone for long.
The babies are in their cribs, but Olivia and Ben are freaking out. They know something’s up.”
Tini, bless her heart, looked incredibly hopeful at the thought of being excused.
“Sorry,” Marshall said to Hazel, his hands resting on his hips. “But I don’t want to have to say this twice. I think someone killed Lincoln.”
Hazel’s hand covered her mouth. Behind it she said, “I knew it.”
Candice and Trevor exchanged a look as Magdelena’s eyes fluttered closed.
“What? Why?” Juliet blurted.
Suzy gripped the edge of the table with both hands, feeling suddenly like she’d boarded an out-of-control roller coaster.
Vienna, the twin who always had a camera on, handed Wintour off to her sister, stood up with her phone, and started filming.
Before Suzy could focus long enough to tell her to knock it off, everyone was in an uproar.
“Him! It had to be him!” Grant said, standing up and pointing at Cole. “He’s the only one here who’s not supposed to be here.”
Wintour started barking, and Florence tried to shush her.
Hazel noticed Cole for the first time. “Who the hell is this?”
“I’m Cole.” Cole stood. He was still chewing, one cheek full of food. “Did you say this is your house? It’s really incredible.” Hazel snorted. “Also, I didn’t kill anyone. Who even is Lincoln?”
Hazel let out a sound that was somewhere between a wail of despair and a growl of rage. Tini turned and ran back upstairs. No one made a move to stop her.
“We found Cole lurking by the guesthouse,” Gemma explained. “He got stuck here in the storm and maybe has someone here with him.”
Cole looked indignant. “I don’t—”
“Stop talking,” Grant said. “Just stop.”
“What about Josh? He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth,” Suzy blurted. “And he threatened Lincoln in front of all of us.”
“Real nice, Suzy,” Juliet said. “Can someone pull the knife out of my back?”
“What? We’re all thinking it!” Suzy shot back.
“Everyone, please!” Gemma said, glancing warily at her daughters. “Take a breath. It’s not going to help if we start randomly pointing fingers.”
Juliet rolled her eyes and turned away from Suzy, arms locked across her chest.
“Do you really think someone is going to just confess to this?” Magdelena asked.
It was clear no one did.
“Marshall, let’s back up a few steps,” Grant said. “Why do you think it was . . . that someone . . .” He paused and wiped his palms on his shorts a few times, like the very thought of murder was making them sweat.
Candice was quietly crying, hands over her face, turned toward the wall, while Magdelena rubbed her back and Trevor stood at attention, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the proceedings.
There was something about his expression that Suzy found predatory.
But she’d felt like something was off with that guy since the moment she laid eyes on him.
Could he have done something to Lincoln?
“Yeah, what are you talking about?” Sean asked, meeting Suzy’s gaze. “I thought it was an accident.”
“Marley and I found blood all over the storage room by the pool,” Marshall said. “And someone threw one of the speakers in there all wet.”
“A speaker?” Suzy said. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either. So someone here better start explaining,” Marshall spat, looking around at each of them.
“Marshall, calm down.” Marley reached for his hand from behind. “We don’t know what happened. We don’t even know if that’s Lincoln’s blood. Let’s talk about this rationally.”
“Rationally? What’s rational about any of this? All I know is my perfectly healthy brother, who was totally sober the last time I saw him, by the way, somehow fell in a pool and drowned or . . . I don’t know what. But someone here knows how he got there.”
Everyone looked around at everyone else. If Suzy had to testify at that very moment about what she saw, she would have honestly said that every single one of them looked entirely shocked and confused. Maybe Marshall was wrong. Maybe being trapped here was making all of them paranoid.
She looked at Sean, remembering what he’d said in the pool room.
His note had given him a motive to kill Lincoln.
So had all the others—the ones she knew about anyway.
She didn’t even know if Marshall had gotten one, but if he had, she had to assume it was similar in tone.
Here’s something Lincoln did or intends to do that’s going to royally piss you off.
“What about the notes?” she heard herself say. “Who wrote the notes?”
More silence. Hazel, who was rubbing her face practically raw, looked up. “What notes?”
Suzy looked at Marley, and then they both looked at Juliet. They were all thinking the same thing. Was that genuine? Or is she faking because it was her?
Marshall pulled a crumpled blue note out of his pocket and handed it to Hazel. She read it and looked at him, her expression baffled.
“We all got one. At least, six of us did. Me, Marshall, Juliet, Josh, Suzy, and Sean. You didn’t get one?” Marley asked.
“No.” Hazel glanced around the table. “What did the other ones say?”
Suzy shifted in her seat. No one spoke. This was bad.
It was exactly like Sean had said. The notes couldn’t be a coincidence.
Whoever had written them had somehow known this was going to happen.
Had probably killed Lincoln themselves and written the notes to throw suspicion on everyone else.
She had to get rid of them. She still had hers, Josh’s, and Juliet’s upstairs in her room.
If she destroyed them, the police would never see them.
“Well, whoever wrote them gave each of us a motive to murder my brother,” Marshall said, voicing Suzy’s thoughts. “And now he’s dead. So what the actual hell is going on?”
Gemma opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, there was a tremendous crash from upstairs, like a meteor had collided with the house. And then the screaming began.