Never Sleep With Strangers (11 page)

He ignored her and kept talking. “You're trying to make Sabrina think that I was involved with a married woman—and then in the next breath you're accusing me of killing her!”

“Maybe you were afraid that she was about to tell your buddy, Jon, the truth of the situation. She was just using you, Brett. Oh, I know you're the great lover, but she was in love with Jon in her warped, sick way. And—”

“If anyone had a reason to kill her, it was Jon. So why are you trying to make me look guilty?”

“Jon wasn't in the room! He was outside.”

“So someone else was in on it. One of the guests, his staff—a bloody stranger!”

“And maybe she teased you just a little bit too much, a little bit too long, and—”

“I should give you a black eye!” Brett exclaimed. “Not that anyone would notice, with your damn black makeup. What is it with you, Dianne? Are you trying to scare your readers into buying your books?”

“Oh, Brett, is that all you can come up with? Is everything in your life about book sales, about securing a place on a list? We're talking about a woman's life here.”

“Yes! Life—not death. I mean it, Dianne. How dare you make such accusations? You want the truth, the real truth? I did care about her. I didn't want her dead or—”

The sound of a gunshot suddenly exploded in the quiet chapel.

Startled, Sabrina ducked, and Dianne, too, dropped to the floor.

Brett didn't move as quickly. And the back of his tailored blue silk shirt was suddenly soaked in red.

Bloodred.

 

The note had sent him to the crypt.

Not his Mystery Week instruction note, but the first note he had found thrust beneath his door—the note Camy had denied writing.

It had read:

And so he had come here, to the crypt, where his ancestors rested. Along with Cassie. Despite her alleged hatred of Scotland, her will had actually requested that she be laid to rest in Jon's castle. To avoid morbid scandal-and-celebrity seekers, he had allowed reporters to believe she was being buried back in the States. Her family, happy to comply with his wishes and to avoid prurient interest, had been vague about her burial.

So there lay his wife, in the center of Lochlyre Castle's crypt.

Apparently his guests knew where she rested. For on her tomb lay flowers in her honor.

He swore softly, staring at them. Were they truly in her memory, or a taunt to him? Did someone here really think he had killed her?

Or was someone suffering a brutally guilty conscience and trying to cast blame his way.

If he'd been with her, she wouldn't have fallen. She wouldn't have been alone. Alone for a killer to come upon in a precarious position…

The sound of a gunshot galvanized Jon into action. He raced from the crypt, certain the blast had come from nearby.

He ran straight into Thayer Newby. Tom Heart and Joe Johnston were close behind.

“Anyone else down here?” Joe demanded.

“The chapel!” Thayer shouted.

They ran the short distance to the chapel doors, bursting in together.

Dianne and Sabrina were there, hunched down by the altar.

Brett was on the ground. Between the two rows of pews.

Swearing, despite the fact that it was the chapel.

Brett looked up as the men entered. Jon realized that they were followed closely by Reggie and Anna Lee.

“Can you believe it?” Brett said, disgusted. “Me! I'm the first to go. Damnation! I didn't see a thing, didn't hear a thing. I was a damned sitting duck, an idiot, a fuc—”

“Brett! It is a chapel,” Sabrina reminded him.

She was by Dianne's side, and obviously the two of them had been trying to make McGraff feel better about becoming a ghost. Sabrina's blue eyes were huge, her hair shimmering as it fell around her shoulders. Jon felt a strange pulse ticking against his throat and forced his attention back to the situation at hand.

His heart, he realized, was still pounding. The bullet he had found in the wall earlier had unnerved him. It had been real. And it hadn't been there before. He would have seen it. He walked that hallway every day of his life when he was in residence. He'd been afraid that someone was toting real fire power with real purpose.

Now he was so relieved to find that this gunshot was part of the game that he needed to sit.

Brett was flushing, staring at him. “Sorry, Jon. I suppose this place is sacred or something, huh? But the game instructions did tell us to come here.”

“Well, it is a chapel, yes,” Jon said. “But I think you can get away with ‘damn,' especially if you've just been shot with red paint. So who did it?” He looked questioningly at Dianne and Sabrina.

Dianne smiled like a cat. Sabrina shrugged. “We didn't see. We were in the midst of an argument.”

Jon frowned. “About what?”

“Oh, some silly thing. I don't even remember, do you, Dianne?”

The young woman arched a brow, then lifted her shoulders. “No…I can't quite remember. At the moment.”

“Five minutes ago you were all arguing so passionately that you didn't pay any attention to what was going on, and now you can't remember what you were talking about?” Jon asked skeptically.

Sabrina shook her head. The color in her cheeks heightened, and her lashes fluttered before her eyes met his again.

She was lying, Jon knew.

“You are all acting like a bunch of lunatics!” Thayer accused.

“Well, what do you want?” Brett said irritably. “I'm shot all over with red paint. Damn! Damn! Shit! Ah, hell, sorry, Jon.”

“I say it's cocktail hour,” Reggie announced.

“Hear, hear,” Tom agreed.

“Well, now, wait!” Joe protested, rubbing his bearded chin and looking at them all. “Let's check out the situation first. We're here to solve a mystery, Sabrina, what happened here?” he asked.

Sabrina looked at him, started to speak, then stopped. She glanced at Jon, looked away.

What the hell? he wondered.

Then she shook her head sheepishly at Joe. “Honest, you know how opinionated we all are, Joe. It was dumb, but we got so involved talking, none of us was paying any attention.”

