Murder House Read online

  “Maybe I’ll get us some non–junk food,” I told Brynn. She nodded. “I’d rather get it myself. I don’t think my brother would be that good at serving,” I added.

  “What?” I said to Joe when she had disappeared into the great room. “I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  Joe stepped close to me and lowered his voice. “Remember how we thought it was Brynn at first—in the orchard?”

  “Because Georgina was wearing Brynn’s coat,” I answered.

  “And because they have the same hair,” Joe said. “I was thinking—what if someone else made the same mistake we did? What if that knife wasn’t meant for Georgina? What if it was meant for Brynn?”

  “And they went after her again tonight.” My gut tightened just thinking about it.

  “It’s possible,” Joe answered. “Watch her, okay? And watch yourself.”

  I nodded and walked into the great room. Brynn looked so small in the huge space. “Nothing good?” she asked.

  It took me a minute to realize she was talking about food. “Uh-uh,” I answered. “Are you hungry?”

  “No. I may never eat again. I’ll have a lot of time for hobbies with the no eating or sleeping.” Brynn was trying to joke around, but her voice was flat.

  “So what are you going to start doing? Knitting? Field hockey? What?” I asked. I figured the best thing I could do for her was try and take her mind off the attack.

  “I’m thinking . . .” Brynn’s words trailed off. “My brain is gone,” she admitted. “Can we just sit here? Just sit.”

  “Sure,” I told her.

  Then Brynn reached over and held my hand. I wanted to tell her that I’d never felt this way before. That she was the most amazing girl I’d ever met. But that would involve talking. And she didn’t want talking. So it wasn’t the time. Was it ever going to be the time?

  Whoever attacked Brynn had to have been as close to her as I am right now. The thought sent a shiver through me.

  She had to have screamed as soon as her face was clawed. If the attacker was so close, how did he or she get out of the room without Olivia seeing the person? If he or she was close—and they had to be—why hadn’t Brynn even gotten a glimpse?

  Brynn squeezed my hand. I looked down at where our fingers were twined together. I could see the dried blood under her nails.

  At least she’d caused her attacker some pain. But why hadn’t there been a mark on any of the suspects? Who were Joe and I forgetting?

  And then it clicked. I got it. I knew who had attacked Brynn.

  What I didn’t understand at all was why.

  Why Would She Do That?

  “It makes sense, right?” Frank asked as he paced around the bathroom.

  “Yeah. It’s actually the only thing that makes sense,” I told him. “It explains everything. Why neither Brynn nor Olivia got even a fast look at the attacker. Why we didn’t see a mark on any of the suspects.”

  “It’s the only thing that make sense.” Frank sighed as he sat down on the edge of the tub.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Why?” he replied.

  “Why?” I repeated. “You know why. Because you like her. You might even love her. I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t okay now that we know Brynn is behind the attack.”

  “I just want to understand it,” Frank said. “And I don’t. Not at all. Why would she do that to her own face?”

  “I don’t get it either. But it explains the blood under her fingernails. It was her own blood,” I answered. “And nobody saw her attacker, because when Brynn screamed, there was no one in the room except Brynn and Olivia.”

  “What else do you think she did?” asked Frank. “Did she rip up her own bear, leave the notes, do the drawings? Did she . . .”

  He couldn’t finish, so I had to. “Did she do all the sabotage that’s happened since Mary was taken out of the house? Did she stab Georgina?”

  Frank grimaced. “Yeah. Do you think she did?”

  “With this new info, anything seems possible,” I admitted.

  “I keep going back to the why,” Frank said. “I want to understand. . . .”

  “Okay, so what do we know about Brynn?” I asked.

  “She likes to read. She has expensive shoes. She likes ice cream with nothing in it. . . .” Frank’s voice trailed off. “It’s not much. And I’ve spent more time talking to her than any other suspect.”

  “Me too. And I don’t have anything good either. She made up this game where you have to come up with the best opposite for something else. And the fountain is pretty much her favorite place here.”

  “Yeah. She told me there was a fountain like it in this park she went to with her mom,” Frank said.

  Then his eyes narrowed, and I could almost see a thought ripping into his head. “What?” I asked.

  “At first she said the fountain was her favorite place. Then she corrected herself and gave me the story about the park and her mom.”

  “Story?” I repeated. “You think it was a lie?”

  “What if—and this is kind of a crazy theory—but what if Brynn was here, at the mansion, when she was a little girl? What if it’s true that the fountain here was really her favorite place as a kid?” Frank asked.

  “Meaning that Brynn is actually Nina?” I thought for a second. “She’s the right age. Nina was four when her mother was killed. That was ten years ago. Brynn’s fifteen.”

  “And she knew exactly where a light switch in the library was. It was so low, she shouldn’t even have noticed it,” said Frank. “The library used to be Nina’s room.”

  “So why is she here? With a fake name and everything?” I’m usually pretty good at motives, but nothing about this was making sense.

  “I get why she wouldn’t want everyone to know she was Nina,” Frank answered. “But I don’t know why she’d ever want to come back here. Every night we all hang out in the room where her mother was killed.”

