So much of myself went into writing this; my entire soul haunted each page. The night I started to write down my ideas for Featherton, I knew he would capture hearts. Thistle would make them stay around for the party. Right from the outline, I’d found myself enamored with my own characters, unsure where they’d even come from, but once I got typing, both had just flowed out onto my laptop screen. Isolating myself to write it had finally seemed worth it, but what I’ll always be thankful forto those two eccentric characters is the escape they provided me from a crumbling relationship. I escaped by writing. Phin had helped a lot, always a voice note away when I couldn’t decide on names or outcomes of a scene. He’d lent me that weird nightmare he’d always had, blending into the giant revelation which solved the case.
Flicking through the first couple of pages, I run my finger over the short passage.
To Phin. Samwise to my Frodo. My Brother.
He’d ugly cried—totally worth it.
I used my thumb to brush against more pages, landing randomly and taking in my own finished words. I'm early in the novel, just after Featherton has arrived to investigate the first tragic fatality, a poisoning.
Frowning, I flutter over the text again like I'm trying to refresh the storyline, hoping I have it wrong and I completely forgot the structure of my own book.
“Wren,” I whisper, because I’m unable to make my voice grow louder. To his praise, his head snaps up like I shouted. He's next to me instantly, as I point down at the passage in the book. “The first victim in my book was poisoned, not hit over the head. That was the second murder. Why would someone miss the first and stage the second?” Taking the book, he guides me back towards my seat, no doubt wanting me to rest, but I’m too full of adrenaline. It crackles in my blood. I couldn’t sit still if I tried.
Planting my feet firmly into the carpet, I grab for my book in his hands and tap it again. “Wren, what if there was another murder we don’t know about?”
I’m back at the murder board in my mind that I keep picturing, flashes of the guest list, the plot of my novel, arriving at Nightingale house and the events so far unfolding. Could there be another dead body somewhere? I’m so thankful that he doesn’t try to calm me down or shake this off; he holds onto myfinger furiously tapping at the page. “Maybe they didn’t stage the second. What if someone was murdered first—poisoned—and we’ve not found them yet?”
A lightbulb behind my eyes keeps trying to flash to life, flickering and warming but not quite there. Something about his questions just wasn’t right. I thought over arriving at the hotel, everyone who was there and linking similar scenarios from the murder in my book. The victim was given poison during the dinner party, but the effects didn’t take till the time everyone wanted a nightcap. It was the first deception in my book, Featherton proving the theory that despite everyone’s assumption they’d drunk the poison at night, it was earlier in the day during the main course. Friday we’d all sat through the hostile dinner party, before Phin’s secret had been revealed. All day most of us had been downing champers.
“What if someone was poisoned over dinner on Friday? No, what if one of us was meant to have a poisoned drink,” spilled bourbon soaking the tablecloth makes the mental lightbulb blaze, "but it got knocked over before he could drink it?”
We hold each other's gaze, Wren’s dark curls flopping into his eyes as he nods, continuing my theory. “Corbin went to drink the poisoned alcohol, but it got knocked over.”
“Lily was talking to Aya. She knocked the glass over.”
“He called Maggie to get him another drink and nursed that until he disappeared on us all.”
Fear hits into me like a slap across the cheeks. “God, you don’t think Maggie is dead, do you?”
Wren doesn’t answer me straight away, but softly shakes his head like he’s a little uncertain. “If neither Detective didn’t contact her, she should have shown up for work Saturday. She wasn’t here in the morning—Merle said. If anything had happened to her, I think whoever is doing this would have wanted you to find her.”
“So they messed up the first intended murder, the poison in that glass was gone because he didn’t drink it. Assuming Corbin was always going to be the target, they then met with him in the pool house and staged the next murder.”
“After Jay, the detectives or you would connect the way they died to your book whether we didn’t notice the first was skipped or not. Whoever did this, Robin, knows you. They knew you’d connect the dots. You’re smart.”
His words sit in my stomach like a rock, because I can’t help thinking this is all my fault. There have been two deaths because of me. Someone wanted to frame me for murder. “Why Jay?” I ask, hoping he can tell me all the answers because this is where the thread lay limp. I can’t connect him to anything.
“Forget why for now,” Wren absentmindedly plays with the tip of one of my curls as we huddled over the book. “How was he murdered? He wasn’t around for the meal in the dining room, or the game of truth and dare. Was Mavis on her way upstairs to meet him when you saw her?”
I shake my head. “She was upstairs on the landing, in the direction of her room. He spoke with me before the meal, he wanted to tell me something for our investigation. Bran said he went to get wine?”
Wren nods, cocking his brows. “He didn’t give any hint to what he wanted to tell you?”
“He just said he wanted to tell me something he saw in the gardens.”
“We need to figure out how he went from getting wine to being found in his room?”
“You said he was sprawled across the bed—do you mean he looked like he was thrown down?”
I watch as his eyes unfocused for a moment, staring off behind my head at the bookcases. He seems to pale at the memory. “Yeah, he looked like there had been a struggle and he wasthrown over the bed. His arms were stretched out, but his face looked pained.”
“So what if he wasn’t attacked there? You found him in his room, but what if he was murdered when he went to get the wine? We’re just assuming he died where he was found.”
“Does the hotel have a cellar?”
I nod. “Wine cellar. We need to go check it out before Starling comes down or the guests.” My body is already starting to feel tired, my skin sore and my cuts are starting to throb like the slither of my headache that still lingers.
“Finish your coffee and we’ll go now.” He gives my hands a squeeze and finally pries the book from my hands. I wanted to argue that I don’t need the coffee, but maybe it could keep this tiredness at bay.
