Born of Corruption (4 page)

Minutes later, Al is pulling up in front of the drugstore and we pile out of the car for the third time that night. The men automatically light up while Anna and Eugenia and I hurry to the store.

“I’ll telephone Olivia. You two look for the book,” I order, going into the phone booth.

I put a coin into the phone and dial the number. The minute I hear Olivia’s voice, I know something’s wrong.

“You need to get back here right away.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“Mrs. Spetford’s group is back. They’ve won.”

My stomach plummets. “They won? How could they have won? There’s no way they got everything already. We’ve only been out a couple of hours. Did you check?”

“Of course, I checked.” Her voice is indignant. “You trying to say I don’t know how to do my job? And it gets worse. Mrs. Spetford is roaring drunk and demanding her Lincoln. Now.”

I roll my eyes. “What are the rest of Mrs. Spetford’s team doing?”

“When I told them that the cars were on order, they had a drink and left for a club. Only Mrs. Spetford is getting unruly.”

I sigh. I can’t believe I have to give Nico a car. “Fine, I’m on my way home. Try to keep Mrs. Spetford calm.”

Olivia laughs. “I’ll do my best.”

I hang up and open the door to the booth. Anna and Eugenia are standing in front of the booth.

“They don’t have the book,” Anna says.

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Game’s over. One of the groups is back already. I’m sorry your scavenger hunt is being cut short.”

She links arms with me as the others join us. “It’s been a great party and the very first one anybody’s ever thrown for me.”

I put a gloved hand over my heart. “Really? I’m so glad!”

We pile back into the car. “Where to?” Al asks.

“Home. We’re done,” I tell him.

The mood in the car is glum and there’s no singing as we travel the dark streets. The scavenger hunt is over, and even though it didn’t turn out like I wanted it to, it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong. So how come I have an uneasy feeling in my gut?

Four

I
leap out of the car as soon as Al pulls in front of the house.

Olivia throws the door open even before I reach the top of the stoop. “She passed out, thank God!”

My steps slow. “Is the rest of her team here?”

Olivia shakes her head. “Just Nico. He’s partaking of the free refreshments.”

Jack places his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be too disappointed, darling. This party is definitely going to get a write-up in all the papers.”

The rest of the gang join us in the foyer and Parker takes our coats. Reggie makes a beeline for the “refreshments” while Anna and Curt head into the lounge. Eugenia is hanging on to Jack’s coattails, and my hopes that she would take up with someone other than my husband are dashed.

Jack smiles down at her. “Why don’t you run and get me a drink, Genie. I’ll be right in.”

She gives me a triumphant look, the sharpness of her expression matching the rest of her angles.

Jack steers me to a quiet corner of the foyer. I hear the radio come on in the lounge.

“What did you want, snookums? I should go oversee things,” I say.

“Let Olivia do that. I need to talk to you.”

His voice is tense and I look up at him with alarm. His face is shadowed and my stomach tightens. Whatever he wants to tell me, it can’t be good.

“You know I love you, right?”

I blink and my pulse kicks up a notch. That sounds like the beginning of a confession and I’m terrified of the
but
that comes next.
You know I love you but I love someone else more? You know I love you but I’m leaving you?
Without thinking I grab the back of his neck and pull him down for a passionate kiss, hoping to shut him up.

“I love you too,” I tell him when I come up for air.

“Wait a minute,” he says, but I shake my head and dash out of reach, my heels clicking across the tiles.

“Come on, we have a party to get back to,” I tell him over my shoulder. Whatever he wants to tell me can wait until tomorrow. I will not break down in front of my guests.

It’s not much of a party though, with so few people. Olivia has it well in hand. The rest of the teams should start coming in soon, but I still wonder how Nico’s group managed to find everything so quickly. It just doesn’t make any sense. I look around but don’t see him. Maybe I got lucky and he left. Anna and Curt are laughing and talking in the corner and I smile, glad she’s enjoying herself. Reggie and Eugenia are nowhere to be seen. Maybe he’s talked her into robbing his cradle, after all. No, that would be too perfect. I turn back to Jack, but he’s disappeared as well.

Olivia appears back at my side. “I’m going to go check on Mrs. Spetford.”

I snort. “Go ahead; just don’t wake her up, all right? I’ve had enough excitement for one evening.”

Olivia grins. “Party’s not over yet. I hope you don’t mind; I sent the staff home. They set everything out on the dining-room table buffet style, so there’s plenty of food for everyone. The cook is still here and will make hot drinks as soon as more people get here.”

I give her arm a squeeze. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Liv.”

She waggles her fingers at me and heads upstairs.

Despondent that my scavenger hunt was cut short, I join Anna and Curt near the staircase. As if sensing my mood, Anna puts her arm around me as Curt finishes a story about a greased pig or something. I laugh politely when he finishes, though I have no idea what he was talking about.