  “Maybe that’s why she’s always going out to the balcony and looking down at the fountain,” I suggested. “Maybe she can’t stand being in that room. But then we’re back to the question of why she came here in the first place.”

  “To stop the show from getting on TV?” Frank said. “Maybe she thought the show would bring attention back to the murder, and she didn’t want that. After ten years, it’s not something anyone talks about much. But with the show, that could change.”

  “Do you think Brynn would stab someone to shut down the show? Are we saying that she tried to kill Georgina?” The thought of Brynn doing that made my stomach do a slow roll. How must Frank be feeling? He was in love with her. And he’s not like me. I fall half in love with half the girls I see. Frank’s not that way.

  “I hope not,” Frank admitted. “But I can’t let that get in the way of finding out the truth. And the truth is, she could have attacked Georgina.”

  “George is still a possibility,” I said. “We know for sure that George poisoned Georgina and sabotaged the brakes of her dirt bike. He admitted it.”

  “And Georgina admitted that she sabotaged the trampoline,” Frank agreed. “Let’s think about the timing of the other events. Could Brynn have been behind them?”

  “She definitely could have torn up her teddy bear. She could have done it, then screamed like she’d just discovered it,” I answered.

  Frank gave a sharp nod. “Right. All the rest of us were still in the library, talking about the crayon drawing of the girl and the demon, when she ‘found’ the bear. She definitely had time to set it up, then yell for us.”

  “Brynn left during the conversation we were having about the murder after the dirt bike race,” he added. “She had the opportunity to do the drawing then. Or she could have done it earlier—in the middle of the night.”

  “Now that we’re talking about it, I can think of other times when Brynn left the room when the rest of us started talking about Nina’s murder or the demon story Nina’s dad had come up with
to explain things to his daughter. To Brynn, if our theory is right.”

  “And a lot of times, after one of those conversations, something bad would happen. The bear. The drawing,” Frank said. “Maybe hearing people talk about what happened when she was little sets Brynn off.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “So I think what we have to do is set her off again.”

  “Right. Set her off again. She’ll leave—but this time we’ll follow her.”

  The Knife

  Brynn and I sat in the great room late the next night. She couldn’t sleep again. Joe and I had counted on that in our plan.

  My part of the plan was to stir things up by talking about the murder of the woman who might be Brynn’s mom. When she bolted—which we were pretty sure she would—Joe was in place to see where she went. Right now, he was positioned out of sight in the library. He had a small mirror that allowed him to keep watch on the hallway.

  So go on, I told myself. There was no point in waiting.

  I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t intentionally try to freak Brynn out.

  I was letting my emotions get in the way. That had never happened before. Because I’d never felt about another suspect the way I did about Brynn.

  Maybe I should have agreed to let Joe do this part. He’d offered. But I was the natural one to offer to sit up with Brynn. She and Joe were friends, yeah. But he hadn’t spent most of last night holding her hand. The way I was holding her hand right now.

  Do it, I ordered myself. It’s the plan. If she’s the perp, you have to know it. You can’t put everyone in this house at risk because you won’t step up.

  I swallowed hard. My mouth and throat were as dry as if I’d been eating sand. “Sometimes when it’s really quiet in here, like now, I start thinking about the murder,” I said, my voice coming out rough. “I’ve never been in a room where somebody was killed before. At least not that I know of.”

  “Me either,” Brynn said. Her fingers tightened on mine. They were cold. And trembling a little.

  “Do you think it’s true that emotions can get trapped in a place? I saw something like that on this show, Spectral.” The only reason I’d ever watched it was because Joe was addicted—even though the ghosts on the show were so clearly fake. “People who are sensitives are supposed to be able to feel the fear and anger that’s trapped wherever something violent has happened.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Ann,” Brynn told me. She pulled her hand away. Was she getting ready to take off?

  Not yet. I had to push harder.

  “I’m not talking about demons,” I answered. “I’m just talking about psychic energy. A man killing his own wife in front of their daughter—that’s intense stuff. Maybe it does leave some kind of residue. Maybe it’s my imagination, but when the room is almost empty, I think I can feel something.”

  Brynn jerked to her feet. “I think . . . I’m going to go to bed.”

  “You sure?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. Just left. The way she always seemed to leave when the murder came up.

  I forced myself to do a slow twenty-five count. Then I stepped into the hall. Joe was waiting for me.

  “Did she go into her room?” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “Down the stairs.”

  That’s not what I wanted to hear. What you want is the truth, I reminded myself.

  “Come on,” said Joe. Keeping in the shadows, we crept over to the head of the stairs. Just in time to see Brynn heading out the front door.

  Joe and I rushed down the stairs. I strode over to the dining room window and peered outside. “She’s in the garden. She’s walking fast, ” I told Joe.

  We let her get a little more of a head start, then followed. Through the garden and into the orchard. The orchard where Georgina almost died.

  Why was Brynn out here?

  She started to run. She stumbled over a root but didn’t slow down. Not until she got to the northeast corner. Then she dropped to her knees and began to dig. Only about twenty-five feet from where Georgina’s blood had soaked into the ground.

  Joe and I froze. Watching.

