AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Keever’s death had alarmed her. Yes, it could have been an overdose. No one knew exactly what it was he smoked when he was alone in his cabin. Dried mushrooms of some kind. But he had died in the labyrinth gardens, not in his room. That did not look like an overdose to her.
The true danger had been brought home to her when she found Clive’s body. She had come to loathe the man, had been planning afuture without him. She did not mourn him. But she did not believe for one minute that his death was due to natural causes.
She did not know how Gill had murdered Clive and Eddy Keever but she did not doubt that he was responsible. And now he had gone after Rand and March. She was not sure why, but that didn’t matter. He would come for her before the next ferry arrived. He could not afford to let her leave the island. She knew too much.
It was clear that Gill was cleaning up the operation he had been running down below in the tunnels. She was not sure what was going on in that old botanical research lab, but she no longer believed that it was a clandestine government project. She and Clive had fallen for Gill’s con for the same reason marks always did—greed. It was embarrassing. Back at the start she had seen it as her last best chance to get enough money together to leave Clive and make her dream of a restaurant come true. For Clive it had promised to be the ultimate score.
She finally understood that Gill had never intended for her and Clive to leave Night Island. Her fight-or-flight instincts were screaming at her to run and hide, but there was no safe place on the island. If she fled into the woods she would get lost and disoriented. It was unlikely that anyone would even look for her body. After all, Nathan Gill owned the island. He had no reason to report a missing person.
She had to stay alive until tomorrow and try to get on the ferry with the guests. Assuming the ferry arrived. That depended on the weather. It also depended on Gill. He could decide to cancel the charter, but she was sure he wanted to get the guests off the island as soon as possible.
She glanced through the doorway into the dining room and the lobby beyond. Marcella Earle, Jasper Draper, and Oliver Skinner were sprawled on the furniture, methodically working their waythrough what remained of the liquor supply. She would stay close to them until the ferry arrived.
She set the piping bag aside. The peaks of whipped cream lacked her trademark sculptural elegance, but for once she did not care. She turned to open the door of the refrigerator.
“Looks delicious,” Marcella said from the doorway. Alcohol thickened the words.
Octavia started violently and turned around.
“Sorry,” Marcella said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. You really shouldn’t be in here cooking for the rest of us. You lost your husband today.”
Octavia flattened her hand on the counter to steady herself. “Cooking is therapeutic for me.”
And he was never my husband, she added silently.I was foolish enough to fall for him years ago but I was not dumb enough to marry him. She had insisted on separate bank accounts from the very beginning.
“I understand.” Marcella swallowed some of her drink. “You know, your talent is wasted here on this island. Ever considered opening your own restaurant?”
“Every chef thinks about that.”
No need to mention that she had spent the last few months making plans for a future that did not include Clive.
“Well,” Marcella continued, “if you ever do decide to launch your own restaurant in the Seattle area, you’ll need to find a good location. Give me a call. I handle a lot of commercial real estate.”
“I’ll do that,” Octavia said.
Marcella turned and wandered back through the dining room and into the lobby.
Octavia hoisted the tray. A flash of lightning made her flinch so violently she almost dropped her burden. She looked out the window andsaw Nathan Gill emerging from the gardens. He was on his way back from cabin eight. For a moment their eyes met, and she knew that either he had not found Rand and March or he had murdered them.
She was next on Gill’s list. He would make certain she did not leave the island alive.
CHAPTER FORTY
It was atrap and I fell for it,” Phoebe said. “I was sure I had three legitimate buyers lined up to buy a copy of the list. I had been very careful. All three had figured out that they were on a list of people who had taken a certain psych test several years ago.”
“Who was the first buyer?” Talia asked. “The one who kidnapped you?”
“It was supposed to be a woman named Nina Seldon. She was on the list. But the last thing I remember is the knock on the back door. The next thing I knew I was waking up in that little room over there.”
“Sounds like a classic lost night situation,” Talia said. “That’s how it was for my friends and me. We walked into the lobby of an old hotel and woke up very early the next morning with no memory of what had happened to us.”
“Same with me,” Luke said. He used the pruners to slice off another encroaching creeper. Then he paused to look around the lab, his jaw hardening. “Mostly. By the way, Phoebe, someone murdered the assistant gardener.”
“Yes, I know,” Phoebe said. “I heard Finch and Nathan Gill arguingabout it. Well, not about the murder, exactly. About the disposal of the body.”
“What did they say?” Talia asked.
“I didn’t catch all of it, but Finch was pissed, I can tell you that. She said that feeding human remains to the plants was affecting the entire ecosystem. She thought it was making the mushrooms and the plants more aggressive.”
