Page 83 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
“You were getting too close to the truth!” Marla snapped. “I tried to find the champagne bottle and the glass and get rid of them. I combed that whole haunted house from top to bottom.”
Kate knew where they were, and why Marla hadn’t been able to find them, but that hardly mattered now. “So, the fire, it wasn’t for Kennedy. It was for… me.”
“Two birds, one match,” Marla said darkly. Her gaze had gone practically feral as she surveyed Kate, a sudden gleam in her eye that Kate didn’t care for in the least bit. “If at first you don’t succeed.”
“No,” Kate said in horror. “This can’t be what you want!”
“Why not? I already killed once this weekend, what’s another body on the pyre? Maybe I’ll finally get Kennedy before Juliette catches me, huh?”
Kate took a step forward, hands out in supplication. “Marla—”
“Get back!” Marla shouted, swiping the oar at her. “I’m getting off this island, and you are getting back there.”
“What do you want me to do back there?”
“Burn,” Marla said, her voice guttural.
“Please,” Kate said, but another swipe of the oar drove her farther into the dank recesses of the boathouse.
“Don’t try to stop me, Valentine!” Marla said, backing toward the door. “I’ll make it quick. Maybe the smoke will get you before the fire does.”
Kate winced at the hard tone in her friend’s voice. “You should know—”
“I don’t need advice from you on anything, ever,” Marla said, edging toward the exit.
“Marla!” Kate said as Marla stepped out. Marla slammed the doorshut and dropped something heavy across it. When Kate tried the door, it didn’t move. “Marla, wait!”
It took several attempts to break the door open with her shoulder before she realized bones were more breakable than wood. She found an old axe in a tool chest and gathered all her pent-up anxiety from the weekend, going to town on the door. Once she’d made an opening large enough to crawl through, she squirmed out and headed up the muddy hill. Marla stood at the top, oar clutched in her hands. Kate made sure to stop at least an oar’s length behind her.
“What are they doing?” Marla breathed in a panicked whisper.
The crowd around the Manor had more than doubled, the wedding party lookie-loos gossiping among themselves as they caught sight of Marla and Kate. Marla went even more pale and white than usual.
“Looking for you,” Kate huffed, suddenly exhausted. It was one thing to write a murder mystery wedding with made-up strangers. It was another thing entirely to find out your friend was a murderer who tried to frame you out of envy. “It’s over.”
“I’m not going to jail,” Marla said, taking off at a dead run toward the end of the island where the land sloped up into a thick line of rugged trees.
“Marla, wait!” Kate sighed loudly, shaking her head. “Why do they always run?”
She trudged toward the house in the opposite direction, the crowd spilling out off the front porch as she approached.
“Is that the one who killed Aunt Rebecca?” Cassidy called out as Kate approached.
Kate nodded. “Unfortunately, I think so.”
Cassidy shook her head. “Well, she belongs to Fluffy now.”
Kate raised her brows in question. “Fluffy? Is that, like, a bunny or something? Cute little squirrel, maybe?”
Cassidy watched the line of trees in the distance where Marla’s black-clad figure disappeared through the underbrush. “Fluffy is a cougar.”
“Cougar!” Kate choked out. “There’s a loosecougaron this island?”
“Technically, I did warn everyone to stay on the designated pathswhen you arrived,” Abraham said, raising a finger from the side of the crowd.
“That’s why there are the paths,” Cassidy said. “Out in the open with a clear line to the house. Everything else is Fluffy’s domain.”
“Why in the hell is there a cougar on the island?” Kate asked.