  What was she doing?

  She clawed at the ground. Frantic. I could hear her ragged breathing as she pulled something free. Something that glinted in the moonlight. It took me a second to register what it was.

  A knife.

  Brynn stood up and raised the blade high in the air. Aimed at her chest.

  “No!” I screamed. “Brynn, stop!”

  “Don’t!” Joe shouted.

  Brynn started to bring the knife down. I launched myself at her. I hit the back of her knees with my shoulder, and we both hit the ground.

  Where was the knife? Did she still have it? I didn’t see it in her hand.

  “Got it!” Joe cried.

  “Brynn, what were you doing?” I exclaimed. I grabbed her by the shoulders and stared into her face. “What were you trying to do?”

  Her eyes were blank. I don’t think she saw me at all.

  I gave her a light shake. “Brynn!”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t even blink. It was like I was holding a dead body.

  Game Over

  “It’s over.” Ripley set her suitcase down in the entry hall.

  “I don’t see why the show’s canceled,” James complained aloud. “We know Brynn was the psycho.”

  “This time,” said Hal. “Maybe they figured three people trying to end the game meant it really shouldn’t happen.”

  “If we want to keep going, they should let us,” Olivia declared.

  “Georgina did almost die. And Mitch killed a PA,” Hal reminded us. “Maybe the show should have been shut down a long time ago.”

  Olivia raised her eyebrows. It was like even now she couldn’t believe Hal was disagreeing with her in front of everyone.

  “The taxis should be here shortly,” Veronica announced as she joined us.

  “I think we should each get some cash,” James told her. “The next person to drop out would have gotten paid. And we’re being forced to drop out.”

  “Yeah, we should get something,” Olivia agreed.

  “You’ve all been given something very valuable,” Veronica told us.

  “What? I wasn’t given anything,” James protested.

  “You were all given the chance to realize that you have more than you need. Every one of you. You’ve learned that you can get by with much less than you ever thought,” Veronica explained. I could tell she was trying not to smile.

  “Maybe we’ve all been given the chance to sue you and the other producers,” Olivia shot back.

  “You all signed releases when you agreed to be on the show,” Veronica reminded us. “You agreed not to hold the producers responsible for any injuries. And it was made clear that the show could be stopped at any time, and that it might not even air at all.”

  “Hey, Bobby T said the option on his blog has been renewed. He’s getting a boatload of cash,” Ripley announced, reading a text message on her phone. We’d gotten all our luxury items back an hour ago.

  “He has a boatload of debt, too,” James said. “The loser probably didn’t break even.”

  I heard a car pull up in front. Then two more. It was time to go home.

  Olivia suddenly rushed over to us. Make that Olivia suddenly rushed over to Frank.

  “Here.” She thrust a large sheet of paper into my brother’s hands. “I know Gail would want you to have this—even though she practically gave birth to a cow the day you almost caught her sketching it.”

  Frank and I exchanged a quick glance. So that was why the girls had acted so freaky that day. They were trying to keep Frank from seeing the sketch book, but not for any crime-related reason.

  I turned my attention to the sketch. It was the worst drawing of Frank you could possibly imagine. The eyelashes on him. Step back. It was like he was the spokesboy for a new kind of man mascara or something.

  I started to s
nicker. Then it hit me. Olivia wasn’t handing over a sketch of me.

  I smiled as something else hit me. Gail probably took the sketch she did of your hero home with her. She was probably sleeping with it under her pillow. Yeah. She’d wanted to keep the one she’d drawn of me. I’m pretty sure that’s what the deal was. And I’m a detective, so I should know.

  One of the cab drivers gave an impatient honk.

  “I guess we’d better get going,” Olivia said. “Sorry if I got a little intense sometimes,” she added to Frank.

  “Everybody did,” Frank answered.

  “I just wish we’d realized what was going on with Brynn earlier,” Frank said quietly as we stowed our suitcases in the trunk of the second taxi. “Maybe we could have helped her.”

  “She’s getting help now,” I reminded him. “The psychiatric hospital is where she belongs.”

  Frank nodded, but I knew he was still running through scenarios where we were able to stop Brynn before she hurt anyone.

  “Let it go, Frank,” I told him as we got into the taxi together. “We completed our mission. None of the contestants ended up dead.”

  He nodded again. But he was still thinking about her. I wasn’t sure if he’d ever stop.

  FRANK

  “I’ve got to do it,” I told Joe. “But you don’t have to come. It’s not an official mission.”

  “Are you kidding?” Joe said. “I’m not passing up the chance to wear my Diesels.” He patted the jacket pocket where he’d stashed the sunglasses that had been part of his Joe Carr cover. He hadn’t been able to wear them since we came back from Deprivation House a few months ago. There would have been waaay too many questions. Our parents are generous and everything. But they’d never shell out for three-hundred-dollar shades. And it’s not like Joe has that kind of cash.

  We mounted up on our motorcycles. Four hours later, we rode through the wrought-iron gates of Plainview Hospital. It was supposed to be the best in the country. It looked like a nice place. There were some patients sitting in the front garden, getting some sun. But it was still hard to think of Brynn here.