Anna turns to me. “Curt here is a newspaperman. He was just telling me about his first writing assignment.”

To my surprise, he reddens and I’m about to ask him what he writes when loud popping noises like firecrackers sound from upstairs.

I freeze, my guts turning inside out. That’s the second time tonight I’ve heard that sound.

“What the . . . ?” I turn to run up the stairs, but Al pushes me aside.

“Stay back,” he orders, his face grim.

Moments later, a scream rips through the air.

My pulse explodes in my ears and, ignoring Al’s orders, I race upstairs.
Please God, don’t let Jack be hurt
.

I almost sob in relief when I see him standing in front of the library door, a sick look on his face. Al elbows his way into the room, while I throw my arms around Jack. “What is it? What happened?” I ask for the second time that evening. Jack tries to stop me from looking in the library, but I push him aside. Olivia is kneeling next to something that looks like a body. Her hand is covering her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

My eyes drop and I see who’s lying facedown next to her.

Reggie. An ever-widening pool of blood soaks into the Persian carpet. Al rushes over to him, but even I can see that it’s no use. Reggie’s sporting three neat holes in the back of his jacket, and even though I can only see the profile of his face, his skin is pale and waxy. I stare until the room tilts sideways. If it weren’t for Jack’s sturdy arms, I surely would have fallen. A few inches from Reggie’s hand is a shot glass. He must have come up here for a drink of the good stuff Jack keeps in the cabinet. My stomach tightens as I remember the fortune-teller’s warning.

Anna gasps from behind me, and I feel her shock as she moves through the doorway into the room. Her face glows ghostly white in the light and I wonder if she’s going to be sick. Then it hits me.

Her vision.

I turn to look back down at Reggie lying in the pool of blood.

Just as Anna had described.

My head snaps up as the reality hits me. Reggie isn’t just dead.

Someone killed him.

The thought hits Al at about the same time and he turns, his gun drawn. “Nobody move. Olivia, go lock the doors. I want everyone in here right away.”

Snapping out of her trance, Olivia hops up and hurries out the door.

Jack, Anna, Curt, and I stare at Reggie. The horror gripping my chest is mirrored on their faces. We’d spent the entire evening laughing and joking and teasing him. Now he’s dead. Death has left him looking even younger than his seventeen years. His mother is going to be destroyed.

Jack turns away, visibly shaken. “Who did this? He’s just a kid!”

Anna shakes her head, one hand clapped over her mouth.

“What the hell is going on?”

Nico appears in the doorway and takes in the scene in a single glance. Spotting Al with his gun drawn, he does what any good gangster would do: He holds his hands out to show Al that he’s unarmed.

He nods toward Reggie. “Who’s the stiff?” he asks.

“A friend,” I snap. “A friend who was murdered. Where have you been hiding yourself?”

Nico shrugs. “The bathroom. And I’d be very careful of what I’d say if I were you. You don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.”

Next to me, Jack glowers. “This is her house; she doesn’t have to watch what she says.”

Nico gives Jack a withering glance and Jack glares back. Animosity whirls between them.

What is going on? How do they even know each other?

Olivia rejoins us.

“Did you lock the house?” Al asks.

Olivia nods.

“Is there anyone else here besides us?”

“Mrs. Spetford is still passed out in the guest bedroom. I told Parker to act as a doorman and to tell everyone else who comes back from the scavenger hunt that Mrs. Gaylord is ill and the party’s over.”

“Good thinking,” I tell her.

She stares down at Reggie, her eyes wide and her mouth clamped shut as if she’s trying not to be sick.

I know exactly how she feels.

“Is everyone accounted for?” Al asks.

I look around and start to nod when it hits me. “Eugenia. Eugenia is missing.”

“You don’t think . . .” Al’s voice trails off.

Jack shakes his head. “No. She prefers to shoot off at the mouth. She wouldn’t know what to do with a real gun.”

A small, inappropriate sense of pride rises in my chest before I shake my head.

Al looks down at the three holes centered just so in Reggie’s back. They look like they were put there by someone who’s done some target practice. Whoever shot Reggie knew their way around a gun.

“We should call the police,” Curt suggests, but both Al and I dismiss his suggestion with a look.

Call the police before we have our stories straight?

Olivia whimpers, and Nico reaches out and pats her shoulder—a comforting gesture so out of character that my jaw drops.

Anna steps to my side, her cool, slim presence calming me immediately. “We should look for Eugenia, but first”—I take a deep breath—“we should establish where everyone was when the shots were fired.”

Olivia’s eyes widen. “You think it was someone in this room?”

I clear my throat. “I didn’t say that.”

“She’s right. The police are going to want to know anyway,” Jack says, his voice weary.

