23 Suzy
Suzy
“Someone needs to go check on the body,” Marshall said.
Marley had taken a hysterical Candice back to her room over the garage to clean up. Suzy, Sean, Grant, Gemma, Juliet, and Magdelena had all trickled in at various moments in Candice’s story, which had come out broken and almost nonsensical.
Construction equipment.
Ballroom.
Crushed.
Now they looked around at one another as the storm pulled and pushed at the walls around them.
“Why?” Sean said finally. “From what Candice said, Trevor is dead.”
“Very dead,” Suzy added.
“All that blood . . .” Juliet sat down heavily in one of the armchairs and toyed with her own fingers.
“Still, don’t you think we should see for ourselves? That we should know what happened?”
“Because you think there is a murderer among us,” Magdelena stated.
“Well, it definitely seems that way, doesn’t it?” Gemma said. “I’m with Marshall. I think someone should go check it out.”
“I’m game,” Grant said.
“Not it,” Sean put in, raising his hands to shoulder level.
Suzy had to concentrate to keep from sneering at him. Marshall and Grant were willing to go, but not her husband. She hated to be sexist, but honestly, it would be nice if Sean manned up once in a while.
“I’ll go too,” Suzy said.
Marshall and Grant wore matching looks of surprise. Sean’s jaw dropped. “What? Suzy, no. You don’t have to.”
“I want to. I want to know what we’re dealing with,” Suzy replied. “You and Juliet stay here. Maybe Magdelena can make you some tea,” she added sarcastically.
Wintour was still with the twins somewhere, so there wasn’t even anyone to hold on to as she followed Marshall and Grant back down the hall toward the new construction.
If she got out of this situation alive, she was never letting anyone touch her dog again.
Prior to today, Suzy wouldn’t have called Wintour an emotional support dog, but she was starting to think that was exactly what she was.
Marshall held the plastic aside for her and Grant to walk through.
It seemed even darker in the cavernous room than it had been earlier.
When her eyes finally adjusted to the dark, the first thing she noticed was that the makeshift bed and the sequined sweater were gone.
She stopped Marshall with a hand to his arm.
“What?”
“That’s where we found the candlesticks. Whoever was hiding out in here cleaned up after themselves.”
Marshall and Grant exchanged a look over her head. The tension between the three of them took on a new, higher frequency. Not only had Cole disappeared on them, but their mystery woman knew they were onto her presence. Either one of them could be somewhere in this room right now, watching them.
“Let’s get this over with. Keep your eyes peeled,” Grant said.
Suzy was glad he was here. His hulking presence was comforting.
“Candice said Trevor was at the back of the room,” Marshall told them.
She had said he’d heard a noise and gotten worried that the construction crew hadn’t secured some of the equipment out back, so he’d gone to check. When he hadn’t returned, she’d texted him, and when he didn’t reply, she got worried and went looking. That’s when she’d found the body.
This was what Suzy had pieced together from what little she’d heard and what Marshall had told them once Marley had ushered Candice from the great room.
The closer they got to the back of the room, the more things started to take shape. Suzy saw a small concrete mixer, a hydraulic scaffolding, and a table saw, along with a bunch of random tools, tape rolls, and hard hats strewn about.
“Oh, shit. No,” Marshall said suddenly, stopping in his tracks.
Suzy’s heart vaulted into her throat. “What?”
“There he is. On the floor.”
Suzy scanned the room again and saw Trevor. His legs were splayed across the subflooring, and his head was . . . Had it been severed from his body? Covering her mouth with one hand, Suzy edged forward, her shoes scuffing along the unfinished floor.
No. His head was still attached to his neck.
But it had been crushed. Somehow, his head had ended up wedged into one of the diamonds created by the hydraulic ladder, so that when the ladder had lowered, he had been caught.
The sight was gruesome. Hair, bone, sinew.
A large puddle of blood had pooled around the body and was smeared all over the place.
Clearly Candice had tried to help Trevor in her panic, even though it must have been too late by the time she got here.
Hot tears welled into her eyes and spilled quickly over as she turned away. Things like this didn’t happen in real life. This was the stuff of horror movies.
“How the hell did this happen?” Grant said.
“I don’t know,” Marshall replied.
“Are you two blind? Someone killed him!” Suzy screeched.
“Hang on; we don’t know that. It could have been an accident,” Grant said, holding out his palms.
“There’s no way this was an accident. What did he do?
Put his head in there for funsies?” Suzy demanded, flinging a hand toward Trevor’s corpse.
“And then what? Something randomly fell right on the big button you have to hit to lower the hydraulics? Do you even know how these things work? There are safeties put in! You can’t work this thing without intent! ”
Marshall looked at the floor, hands on his hips, and Grant’s eyes trailed over the control panel for the platform.
“I think someone knocked him out, stuck him in there, and then made sure he never came out again,” Suzy said, her voice breaking. She looked Marshall in the eye. “You think someone murdered Lincoln? Well I know someone murdered Trevor.”
Marshall’s breath came faster, his chest moving up and down under his T-shirt. “We need to get back to the others.”