Chapter 32
CHAPTER
Jordyn
Present
“NO WORRIES. THERE are plenty of candles.”
Sophie Durand’s calm, disembodied voice spoke in the dark kitchen, making Jordyn’s skin crawl with anxiety. Did their too-perfect hostess ever get rattled? Had she even heard Jordyn’s announcement about hunting for Tara’s killer tonight?
In the seconds of zero visibility, as the sound of drawers being opened and closed filled her ears, Jordyn tried to remember if everyone from book club had been in the same room when the lights went out.
She’d been so focused on Kaitlin, convinced the therapist was Tara’s most likely killer, that the other group members had been in the periphery of her focus.
“Here we go,” Sophie continued speaking a moment before a battery-operated lighter sparked into a flame. She stood at the island, a handful of fat candles in varying sizes and colors perched on the granite. “Let’s just light a few of these so we can see what we’re doing.”
Jordyn’s heart skittered faster. She felt uneasy about the power going off right after the announcement of her real identity. Had the storm really knocked out the electricity? Or had someone cut it on purpose? Maybe her news had upset Tara’s killer.
Would it drive that person to act again?
“I think we should all get comfortable while we figure out the real murder mystery,” Jordyn reiterated as the candlelight began illuminating the faces of Tara’s former friends.
Brad was still in the far corner by the sliders leading to the patio, though he looked a little unsteady on his feet. Gina stood close to him, cowboy hat covering her face while she stared down into her drink as if the conversation didn’t concern her at all.
Destiny and Kaitlin perched on barstools at the island, while Mei and Fatima hovered behind them, their faces in shadow.
Sophie set down the lighter and lifted one of the candles. “While you hijack my gathering for your own agenda, I need to use the house phone to call a neighbor and check on Charlotte. She doesn’t belong at a party if the electricity is out there too.”
Jordyn watched her leave the room, wishing she had a way to keep everyone contained in one place while she confronted them with the evidence she had collected. Would they begin to turn on one another as they learned the truth about Tara’s last book club?
A gust of wind howled around the house, the sound more pronounced in the silence of the kitchen.
Across the room, Brad cleared his throat. “Jordyn, I’m not clear why you think one of Tara’s friends killed her?” He peered around at the others in a clear bid for support. “The police investigated the accident, so if there was any evidence against one of us …”
He wavered on his feet a little, his drink overflowing the rim of the glass as he seemed to lose his train of thought.
Gina reached for his elbow to steady him. “Let me get you a water.”
Brad nodded gratefully, setting his drink on the edge of a sleek display cabinet.
“There is plenty of evidence,” Jordyn shot back, thinking about all the notes Natalie had given her. All of the incriminating things she’d discovered for herself. “Against all of you. There are so many motives in this room, it might take some time to wade through them all.”
“I had a motive,” Gina admitted, lifting her hand to wave. “I admit it. But I’m not sharing it until Sophie returns. I need her to hear about it.”
Jordyn frowned even as a wave of nausea threatened. How could the woman be so cavalier? She took a deep breath and told herself to keep pushing for answers.
“I’ll hold you to that, Gina.” She laid enough emphasis on the name to ensure Evangeline understood that Jordyn already knew her identity. “What about you, Brad? Where were you last year after the Halloween book club meeting?”
He shook his head, still wavering on his feet. “You know I had a motive, but that’s not my style. Right now, though, I don’t feel so well.”
He staggered toward the sitting room, and while Jordyn was surprised he’d had enough time to drink to excess when it was still early, she didn’t stand in his way. Instead, she turned toward the women gathered at the island, all of them surprisingly quiet.
“What about you, Mei?” Jordyn stalked closer, wanting to see her face more clearly when she made her accusation. “Did you hate Tara enough to kill her after you thought it was her at the Adelphi Hotel with your husband?”
Mei’s lip curled as she spun the blue wine charm around the base of her glass.
“It was Tara at the Adelphi, but I didn’t kill her. Nikolai would never leave me for a social parasite like Tara whose claim to fame was being Sophie’s shadow.”
Jordyn sucked in a breath at the venom in Mei’s voice. She would never have suspected that anyone in Tara’s circle would view her that way. But perhaps, if Mei truly believed that Tara had been the object of her husband’s affections, she could be excused for thinking poorly of her.
Mei could not be excused for murder, however.
Jordyn leaned over the island to look Mei in the face. Up close, she could see where Mei had woven the bride of Frankenstein wig into her own dark hair.
“Newsflash. It was Sophie, not Tara, with Nikolai that night,” Jordyn informed her, unable to let Tara’s name be tarnished even now. “Where were you after book club last Halloween?”
Mei appeared a little less certain of herself. She lifted her chin. “I saw the photo of them together at the Adelphi. I know that was Tara.”
More lightning lit up the room. The thunder rolled a moment afterward. Rain came down in sheets against the retracting glass pocket doors.
“But you also saw the photo evidence from another hotel where you can clearly see the woman wearing that dress was Sophie, not Tara. Why did you refuse to believe what your PI told you? Was it because you’d already killed Tara and didn’t want to think you’d done it for nothing?
” Jordyn glanced around the kitchen, hoping their two-faced hostess would return soon, but there was no sign of her yet.