Nico shrugs. “I already told you. I was in the bathroom.”

“Anna, Curt, and I were together. Al was in the foyer.”

“I was with Mrs. Spetford when I heard the shots,” Olivia said. “Of course, she’s still passed out, so she can’t vouch for me.”

I swallow. Three people don’t have an alibi.

Including Jack.

I take another breath and try to focus. “We have to go find Eugenia, but no one goes alone. The house has five floors plus a basement.” I look at Jack for confirmation.
We do have a basement, right?
He nods. “We should split up into pairs.”

Nico steps forward. “I’ll check out the first couple of floors.”

I glance at him suspiciously. It’s not like Nico to act all helpful. “No. Anna and I will check out the basement.” I want to get Anna alone. Maybe she senses something that the rest of us don’t. Hell, maybe Reggie can tell her himself who the murderer is. And the basement
has
to be safer than the roof.

“I’m going with you,” Jack says.

Al shakes his head. “No. I go with Miss Cynthia.”

Jack glares for a moment and then relents, realizing that I’m probably safer with Al than anyone.

Nico shrugs. “Someone who knows the house should be a part of each group.”

I want to smack him for making sense. “Jack, why don’t you and Curt take upstairs, and Nico and Olivia can take the middle floors. Al, Anna, and I will take the first floor and basement.”

“We should probably hurry,” Anna says, her forehead creased.

Nico lights a cigarette, the flame of the lighter reflected in his snakelike eyes. “Yeah. The longer we delay, the more danger the dame could be in. And who knows? We could be letting the murderer slip through our fingers.”

Jack’s hands ball into fists. “Eugenia is many things, but she isn’t a murderer.”

I turn to the others, irrationally annoyed by my husband’s defense of a woman I detest. “Why don’t we meet back here in about fifteen minutes? Open every closet and look under every bed.”

Olivia nods and the others pair up.

Jack opens his arms for a hug. Swallowing back my irritation, I press myself against him, seeking the reassurance of his presence. As I do, my hand comes into contact with the outline of something cold and hard in the inside pocket of his jacket. I freeze when I realize what it is.

A gun.

He gives me a quick squeeze, then moves out the door. I stand for a moment, my stomach swirling, everything I know to be true in my life altering.

Why would Jack have a gun?

“Cyn?” Anna’s voice is questioning and I realize that everyone else has left the room. She and Al are waiting by the door. I swallow, disoriented for a moment, then file Jack’s gun away for later. We need to find Eugenia. I don’t like her—in fact, I hate her—but I don’t want her hurt.

I give a last look in the library before following Al and Anna. It seems wrong to leave Reggie lying on the floor in the library, but I figure he won’t mind.

We go through the lounge and into a sparkling white kitchen that I think I’ve seen exactly twice. Hard to believe the chaos that must have transpired here just a few hours ago, the way everything gleams now.

I reach out and catch Anna’s sleeve. “Your vision . . .”

She stops and presses her hands together.

“Do you remember anything from your vision that we may have missed? Any clue?”

She shakes her head. “It was exactly the way you saw it. She bites her lip. “It always is.”

I close my eyes for a minute and then nod. It hits me just how horrible it would be to see someone’s death and not be able to do anything about it.

“Miss Cynthia.” Al beckons and we hurry to catch up.

He draws his Colt 45 and slowly opens the door. My nerves snap like rubber bands as he flicks a switch on the wall. The stairway is festooned with spiderwebs. I stare at them, horrified. A dank, bone-chilling cold sweeps through the open door and I shiver, wishing I had my coat. “I guess no one comes down here much.”

Al starts down the rickety wooden stairs and then halts so abruptly I almost fall over him. “Get back,” he orders.

“Why?” Like the idiot I am, I crane my neck to look over his shoulders and suck in my breath.

Eugenia is lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the staircase.

I start to push past Al, but he holds out an arm.

“Get back in the kitchen.”

His voice is deadly quiet and he stares me down. I move back into the kitchen. Fast.

The room spins around me as my mind reels from shock. Eugenia, a girl I’d known and hated for so long, was dead. We’d failed Miss Pillar’s algebra class together, for crying out loud. How could this have happened?

My hands fall to my sides and Anna turns away from the door, not wanting to see whatever it is Al found. I watch from the top as Al hurries down the staircase and into the basement. I swallow, staring at Eugenia’s broken body. Did she fall down the stairs? If so, what was she going to our basement for? Meeting someone? Who?

I see Al checking for Eugenia’s pulse. He shakes his head and hurries up the steps and into the kitchen. “She’s dead. The doors and windows are all secure.”

“What do you think happened?” Anna asks softly, staring at the body.

Al shuts the basement door firmly.

“She could have fallen—or been pushed,” he said.