A Death on the Island Read online

  At the front of the folder was a sheet of paper that looked eerily similar to my own resume. It listed my last three places of employment, where I’d gone to school, my degree. However, as I neared the bottom of the page, the document became more personal. Daniel’s name was there, along with several other men I’d dated over the past few years, some for no longer than a week or two. There was a similar document for my sister, Page.

  Next was a page with the words “Murder House” written in big block letters. Beneath it was a list of every person who had ever died on the bed and breakfast property, including the two murders I’d recently solved—Maggie Summerfield and Nathaniel Sharp—and Martin Little, who had been the murderer and had himself been killed by me after he’d attacked me. Beneath those, though, were two other names—George and Eliza Harris.

  Harris? As in, Mrs. Harris?

  Hadn’t Blaire said Mrs. Harris was rumored to have killed her parents? I’d tried my best to put very little stock in the rumors, but discovering that both of her parents had died in the house piqued my interest.

  Next to the Harris’ names was a handwritten note: “fall on the stairs? Headstones on property.”

  At the bottom of the page was another hand scribbled note: “Bad for business if published widely.”

  “Would you tell me what you’re reading?” Mason asked, impatient.

  I sighed, still not entirely sure what I was looking at. “It’s just a lot of information about my life and the bed and breakfast. He has a list of every person who has ever died on the property. There is something here about Mrs. Harris’ parents. Apparently, they died in the house and might be buried on the property somewhere. He seems to think it could be bad for business if more people found out about it.”

  The words felt insane coming out of my mouth. Was I living on a makeshift graveyard? How many times had I walked up and down the stairs, right over the place where one or more people may have died? Had it been an accident or were they pushed? Had Mrs. Harris pushed them? I grimaced just thinking about the moment when I’d have to tell Page all of this information. It would be a miracle if she didn’t immediately ship Mrs. Harris off to an old folk’s home.

  “Well, he’s not wrong about that,” Mason said with an apologetic wince. “Most people don’t love sleeping and eating where dead people have been. Do you think he is planning to blackmail you with this information?”

  “It would be pretty on brand for him,” I said. “But all of this is public information already. Even the stuff about Mrs. Harris’ family is probably on record somewhere. And what would he get from blackmailing me?”

  “A thrill?” Mason suggested.

  I shook my head. “No, Robert Baines doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would waste his time blackmailing someone just for fun. He has to be getting something out of it.”

  I flipped to the next page, and things immediately became much more clear.

  “No way,” I whispered, my eyes pouring over the page.

  “What?” Mason asked, and then repeated when I didn’t immediately answer.

  “He is searching for the buried treasure,” I said, pulling a page from the folder and slamming it down on the desk.

  It was a map of the island with the private beach next to the bed and breakfast circled, the coastline riddled with markings indicating possible locations of a sunken ship filled with buried treasure. A ship, supposedly full of treasure and riches, had long been rumored to have crashed off the coast of the island, very near the private beach I’d acquired when I purchased the bed and breakfast. The last man who had gone searching for it had been Nathaniel Sharp, and he had ended up dead.

  “Why? He already has more money than he knows what to do with,” Mason said.

  “It could just be greed, or maybe he has debts we don’t know about. Robert Baines isn’t the most honest of businessmen. He has made a lot of deals with a lot of bad people. Maybe the only way he could think to pay off his debts is to blackmail the land away from me and find the buried treasure.”

  Mason rolled his eyes. “Then he is significantly dumber than he looks. That treasure is a myth. He has a better chance of unearthing the lost city of Atlantis.”

  “Maybe the treasure wasn’t his only plan. He brought together all of the island’s business owners and wealthy residents for this party. Perhaps he has dirt on all of them. Maybe he is trying to extort everyone, not just me.”

  Mason shifted nervously, and I was tired of tiptoeing around the subject. I decided it was time to be direct. “Do you have anything you need to say?”

  He bit his lower lip.

  “Spill,” I said, trying to decide when Mason and I had become so close. We’d only been around one another a handful of times since I’d moved to the island, but he had been the first person to find me after my fight to the death with Martin Little. I supposed a situation like that was bound to bond two people together, regardless of how well they actually knew each other.

  He sighed, his head tipped to one side. “You heard about the mural I was commissioned to paint in Houston?”

  I nodded.

  “He wants a cut of the profits.”

  “What?” I cried. “Are you serious? How does he plan to accomplish that?”

  “He knows everyone. I swear, he has a minion on every committee and in every board room in the whole of Texas. If I don’t give him a 25% cut then I’ll get booted from the job. And I can’t afford that. I make a good amount selling my paintings, but this mural would be huge for me. It would bring in so many more clients. It would be a massive, paid advertisement for me. I don’t have a choice.”

  I was practically shaking with rage. Then, an idea struck me.

  “Holly,” I said, the single word being the only thing I could manage to articulate as the thought was still forming in my brain.

  “Excuse me?” Mason said, eyebrows raised in confusion.

  “She’s a reporter,” I said. “She came here to write a story about Robert Baines. About his dirty dealings. This would be huge. If we could get her proof that Robert Baines is blackmailing people, and if you would be willing to tell your story, we could end him.”

