Chapter 28
CHAPTER
Jordyn
Halloween Night, Present
THE FIRST DROPS of rain pelted Jordyn’s silver coupe as she arrived at the book club meeting. Sophie Durand’s expansive home loomed ahead, brightly lit and decorated with jack-o’-lanterns and skeletons.
Switching off the headlights, Jordyn stopped the car in the long, horseshoe-shaped driveway.
Two other vehicles were already parked on the black and white bricks laid out in a herringbone pattern.
One she recognized as the white Lexus she’d seen in Kaitlin Teal’s garage.
The other—a sleek blue Jaguar sports car—wasn’t familiar to her.
The storm had been threatening since the night before, and trick-or-treaters were sure to be disappointed the nor’easter had waited until now to blow in, during what should have been prime time for candy collecting.
Gathering her umbrella, Jordyn felt the electric charge in the air even before opening the car door.
Was it the change in barometric pressure from the rain?
Or the uncanny sensation that she could be standing in the same exact spot that Tara had stood one year before, unaware that the night would end with her death?
A shiver crept up her spine as she headed toward the double doors of the grand front entrance.
Never before had she felt the presence of her departed foster sister so keenly as she did at that moment.
As if Tara were right behind her, urging her on.
Which seemed funny, considering Jordyn had never needed any urging to speak up for her friend in the past. Jordyn hadn’t once shied away from a fight.
Tonight was different, though.
How could she battle a danger that was so much tougher to see?
A danger that hid behind social niceties, designer labels, and small talk?
This was the complicated world Tara had navigated alone, and Jordyn appreciated feeling like her friend was somehow at her side tonight when she planned to expose everyone’s secrets.
Including the killer’s.
Jordyn adjusted the oversized glasses from her extremely stereotyped nerdy scientist costume, then checked her phone one final time.
Natalie had been messaging her updates for the last hour as she checked into what Jordyn had learned about Kaitlin’s car.
Natalie had also learned from her PI colleague that Tara hadn’t been the woman with Nikolai in the months before her death.
It had been Sophie, dressed like Tara, a fact proven from video footage obtained from another hotel that same night, when the couple had been recorded walking into the lobby together, their faces clearly visible.
The PI had eventually passed on that information to Mei—but not until after Tara had died.
And according to the PI, Mei had refused to believe it had been Sophie despite the video evidence.
What the hell did that mean?
Could Mei have killed Tara thinking she was the one having an affair with Nikolai? And what did that mean for Sophie’s safety now? Maybe Sophie was in danger too. Jordyn couldn’t shake the feeling that tonight’s party could be dangerous. That the killer could strike again.
But it was tough to see quiet, unassuming Mei as the killer.
Jordyn came back to Sophie’s strange ruse.
Why would she try to throw Tara into hot water in the first place?
If Sophie disliked Tara enough to masquerade as her while out with another woman’s husband, did that also mean Sophie had disliked Tara enough to kill her?
If anything, it seemed like it would have given Tara motive to kill her business partner, not the other way around. Not that Tara would.
But right now, Jordyn’s phone showed no new messages.
Standing outside Sophie’s home made her feel exposed.
Too visible. Ever since she’d found the warning message on her car, she’d been plagued by the sense that someone was following her.
Watching. So she pressed the front doorbell to get inside, hoping she could pull all the clues together to make sense of what had happened a year ago.
A seasonally-appropriate chime sounded on an outdoor speaker—the high cackle of a witch’s laughter. A moment later, one of the dark double doors swung wide, and she was greeted by two woodland fairies wearing matching jeweled crowns with pale, glittery wings attached to their backs.
“Happy Halloween!” The fairies chorused together before parting to admit Jordyn into the house.
“Happy Halloween,” Jordyn said, recognizing Charlotte first, and guessing her sister Amelia was the other fairy, though her face was distorted behind a pale stocking mask with bulging eyes like an insect.
While Jordyn stepped into the echoing foyer, Charlotte jingled a set of keys in her hand and called over her shoulder, “Mom, I’m leaving. I’ll be back by ten.”
The girls vanished out the front doors a moment later, leaving Jordyn to hang her coat on the rack. She followed the sounds of “Love Potion No. 9” coming from another room, along with feminine laughter. The scent of cinnamon and nutmeg hung in the air.
Reaching a state-of-the-art kitchen, Jordyn paused to take in what and who she saw.
She recognized Kaitlin in the doctor’s scrubs she’d shown Jordyn the day before.
Her long hair was tucked under the surgical cap, and her curves were less obvious under the shapeless top, but otherwise, she looked the same as she fanned out a stack of cocktail napkins on the island filled with drinks and snacks.
The two other women in the kitchen had leaned into their costumes hard.
“Welcome to the Murder at Rookstone Manor game,” said Sophie, dressed in a vampy red gown with a white fur stole around her shoulders.
She had curled her hair into perfect waves, her lips flawlessly outlined in crimson.
Straightening from the oven where she pulled a tray of spanakopita from one of the racks, she asked, “Can I get you a cocktail?”
Sophie made room on the island for the tray and tugged oven mitts from her hands.
“I can help myself,” Jordyn assured her, reaching for a wine glass from the island. “Thank you.”
“There is a white Sancerre that’s already open,” Fatima announced from the other end of the island, dressed in a black dress with tuxedo accents like a bow-tie collar and satin piping running from her hips to her ankles.
She held an opera glass in one gloved hand.
“But I brought a pinot noir if you prefer.”
“I’ll open the red,” Jordyn announced, marveling at the lengths everyone went to for their outfits even as she wondered if there was a reason Fatima wore gloves. Had she been thinking about not leaving fingerprints? “I can’t wait to find out more about everyone’s character in the game tonight.”
The doorbell rang while she used a corkscrew on the pinot noir, the music changing to “Highway to Hell.” She preferred to drink a beverage that she opened herself since it just seemed safer when a murderer lurked.
She had a plan for tonight, of course, but she wouldn’t implement it until deeper in the evening when the guests let their guards down. Until then, she’d keep taking everyone’s measure. Keep testing her theories of the crime to see which one fit best.
To see who fit the killer profile.
As Jordyn tugged the cork free, Mei and Destiny swept into the kitchen together, already embroiled in laughter and conversation.
Mei’s hair was piled high like the bride of Frankenstein, and she strutted in a slinky purple slip dress with a matching pashmina held by a green butterfly clip.
Destiny rocked a black sequined body suit and silver feathered headdress with fishnet stockings.
“Welcome to the Murder at Rookstone Manor game,” Sophie repeated for the newcomers.
She still buzzed about the kitchen, pulling a tray of fruit from the refrigerator and opening a jar of honey to add to a charcuterie board.
Luke had joined her at some point, sticking toothpicks into melon balls wrapped with prosciutto.
“We’ll get started as soon as Brad and Gina arrive, but I can tell you that one of you may disappear from the game at some point because there will be a murder. ”
Jordyn paused in the middle of pouring her drink, red wine splashing onto the counter.
“During the game?” She’d read about these kinds of entertainments online, and she couldn’t recall any of them saying that someone disappeared while playing. “I thought the murder was supposed to happen off-stage, so to speak. Then all of us try to solve the mystery?”
“Not with the Rookstone Manor game,” Sophie assured her.
At the same moment, Gina Lawson stepped into the kitchen, wearing a Stetson and leather chaps with a turquoise fringed shirt like a rodeo queen.
She paused in the entrance to the room, her hand on a very convincing-looking prop revolver in her jeweled leather holster. Cocking her head to one side, she tipped back her cowboy hat before she spoke.
“Did someone say murder?”