“Why don’t you share with us your alibi for Tara’s time of death? ”
“If you were with the police department, you’d already know.” Mei folded her arms across her purple slip dress and glared at Jordyn, but a line of perspiration dotted her forehead now. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”
“So much for sharing our character backstories.” Jordyn eased away from her, putting a row of kitchen cabinets at her back.
She didn’t want anyone sneaking up behind her as she confronted these false-face friends who didn’t hesitate to stab each other in the back.
“Destiny, you owed Tara a boatload of money after she helped you get The Ascent off the ground. An investment you never repaid her estate, since Tara had been content with a handshake.”
Destiny rose from her seat, her huge fan tail of feathers rising with her. “You think I would kill one of the few people in this town who always supported me?”
The anger in her voice seemed genuine. Then again, some people flipped into offensive mode when they felt defensive. Maybe Destiny was trying to deflect from her guilt.
When Jordyn didn’t reply right away, Destiny huffed a frustrated sigh. “Besides, what start-up do you know that makes a profit in the first year? I told Tara I could have it repaid with interest in three years.”
Fatima lifted her wine glass in a gloved hand, giving a general toast in Destiny’s direction. “I believe you. Tara seemed upset that last night at book club, but not toward you.”
Jordyn whirled to face Fatima, the movement of her body stirring the air enough to extinguish one of the candles Sophie had left burning on the island among the wine bottles.
Jordyn’s eyes had adjusted enough to the dark, however, that it hardly mattered.
Especially since she could still see Fatima’s face well enough.
“What do you mean, upset?” Jordyn had relived her last phone call from Tara over and over again.
I’ll have everyone I need to hex all in one room, Tara had said as she stood in Sophie’s driveway wearing her Maleficent costume one year ago. She hadn’t sounded like she was joking either.
Tara had seemed on edge. Uneasy.
“Just that.” Fatima reached for the pinot noir and topped off her drink. “If you were really such great friends with her, you know she was normally a little Miss Sunshine. Full of life and ready to engage with everyone. But that last night she seemed distracted and quiet. Moody, I guess?”
Destiny returned to the bar stool beside Fatima.
“Agreed. She was out of sorts. I asked her about a romance book she’d recommended to me a few months before, and she rolled her eyes at me.
That girl was not an eye roller. And I don’t think it was about the book.
I think it was the word ‘romance’ that got her twisted.
Maybe you should be looking for a romance gone wrong. ”
Surprise, surprise if Tara found relationships challenging considering her past. Her adoptive brother had violated her the day he met her.
She wished she’d known more about Tara’s state of mind in the last hours of her life before tonight. She wanted to share this new information with Natalie to discuss it, see how it fit with the rest of the puzzle. But there wasn’t time. She was on her own to find this killer.
For all she knew, Destiny was trying to misdirect her with the whole romantic interest angle.
Jordyn turned toward Kaitlin, who twirled her surgical mask by the strings. “Or maybe I should be looking at the woman with an SUV with a damaged front-end that matches the description of the hit-and-run vehicle.”
Swearing under her breath, Kaitlin tossed the mask on the island. “You little sneak. That’s why you went into my garage?”
Jordyn’s temper flared even as she hoped the other women would intervene if Kaitlin turned on her. “Why don’t you tell everyone why you didn’t take it into a mechanic to have it fixed? Worried someone would report the damage?”
Seeing the fury in Kaitlin’s eyes made her wonder if that was the last thing Tara saw before she was struck. Before she landed on the pavement, her hip smashed and her leg crushed. The internal bleeding too severe to staunch.
“I hit a deer last fall, you numbskull. I haven’t fixed the SUV because I needed a new roof this spring and—you know—bills?
I’m a single-income household.” Kaitlin chugged from her wine glass, clearly aggrieved or doing a good acting job.
“And if you’re looking for Tara’s enemy number one, why don’t you talk to our peerless hostess? ”
Fatima let out a dark laugh that seemed to echo Kaitlin’s view. Mei set down her drink at the edge of the countertop and almost missed the granite all together, dodging sideways to save the drink from spilling.
“Where is Sophie anyway?” Mei asked, using a few cocktail napkins to mop up some wine that sloshed onto the counter. “I have questions for her.”
“She’s taking forever to check on the girls,” Destiny agreed before swiveling in her seat to see beyond her feathered fan tail. “For that matter, where did Brad and Gina go?”
The corner where the two of them had been standing was now vacant. Brad’s half empty glass still rested on the ledge of the display cabinet, but he was nowhere to be seen. As for Gina, there was no sign she’d ever been there.
Was the real killer escaping even now?
“No way. No fucking way.” Jordyn lifted one of the fat candles that Sophie had left on the island.
“No one is leaving here until we figure this out. Otherwise, I will go to the police tomorrow with the dirt I have on every last one of you. So if you don’t want that to happen, I suggest you help me nail the guilty party. ”
“Good luck with that, Gumshoe Girl.” Destiny reached a hand into a bowl of popcorn. “I’ll keep my front row seat to this shitshow, but I am not walking through a dark house with a killer on the loose.”
Jordan opened her mouth to argue, but from somewhere in the house, a muffled scream sounded.
Jordyn’s pulse accelerated. She was more scared of someone getting away than she was for her own safety. Especially when a sudden gust of cold breeze blew through the kitchen. As if a door was being opened somewhere.
Someone trying to leave?
The panicked thought got Jordyn’s feet moving even as all of the candles flickered, then went out.
Through the dark, she raced in the direction of the front door.