  “I don’t know. This could be one of those ransom note scenarios,” he said.

  I paused, waiting for him to clarify what he meant, but he just continued staring at me. “What’s a ransom note scenario?” I finally asked.

  “You know, like, ‘Don’t involve the police or I’ll kill your loved ones.’”

  “Does he have your loved ones tied up in a basement somewhere?” I asked.

  “Well, no. I just mean, he could do something a lot worse than cost me one job if I go to the press,” he said.

  Mason had a point, but I also couldn’t stand by and allow Robert Baines to sit in his ivory tower and manipulate the lives of those around him. It wasn’t right.

  “You don’t have to speak out if you don’t want to, but I will. This is illegal…I think. Regardless, it’s wrong. Someone has to say something.”

  I stuffed the documents back in my folder and tucked it under my arm.

  “Are you keeping that?” he asked.

  I nodded and headed for the door.

  “What are you going to do with it?” he asked, hastily rearranging the desk to try and disguise that we’d rifled through it, and then following me into the hallway.

  “I’m going to confront him. I’ll give him a choice: stop blackmailing people or I’ll take my information to the papers and the police.”

  “You’re going to confront him right now?”

  “No time like the present,” I said, marching down the hallway and heading for the stairs.

  Mason trailed behind me, begging me to slow down, to think about what I was doing. I didn’t want to think about it, though. I needed to act. A man like Robert Baines was intimidating, and if I thought about it too long, I would think up a thousand different reasons why challenging him in his own home with something as flimsy as a single folder with some
publicly available information in it was a bad idea.

  “He has so many connections, Piper. He could have your bed and breakfast blackballed before it even opens,” Mason said. “This could kill your business.”

  I stopped and turned to him. Usually cool and calm, Mason’s face was flushed with anxiety and nerves. His eyes were wide, begging me to see reason.

  “Robert Baines isn’t the boogeyman or God,” I said, trying to convince myself of these truths as much as I was trying to convince Mason. “Everyone has a weakness, and I’ll find his.”

  Before Mason could respond, a scream shattered through the house, sounding as though it were coming from every direction at once. A chill ran down my spine, and Mason and I exchanged a worried look before a second scream rang out. This time, I was able to pinpoint the location. It was coming from the direction of the stairs.

  I took off down the hallway, Mason just behind me, with no thought of what I’d find there, only knowing that someone was in trouble. Even knowing that, though, I wasn’t prepared for the scene that I found.

  A body was crumpled at the base of the stairs, a pool of blood spread out around their head like a macabre halo. Standing next to the body was Holly Belden, one hand pressed to her mouth in shock, the other holding a flashlight. When Mason and I stepped onto the landing, Holly looked up at us, the whites of her eyes clearly visible. She pointed at the body, as though there was a chance we may not have seen it.

  “He’s dead,” she said, her voice breaking around the words, a sob stuck in her throat.

  “Who is?” I asked, moving down the stairs, the shadowy figure at the bottom becoming more and more clear.

  Holly shined her flashlight towards the body, a spotlight illuminating the grizzly truth. “Robert Baines.”

  Chapter 10

  Mason rushed down the stairs and felt at the man’s neck, checking for a pulse.

  “Is he dead?” Holly asked.

  I could see the answer in Mason’s face, the tense line of his mouth, the stiff movement of his body as he lifted himself away from Robert Baines’ dead body.

  “He’s dead,” he said.

  As he said this, the rest of the party guests funneled into the room from the hallway.

  “Who screamed?” a woman asked, a cigarette held between her two fingers. Had there not been a dead body on the floor, I would have reminded her that we were in the twenty-first century and it was incredibly uncouth to smoke indoors, let alone in someone else’s house. As it was, I let the indiscretion slide.

  Her question went unanswered, as more screams erupted from the guests as they looked down and saw Baines’ body shattered on the hardwood floor. Robert’s daughter, Julia, let out an unhuman whimper and then stood frozen in the doorway. Daniel turned her away from the horrid sight, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders, his eyes wide and disbelieving. She clearly welcomed his comfort and buried her face in his shoulder. Daniel looked at me, eyebrows raised in a question, but I turned away.

  “What happened?” a long, thin man asked between sips of his drink.

  “Did he fall?” the woman with the cigarette asked.

  Shanda stepped through the crowd, and fell to her knees the moment she saw Robert on the floor, her medical training clear in her actions. She felt at his throat, and then called for her husband, Ward, who pushed his way through the guests. Together, they rolled Robert carefully onto his back, probably more gently than they needed to considering he was definitely deceased, and Ward moved to begin compressions. However, Shanda stopped him.

  “What?” Ward asked.

  Shanda answered him with a single gesture to Robert Baines’ neck.

  Holly screamed once again, but I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear anything. The entire world was underwater. All I heard was my own blood rushing in my ears.

  Robert Baines’ throat was slit.

  “That was no accident,” Ward said, echoing the thoughts of everyone in the room. “He was murdered.”

  A gasp echoed through the crowd, but otherwise, everyone remained fixed in place. No one seemed sure what should be done next.

