Page 48 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
Jake crossed his arms, looking at her narrowly. “So, what you’re saying is… you finally admit Blake is based on me?”
“No,” Kate said, going red in the face. That was exactly what she’d just admitted, wasn’t it? “But obviously someone thinks he is. And they think you’re here with me this weekend, so they’re trying to get to me through you. They’re setting you up as my accomplice.”
“I knew I was going to regret coming to this thing,” Jake muttered. “So, what do we do now? Find the authorities? Report Richie and the lawyer and hold them in island jail or something until the police arrive?”
“We can’t do that!” Kate said. “The landlines are down, somebody’s already sabotaged the generator, and it’s not like we’re on the ferry route out here. The only way on or off the island is through the private yacht, and Abraham said it was damaged in the storm. We’re stuck here until the weather clears up.”
Jake put his hands out in exasperation. “We’re just going to hang about on an island with a murderer who’s trying to frame us?”
“We need to find where she was actually murdered,” Kate said. “There may be critical evidence that will lead to our killer.”
“Except I don’t remember seeing any pool on the estate map in the welcome bag.”
“There wasn’t a hidden crawl space between two rooms on the map, either,” Kate said, looking at the wall they’d just fallen through. “I’d guess Hempstead Manor has any number of secrets it’s still keeping.”
“So where do you hide a pool on an island estate?” Jake asked.
“The photographer,” Kate said suddenly, putting a hand on Jake’s arm. “I remember seeing Rebecca in the background of a picture, coming out of a red door, holding atowel. That must be where the pool is. There was some kind of stuffed… dog, I want to say?”
“Hang on, I know where that is,” Jake said. “I found it when I was hunting you down last night. I remember because it was a Tasmanian devil, and I had to wrestle one of those bastards once.”
“Wrestle?” Kate whispered in horror.
“Hiking trip gone awry,” Jake said dismissively. “That red door is on the ground level.”
“Which makes sense for a pool,” Kate said, nodding enthusiastically. “That’s where we go next.”
“One small problem,” Jake said, staring meaningfully down at Rebecca’s body.
“We can’t tell anyone about Rebecca,” Kate said. “We don’t want the murderer to know we’re onto them yet. Who knows what they might do if they feel cornered or panicked. We’ll just have to… keep this to ourselves, for now.”
“For how long?” Jake asked, bewildered. “I think people will notice if Rebecca Hempstead goes missing in her own home on her niece’s wedding weekend.”
“We’ll tell everyone,” Kate said, gnawing at her bottom lip after she’d said it. She didn’t want to imagine howthatconversation would go. “Eventually. But we can’t waste the element of surprise. If we can catch the killer out in a lie, find the evidence we need before they destroy it, it could make all the difference. Plus, I mean, why ruin Kennedy’s wedding? Rebecca’s already dead, and she’s got to get married. What’s the harm in waiting?”
“What do we do about the body, then?” Jake asked.
Kate frowned at the woman, but it wasn’t like it was her fault she was such an inconvenience. “Right. She’s got to go back in the fern.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I need the world’slongest, hottestshower,” Kate said twenty minutes later as they exited the room and took the stairs down to the main floor. “Scalding. Skin peeling. I want new skin.”
“I’ve crawled through literal shit, and that was still the grossest thing I’ve ever done,” Jake agreed.
Kate paused by the ornately carved cherub decorating the handrail, reminding her of the tiny-scale replica on Rebecca’s desk. “Are you talking about the time you and Fluke escaped that illegal house party by climbing through a sewer system? You said it was a water waste disposal. I thought it was, like, nuclear material.”
“Technically, what I said was the water was compromised,” Jake said, pushing past her and heading down the stairs.
“I made you sound like a Ninja Turtle!” Kate called out.
“And I told you I felt more like a sewer rat. The door is down this way, I think.”
They’d just passed a small alcove with several potted plants arranged around a pair of Grecian columns when Kate heard someone clear their throat. She grabbed Jake on impulse and dragged him into the foliage as Steven the real estate lawyer came striding down the hallway from theopposite direction wearing a pair of bright orange swim shorts and carrying a towel over his shoulder. He moved swiftly out of sight, muttering to himself too low for Kate to hear.
“We must be close,” she whispered, trying and failing miserably to ignore how close and warm Jake was, and how very alone they were in that alcove. It was like the crawl space all over again, and Kate wasn’t yet ready to process all ofthat. Her thighs were still weak from bracing herself against the wall as Jake—
She pushed him hastily out of their hiding space before her thighs got any more ideas.