“Well, this is a total loss!” Joe said, disgruntled.

“No, it's not,” Tom argued. “We know that the butler didn't do it, since Mr. Buttle, the butler, is now dead.”

“The butler is dead?” a new voice suddenly inquired. Susan Sharp, in a deep blue cocktail dress that emphasized her darkly attractive looks, swept into the chapel. She spotted Brett and burst into laughter.

“Well, you didn't last very long, did you, dear?”

“Susan, trust me, you won't last very long, either,” Brett promised her direly.

“Oh, don't be a spoilsport. They killed you, and I'm alive and well.”

“No, Susan,” Brett informed her firmly. “Carla—the call girl with the clap—is alive and more or less well. For the moment.”

“As Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘The game is afoot!' Reggie informed them. “And the week has just begun. We are beginning to learn a few things. The butler is out of the picture. We now know that Sabrina isn't the killer, or Dianne.”

“That's not true. We don't know anything, except that none of them will talk!” Tom protested. “Remember, the killer may have an accomplice. Someone to lure the victims to their dooms. That means that Dianne or Sabrina could easily be guilty of complicity in murder.”

“But who pulled the trigger?” Joe demanded. “Let's see, everyone is here except…V.J.”

“Excuse me—right here, at the chapel door,” V.J. called, and they all turned to look at her.

Entirely elegant in a floor-length, sequined gown, V.J. was casually leaning against the doorjamb and watching them all with amusement as they argued.

“Ah, but where were you?” Tom demanded, smiling as he sauntered over to her.

For the first time it occurred to Jon that his two friends made a very nice looking couple. Tom Heart, too, looked elegant, in a dinner jacket, tie and vest, his silver-white hair gleaming. Interesting. Maybe something was brewing there. The two had always seemed so compatible. The last time they'd all been together here, V.J.'s husband had been living. No more. And rumor had it that though Tom was still married, he'd been separated from his wife of thirty years for several months.

V.J. lifted a champagne flute to them all. “Where was I? Where I was supposed to be. I was at cocktail hour—all by myself. I had no idea that the party was in the chapel.” She looked around. “So the butler bit the dust. That kind of ruins the fun—we know we won't get to say that the butler did it! Well, the chapel is lovely. Much better than the crypt. If we're all going to spend time down here, at least it's with this beautiful stained glass and not with coffins and dead people.” She winced. “Oh, sorry, Jon. I forget they're your relatives.”

“I understand, V.J.,” he told her. “I prefer cocktails with the living myself.”

“I told you it was cocktail hour,” Reggie said. “V.J. is the only one of us with any sense.”

“Hell, I agree with that.”

“Brett McGraff!” Reggie reprimanded him indignantly. “We're in a chapel!”

“Sorry,” Brett muttered in resignation.

“Oh, Brett,” Dianne warned, “that stuff is dripping onto your pants now.”

“Hell, you're right, it is. Damn! Oh, shit. There I go again, swearing in the chapel. I wish I could stop that!” Brett said. He leaped to his feet, glanced at the crucifix on the altar and crossed himself quickly. The others were staring at him. “All right, all right, I was brought up in the Catholic Church. Do you mind?”

With that he spun around. “I'll be changing my shirt so that I can come to cocktails in ghostly white apparel.” He stomped out of the chapel. “Shit!” he swore one last time.

The tension was broken as the others burst into laughter. Reggie started out after him. “Ladies, gentlemen, I'm going up for cocktails. Anyone joining me?”

“Definitely,” Jon agreed.

“Joe Johnston, get up here and escort an old lady,” Reggie commanded.

“Yes, ma'am!” Joe said, hurrying to her side.

The others began filing out. Jon paused by the door, waiting.

Tom escorted V.J. Dianne, Thayer and Anna Lee exited together, Dianne still insisting to Thayer that she hadn't seen anything. Susan brushed by Jon.

Sabrina remained by the altar. She looked at him as if she was trying to figure out how to escape him when he stood blocking the only exit.

He walked toward her. “Were you intending to stay behind for some reason?” he inquired.

“No,” she said quickly.

“Are you trying to avoid me?” he inquired.

“No,” she repeated.

But she was lying again. And he thought he knew why. The argument between Brett and Dianne had been over him. Or Cassie. Or what had happened three years ago.

And Sabrina didn't want him questioning her.

Well, maybe it wasn't the time.

She stood very still, trying to keep her beautiful blue eyes level with his. Her hair was falling around her shoulders like silk, and he suddenly ached to reach out and touch it.

No, he admitted to himself, he wanted more than that.

There was so much in life that went by so swiftly. So much that a man barely remembered. But he remembered Sabrina. Her tentative smile. Her gentle touch. Her passion. The way she'd been so trusting way back when.

She was still tentative at times.

But not so trusting.

She was very wary, watching him.

He felt a renewed bitterness that she could suspect he would cold-bloodedly kill his wife. He wished he could reach out, shake her and tell her he was innocent. No, he didn't want to shake her. He wanted to touch her. Hold her. Again. Hell, Brett McGraff was worrying about the things he'd been saying in the chapel. The things Jon wanted to
do
in the chapel were surely far less forgivable.

God, he could remember the way she looked naked, covered with a sheen of sweat, crystal blue eyes half shielded by the fall of her lashes, every curve of her body inviting.

“The others are way ahead. I guess we should hurry,” she said, and she stepped past him, striding quickly toward the doors.

He followed her, and, unable to stop himself, caught her arm, swinging her back around to face him.

“We have to talk,” he said.