  “Who could do something this horrible?” an older woman with a pink cardigan asked, seemingly shocked.

  I wanted to inform her that she was standing amidst a group of people who, if the folders in Robert’s office were any indication, had nothing but motive. Robert Baines was very likely blackmailing each and every person in the room, the cardiganed woman included. However, I held my tongue. As far as I knew, each person knew they were being blackmailed, but it was not yet public knowledge that everyone was being blackmailed. That was information that could potentially be used to uncover the murderer.

  “We need to call the police,” Julia said, finally extricating herself from Daniel. Her face was screwed up in grief, but her eyes were notably dry.

  “It will be hours before Shep will be here,” Mason said. “There’s a blackout and the roads are nearly flooded.”

  I wanted to ask Mason how he knew about the roads being flooded. He and I had been together since the power had gone out, and I hadn’t heard anyone mention anything about the roads. However, I decided it wasn’t the time. A man was dead on the floor. Clearly, there were bigger issues to deal with.

  “Who’s Shep?” Holly asked.

  “The sheriff,” I said.

  Julia stepped forward. “The police have to come if someone has been murdered.”

  “A crime won’t magically clear the roadways,” Mason said.

  I placed a hand on his arm and shook my head lightly. Now was not the time to berate Robert Baines’ only daughter. She was going through enough.

  “I’ll call Shep,” I said, reaching for Holly’s phone as mine was still in my purse, and I couldn’t remember where I’d left it.

  Holly handed over her phone, and I punched in the number for the police station, having memorized it after my eventful first few weeks on the island. It rang three times, and then Shep answered.

  “We’re doing everything we can to get the power back on. Please be patient, and stay off the roads. Only call if you have an emerg—”

  “Shep?” I interrupted. “Shep, this is Piper Lane.”

  He paused in the middle of his spiel. “Piper? Hey…” he said, his voice wary.

  I couldn’t exactly blame him. The last few times I’d called him, it had been to report dead bodies and tip him off about murderers. This time, unfortunately, wouldn’t be any different.

  “A man has been murdered,” I said.

  He sighed. “Are you certain? Who is it?”

  I filled him in on what I knew so far—Robert Baines, new to the island, throwing a party, throat slit and pushed down the stairs, no pulse and an unknown culprit.

  Shep groaned, and I could imagine him running a calloused hand down his face, trying to remind himself why he’d decided to become a police officer in the first place.

  “Most of the roads to that part of the island are flooded, and the blackout is making it nearly impossible to tell which roads are safe to pass. I won’t be able to get over there until the power is back up.”

  I wanted to argue, but I knew it would be useless. There was nothing Shep or anyone else could do about the storm. The only thing we could do was hope the power came back on soon.

  “Yeah. Okay, I understand,” I said.

  “Just don’t touch anything, and don’t let anyone leave,” he said.

  All eyes were on me as I hung up the phone and handed it back to Holly. “Mason was right. It will be awhile before anyone can get here. He just wants us all to stay put and wait.”

  “He can’t expect us to just stay here with a murderer on the loose,” Jimmy said.

  “The roads aren’t safe, and we all will need to be questioned.”

  The woman with the pink cardigan tied around her shoulders shook her head, her lower lip quivering. “But I don’t know anything. I won’t have anything useful to give them. I should be allowed to leave.”

&n
bsp; I shrugged my shoulders, not prepared to lecture her on how police investigations worked. “All we can do is what the sheriff has instructed, and right now, that is to stay here.”

  “We have no idea who did this or why. He was my dad. What if they come after me next?” Julia cried.

  Daniel placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

  The rest of the group nodded their heads in agreement, but considering one of them was likely the murderer, this did little to comfort Julia.

  A strangled cry rang out behind me.

  I turned and saw the caterer, Samuel De la Cruz, standing in the doorway between the stairs and the dining room, Jimmy and the butler following closely behind.

  “Mr. Baines?” he cried, running into the room and falling to his knees next to the body.

  He grabbed at the man’s neck, almost as if he were hoping he could push the wound closed and save him.

  Ward lunged forward and pushed the man away from the body.

  “He’s dead,” he said as gently as possible, while also restraining Samuel from touching the body. “We can’t touch anything until the police arrive.”

  “The police?” Samuel repeated.

  Ward nodded. “Yes. We just called, and Shep will be here as soon as he can.”

  Samuel fell back on the floor, his head in his now bloody hands. “I can’t believe it. He was such a nice man. I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  The butler stood in the doorway, his mouth hanging loosely. He inspected the stairs, his eyes tracing Robert Baines’ likely trajectory from the top of the stairs to the hardwood floor below. Jimmy patted Samuel on the back once, his hand stiff and wooden, and then moved to stand with the other guests, putting space between himself and Samuel’s distress.

  While Shanda and Ward tended to Samuel, I leaned in to Holly. “Did you see what happened?”

  She shook her head, eyes wide. “No, I just walked in and saw him lying on the floor. I screamed, and then you and Mason showed up.”

  “So, we don’t have any idea when he was actually murdered?” I asked aloud of no one in particular.